Unbound

by April Vine

  “Ah, Glitterbug.” Relief washed over him as she rushed into him. “You scared the fuck out of me.” Soft moans fell from her sweet lips. Her hips rocked, her legs spread even farther apart. She tossed her head from side to side.

  “Thank you,” she whispered against his jaw. “Thank you.”

  His fingers dug into her hips. He controlled her body, making her perform for him. Her untamed gyrations slowed and halted. She threw her head back as spasms of her contractions strummed along his cock. Just fucking beautiful.

  He daren’t come, not yet. The blazing heat in her body cooled off a minute degree but not enough to keep her pacified. She skipped the afterglow of her climax. A sly grin played across her lips. She bulldozed him away from her, flipped onto her hands and knees, tossed her hair out of her face and turned her head to look at him.

  “Again.”

  He lost his mind at the sight of her upturned ass, her pussy lips all thick, wet and swollen staring at him. He pounded into her.

  “Yes,” she cried. “Fuck my pussy with your big cock. Yes, like that.” He grinned at the thought that she’d deny saying any of that if he reminded her later on.

  He recycled his energy, forcing into her with hammering motions, bruising her hips with his hands. He held his breath, fighting not to shoot his cum inside her. But he couldn’t hold on much longer, felt himself on the brink of coming. With one profound bellow of strength, he drove himself hilt deep inside her, roaring with agony and pleasure as a powerful stream of orgasm rocked her body and clenched around him. He tangled his hands in her hair, pulled her face around so he could see her eyes and shattered inside her.

  He rolled onto his back. The potency of his orgasm left him lightheaded, weak, yet more alive than he’d ever felt before. But more than that, he brought her back from wherever the hell she went. Scariest moment of his life, yet he had faced killer weapons on a daily basis.

  Michelle rose from the bed, quickly gathered the sheet around her nakedness and scurried to the other end of her room. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes but she refused to let them fall.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.” She tightened the sheet around her trembling body.

  “You weren’t fine minutes ago. Did you even know how fast your pulse was racing? I thought you’d die, Michelle. What kind of a spell did your aunts use on you?”

  She turned to face him. “I can’t remember any of that.”

  Did he know how hard she tried to maintain a life where she could hold her head up high even though her aunts could be caught cackling at midnight down by the river? And then everything to come down upon her head in this way, with him of all people?

  He rose from the bed. She didn’t need to be bewitched to appreciate the stunning beauty of his naked body as he strode toward her. Tight planes, hard curves, old scars. His muscles long and liquid but powerful and solid. She couldn’t miss the scratch marks she’d left on his face and chest. She swallowed the guilt at having physically hurt him. How had her day launched into such utter madness and how cruel Sebastian Gray witnessed every crazy scene. Whatever memory-swiping spell her aunts came up with, she planned on taking it twice. How else could she sleep in her bed every night and not remember Sebastian in it?

  She backtracked. He followed her. “Please, don’t you come any closer.” She turned her back on him and rummaged through her drawers for clothes she’d wear after she had showered.

  “I think your aunts’ spell went from fun to dangerous and I’m not leaving until I know what kind of danger you’re in.”

  If she didn’t know better, she’d think genuine concern lined his words. But she knew better. Turn around, Michelle, face him head-on and tell yourself you are no longer in love with him. Turn around and do that for yourself and for your future.

  “You’ve always been curious, Sebastian. Everything has always been an adventure for you. But this time, I think it’s a little beyond you. My aunts will know what to do.” She swung around to face him. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but you should get dressed.” Her gaze engaged his.

  “Michelle.” Challenge was clear in the depths of his green irises.

  “And leave.” There, she’d said it. Her self-imposed immunity to all those stupid ideas about her and Sebastian ever being together as strong as the day he deliberately chose Catherine Simmers over her without the blink of his eye.

  She walked to her closet to find a skirt to match her t-shirt. But the sound of crunching gravel thwarted her need for a shower and clean clothes. Her blood pressure rose as she bounded out of the room in nothing but the sheet around her body.

  “You,” she accused, wagging a finger at her three bubbly and rosy-cheeked aunts as they entered their home. Their presence always colored the entrance hall with a kaleidoscope of hues. Checked-red flare skirts, polka dot blouses, ostentatious hats, heavy black boots even in the height of summer. Their arms filled with bundles of who knows what.

  “Oh, Michelle, you are not going to believe what we picked up for you at the fair. Come and have a look in the kitchen. We’re dying for a tea.”

  The smell of toasted nuts and chocolate truffles permeated the air, making her taste buds slither. She hadn’t eaten anything since her breakfast of a single slice of toast and two cups of coffee. Of course she hadn’t eaten anything all day long. She’d been too busy having outrageous sex to care about her stomach.

  “No, no gifts. You know exactly what you did so don’t try to bribe your way out of this, Aunt Surtie.”

  They always failed at hiding the mischief gleaming in their gray eyes. She just never knew what that mischief involved or the damage it entailed until it poured all over her head.

  “But child, whatever are you talking about?” Aunt Esmie curled her arm around Michelle, caressing her spine with her chubby fingers.

  “There, there, a cup of tea will sort you out, hmm? And wait ’til you see what the Waxy Witches fair had on offer,” Aunt Lindie chirped in, bracketing her as they maneuvered her into the sunny kitchen.

  “Yes, thank you, tea would be lovely,” Michelle approved obediently, vaguely wondering why she’d suddenly swapped her fury for a cup of tea. Oh, they were good. She leaped a meter away from them, using the large wooden kitchen table as a barrier between her and her aunts. The magic touch of their hands on her spine always soothed the most tumultuous storm inside her. But not this time ’round. This time they would play fair.

  “You stay right there.” She raised her palms to shield them off. “Don’t think you can pacify me. I’m furious. Furious, do you hear that? Whatever you’ve done to me you will fix now. Right this minute.”

  “What are talking about, child?” all three asked at the same time.

  “Don’t you child me, you know what you did. I asked for a little spell, something to lighten me up a little because yes I know I’m…I’m considered an ice queen. Jeffry made no secret of that. But you totally abused my trust and turned me into a…a monster.” She wiped the tears flying out of her eyes and dripping under her chin, secured a better hold on her emotions and continued with fewer hysterics. “I’m sure you had fun casting that spell on me but how cowardly of you three to drive for two hours to a stupid fair because you knew I’d be this angry. No, not angry, incensed. I’m incensed.”

  “Let’s have a cup of tea, shall we?”

  “No, Aunt Surtie. You—” The rest of her reprimand ended with a scream. A twenty-foot python slithered through the kitchen toward the back door humming Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

  “Oh that’s just Henry, child,” Aunt Esmie said.

  She lived with three crazy women and a cat called Henry who suffered from an identity crisis every other day. Last week he decided to be a gorilla. Whatever did she do to be punished with such madness?

  “You think this is a joke? I could have been arrested for stealing a dildo. Yes, a dildo, from a sex shop. That’s what your spell did to me. Not only has it turned me into a ra
ging lunatic, it doubled up and turned me into a seasoned criminal too. Do you see how serious it is now? Do you see how far you’ve gone?”

  Her words fell upon deaf ears. How could that be? She’d just mentioned stealing a dildo from a sex shop, words she never in her wildest dreams would repeat in front of her aunts. Ever. Surely they could mete out the direness of the situation just from what she said. Surely.

  She followed the direction of their dazed focus and found Sebastian standing in the archway of the kitchen, arms folded over his chest, the three top buttons on his shirt undone. The smell of her soap clinging to his skin tinged the air around her.

  “Sebastian.” They attacked his face with kisses, hugged him lengthily and looked dreamily at him. He enjoyed their interest and dished out his own in swoon-worthy proportions.

  “Stop it. Stop it.” Her command remained ignored as they bombarded him with questions he charismatically answered. “Stop it! I’m the one in need of your attention, not him,” she wailed to no avail. Fine. If that’s the way they wanted to play it, she could make her own noise. She chose the heaviest plate from the cupboard behind her, held the floral-designed ceramic high above her head and dropped it onto the floor. The shattering sound got her what she wanted. All eyes on her. Including a pair she wished she’d never set eyes on again. She neatened the sheet around her and smoothed back her hair. Her dignity would not go the way of her inhibitions, spell or not.

  “Good, now that I have your attention. Fix this.” She used her severest tone, her shoulders plucked up a level, her chin free of wavering. She meant business.

  Her aunts didn’t jump to honor her demand. Instead their eyes zipped between her and Sebastian. A decided change in their casual ambience bounced off the copper pots dangling from the ceiling, seeped under the Moroccan-tanned tiles and evaporated into the roughly plastered walls, closing out the setting sun, closing in on her.

  They wrung their freckled hands together, dismissed the whistling kettle, which normally evoked glee from them. Small glances whisked amongst the three sisters, speaking volumes in a language only the three of them understood. Impending disaster weighed around her. And repercussions, there always had to be repercussions.

  “Fiddlesticks,” they muttered together.

  Fiddlesticks? Seriously, fiddlesticks?

  “Sebastian was the man you were with?” Aunt Lindie’s brows burrowed in the center of her forehead.

  “I wasn’t with him by choice. I had no control. Why is that so important?” Seconds ago they burbled profusely over him, now they met his presence with knitted brows. The uncanny feeling of the joke being on her hit her nerves.

  “Are you sure?” Aunt Esmie needed her own clarification.

  “Of course I’m sure. You’re scaring me. What’s going on? Tell me this instant.”

  “Oh dear,” Aunt Surtie mumbled. “Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.”

  “What?” Her eyes roved over to Sebastian, standing comfortably against the wall, waiting for the sequel to her debacle to air.

  “Oh dear.” Aunt Esmie paced the kitchen, her fingers drumming her collarbone.

  “Oh dear.” Aunt Lindie plopped herself into a chair.

  “Oh—”

  “Stop. Not another oh dear, Aunt Surtie. Start talking, now.”

  “The phone.” Aunt Surtie whisked to the phone. A message on the answering machine echoed across the kitchen.

  “Hmmm…hi…Misses Stein…all the Misses. Steins. This is ahh…Bruno. I wanted to let you know I kinda didn’t make my date with…with…with Michelle. My father had a slight accident and I had to take care of the butchery. Nothing serious, but I’m in the hospital right now. Hmm…I’m hoping I might…get another chance…”

  “Oh dear,” Aunt Surtie garbled.

  “Who’s Bruno?” Sebastian pushed off the frame of the arch and strode toward her.

  “You set me up with Bruno?” Michelle could not believe her ears. “Wait, the fact that you set me up like that in the first place is deplorable. I could have…I could have…”

  “Oh, Bruno is a lovely boy in the meat industry. Gives us the best prime rib. Very shy and very quiet. We thought he’d be perfect for Michelle.” Aunt Lindie offered Sebastian an explanation.

  “To take advantage of.” Michelle cringed thinking of the trauma she might have inflicted on the poor man. He barely greeted her without blushing.

  “We thought one stone and all.” A weak smile played across Aunt Esmie’s mouth. “We know he’s so shy and Michelle is such an ice princess and we thought—”

  “You weren’t thinking at all. I could have…”

  “Yes, child, you could have. Instead you did Sebastian.” Aunt Surtie clarified what didn’t need clarification.

  “I didn’t do Sebastian, he walked into my shop. That doesn’t matter. What does is that you rid me of the hex right now.”

  “We did relieve you of the spell.”

  “No, Aunt Surtie, you didn’t because clearly I still don’t feel like my whole self.”

  “Yes, but we did,” Aunt Esmie agreed with her sister. “We put it in a timeframe of an hour. From three o’clock to four o’clock. We appointed Bruno to surprise you with strawberries and champagne and promised him you would be eager to see him, as you would have been, given the spell. You were supposed to seduce him, have your man-fun for an hour. We did a reparation spell at exactly four on the dot.” Aunt Esmie filled her in on their modus operandi. Lovely, just lovely.

  “Well, then you’ll have to do another reparation spell.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, child. A reparation spell can only be done once and it’s flop proof.” Aunt Lindie’s words echoed in her head.

  “It flopped now. So do it again.”

  “No. I think I know why it didn’t work.” Aunt Surtie chewed her lip.

  “Good. If you know the problem, that’s half the battle won to finding a solution. So find it and do it.”

  “Oh dear, Surtie, I think I know why too.”

  “What are you saying, Aunt Esmie?”

  “She’s saying there was repression involved,” Aunt Surtie said

  “But why didn’t we think of it before, sisters mine?”

  “Because we weren’t paying attention. But this is the match of the millennium. We are geniuses, sisters mine. Geniuses.”

  “No, you all are crazy. Tell me what is going on.”

  “Michelle, oh dear child.” Aunt Esmie’s warm hands curled around her arms. “You repressed the spell.”

  “No, I didn’t.” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t.”

  “You did.”

  “What does that even mean?” she begged.

  “It means you blocked the repair.” Aunt Lindie approached, cocooning Michelle in her embrace.

  “I don’t understand. Why would I do that?” She would never willingly mess with a reparation spell. For starters, she had no idea how the heck anyone messed with a reparation spell, let alone what the procedure of a reparation spell contained in the first place.

  Aunt Surtie came to her with her arms opened wide. “Why?” She echoed Michelle’s question, gently touching Michelle’s cheek with a single finger while she tilted her head in Sebastian’s direction. “It’s because of him. Your aura overpowered the spell, Michelle.” She chose her words carefully. “You have a vested, maybe romantic interest…in Sebastian.”

  “You refused to give him up.” She vaguely heard Aunt Lindie’s voice in her ear. “And now nothing we do will ever repair the spell. You are bound to him for life. We did well, child, your aunts. We did well after all.”

  The thundering clap of her heartbeat deafened the feeble denials stammering between her arid lips. Terror contaminated her stomach. Qualmish pricklings rose in her throat and threatened to upend from her mouth.

  Life with her aunts had taught her the value of being practical, the importance of being utilitarian. She didn’t believe in magical fairytales, they simply didn’t apply to her, she was a realist. S
he put herself first, protected her heart first by successfully chopping off all futile feelings for Sebastian. Her livelihood depended on it. The spell lied.

  “No. You’re all mistaken.” Her lashes lifted. Her gaze locked with Sebastian’s. His daring perusal singed down the center of her body and left her naked and exposed. He’d find nothing.

  She circumvented her aunts’ embraces, tucked the sheet more securely about her body before she fiddled with an innocent-looking rose detail engraved into the table. The smooth wood parted. Inside a shallow cave lay a tome almost the length and breadth of the table itself. She shunned the book just as she shunned the witches’ blood running through her veins.

  “There must be a cure inside that.” She pointed to the maroon leather-bound book, careful not to touch it.

  “Michelle…”

  “No.” With one hand holding onto the sheet for dear life, she raised her other hand, her palm warding off their approach. “I’m going to make myself decent. When I return you will have found a counter-spell and everything will go back to the way it was.” She turned her attention on Sebastian. “As you can see, Sebastian, you are no longer needed. Goodbye.” She exited the room with a meager amount of dignity attached, enough to prevent her from crying out in desperation and fear.

  Chapter Four

  Sebastian watched her leave, her back a fragile rod of bunched nerves even though her head remained elevated. The giggling of her aunts brought his attention back into the kitchen. Broad, big-toothed smiles overwhelmed him. Damn, he loved these three women.

  “Is there anything I should know? She was burning up and her pulse shot to the roof. Nothing about her was normal or even close to normal. Could there be side effects, fatal ones?”

  “Oh no, nothing will happen to her except, well, happy times. Of course you will need to be able to hmm…keep up with her, if you know what we mean. Is your ding-dong nice and long?

  Ding-dong?

  Were they seriously questioning his sex stamina? He bowed his head and stroked his jaw. “Yes, Aunt Esmie.”