At that so very public statement of confidence, Aelsong's heart swelled with pride and affection. She looked at her brother with unconditional adoration for all of two seconds before she walked to the Scotia prince purposefully and stood on tiptoe to whisper, "Black Swan," in his ear.
Duff experienced a moment of sensory overload, a little light-headedness, when Song came near enough to kiss. He couldn't decide whether to focus on her very arousing scent which would have to be called Carnal Knowledge if it could be bottled, or the warmth of her breath on his ear, or the sound of her tinkling windchimes voice, or the actual words she said. When he managed to restart his mental processes, it registered that she had mentioned The Order.
He looked down into those hypnotic Hawking blue eyes and said loud enough that everybody in the bar could hear, "The elves are in Scotia under my protection." Under his breath, quietly enough that only she could hear, he said, "Fae's gods, it can no' be."
Aelsong swallowed and looked up with wide eyes, her heart shaped mouth forming a silent "o". She started to take a step backward, but he grabbed her wrist. "What's your name?"
"Aelsong Hawking."
He looked like his future had just turned inside out and his brows drew together as he looked down at her. "Hawking?" His heart was sinking.
She backed up a couple of steps unable to look away then Duff's boisterous friends grabbed him and dragged him away.
Storm went straight back to the bar and grabbed a girl for a dance making sure they were within Litha's vision so she could see them rubbing against each other suggestively. Litha had never felt jealousy before. She'd never cared enough about what someone else did to be emotional about their behavior. But, sitting in that booth, watching Storm's hands drift further down the girl's body while she rubbed up against him made Litha grow warm with anger. The longer it went on, the hotter she got. In fact, she was so mad she was fuming and could have sworn she smelled smoke. That’s when someone yelled, "Fire!"
She looked down and saw that her skirt and the booth were on fire. She quickly got herself under control and extinguished the flames on her clothing by patting them out. Not knowing that Litha wasn't in danger, Elora, who was closest to her, pulled her away from the fire thereby setting her own shirt ablaze. In a fit of quick thinking, the people in the next snug doused her with pitchers of beer which, thankfully, had so little alcohol it didn't act as fuel and turn her into a human torch. As an added bonus, it also cooled her skin so that she wouldn't burn. On the downside, she was covered in sticky, smelly beer.
The bartender, meanwhile, had grabbed a fire extinguisher from the kitchen. When the danger had passed they were standing in the middle of a mess composed of smoke, sloshed beer, white foam, and burned leather that smelled so bad patrons couldn't wait to get to the nearest exit. Elora, sensing that somehow this was Storm's fault, insisted that he get out his Platinum American Express and pay for both the damage and the owner's loss of business for the night. Storm and Elora yelled at each other for a couple of minutes before he produced the plastic and handed it over. He was seething, angry enough that he could have set the bar on fire himself. Mostly because on some level he also suspected it was his fault, although he couldn't see how.
He looked around to see if Litha was okay and if she was still watching him. She wasn't. She was leaving, but she did pause at the exit and turned around just long enough for him to see hurt in her eyes. Son of a bitch. He'd wanted that. Now that he had it, he hated himself for it. How fucked up was that?
Ram took off his shirt and gave it to Elora. In the Ladies' she removed the ruined blouse she'd worn, threw it in the rubbish bin and used damp paper towels to dab away some of the disgusting beer smell. She put Ram's shirt on thanking the gods that they were only a few minutes away from her bath. Ram wore his jacket over his bare chest and they left making sure they had Song where they could see her.
When they got out of the elevator, Elora stopped Storm in the hall before he unlocked the door to his room. She didn't care that she was standing there in an oversized shirt, smelling like smoke and beer with her hair hanging down around her face.
"Storm, for gods' sakes, don't let what happened between us ruin your chances to have what I have."
Storm's shoulders tensed. After a few beats he turned and gave her a hard, this-is-none-of-your-business expression. "You're overstepping, Princess."
"I can't overstep with you, Storm. I may not be your family, but, in this world, you're mine. I'm going to see to it that you're happy if it's the last thing I do. If I have to tie you to a chair and set her on your lap."
He stared at Elora until he couldn't keep that image from softening the corners of his mouth.
"Yeah." She nodded. "That's what I thought." She started toward her own apartment, then said over her shoulder, "I'm not blind, you know. And don't call me Princess!"
Ram went straight to the bath and started filling the deep tub that just happened to be big enough for both of them with steamy hot water.
"Hey," she protested. "I was going to take a bath. I'm the one who smells like a burned brewery."
He dropped his jacket and leered while removing his boots and unbuttoning jeans.
"Hold your ire and kick your knickers off. I do no’ mind sharin’." He smiled at her like the cat who stole the cream. How could she protest that?
When Elora had rinsed the beer smell out of her hair she lay back against Ram, relaxing into the pleasure of his bare skin and the security of his arms.
"Elora, you're no' responsible for Storm's heart. You have no' done anythin' to feel guilty about."
"You're making too much out of it."
"If it makes you happy to play matchmaker, then ‘tis fine with me so long as I'm the one crawlin' in bed with you at the end of the day." ***
CHAPTER 9
Storm threw the keys on the table, closed his door and leaned back against it. The image of being tied to a chair while Litha sat on his lap made him hard. He figured he must finally be losing it. And who would blame him? He'd had a year of fucked up. Hell. It hadn't even been a whole year.
First, Lan was killed by a vamp and there wasn't a thing that he or Kay or Ram could do to stop it. Next Elora had literally materialized out of thin air as an unrecognizable pile of goo. When she'd recovered they learned she was an alien who had been forced into this dimension. He fell in love with her. She chose Ram and broke his heart. End of story. Boo hoo.
Did he want to be interested in a woman? No.
Was he interested in a woman? He wanted to say, "Not only no. But hell no." Problem was that might not be the truth. In his mind, he replayed the look on Litha's face when she was leaving the pub and it made him feel like he had to be the biggest bastard who ever lived. How fucked up was that? Deep and wide.
Storm pulled on the light drawstring sweats he liked to sleep in, threw the covers back, turned off the lights, and lay down on top of the sheet. He thought about jacking off, but went to sleep before he could follow through.
In his dream he undid the drawstring on his sweats and pushed them down far enough to expose the erection that pulsed against his abdomen, begging for attention. When his hand traveled down and cupped his balls, he hissed in a breath while he tried to remember how long it had been since he'd needed release so badly. He slid his hand up to the thick width of his cock and wished it was her hand encircling him, applying just the right pressure, in just the right way.
As his hand started to massage the pressure of aching arousal he saw the wall beyond the foot of the bed begin to shimmer. Litha stepped out of a diaphanous light and walked forward to stand at the foot of the bed. She was a vision, wearing an old-fashioned white, cotton nightgown, sleeveless and loose, with a low cut neckline revealing the swell and the sway of her unbound breasts. Even in the darkened room he could see how red her mouth was and he knew even without touching that her hair would feel like silk when he fisted it in his hands.
This dream was sexy. Sexy and romantic and there was someth
ing about having her stand there watching him caress himself that aroused him even more. On some level he knew that he moaned out loud in his sleep.
"Here," she said softly, "let me do that."
She raised the skirt of her nightgown above her knees so that it wouldn't catch and, never taking her eyes off him, started to climb onto the bed.
"I'm not interested in a relationship." His protest seemed somewhat compromised by the fact that he held an engorged penis in his hand. If he'd been awake, he would have been painfully self-conscious about that, but his dream self was not the least inhibited.
Kneeling on the bed next to him, she cocked her head to one side. "This isn't a relationship. It's a dream."
"It feels real."
"But it's not." Her gaze skimmed over Storm's exposed body appreciatively. When her eyes came back to his, she smiled. "You can be yourself. You can do what you truly want."
Without asking for permission she straddled him and then released the nightgown so that it drifted down and settled feather light on his legs. When she leaned toward him, he stared at the pendant that fell between her breasts and caught her rainstorm scent.
"Is this a dream spell? Are you using magicks on me, witch?"
She looked surprised and cocked her head to the side, studying him. "This is your magick, Storm. You called me from my sleep."
He considered that, assessing the odds and, oddly, coming to the conclusion that she could be telling the truth. "And you had to come?"
"No, of course not. It's my choice to be here." She looked down his body. "Were you thinking about me?" Gently, but insistently she moved his hand, replacing it with her own, wrapping around him. "Is this what you were thinking? Did you imagine my hand here instead of yours?"
His gaze darkened and his breath started to come faster. Seeing that he liked what she was doing, Litha leaned over him so that the loose neckline of her bodice drooped exposing her breasts to his view. His eyes locked on them like heat seeking missiles.
She leaned even closer so that she could speak close to his ear, increasing the intimacy, and she felt his erection swell even bigger in her hand. "Beautiful knight. I love that you compelled me. You could have summoned anyone, but it was I you called to in your sleep. Would you rather I watched you?"
Storm was so switched on he thought he might come out of his own skin. He'd never been so hot. When the pad of her thumb skimmed up his engorged staff and began to massage vee just under the base of the head, he grabbed fistfuls of bedding with both hands, and gave a tight shake of his head in answer to her question. She smiled. Eyes never leaving his, she leaned down and lazily drew her tongue across the drops of precum that glistened in the darkness. His organ jerked in her hand and he let out a sound that was something between a moan and a shout.
He was too excited to continue to lie there passive. He had to touch her, had to feel in charge. He let go of the bedding, grabbed her face with both hands and pulled her red mouth into a possessive kiss, a kiss of claiming, one that said, "Mountains may crumble. Seas may go dry, but I will never let you go'."
His tongue invaded her mouth and then she was the one who was moaning. She let go of his cock so that she could lower herself and press her body where her hand had been. Her moans implied that her arousal was keeping pace with his own. Feeling the soft swells of her breasts and the vibration of her murmurs against his chest ratcheted his passion even higher. He was thinking he hadn't known that it was possible to want something so badly and, now that he did, he would never be the same.
When Litha pulled back from the kiss she was breathing hard. "Take what you want."
Suddenly he knew exactly what that was. He flipped her over so that she was under him, pulling her nightgown up as she curled her pretty legs around his waist. "Take what you want." Every repetition of that was said more urgently until his tachometer was on overload.
He sat up long enough to take the pretty white nightgown in both hands and jerk it open unceremoniously so that little pearl buttons went flying. For a split second he stared at the miracle of the woman who was laid before him then he remembered it was just a dream. Just a dream.
He lowered his body to hers and felt the dizzying rapture of skin on skin for the first time. Perfect. He wanted to slow things down, to savor touching her, feeling her. He wanted to learn her body slowly with hands and then slowly with his mouth, but his need was too far gone for that. The smoldering desire burst into hot flames and he was suddenly pushed to a frenzy by the demanding way the witch pressed her naked entrance against him.
When he pulled his hips back and drove into her she cried out in triumph and surprise. In response, he made a sound that was more animalistic than human. He didn't care. The only thing in the universe worth thinking about was the luscious witch who was writhing under him, chanting his Anglicized name in fevered whispers.
"Angel. Angel. Angel."
As their bodies moved together, she made him feel like his thrusts were heroic. She made him feel like he was the only man ever born who could make her ripple like a river. He wanted her to know that she was the only woman who could bring him out of a half-life haze and make him crazy for her.
In his dream Storm was so close to orgasm that he had taken a breath to yell out. Then he woke.
Both erection and dream dissipated almost instantly leaving him waking face down with his draw string pants around his knees and a draft of chilled morning air cooling his bare backside. He groaned, pulled a pillow under his face and muttered curses into the down. He stayed like that until he had to choose between moving his face away from the pillow or not breathing again.
After another moment's hesitation, he turned over on his back feeling empty, unsatisfied, disturbed, and inexplicably angry at Litha for reasons that were unclear even to him.
He couldn't deny that there was a part of him being held hostage by the green eyed witch with her red, red lips and her, oh so feminine and romantic nightgown; just the kind of thing a fantasy is supposed to wear in a dream. But the other part of him was repulsed by the idea of being teased and manipulated by magicks. And what other explanation could there be for such an occurrence?
***
CHAPTER 10
After breakfast the next morning, Storm waited on the mezzanine catwalk so that he could catch Litha and talk to her before going into the War Room. When she came into sight, she saw that his gaze was fixed on her so she headed straight for him. His expression bore down on her like a thing with physical weight.
He didn't waste any time on salutations or other pleasantries, but spoke to her in a demanding tone like a man who was used to having his way. "I'd like to know your philosophy on witchcraft."
A telltale look of injury flickered across her face before she gathered her protections around her and laughed. "Well! Not exactly the way I had imagined this conversation might begin. Would you like that in ten words or less?"
"This is not a joke. Do you use witchcraft to manipulate?"
Litha was instantly serious, narrowing her eyes as her expression became guarded. "Are you accusing me of something, Mr. Storm?"
"That's Sir Storm. And answer the question," he demanded as his eyes moved downward of their own volition and locked on the pendant that fell between her breasts.
"That doesn't sound like a respectful request..." With effort he jerked his eyes back up to her face. "I will answer you for reasons that escape me at the moment, but I want you to know that I resent the implication. No. I do not use Craft to manipulate humans in any way, for any reason. Never have. Never will. Witches' honor."
Storm barked out a sarcastic laugh that was both rude and startling. "That's very funny. Witches have no honor."
"Really?" she asked. "I hope that's not true, but, in my opinion, a man who would say such an ugly thing for no reason other than to hurt someone else isn't qualified to judge who does and does not have honor. In my opinion, such a person shouldn't be knighted, Mr. Storm." And with that she turned and walked
away leaving him standing there alone and wanting to argue some more.
Certainly that was a first. No one had ever accused Storm of being short on honor before. And questioning the worthiness of his knighthood was beyond outrageous. He was furious for a few seconds until he heard his own voice saying that maybe no one had ever questioned his knighthood because he'd never behaved like a lunatic before. What he had said was uncalled for. That led him to the next logical question which was, why did he do it?
And the inescapable answer was because he had wanted to hurt her. Again. Deep and wide.
Sure as he was that he was losing it, he couldn't stop himself from pursuing her. He took three long strides and caught her arm.
"Tell me the truth, witch. Did you use a dream spell on me?"
Litha slowly turned, pulled her arm out of his grasp, and studied him a minute before answering. "Like I already told you..." Her gaze bore right through him saying, 'listen up because this part is important'. "...the magick was yours. Maybe you have some latent aptitude that's surfacing in reaction to being around me. That's all the truth I have for you.
I will say this though." She stepped back far enough to let her eyes drift all the way down his body and back again. Slowly. "If I was casting a dream spell, it wouldn't be over nearly so fast and it certainly wouldn't leave us both so... unsatisfied." She drew the last word out until there was absolutely no mistaking her meaning.
He wanted to tell himself he was shocked, but he wasn't that good a liar. It had been real. At least in the sense that their psyches had shared an extra-body experience. Of course it wasn't as real as intimacy with actual bodies, but it was a whole hell of a lot more than fantasizing. And he's the one who had originated the encounter? Was that even possible or was she just fucking with him? Well, yes, she was fucking with him. Wait. Had she just accused him of being a rookie witch and a ham handed lover who pulled the trigger prematurely?
The Witch's Dream - A Paranormal Romance (The Order of the Black Swan, BOOK TWO) Page 11