by Sophie Avett
His palm covered the image, fingers splaying across the raven’s wings even as she tensed beneath his touch. “What does it mean?”
She tapped her shoulder. “The dress, vampire. The dress.”
Fair enough. He gently worked the bodice down her body, divesting her of the garment with bizarre reverence. She shuddered. Her skin flushed like the cool air was branding fire. Time slowed for him and he studied the tremble she tried to stifle with all that supposed might.
In her fantasy, they had both been clothed. He’d simply chalked it up to inexperience. Perhaps that was why he was clothed in the image. But maybe she was clothed for an entirely different reason.
Marshall purposely brushed his sleeve against the naked flesh of her hip and she pulled away, her ing face contracting as if the touch had inflicted true, stinging pain. Did it surprise her at times? Did she feel it all the way to her bones? Did she hate herself so much sometimes she could scarcely breathe in some kind of strange attempt at suicide? Who made you feel so ugly, little witch? he asked in the depths of his mind. Perhaps it had been him. He doubted it.
If she did despise her form—and he knew she did—that kind of conditioning had started way before he’d sunk his fangs into her. Though, it hardly mattered. As he allowed his fingertips to tread the material near her skin, he fervently wished someone better than he would show her the truth.
The dress dropped, exposing her bare, bruised ass. It was not as red as it had been, but it still wore his pleasure-like colors.
Elsa held out a hand. “Vampire.”
He took it wordlessly, wondering whether she would drown him now. Nope. Elsa, in her endless unpredictability, merely offered him what was left of his cigarette and used his hand as a steady, stepping into the steaming bathwater without so much as a hiss.
Marshall studied the dips and imperfections on the backs of her thighs, his gaze sharpening with lust to taste the sugar. She was no dainty creature, Elsa. Built like a brick house with fire spilling to kiss the curve of her sumptuous ass. Yes, she was mighty. And beautiful. Infuriating, even. Mostly because he wasn’t quite sure if he relished the idea of another man coming to the same conclusion. Don’t be ridiculous.
Standing in the middle of the garden tub, she sank to her knees with as little grace as he’d come to expect from her and he backed away. Blood inked the bathwater as it lapped at her bare skin and he plucked a fluffy red towel off of the space saver over the toilet. Elsa was blessed with a nice rack, that much had always been clear from the way her hideous frocks stretched across her chest. Luscious and ripe. Probably more than he’d ever be able to hold or suckle into the warm cave of his mouth.
He raked his swelled tongue against his top teeth, wondering whether the blush pink permeating the water matched the nipples he’d yet to see. Small, tight, little shimmering pink pearls. Maybe they were creamy mocha tan little peaks, the individual tiny pebbles circling the aureole calling his tongue like frosting. Or perhaps they were more succulent than that—broad, dark blush red tight stumps begging for his teeth. He should’ve found out while he’d had the chance.
“Leave the towel,” she sank her hands into the water lapping at her ribcage. “And turn your back.” He narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth, only to be interrupted by her sharp addition. “Now, vampire.”
Arching his brow at the command in her tone, he opened his mouth again, but shut it as the air tingled with something new. Something like the hush of a tidal wave rearing its head in the ocean. His skin prickled with it as the air changed, rippling with real warning. Niggling at his survival instincts. The hairs on the back of his neck teased to a stand as he spun around, giving her his back. Refusing to allow whatever would come next to cower him into making for the door.
It was an armistice. A cease fire. He had to know that. He had awoken a sleeping giant. She felt it into her bones, filling her entire being until she was sure a deep breath might just break the dam and send her spiraling beyond control.
Seated on her knees as she was, the heels of her feet were embedded in the tender flesh and it smarted. It stung. It blistered. But no more so than the emotions threatening to bully her into a wreck. Pain had become a constant ringing gong in her body, the sensation infusing her flesh until she was sure it had simply become part of it. She tried to lift her arms and winced, and laid her trembling hands on the top of her thighs instead.
It happened on a heavy sigh. Oxygen expanded her lungs, and when she released it—the pins holding the strings were released and her entire frame collapsed. Descent just barely slowed by the generous amount of water. Her body sliced through it as her knees scraped across the textured bottom of the porcelain garden tub.
She grabbed the edge of the tub, hauling herself to the edge. Splashes of the water smacked and seared her cheek as she blinked up at an arrangement of winter white and blood red roses, mixed in a crystal vase.
Laying her cheek against the back of her hand, she stared up at the pretty, drying vegetation. And in the privacy of those few moments, she did not cry but she pressed a silent sob in her arm, knowing no matter how she washed, no matter how she scrubbed, she’d never be able to scrub this particular desire from her soul. She was a greedy little monster. Marshall would be hers—if only for the time it took her to find the fey. Until then, she would make him hers.
And right now, she needed control.
Elsa’s unfocused glassy eyes cleared. Faint moonlight filtered into the bathroom, illuminating the puffs of steam around her like the folds of a living mist. She yanked a rose out of the vase and murmured a harsh incantation. Magic circled the green, barbed stem of the flower—the conjuration spell morphing it into a twig of chamalla wood. It was not the real thing, but it would do. It would be enough for now. She ground her palms together until it was but a fine mixture of dust, paste, and plant matter. Dunking her hands in the water, she loosed another spell and the water pulsed to life with a living, healing glow.
Magic, herb, and energy chromed into a glowing midnight blue pool. Warmth and healing remedy seeped into her pores and she sank to the side, melting into the water. Weightless. The magic worked itself into her knotted shoulders like precision elbows, rubbing and massaging every single seam of sinew and cooled the heat in her solely abused bottom. She lulled her head to the side and studied the vampire standing vigilant by her tub.
He’d said he was a dancer, she could believe it. His body spoke of such, even draped in an expensive suit, it was evident that he was the epitome of lithe sensual grace. Nothing but sleek muscle, airy shadows, and fang.
What would she do to her vampire? True, she had never actively participated in the games he seemed so eager to play, but that was fine. Ingrid was a savant, one who preferred to have an audience for her sinister brilliance and Elsa had paid very, very close attention. To everything.
One hand ing rested on the edge of the tub, the other circled her amulet. She did not need to see her reflection to know her eyes were bright green. With the forest. With fury. With pure and unadulterated Greed. For she had said he would pay—and she had meant it. Every word.
“Come here, vampire.”
He made no move to turn, his only sign of life the pocketing of his slender hands in his slacks. “What am I doing here, Ms. Karr?”
Water lapping against skin and porcelain teased Marshall’s ears, taunting his imagination with image after image of what her body must look like. Slick with water and the thick spicy apricot oil she’d selected from the narrow rack near the tub.
His entire body strained as he fought the urge to turn and look. No—he was not so arrogant to believe he’d managed to best and beat a creature like Elsa. Not with what he’d observed of her. And so, he waited for an answer. As willing as he was to give her an entertaining fight if she decided to play his executioner, he would be no lamb led to slaughter.
“I cannot reach my back, vampire.”
Simple. Reasonable. Hardly innuendo—and yet, he couldn’t help the niggl
e of warning. But if Elsa wanted to kill him, would it matter if he delayed it with stubbornness? Marshall wasn’t quite sure why, but he allowed himself to be drawn around by her subtle request. He expected to find a voluptuous nymph lying naked in the garden tub, preferably only sparsely covered with pockets of suds. What he did find was much more interesting. An image that beckoned his pencils. Entirely frustrating. And strangely even more alluring.
Steam pockets shrouded her glistening skin. With her back to him, she knelt in the middle of a pool of strange black water. It was odd, rolling like living dark soil. He could almost taste it. Apricots, barbed roses, and an earthy herb. A root, perhaps. Each splash glowed aqua lime green, livened by an invisible sheen of magic. He hungrily watched a bead of moisture roll down the curve of her shoulder, eventually absorbed by the damp red tendril clinging to her elbow.
“Trouble reaching your back?” he said, studying her reaction even as he divested himself of his suit jacket. “One shudders to think how you would’ve managed in my absence.”
She didn’t offer so much as an awkward twitch. A lush, gothic Greek statue. Her shoulders were devoid of their earlier tension, her entire body relaxed, patient while she held the sponge out as if she fully expected him to comply with her request sooner rather than later.
Marshall tossed his jacket on the toilet, his cufflinks, and rolled up his sleeves as he closed the distance to the bath tub, dwarfing her serene figure in his tempestuous shadow. She had seated herself closer to the edge of the tub and he leaned forward and plucked the sea sponge from her hand with a quiet whisper, “Move your hair.”
“Please,” she supplied flatly.
Suspicion warred with intrigue and his fangs itched with the impression she’d somehow found herself in a position to command anything from him. She could kill him, yes. But commanding him was unacceptable. Marshall was his own master and he would certainly bow to no mistress. “Watch your tone, witch,” he reminded quietly. Gently, even.
Elsa gathered her hair over her left shoulder and twisted the soaking tendrils. “Perhaps I should abandon the pretense of civility, too.” Her tone betrayed none of the threat implied.
Perched on the edge of the tub, Marshall squeezed water over her naked back in a warm, supple waterfall. “You perplex me, witch.”
She extended a bottle of oil to him over her shoulder. “Is that why you stayed, vampire? Curiosity?”
Why was she inviting contact? His better judgment cautioned against accepting the strange invitation and he relieved her of the oil anyway. Their fingers brushed—the momentary contact sending a bolt of lust crackling from the top of his skull to the tip of his cock.
“Yes,” he abandoned the sponge in the water, “I am curious.”
“I knew a curious cat once.”
He lathered his palms. “What became of this cat?”
“Fenris.”
Warning lifted the hairs on the back of his neck and he paused, hands hovering over her pale shoulders. An image bloomed in his mind—a small tabby cat’s neck snapping in the hands absentmindedly finger-combing through her hair. Get out, the shadows hissed, trying to draw him from the witch beckoning his fingertips with every knob in her spine.
“Scared?”
“No.” He molded his palms to her shoulder blades, his mind flitting back to the way she’d struggled in the shadow restraints. Answering lust pooled in the base of his being, rousing the interest of the beast he’d tucked away so neatly less than an hour ago. “Have you bewitched me, Elsa?” he asked. The question fell from his lips unbidden, and he immediately regretted it.
“No, vampire.”
Oil beaded against the moisture glistening on her skin and he took extra care to catch every stubborn drop. He followed the curve of the sun rising behind the raven. “It is notoriously difficult to tattoo a vampire. I have often wondered how other monsters with regenerative abilities manage the deed.”
“I have no regenerative abilities. My healing power ends at the root I conjured and an apt ability to memorize spells.”
He languidly traced the arch of the dark bird’s wing, fingered its sharp black beak. The longer he stared at the raven, the more he began to suspect it was watching him with vague, bitter amusement. “What does the image mean?”
“Do you honestly believe you deserve to know?”
He flexed his fingers into her skin, tortured with the impulse to glide his touch around to learn the lush curves of her stomach, ribs, and breasts. “That implies the image, the practice, or both are somehow sacred to you.”
“Only mark the body with what has already been chiseled on the soul, vampire.”
He fingered the beak with reverence. “Pull that off of a bumper sticker, did you?”
“A book. A storymaven’s book, to be precise.”
“A storymaven?” he asked absentmindedly. Lust was rising like a frothy tide in his veins, but his mind was strangely lulled into the comfort of routine. He painted and scribbled love lyrics across supple flesh with his fingertips, from one flare of her hip to the other until her entire back was saturated in oil.
She spoke of some ancient magic responsible for fairy tales. Short, archaic phrases, mixed with mundane slang and speech patterns. Elsa’s brand of sultry croak was a low hum. Gravelly and smoky. Wonderfully raw and out of place. But he wasn’t really listening, he was too busy staring into the raven’s eyes. Asking it the meaning of life even though its only answer was, “Nevermore.”
“Vampire.”
He lifted his attention. She peered at him over the strong curve of her shoulder, green orbs hot and glowing in the surrounding dimness. She lowered her gaze studiously and he swore the pale thick lashes fanning across her stern cheeks were stroking his cock. Her eyes locked on his mouth, glittering with promise. So much promise, he scraped a fang across his bottom lip in a vain effort to use one pain to distract from another.
Pain was the only way to describe it. It threaded between them in thick strands of attraction, setting his skin on fire with…desire. True and real desire, and it was threatening to undermine his control. Threatening to release the beast raising its head with interest. His hooded gaze lingered on her lips as if he could taste the source of her hold over him, learn it. Perhaps then, he could destroy it.
Marshall rocked back on his heels. Away. Before he lost his mind again and truly drove in the last nail. But Elsa was there—right there, anticipating his retreat. Twisting around, she fisted a cruel hand in his hair and jerked him forward, forcing him to catch himself on the edge of the tub as she fused her mouth to his. His eyes flew open and drifted shut. She drowned them. Both of them. In a torrent so furious and hot, he banded his arm around her and ripped her to her feet.
Water sloshed, and it fell on deaf ears as he buried his fingers in her hair, searching for purchase in the storm. She wouldn’t allow it. She surged up in his arms, clasped his smooth-shaven face between her palms and deepened the kiss. Boldly. Wantonly. Without reserve or shame or even fear. Her tongue snaked into his mouth. Not dueling with his—she didn’t bother with the illusion this kiss was a conversation. It was an assault. She was eating his mouth. Savoring it. Devouring it. Fucking it—like she owned it.
He groaned. Strangled, beautifully broken—the little sound pierced the air as one sad violin note.
No. Marshall’s eyes flew open as he realized it had come from him, an embarrassing revelation of a vocal quirk he had no control over. She let out a little noise, a hum of pleasure from the back of her throat. It smacked into his mind like a steam ship—he was caving like a smoky deck of cards. I’m gonna kill her.
Angling his head left, he fitted their faces closer together and tried to pull her bottom lip into his mouth and take control of the kiss. Elsa would have none of it. She threaded her fingers close to his scalp, tugging painfully. Matching him pant for pant. A growl vibrated in his throat and he curled his fingers tighter into her damp tendrils, struggling to right the world she was ripping from his grasp. Yo
ur tone, witch.
He hoisted her out of the bath and she clung to him, to his mouth. Ruthlessly stealing his every breath. Sinking them into madness. Elsa caught his bottom lip between her teeth and nibbled. Gently. Sweet persistence. So unexpected, it slackened his face with intense pleasure, and she plied even deeper. So deep, he was sure she was eating him. Cannibalizing his mind and any lingering hesitation on his part. She grabbed the lapel of his starched collar and he groaned another searing violin note into her mouth. Your…tone.
Kissing her quickly became murder suicide. Pain, pleasure, and the fury of needing both painting their dialogue. She would advance, crushing her mouth to his. He would rebuke, drawing her bottom lip in a deep suck. Catching it between his teeth, viciously. And she would nibble back—gently. So tender and gently at first. And then, so raw and passionate—and strangely possessive, forcing him to brutally shove back. Only to have her taunt him into a battle they were both losing again. Was she biding her time? Would his little bird kiss him to death? Would she strike soon? Now? Right here, angel. He covered her palm, pressing it against his heart. Hurry…
He held the witch in the red shimmer and blistering heat, and waited and waited for the blow that never came. And as he stood there reveling in her mouth, the world as he knew it no longer seemed to make much sense. It was tilting. Changing. Slipping from beneath his feet.
Another searing violin note.
Elsa tore her mouth from his and roughly fisted the front of his collared shirt. Her eyes were bright. Unnatural. “Vampire.”
He slipped a finger beneath her chin. “Yes, Ms. Karr?”
“I want to make an amendment to our deal.”
“An amendment to our deal?” He tugged on a thick damp lock of curl. “What kind of amendment?”
“I will still help you find the fey. You will also provide compensation by providing marketing services for Bits and Pieces free of charge. However, I will now be the conductor in our little adventure.”