by Lola White
Tulah didn’t understand—Adam had never sent his magic at her like this. It had only escaped his control once, but this was a directed flow, a tool for her pleasure and intimate beyond her wildest imaginings.
“Adam?”
“You’re ready for me.” He grabbed her hips, tugged her forward and gripped his cock to angle it against her heat. “I need you now, Tulah. Hard and fast, honey, as deep as I can go.”
The wide, hot head stretched her opening and scorched her heart. Her body gave way for him, accommodating him gratefully. She braced her knees, thinking she’d go mad at feeling his thick crest wedged between her walls while she refused its full entry, but that was the price she would pay to get her answers.
Adam arched against her, a vein on his forehead throbbing. His fingers tightened on her hip, his other hand pulled from his cock to pet her clit. He stared at her with a plea in his eyes, determination and a need for her to take him deep shining in their depths.
Her pussy convulsed and squeezed his tip. They both moaned but Tulah shook her head, ignoring the hot slide of cream slipping between them. “Why are you using magic against me?”
Adam’s eyes dropped to stare at the place where their bodies connected. The skin over his cheekbones tightened and the determination in his gaze sharpened. Tulah knew he was watching her honey trickle down his shaft, knew he was appreciating the sight of his crest lost in her body. Something flashed in his eyes and magic erupted from his cock, shooting straight up her core to explode with a full set of fireworks in her belly.
She threw back her head and tensed her legs against the need to drive down on him, the need to sink him so deep inside her body that his exact width and length would be impressed on her nerves for all time. Delicate muscles flexed and pulled, trying to tug him in and hold him close. Tulah curled her nails into his chest.
“Don’t you like it?” A smirk ghosted over Adam’s lips. He knew full well she did.
Tulah struggled for enough breath to speak. “But why are you doing it?”
Adam became serious. “Let me in and I’ll explain.”
“You swear?” His promises were worth her weight in gold. So far, he was the only person in her life who’d never broken one made to her.
“I give you my word, honey. I’ll explain what I’m doing as soon as I feel your heat all around me, swallowing me up and snuggling close. I need to be inside you, Tulah. I need you now.”
She relented and slid down his cock slowly, taking her time to enjoy the sensation of him stuffed inside her. Nerves trembled and hummed, both his magic and her desire skimming her walls and tugging every ounce of pleasure from her they could find. She strained to keep from ramming her body over his, aided only by the tight constriction of her inner muscles as they fought to press close and soak up the feel of him.
Too many emotions to count threatened to overwhelm her.
Adam slid his hands up her torso. He spent a brief moment fondling her breasts before moving to her shoulders and closing his hot palms over her arms. He slid his hands down until he linked their fingers. Tulah grasped him tight, wondering what his seriousness meant, sensing it was tremendously important.
She breathed deep and forced her body’s urgency to step back. She willed her nerves to calm just enough that she could hear his explanation and maybe even think.
“I don’t trust Muso to let you go,” Adam said once she’d settled completely onto him.
Tulah panted. “Why are you thinking about him?”
“Because we’re leaving today and I’m taking you with us.”
She shook her head as lust renewed its demands. Her pussy protested the conversation with a brutal spasm. “He has no reason to keep me anymore.”
Adam gritted his teeth even as his hips jerked off the mattress. He was so deep it was a futile effort to push deeper, but flames still roared through Tulah’s body. She bore down and clamped every muscle she could command around his cock.
“You’re the only female of this branch left to barter,” Adam grated. “He won’t let you go easily.”
Shudders worked up Tulah’s spine, but they weren’t born of fear. Fear had no place in Adam’s bed. It took all her effort not to rock against him, not to lift up and sink back down. Her body screamed for her to do it, to let this odd conversation go so she could concentrate on the sensations Adam poured over her every time they were together.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
He tightened his fingers around hers. “We’re on the bridge, Tulah. I want you to marry me.”
Her brain froze, but her body didn’t. Pleasure and need were zinging between her legs, bouncing from hip to hip, stroking her slick folds and swollen clit with phantom touches. It made it difficult to think straight, in spite of the denial wailing in her skull.
She closed her eyes. “No. I told you—”
Adam flung her hands away and grabbed her hips in a move too fast for Tulah’s lust-sodden senses to track. He dragged her up his cock and slammed her back down. Shock waves roared through her, lightning flashed between her legs. He gripped her and held her to his body, lifting against her incessantly until she felt pressure behind her belly button.
“You’re mine,” Adam snarled. “I claim you, I protect you. I want you and I won’t let anyone take you from me, least of all Muso Ngozi. He doesn’t fucking deserve to even know who you are, Tulah. I’ll be damned if I let him keep his power over you.”
She arched helplessly. “I didn’t want to trap you.”
“You didn’t. This is my decision.”
“Adam, you can’t—”
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do.” He lowered his hips and lifted her again. This time, his re-entry was controlled. “I’ve never met a woman like you, who fit me so well. I can fall in love with you very easily, Tulah. You just have to let me.”
She folded forward to press her head against his shoulder. She was instantly engulfed in his body heat, wrapped up and held safe. It was exactly what she wanted. All she had to do was trust him to make the right decision for both of them.
“Okay, Adam. Yes.”
His hands left her hips to tangle their fingers again and their wrists pressed together, his pulse thumping against her own. Tulah lifted her head, stretching to reach his mouth and kiss him deeply. She let Adam’s confidence wash over her and gave her body free rein to move on his.
Her wrists burned under a slice of magic. A trickle of blood flowed down, his and hers, mingling. His cock pushed into her body, sending trails of fire singing through her blood. Nerves tightened, denied too long by his unexpected proposal, and Tulah slid toward the edge of her climax.
Adam pulled his lips from hers. “I take you as my wife, Tulah Ngozi. Forever. Mine to protect, mine to care for.”
She breathed deep and repeated the words back to him, simple and straightforward. “I take you as my husband, Adam Davenold. Forever, mine to protect, to care for and to love.”
Magic took root, splicing parts of Tulah into parts of Adam. She felt it in the deepest levels of her soul, his presence embedded within her, physically and spiritually. Power built between them, cinched them together and held tight.
Tulah rode him as the magic wove them into one. Pleasure spiraled, heat blazed and ecstasy raced through her spine. Adam lifted beneath her, their eyes locked, their fingers clutching. There was a weighted presence to the moment that impressed Tulah with its importance and sent sheer sensation shimmering through her veins.
Nerves stretched and flexed, her inner walls convulsed. Her intuition reached out until she knew Adam. She became a part of him as much as he became a part of her, and Tulah felt his rush toward orgasm as she felt her own. She struggled under the dual sensations of sharp pleasure in her body and heavy bliss in his, as magic swirled through them and flickered around them in tiny flares of silver and indigo.
She let go and felt him do the same. She flew on weightless wings, hips pumping, her inner walls burning wi
th his release. The world opened to her, a thousand images stealing her sight, a thousand loves clenching her heart. Pure magic. Then Adam’s arms were around her and she was consumed by a solid sense of safety.
He held her for a long time, both of them silent and thoughtful until the sounds of the hotel prodded them from their bed. They got up, showered and packed their things. When Silviu rapped on their door, they were ready.
Muso was not.
The Ngozi Father waited for them in the lobby, his intentions writ across his face. Chelsea fidgeted by the front door. Eliasz and Ileana hurried to get the older Davenold women out, with Madeleine conceding to her weakness enough to lean on Eliasz’s arm. Silviu waited impatiently while Georgie calmly claimed his hand.
Adam faced the Ngozi Father. “Tulah’s coming with me.”
Muso straightened his shoulders. “You’re mistaken.”
“Don’t do this, Muso,” Silviu warned.
Muso scowled at Tulah, pressed against Adam’s side, exactly where the new groom anchored her and exactly she wanted to be. “You’re not going with them.”
“Yes, she is,” Adam said. His pleasure was plain to see as he lifted his hand, then hers, turning their new scars to the light for Muso’s perusal. “My wife goes where I go.”
Georgie closed her eyes but rallied quickly. “Tulah Davenold leaves with her Family, Father Ngozi.”
Muso’s face darkened dramatically. “She doesn’t have my permission to wed!”
Adam smirked. “Blood and magic outweigh betrothal contracts every time. Your permission wasn’t required.”
Adam pulled Tulah to the front door and threw it wide. She tensed, fearful after the few times she’d tried to leave, but her husband smiled down at her and put his hand to the jamb. A wave of magic pulsed a single time around the entire frame, and Graves’ spell shattered.
Chelsea rushed through the door without consequence. Tulah realized that Muso had known the block was there by the way he cursed. Silviu growled but Georgie laughed a completely false, tinkling laugh.
“You should feel honored, Muso,” Georgeanne said. “Not everyone can say one of their daughters is good enough to be a Davenold.”
Adam ushered Tulah out into the bright London sunshine, smiling when she laughed in delight. “You’re free, honey.”
She threw her arms around him and held on tight, letting her joy flood every corner of her heart. Because of Adam, Tulah was free—safe—for the first time in her life.
Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:
The Double O Saga: Outrageous Offer
Lola White
Excerpt
Chapter One
“Dang, woman, I can hear your caterwauling all the way down at the post office.”
Only vaguely hearing him through her sobs, Hyacinth didn’t recognize the deep male voice, but that wasn’t surprising. After all, she’d only been in Creek Bend for thirty minutes—just long enough that the stage coach had departed. Just long enough to have fear tearing holes through her stomach as the prospects of her future turned darker than they’d ever been before.
“Oh, leave me alone!” Hyacinth turned her back on the male voice at the same time she shot to her feet, but a low whistle kept her from leaving—not that she had anywhere to go.
“God have mercy, woman. You here to work in the saloon? Tell me when you start and I’ll scrape a few dollars together to visit you.”
Hyacinth collapsed back onto the rickety bench as a new wave of terror tore her legs out from under her.
“But I’ve got to be your first customer, darlin’,” the stranger continued, “because them other ladies are all diseased, so it’s only a matter of time before you are too. It’s a shame, but unavoidable. For them, that is. I just forego their company, but it’s been a while and if I could be your first—”
“Oh, dear God! I can’t work in the saloon.” Head lowered into her hands, she cried harder.
“You waiting to go home, then? Because someone should have told you that the next stage won’t come through here for another two days.”
Home. No, she couldn’t go home. Not with all the nasty—though admittedly true—rumors going around. Not with her parents in their graves and the money they’d left her gone. Not with the man she’d thought to marry starting a family with another woman.
Hyacinth was beyond hopeless. Her sobs turned uglier, racking her body on the bench set along the splintered wall of the coach depot.
A sigh reached out to her and heavy steps crossed the shoddy boards half-buried in the muddy aisle the backwater town in the armpit of the American frontier insisted on calling a street. Through her tears, worn leather toes and ragged dungarees came into sight.
“You all right, ma’am?” The tone of the voice didn’t imply that its owner cared.
“No!” She answered his question in a shrill wail. “Does it look like I’m all right?”
“Don’t know. Can’t hardly see you anymore, considering the way you’re all hunched down over your own lap. What I did see was nice, though. That’s a real fine drape to your skirts, ma’am.”
Hyacinth pried her fingers off her brow, but she didn’t raise her head. Having seen enough horrified shock cross men’s faces to last a lifetime, she didn’t want to let the stranger see her eyes. She made an effort to control herself, but tears still tracked down her cheeks and dripped off her chin.
A frayed bandana was thrust into her newly-unoccupied hand.
“Thank you.” She crumpled the handkerchief against her nose. “Your kindness is appreciated, seeing as how I’ve been abandoned.”
The boots in her line of sight rocked back on their heels. “Well, give it a few more minutes and I’m sure somebody ‘round here will claim you. Women are in short supply.”
Hyacinth shook her head and let another sob break from her throat. “Oh, no man’s going to claim me. Not after the scene Ernest Horsham just enacted.”
“Hmm, tough luck then. So, you’re waiting for the next stage?”
“I don’t have the money to go back home. I don’t even have a home to go back to.” Hyacinth took the briefest moment to wipe her nose then continued as if the stranger had asked for further explanations. “I was supposed to marry him—Ernest, that is—but he has rejected me. I have no money, no place to go, no way to get back East. I have nothing and after the things he said, no one will help me.”
“That is too bad, ma’am. Good luck and all that.” The boots turned away and took a step. Then they stopped and did an about-face. “You’re the mail-order bride?”
Hyacinth nodded and plastered the handkerchief over her eyes. “It was a terrible idea.”
“It sure as hell was,” the man agreed. “Jesus, woman, he posted that ad in a hearts and hands catalog. Butt of the town’s jokes for quite a while, but then he got all puffed up when you agreed to come on out here. I’m surprised he rejected you, considering both his pride and the way your back end looks.”
“Please don’t be vulgar!”
“I’ve been accused of worse. Why did he tell you to take a hike?”
The man’s words struck deep and bounced off a steely core Hyacinth wouldn’t have guessed she had. Abused pride flooded her, finally stopping her tears as her chin shot up. She whipped the bandana off her face and jumped to her feet, bracing her fists on her hips.
She raked the man with her gaze, not that he noticed. His eyes were busy burning a path up her body, leisurely perusing the heavy skirts hiding her legs, lingering on the wide curve of her hips, which were unfortunately emphasized by her short jacket. He dragged his scrutiny higher but seemed to get caught on her chest. Hyacinth fought not to cross her arms over her bodice.
The man before her was no prize, though she’d seen worse. He was tall and rangy, yet he looked like he could use a decent meal. His chin was shorn enough to be respectable on the streets but not enough to attend church—assuming there was such a thing in Creek Bend, where the saloon was positioned cen
ter stage and the sheriff’s office was little more than a lean-to across the muddy street from the stage depot.
The man’s well-worn boots were in need of repair, as were his dungarees and chambray shirt. He wore a hat, but his dark hair was long, hanging about his collar, and his face was so wind-burned Hyacinth figured he only had a few more years before it turned to leather. But his deep brown eyes were nice and held a look that sparked something inside her besides fear and pride.
“Well?” he asked her breasts.
Hyacinth gave in to her urge and folded her arms over her coat buttons. He finally looked up at her face, but he didn’t rear back in horror.
“Well, what?” she snapped.
His expression told her he was clinging to his patience, where she was concerned. “Why did Ernest give you the boot?”
“He said I was deformed.” Hyacinth’s chin notched higher.
The man’s eyes inched lower. “You surely ain’t that.”
“He said I was too old, and that my eyes were…” She cleared her throat of a lingering sob. “Indicative of a person involved in dark things.”
“Ooh, dark things, darlin’? Like—” The man’s voice had dropped into something resembling a growl before he cut himself off and snapped his gaze back up to hers. “What do you mean dark things?”
“He accused me of being a witch or being in league with the devil.”
The stranger’s mouth kicked up at the corner. “Most women I’ve met are witches. Why the hell would he care about your eyes? A man can’t see them in the dark, anyhow.”
Hyacinth took one arm away from her chest to point to her face. “Two different colors.”
The man took a giant step toward her, nearly plastering his body to hers. Long, warm fingers captured her chin and tilted her head up until the late afternoon sun could make its way past her bonnet’s brim. “Huh. Look at that. One brown and one blue.”