by Strong, Jory
Love, it swelled inside her, fierce and tender at the same time, and she wanted to give him pleasure, to express it in a way that would have him crying out in ecstasy.
He moaned in protest when she took her mouth from his, fingers tightening in her hair in a demand that she return.
“Let me,” she murmured against his ear, detouring there for the quick brush of lips and dart of tongue.
His hips lifted off the mattress, hard cock driving against mound and clit and abdomen, distracting her from her intentions.
“Maybe I should make you come on my belly,” she said, rubbing her clit against his length, fiery sensation streaking to her toes so they curled against soft sheets. “Isn’t that a popular male fantasy? To come on a woman’s pussy and breasts?”
His hands left her hair to grip her ass as she continued to rub and grind against his cock. “Have you been watching porn?”
She laughed. “I don’t need to now that I have you and Eamon.”
He gave a low growl at the mention of Eamon, tried to lift and settle her onto his cock. She resisted, feminine satisfaction a hot spread through her chest when she felt the spasm of his cock against her belly, the tip wet now with arousal, the musky, intoxicating scent of desire making her fight herself as well as him.
He shifted their positions so penetration became impossible, turning her into the one with the fierce need to come instead of the siren who’d wanted him to.
She moved, breath catching with each strike, each press and rub of her clit to his cock.
“Put your mouth on me,” she pleaded, hands leaving his hair to cup her breasts, to squeeze and twist and tug nipples tightened into knots of ache.
His nostrils flared. His hunger intensifying the desire. “Say please.”
“Please.” It was whispered feminine submission.
His smile was a flash of victory. “Another night I’m going to make you beg even prettier.”
“And another still, I’ll make you do the same.”
He laughed, a man anticipating rather than one afraid. “You can try.”
His mouth replaced her fingers to suck, each pull making her channel clamp and release, clamp and release.
Her head went back, eyes closing as her movements quickened, her clit swollen, erect, a throbbing center of pleasure between her thighs.
Her breath came in short pants. Arousal streamed from her slit, wetting him, wetting her inner thighs.
His breath was equally ragged, his mouth savage, inflicting heated torment with tugs and bites to her nipple, with the swirl of his tongue and hungry sucking.
The hands gripping her pulled her lower body more tightly to his. Hers was not the only frantic movement.
He thrust against her, freed her nipple to say, “Fuck, Etaín. Fuck, you make me crazy.”
“Good.” She didn’t want to be alone in her addiction, didn’t want to be the only one made helpless by a craving that intensified rather than abated.
Good. That single word echoed through Cathal like a challenge, like a red flag waved in front of a bull.
From the very first she’d had him by the cock, and now she held him with her ink, by magic. No regrets. It was the absolute truth, but he’d show her just what type of man she’d bound to her.
“Come for me,” he growled, his balls hard and tight with the need to do the same, his hands changing the angle where their bodies touched. Her clit a hot firm knob he worked against his cock, exulting in each of her whimpers, in the way she touched herself, fingers reclaiming nipples.
She was totally uninhibited. A goddess dedicated to pleasure. So sensuous he fought against lifting her, filling her and pounding into her until release took him.
“Come for me,” he said, grinding against her, watching her face flush as orgasm claimed her, giving her those moments before he lifted and positioned her onto hands and knees.
She went immediately to her elbows, canting her hips and spreading her thighs to reveal a glistening pink slit and plump folds, an offer so primal and carnal he gripped his cock to keep from immediately covering and thrusting inside her.
He was in control here. Not her.
Reaching out, he traced the seam between her buttocks, gave a husky laugh when her ass cheeks clamped in instinctive denial. He hadn’t taken her there, yet. But he wanted to, he would. The driving urge to claim and dominate lying just below the surface was a lesson he’d learned about himself thanks to her.
He traced the seam again, fingers slick with arousal coating the puckered rosette of her back entrance. “Maybe next time I’ll fuck you here. Are you going to say no?”
She shivered, erotic fear, anticipation, he didn’t know which, but it had fire streaking through his cock, everything inside him screaming for him to join his body to hers.
“Maybe I’ll say yes because I want you both inside me at the same time.”
It was his turn to react with instinctive denial, an automatic response to any allusion to Eamon. He did it with the thrust of his cock through parted cunt lips and into wet, tight heat. With pounding movement, a furious beat meant to eradicate her need for anyone but him.
She rocked backward, meeting his thrusts, driving him deeper. She took him as he took her, the sound of flesh against flesh accenting his low grunts. The feel of his balls hanging heavy and full between his thighs, striking her clit and making her cry out, filled him with savage possessiveness and feelings of power.
He staved off orgasm until hers was done, one last masculine victory before pleasure rendered him helpless, before semen jetted through his cock to fill her and the two of them collapsed to the mattress, bodies still joined.
Three
Eamon stood as Liam escorted Etaín’s brother and father into the room. He’d expected the one but not the other. He had reservations about both, given the way they’d used Etaín’s gift over the years, exposing her to danger and seemingly unaware and unconcerned about what the use of it cost her.
Both men were dressed casually, expensively. He would have preferred to delay this particular meeting but the contact was as inevitable as the impending confrontation.
“Parker,” Eamon said, acknowledging the FBI agent who remained alive only because he couldn’t be certain Etaín’s brother had meant to make her the Harlequin Rapist’s target. “Captain Chevenier.”
The men claimed side-by-side chairs. Eamon sat across from them while Liam lounged in the doorway, interested audience and lethal bodyguard.
“Where’s my daughter?” the captain said, not bothering with pleasantries, his voice edged with tension, the fierce concern of a parent.
Eamon was willing to believe this man loved Etaín as his own, despite it not being the truth. He was willing to accept that one day he might have to add these two humans and those related to them to his clan, but currently he had only one concern with respect to them. “She and Cathal will join us once certain matters have been settled.”
Twin expressions of dislike and disapproval appeared on his visitors’ faces. Eamon very nearly smiled over the reaction. If their hostility alienated them further from Etaín, and with it, human concerns, then it served him.
“Why is Niall Dunne’s son still with her?” the captain demanded.
“Surely you know she’s seeing Cathal.”
“You find that acceptable?” Disbelief, condescension, a hint of moral outrage, the question making it obvious Parker had correctly interpreted the relationship and passed the information on to his father.
Eamon shrugged. “Some battles are best avoided. I mean to keep Etaín safe and one of the things I will protect her from is the harm that comes of using her gift at your behest. You will not be allowed access to her if the purpose of your visit is to ask her to touch crime victims and relive the horror of their memories. In fact, you will be escorted out of my home immediately without seeing her if you are unable or unwilling to swear an oath you did not come here with such a request.”
The captain leaned forwa
rd, enough menace and aggression in the gesture to have Liam straightening out of his laconic pose. “If my daughter refuses to use her unique abilities, and I hear it directly from her, I’ll accept Etaín’s wishes. I don’t know who you are. Until today, I’d never heard of you or seen you in all the times I’ve been to Aesirs. I don’t know what your connection to the Dunnes is, but be assured I’ll be looking now that you’ve come onto my radar screen. I demand to see my daughter. Get her in here or I’ll—”
“Dad, let’s calm down here. Please. I need to get my paperwork wrapped up and you wanted to make sure Etaín was really okay. Eamon knows this meeting with Etaín has to happen. I let her leave the crime scene without giving a statement. I let them all leave. Let’s shelve this discussion for now. All Eamon has asked is that we promise we’re not here to ask for her help on another case. I know I’m not. Are you?”
“No.” The answer was glared, delivered with open hostility.
“Good enough?” Parker asked, meeting and holding Eamon’s gaze.
It would have to be. Eamon had vowed to himself that this night would not pass without Etaín knowing the truth of what she was, and would be. The sooner this was done, the sooner more important matters could be addressed.
“Neither of you will mention this discussion to her.”
He hadn’t intended to set the men at ease, but his words had that effect. “Fine by me,” Parker said, placing a folder on the coffee table and flipping it open. A glance at the elder Chevenier gained his acceptance of the terms, a sharp nod and an easily read expression of confidence rather than defeat.
Eamon hid his smile. Neither of them thought him capable of persuading Etaín to give up their cause of justice. They were mistaken. His word was law in the world Etaín would soon learn existed.
“I’ll return momentarily with Etaín and Cathal.”
In the presence of Etaín’s family members, his third refrained from issuing a mocking comment, though Liam’s eyes glistened with suppressed amusement and unholy anticipation.
“He who laughs last, laughs best, and that will be me,” Eamon murmured a step away from Liam. “The day will come when you fall in love.”
“You’re mistaken. That particular nightmare is not for me.”
“I think otherwise and will enjoy every moment of your discomfort.”
“And here I didn’t think you cared, Lord.”
Eamon allowed himself the smile he’d held back. There was hardly any point in suppressing it, given that its absence wouldn’t curb Liam’s tongue.
He passed through the doorway, moving without haste to the bedroom to find Etaín on her side with Cathal against her back, his arm across her belly and his thigh over hers in possessiveness.
He joined them, Etaín’s lambent gaze making him wish he could resume where they’d left off. She rose onto her elbow, tempting him with the thrust of pink-capped breasts.
Eamon leaned in, claiming them with light sucks, lingering until her soft sigh expressed her desire for him. He moved to her mouth then, a long kiss followed by a feathering of them to her ear, his tongue flicking into the canal before licking the rounded tip in both reminder and promise of pleasure.
“Mmmm, back for more,” she said, hand going to the front of his pants, sending a jolt of lightning-white heat up his spine with the grasp of his cloth-covered erection.
“I wish it were so.”
“What’s up? Besides the obvious?”
“Your father and brother are here.”
Her hand left him and he felt its loss as a howling, twisting, storm wind. His mouth returned to hers in a spill and mix of magic, his controlled and hers a wild buffeting, though there was no threat, no grappling for control other than what came of being in her presence and wanting nothing more than to join his body to hers.
He drank her down, aware of Cathal’s hand sliding up her side to cover her breast, intensifying the eroticism of being with her, though he didn’t need to share her to find utter satisfaction. She’d enthralled him from the very first and remained a dangerous fascination. He’d given her more leeway than he once would have imagined possible.
The kiss ended with a moan of protest on her part, sending satisfaction purring through him. “It’s the work of moments to satisfy the reason for their visit. The sooner we attend to them, the sooner we can return to this much more interesting pursuit.”
“True,” Etaín said, nervous at the prospect of being in the captain’s company, and then immediately irritated at feeling that way. She was self-aware enough to know what lay beneath the nervousness—hope, an often bitter emotion when it came to her relationship with the man she’d once called “Dad.” She hadn’t seen him in months, and that last encounter had ended in an argument the same as many of the previous ones had.
She played with a length of Eamon’s hair, letting the silky strands of it distract her. It made her think of gentle waves lapping over pristine beaches.
“Do you have a bathrobe I can borrow?” She’d arrived at Eamon’s estate in nothing but his shirt, the clothes she’d been wearing when she was abducted no doubt bagged as evidence in the Harlequin Rapist case by now.
“I can do better than a bathrobe.” One last lingering kiss and he left the bed. He crossed to folding closet doors, the wood polished and expensive, the swirling designs carved into it turning the functional into elegant artwork.
He pulled them back, revealing several feet worth of woman’s clothing, grouped by occasion, from casual shirts through elegant eveningwear. “I arranged for the beginnings of a wardrobe.”
Her heartbeat sped up, dismay crowding in. Everything in that closet would be far more expensive than what she would have chosen to buy or wear. Now it begins. The changes she’d known would come, the expectations she wasn’t sure she’d be able to accept or tolerate or accomplish.
She glanced at Cathal, who grimaced and said, “Lucky you. Clean clothes. Now I’m sorry we didn’t swing by my place on the way here.”
“Mine too.”
Surrendering the warmth and comfort she gained with the touch of her skin to Cathal’s, she left the bed, and he did the same, heading for the bathroom.
At the closet she liberated the most casual of the shirts, though the rich texture of the fabric confirmed her suspicion about cost. Hiding her discomfort in humor, she said, “For a second there, when I saw the clothes, I thought maybe you were a cross-dresser like Derrick.”
“That’s a show you won’t see here.”
She laughed, but uneasiness about the future had her suddenly craving a return to normal, where normal held no worries about magic, where it was defined by days spent at Stylin’ Ink, sharing insults with Derrick and Jamaal and Bryce, easy camaraderie mixed with teasing as they created art that would last only for the lifetime of its human canvas.
Eamon tugged a pair of designer jeans from a hanger. “Let’s get this over with, Etaín.”
She took them from him. For a different occasion, she’d enjoy wearing nothing beneath the clothing and knowing he and Cathal were aware of it. But to meet with Parker and the captain, she needed all the armor she could get. “Panties? Bras?”
“In the dresser. Top left-hand drawer. I’ve got craftsmen working on additional furniture.”
Her footsteps faltered. But with Cathal’s emergence from the bathroom wearing dark pants and a slightly wrinkled shirt, she left discussion about living arrangements for later. She continued to the dresser, hastily choosing silky strips of blue lingerie before getting dressed.
“Let’s do this,” she said, though her heart gave a stuttering, skipping beat at seeing Parker.
She balled her hands into fists, shoving them into her pockets. Eamon had told her he believed it was the nature of her gift to want to see everything, to know everything, and she’d lost control of it. She would have stripped her brother’s mind if Eamon hadn’t used a spell to stop her as Parker embraced her, glad she’d been saved from the Harlequin Rapist.
&n
bsp; Disapproval cemented the captain and Parker in place. Neither offered a smile or a hug. She hadn’t expected otherwise, yet that traitorous emotion of hope left her vulnerable.
An ache spread through her chest in a slow, treacherous wave. Cathal’s hand settled at the base of her spine, driving the pain behind a wall of resolve.
No regrets. There was nothing about the way she lived her life that she had to apologize for…and yet, in the same room with the man she still thought of as Dad, a part of her still craved love unconditioned on conforming to his expectations.
She let Cathal guide her to the couch, didn’t protest when he encircled her wrist, tugging her hand free of the pocket and clasping it as he sat.
Anxious to get this over with, she said, “I can guess what brings you here, Parker. What about you, Captain?”
There was censure in his expression. Hard intolerance in the presence of a man he’d convicted based solely on what his father and uncle were. Killers. No doubts there, though without her, the authorities had nothing.
“I wanted to make sure you are okay, even if the company you keep remains a concern.”
“I’m good.” She didn’t have the stomach to launch an accusation at him, that he’d had something to do with her being scooped up and confined in a small, windowless interrogation room. That he’d suggested it might break her so she’d become the prosecution’s golden witness in a case against the Dunnes.
She focused on Parker. “I won’t sign off on a lie. How do you want to spin this?” They could hardly include the terms psychic-bond or magic-infused tattoos in the official report.
“There’s enough evidence to get a death sentence anyway, so let’s keep your statement simple. Tell me everything that happened prior to your rescue.”
She did, adding her signature to the end of Parker’s written account. “Now for the tricky part.”
Cathal’s hand tightened on hers, an apology sliding into her through the contact or through the connection created by the ink on his forearms, she didn’t know which. “Not necessarily. For purposes of the report, I’ll sign a statement saying I had a tracker on you.”