Order of the Akasha: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Complete Series)

by E. M. Moore

  18

  Randy and I walked into the house hand-in-hand. The smell of pizza lingered in the air and when we moved closer, I saw the rest of them in the living room, their hands around various slices as they ate. Travis peeked up, only to see my hand in Randy’s, and then looked away. The confusing discussion from earlier came back and I reminded myself that we were going to have to have another awkward as fuck conversation soon. Travis and I just needed to come clean with one another. What did we want? What did we not want? I was clearly on the side of not wanting to argue anymore. That much was for sure.

  Travis wiped his hands on a napkin and threw it on his empty plate. He got up, discarded it, and then headed for the stairs. “Where are you going?” Liam called out after him. “You said we’d talk about what you and Norah found out when they got back.”

  Without looking back, Travis called out over his shoulder. “I’m sure Norah can fill you in.”

  Liam looked at me, his hands coming up in a ‘What gives?’ gesture. I just shook my head. I wasn’t sure what made him react like that. It wasn’t as if we parted on horrible terms earlier. He’d even said he’d see me later. I blew out a breath and shrugged.

  “Fine,” Liam said, his shoulders tense as he pushed the pizza box out of the way and opened his laptop up. “Let’s just do this. I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I want some answers.”

  I peered over at him. He was clearly flustered, his face red and hands shaking as he put in his password to the laptop. “Hey,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

  Randy dropped my hand, so I went up to him, kneeling beside him as he sat on the couch. Gabe snickered. “Methinks he needs some Norah time.”

  “Screw you,” Liam spat.

  I stared at Gabe who shrugged.

  I pulled Liam’s hands away from the computer and held them in mine before forcing him back on the couch and sitting in his lap. “What’s wrong?” The smell of the sea engulfed us and I breathed the beachy smell in deep. He stared up at me, frowning. I gave him a smile and pushed his glasses back up his nose before kissing the corner of his lips.

  His tense arms deflated and he wound them around me. “Nothing, really. I just want to figure this out before someone else… Well, before something happens to someone else.”

  “We all feel that way, Mate,” Gabe said. “It’s not often we ever deal with a case where the victims are dead yet. We all understand. That’s probably why Travis is acting weird, too. Unless…”

  He looked at me and I shook my head. For some reason, Gabe was always the one pushing for something to happen between Travis and me.

  His hands opened and he lifted them. “We’re all on edge, I guess. We’ve all got a lot going on.”

  “Let’s just deal with what we can deal with right now,” Liam said, staring back up the stairs. He fished his phone out of his pocket and opened up a message to Travis: You sure you don’t want to come down? He dropped it next to him on the couch and looked up at me expectantly.

  “Alright,” I said, twisting around in his lap, so I could get a better view of the others. “Travis and I went to the coroner’s office and met with Laura. According to Laura, both victims died of asphyxiation. They both had no visible signs on their bodies that proved it though. However, there is one more interesting thing. There was evidence of sexual activity in both cases before the victims died.” I shook my head again as the word Laura used floated through my brain. Expired… Yeah, I wasn’t going to be using that ever.

  Gabe’s eyes went wide. “Really?”

  “The police apparently think there could be a sexual predator out there.”

  “So, someone is raping and smothering women?”

  I lifted my shoulders. I had no idea, I was just passing on the information.

  Randy took a seat on the sofa facing out toward the big wall of windows. “It doesn’t really sound like Dupre’s MO.”

  “It’s not like we know all that much about the guy,” Gabe said, countering him. “Who knows what he’s capable of?”

  Liam rubbed his forehead while he thought. All three of us stared at him as he gathered his thoughts. “I just think it’s weird that there are no marks, there’s evil magic involved, and now sex? Why would Dupre be using magic to rape and smother someone to death?”

  “What are you saying then?” I asked.

  “I think it’s got to be something paranormal. Dupre touted demons before and here we have situations which are ripe for demon activity. Demons use supernatural beings to do their dirty work all the time. What if Dupre or Jay or whoever has used the magic of a demon to conjure some sort of supernatural creature to kill those women?”

  “What kind of supernatural creature does that?” I asked. “Sex, then asphyxiation? I don’t get it. It has to be a human.”

  “It doesn’t mean it’s not someone under the guise of a human. There are plenty of creatures that use sex to lure, even demons themselves.”

  “Succubus,” Gabe offered.

  “Yeah, and that’s only one of many,” Liam added. “They’re all here in these books,” he said, pointing to the coffee table. “Let’s look through everything again and see if we can’t find mention about sex. Better yet to have sex and asphyxiation mentioned.”

  I leaned forward and grabbed two books, giving Liam one of them. He looked up at me and smiled when I didn’t remove myself from his lap. “Yes?”

  “I can’t really do work with you like this.”

  “Is it bothering you?”

  His mouth closed and he stared up at me. “No. It’s not bothering me.”

  I broke out into a smile and climbed off his lap all the same. Gabe chuckled. “Feel free to perch yourself over here, Love.”

  Gabe winked, and I stared at him as he went back to reading his book. Looking up the stairs, I wondered if Travis was going to come back down. Gabe and I agreed that we were going to tell them about what his grandfather said today, but I wasn’t going to tell them until they were all together. That would be pointless. Gabe cleared his throat, and I looked up. He turned his gaze toward the upstairs before returning it to me and shrugging. I lifted my shoulders too. I wasn’t sure what was up with Travis, but I knew we couldn’t have the conversation without him.

  For the next couple of hours, we all poured over books until we had a list of names in front of us on a piece of paper with the initial “s” for sexual activity and the initial “a” next to some for asphyxiation. That was as good as our research was going to give us tonight. No doubt Liam would have it in a spreadsheet by tomorrow, so it would be easily searchable.

  After the second time my eyes drooped, I gave Liam’s knee a quick squeeze before announcing I was headed to bed to the rest of them. With a chorus of goodnights, I walked toward the stairs and straight to my room. It would feel good to get the jeans and t-shirt off I’d worn all day and gotten dirty at the shop. I let my hair down first and then stripped before pulling on some pajama bottoms. I was just pulling my tanktop down over my head when a knock came on the door. “Come in,” I called out without thinking.

  A strap got stuck and I tugged, finally pulling the material down to cover myself when I stared straight into the most intense green eyes. Shit. I swallowed. It was Travis again, seeing me shirtless, again.

  “S-sorry,” I stammered. “I assumed it was one of the others.”

  He moved forward, leaning against the door as he closed it behind him, his gaze still glued to me.

  “Travis, you okay?” I looked down to make sure everything was where it should be and let out a sigh of relief when I wasn’t showing off anything anymore.

  He took a few steps forward, his eyes more desperate. His mouth opened several times as if he was going to say something, but he immediately shut it again. Finally, he said, “After earlier, when we touched…”

  “Yeah?” I urged, remembering the overwhelming shock I felt.

  “I’ve been on edge. I’m shaky and irritable I just feel like I need something, bu
t I’m not quite sure what it is.”

  My eyes widened as I understood what it was that happened. Shit, we’d somehow, inadvertently, used magic together. He was crashing. “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “It’s not horrible,” he said. “But it’s not good either.”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed. “You know what you came in here for, don’t you?”

  He closed his eyes and nodded. “It’ll help, right? That’s what you said.”

  “We might not need to do much.”

  I stared at Travis as he took this information in. Like Gabe said, I had a feeling that once we did touch, it would be like an explosion. Especially with the way he looked right now. Even though he was kind of being coerced into this, I was excited. I wanted to see where this could take us. If this was what Travis would need to finally get over the hangup of being with me.

  He came over and sat on the bed next to me. His fingers splayed out against his thigh, and then he curled them in again. He was trying to expend energy just sitting there. The pull in my stomach had me leaning forward. It was intense, all-consuming. It pulled tighter and tighter until I was crawling over him. He lay back on the bed, staying mere inches away from me the whole time. “Do you feel something?” I asked, my body humming.

  His hands fisted in the sheets. “Yes,” he said, his voice releasing on an exhale of breath.

  His hands reached out, but then he saw the shake in them and he put them back down, tying them up in the comforter again. “You can touch me,” I told him. I hoped to God he would touch me, my body was yearning for it. More than ever, being so close to Travis was like a pressure valve ready to burst. There was still some part of me that didn’t want to make the first move before he did though.

  His lips thinned, his chest rising and lowering in rapid succession. “Fuck, Norah, I can barely contain myself. My skin is crawling with need.”

  “Do it,” I told him, dipping lower until my nipples just barely grazed his chest.

  His mouth fell open, and I clamped mine shut so I wouldn’t moan at the contact. It was evident our bodies wanted the very same thing. To touch one another. To feel one another. Mine was practically vibrating in anticipation. It was as if it was finally going to get what it had wanted all along. Maybe that was the reason for this intensity. Travis was the last piece of the puzzle and my magic really wanted to close the deal. Being with Travis would be electrifying, not because he was more suited to me, but because he was the last.

  My lips inched closer and his breath hitched. The bed started to vibrate slightly with the intensity, and I had a feeling that had there been any lights on in the room, they would’ve been burning out.

  “Travis,” I urged. “Don’t you want this?”

  “Yes.”

  I moaned and let out all the tension inside me, my body finally collapsing on top of Travis’s. Instead of feeling the delicious pressure of his chest against mine though, I felt his fingers dig into my arms.

  He pushed me away from him, sitting me upright back on the bed. He stood up slowly, holding onto his own hands to keep them from tremoring visibly. The bed stopped shaking as Travis lifted himself off it. He strode away from me, back toward the door. When he turned the knob, I called out, “Try some chocolate. Or you might just have to…masturbate,” I said finally, not able to choose the exact right words for the situation.

  “Sorry,” he said, before leaving and pulling the door shut behind him.

  Fuck me. I lay back on the bed, my whole body trembling from the now pent up need inside myself. The smell of cinnamon engulfed me. My hands slipped down underneath my pajama bottoms and panties and stopped at my pussy. I pushed down on my clit and my head fell back against the comforter. What was I doing though? I didn’t need to do this myself. I pulled my hand away and marched across the room. I made a beeline straight for the first door I saw.

  Liam’s.

  I didn’t bother waiting to be told to come in. I walked in to find him and Randy talking on the bed. They both looked up, surprised. I whisked my shirt off over my head and pushed my pajama bottoms down all before I approached them—naked.

  “Well, that’s…different,” Randy said.

  Liam took my hand. “What’s wrong?”

  “Ugh, Travis, now I’m horny and—”

  “It’s more than that,” Liam said, his eyebrows rising. “Were you guys using magic?”

  “I’ll explain it later, but will one of you, both of you, just…please?”

  Randy punched Liam in the arm. “She’s in your room, buddy.”

  I turned to face him. “It was the first I saw.”

  He gave a quick shake of the head. He didn’t care. He was only teasing.

  Liam looked from me to Randy, then back to me again. Uncertainty tried to take him again. “Help her, Liam,” Randy said, his voice firm. “She needs you again.”

  Liam’s jaw clenched. Both of them were already shirtless and in their own pajama pants. There was quite a distinction between the two bodies. Liam’s definition was a lot more subtle, yet still there. Randy was just a beast in tattoos.

  Liam shifted on the bed, his erection starting to push up through his bottoms. I reached forward and grabbed his glasses from his face before putting them on the bedside table. Liam bit his lip as I reached for his bottoms. Randy was already grabbing himself, urging me on. “I’ve got a confession to make,” Liam said, looking back and forth between Randy and I again. “I watched you guys earlier. At the shop. I was there.”

  My mouth dropped. “You were?”

  “But the bell?” Randy asked.

  “It’s not working,” Liam and I said at the same time.

  God, I really needed to get that fixed.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I was so turned on though.”

  “It’s normal,” Randy said, nursing his own erection without trying to be blatant about it. “Remember in the car when you and Norah were going at it and I could barely contain myself? I know this isn’t a normal situation, but I say we just roll with it.” He turned his attention toward Liam. “And next time? Just join in, bro. I would’ve made room for you.”

  Simmering heat pooled between my thighs. Fuck me. Really. Please, someone fuck me.

  It seemed Randy had the right idea too. He pulled his bottoms down and started stroking himself. He cocked his head toward Liam and I prowled forward. Liam went back on his elbows while I hooked my fingers into his waistband and moved his bottoms down, revealing his stiff cock. Liam looked from Randy to me. I followed him onto the bed, straddling him until I locked lips with him.

  “Seeing you two together is hot as fuck. I don’t mind saying it. Shit, I’m just so happy for Liam. He deserves it.”

  I peeked over at Randy. His fist slowly moved down his cock as he watched us, urging me forward. I locked eyes with Liam as he moved forward, this time claiming my mouth as his own. I imagined it had to be a little weird for him. He wasn’t used to getting any girls at all and now there was me, and Randy, and Gabe, and Travis. Then of course there were times like this when Randy watched as we came together.

  “Touch her, Liam. She’s practically begging for it,” Randy said, his voice tight.

  “Mmm, yes,” I moaned, reacting to both his words and his emotion.

  Liam’s hands came up, fondling my breasts. I sucked in a breath.

  “Shit, Norah. I’m so fucking hard.”

  The bed creaked. “Don’t you want to find out?” Randy asked. “Take him inside you.”

  I did as he said, taking the base of Liam’s cock and then stretching him upward toward me until I moved close enough to feel his tip at my entrance. “Oh yes. He’s hard. I want him inside me.”

  “Do it.”

  I slipped just his head in and stilled, my hips making tiny movements over him.

  Liam’s body went rigid. “Oh fuck. Please, more.” He squirmed on the bed.

  I stayed where I was,
just giving us both that little bit. His tip hit me in just the right place and I ran it over and over the spot until my body shook.

  “Fuck, girl. That’s hot,” Randy breathed. “Take what you need from him.”

  Liam moaned in torment, but I couldn’t stop myself. “A little more,” I promised him. “I’m going to come. Oh yes.” I couldn’t stop. It felt like heaven.

  “Norah, fuck,” Liam said, his body trembling with need. I could tell he was holding back for me.

  “I know, I know.” I pitched my hips faster, egging my orgasm on. “Fuck, Liam. Shit. Oh my God. It’s coming.” And it fucking was too. Hard and fast, it was going to be amazing. I grasped onto his cock, and with still just the tip, I held him steady as I hit that glorious spot over and over and over again. Quick and hard. “Yes!” I said, the orgasm rushing forward. I hit the spot one more time and flew over the edge. At the same time, I slammed my hips down over Liam until his eyes rounded and he let out a satisfied shout.

  “Fuck, you’re trying to kill me.”

  My body was still soaking up the orgasm as I started to ride Liam in long, sweet strokes. He grabbed my hips, urging me on until I came down off my initial high. Travis’s come-ons were now completely out of my system. I bent lower and kissed a trail up Liam’s chest and neck until I found his lips again.

  “Fuck, sweetie. That was hot.”

  “You’re telling me,” Randy said. “Doesn’t she feel amazing when she comes on you?”

  “Mmm,” Liam said, unable to form words, but the look on his face said it all.

  “I’m sorry for barging in, guys,” Randy said, his voice strained. “I don’t know what gets into me sometimes. The look Norah gets when she’s fucking you turns me on.”

  Liam hid a smile. “I don’t think either one of us is complaining.”

  I looked back at Randy to find him still stroking his silky, yet hard, dick in his fist. Arousal spiraled inside me again. I loved how intently he watched us. How intense his eyes were, yet soft at the same time as a real affection for both of us showed through.