“Absolutely. I absolutely meant that, sir.” Her voice was breathy. She was bordering on speechless submissive mode and she’d never been happier about it as he kissed her, lifted her, and started walking towards his bedroom. Because in the morning he could make her breakfast, and she wouldn’t feel guilty. He could buy her small stuffed octopi, or squid, or whatever and she could be happy about it. They could watch bad sci-fi movies and eat popcorn and go on dates and have mutual friends, and she could be as normal as possible with the life she’d had. She could be normal.
She could play with him tonight. Wake up with welts. Wake up a witch. Wake up a Pritchett.
And she could be absolutely, blissfully, normal.
Epilogue
‘Magic is a Bitch’
A Pritchett Short Story
* * *
Six Months Later
The sound of chain moving in the bedroom sent a chill down Heather’s back as she fought to sit still on the couch. She was way too wound up for a Sunday. Rick had paused the sci-fi movie they were watching after her insistent rubbing against him had resulted in a hard-on, wet panties, and ended with neither of them paying attention anyway.
Now he was in the bedroom doing something delightful with chain, and Heather couldn’t slow down her pulse as her mind filled with a hundred things he might do to her. Would he chain her to the bed? The conveniently hidden cross? The buzz in her skin crackled when she heard the unmistakable thump of a wooden paddle being dropped on the hardwood floor.
A paddle. Fuck.
That turned her on even further. The hair on her arms stood up, a crackle of static ran down her spine, and she shivered — then it hit her. This was not a normal buzz in her skin.
Nope, that crackle was the magic.
The stilled image on the television screen wavered like an old-school antenna signal, and the acrid smell of magic filled the air moments before the wine glasses on the coffee table started to rattle.
Shit, shit, shit.
“Okay, breathe, Heather. Count.” She closed her eyes and folded her legs on the couch so she could focus, meditate, and stem the power that was steadily building inside her. It had been almost seven months since Neil, and Herja, and the Pritchett family’s catastrophic plummet back to mere mortal status. Heather had been stranded as the only witch she knew, and it… wasn’t going smoothly. She took a deep breath and counted, “One, two, three, four—”
POP. The light bulb in the lamp next to her exploded and she let out a yelp of surprise. Her hair felt like it was standing on end, and she looked down to see the couch levitating — again.
“DAMMIT!” She screamed and Rick came running from the bedroom in only his boxers. Boxers that were tented in front of him with an erection she’d much rather have inside her. His eyes widened for a moment, and then she watched as he calmed himself like he had so many times before. He was always careful not to freak out or shout, well, he had been careful ever since the time she’d turned a chair into kindling.
“Heather, breathe and put the couch down. Gently this time.” His voice was hard and commanding, and it filled her with a warm flood of pleasure that balanced the chaos of the magic inside her. She nodded, focusing on the command, and closed her eyes again, breathing in slowly through her nose and out through her mouth. Heather worked on centering herself, but just as she felt the magic starting to calm down his voice broke through her meditation, “Pretty girl, if you break that trophy I’m going to strap your ass until you can’t sit down for a week.”
Her eyes snapped open to see one of his baseball trophies, which usually sat on the mantle, floating up and away from it. In her panic to avoid dropping it she threw her magic at keeping it afloat and the rest of the room crashed back into place. Even as the couch slammed into the floor, and both glasses fell to spill red wine all over the rug underneath, she was able to keep the trophy suspended in the air. She winced as the rattle and crash of the room settled into silence.
Perfect, she’d ruined their evening. Again.
“Well, at least you didn’t drop the trophy.” Rick sighed with a smile and rubbed the back of his neck as she floated the shiny object to herself and plucked it out of the air. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment and he shrugged like the entire episode was nothing to worry about. She was about to apologize when he turned toward the kitchen and called back over his shoulder casually, “I’ll grab a towel.”
Heather stood and looked around the room to try and assess the damage. She flipped the overhead light on so she could see the ruined rug, and then gently returned his trophy to the mantle. His run in college had been cut short by a torn ACL, but Rick had adjusted his goals of going pro in the MLB and was now a very successful market analyst who played on the weekends. The trophies were still important to him though and she was grateful she’d been able to protect it, even if the couch had left another set of dents in the hardwood.
“I am such a fucking mess,” Heather groaned under her breath.
The magic was gone again, receding back inside her like the strange power that it was, and for the millionth time she contemplated talking to Theresa about it. But that would be stupid. Theresa couldn’t keep her mouth shut to save her life. Like, if someone put a gun to Theresa’s head and said that they’d shoot if she said a word, she’d probably ask if they were serious. Asking her to keep a secret from their family, especially one that involved Heather miraculously retaining her magic? Impossible.
“So, baby, what happened?” Rick was back with the towel and he glanced at her as he picked up the glasses and began to mop up the wine out of the rug.
“I sort of, well, I got excited when I heard the chains in the other room, and apparently that told the magic to come out and play.” Her blush heated her cheeks further and she tried to focus on the wine, trying to pull it to the surface with her power, but the moment the scent of magic returned to the air Rick looked up at her.
“Heather, stop. We can clean it up like normal people, we don’t need the magic, now go and grab another towel.” His voice was gentle again and as she passed by him he slapped her ass through the yoga pants she’d had on for their lazy Sunday. It put a grin on her face as she snagged one from the kitchen and returned to kneel next to him on the rug. He could always make her feel better, even when she royally fucked up.
“Rick, I’m sor—”
“No, baby, you don’t need to apologize.” He grinned at her, his teeth white against the scruff on his cheeks. “I’m taking it as a compliment that the idea of getting in bed with me got you wound up enough to try and take down the living room.”
She laughed. “That is exactly what happened. Was that a paddle I heard, by the way?”
“Oh, now that would be telling, wouldn’t it?” His voice was a playful growl that lightened her heart from the guilt she felt over losing control. “And you’ll find out my plan for the night soon enough, pretty girl.”
“So I didn’t ruin our evening?” Heather glanced at him as they pulled as much of the wine from the rug as possible. If they tucked it further under the couch the rug’s dark, interlocking pattern might hide it well enough to salvage it.
It was Rick’s turn to laugh as he stood up with the towels. “We still played the night you set the curtains on fire, didn’t we?”
“I was trying to light the candles. It was supposed to be sexy.” Heather sighed as she remembered the way Rick had vaulted the bed, completely naked, and rushed to the kitchen for the fire extinguisher. He’d been able to put out the flames, and now there was an extinguisher in almost every room. Just in case, he had joked the day he’d come home with them.
“You’re always sexy.” Rick wrapped his arms around her, sliding a hand down to cup her ass. His cock had softened amidst the chaos, but it was quickly hardening again and she smiled and rubbed herself against him. His groan was a reward that had her glowing for completely normal, mortal reasons. “Now, go put the towels on the washer, take the glasses to the kitchen, and then m
eet me in the bedroom.”
“Yes, sir.” Heather took them from him and watched him walk down the hall to the bedroom. The muscles moving under his tanned skin made her want to lick him from head to toe, but whether she would actually get to or not would be up to him.
It was still unbelievable how relatively normal her life was. Living with her boyfriend, having movie nights, going out with their friends, and having a lot of great sex. She had moved in two months before when the lease on her apartment was up. After the night with Neil and Herja it had been difficult to sleep there and she’d crashed at her mom’s or Rick’s most nights. That had changed gradually until she was sleeping at Rick’s all the time, and he had been the one to suggest she just move in. Since then she’d been sleeping better, and generally felt happy and normal for the first time in her life — minus the little instances of her magic wreaking havoc on their lives. She sighed as she set the glasses in the sink and checked her reflection in the window before walking back towards the bedroom.
“Kneel.” His voice rumbled off to her right as soon as she stepped through the door, but she dropped her eyes and moved to her knees as smoothly as she could with the adrenaline from earlier still thrumming in her veins. “Alright, pretty girl, ready for a distraction?”
Heather fought the urge to smile at their inside joke. “Yes, sir.”
“Good girl. Crawl to me.” Rick’s voice had such a strong effect on her. It made her pussy clench, a warm rush flood up her spine, and her skin tingle. All deliciously normal and only magical in the ways great sex always was. The wood made her knees ache as she moved towards him, but she savored it, pausing just in front of him. He circled her slowly, and she wanted to look at him, to relish the perspective of staring up the hard plane of his body. Instead, he stopped behind her and twisted his hand in her hair. “Up.”
Heather stood slowly, biting her lip at the sweet, tingling tension at her scalp. His other hand traced down her side until his fingers dug in at her waist and jerked her backwards against his chest. Heather dropped her head to his shoulder and he groaned as he released his hold on her hair. Rick’s hands slid under the bottom of her shirt and tickled the skin of her belly before slowly drawing the top upward. She arched her back as it came over her head and his lips landed on her bare shoulder as he dropped it to the floor. “Rick…” she moaned, not sure if she was begging already or just urging him on.
His teeth bit into her skin and she gasped. “Is that how you refer to me, pretty girl?”
“No, sir.” Heather squirmed against him, and his low laugh against her neck made her wet.
“Much better.” His hands moved down over her waist and caught the edge of her yoga pants. He pushed them down her thighs in an agonizingly slow tease, his fingertips tracing her skin until she was fighting to stay still. She wanted to rub against him, she wanted to turn around and kiss him and drag him to bed to fuck her until she couldn’t think about the magic any more. Instead, she simply lifted each foot in turn so he could toss the pants away from her. His voice rumbled from behind her, “God, you’re gorgeous.”
“Thank you, sir.” She smiled and dropped her head forward so her dark blonde hair could hide the blush that flushed her cheeks. She may not be as pretty as some of her family members, but Rick made her feel beautiful. Stellar. Gorgeous. Like some kind of sex goddess. It was a heady feeling, and yet another reason he had always been her favorite. Leave it to a Dom to master how to speak to a woman. He kissed across her skin as he deftly removed her bra, slipping the straps down her arms, and then her underwear was gone too.
“Lift your hair out of the way.” His command was quick, and she did, piling it on top of her head, and then she felt the smooth silk that lined the inside of the collar moving around her throat. When Rick removed his hands she dropped her hair and he pushed her forward by the back of her neck. That was when she finally noticed the chains running through loops on the wall. If someone didn’t know what they were looking at during the day, it was easy to miss the sturdy rings installed at the bottom of each end of the curtain rod. A trunk usually hid the ones that were embedded in the baseboard, but he had moved that out of the way. Once she was attached to the setup, she’d be stretched out as if on a St. Andrew’s cross. The first time he’d shown her that little trick, she’d been incredibly impressed by his ingenuity. Her heart pounded with the images that flitted through her mind, and she pressed her thighs together when he stopped her in front of the window. “You’re going to be a good girl, aren’t you, Heather? Because I want to turn your ass bright red before I fuck you.”
“Yes, sir,” she was practically breathless as she spoke. He wrapped leather cuffs firmly around her wrists and ankles and the anticipation of what he’d use once she was bound had her squirming when he raised up her arm. The click of the carabiner at the end of the chain when it attached to the cuff sent a chill down her back and she groaned. He laughed quietly behind her in response.
“So impatient tonight. You just relax, pretty girl, all you have to do is take what I have planned for you. No need to even think about it.” His words only turned her on further.
The release.
That’s what she needed. To just release herself into submission and not have to think for a bit. Not have to be so careful. Just a little bit of time where she wasn’t critiquing every move she made to make sure her family didn’t figure out what had happened. A window of time where all she had to do was be.
A deep breath and the peace of submission washed over her, accompanied by the soft clicks of the carabiners and the subtle shift of the chain against the walls. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Good girl.” His voice came from behind her and she knew exactly what she looked like chained in front of the dark blackout curtains — he’d taken pictures once. Rick wasn’t moving, he was just standing somewhere behind her, staring at her, and despite all the times he’d done it, it still made heat flush up her chest. She was grateful she was facing the wall, grateful that she could drop her head forward and focus on the steady rhythm of her breathing, on the excited pace of her pulse. This was what she really needed to do when the magic hit, or rather, this is what she needed him to do. She just needed to get tied up, chained up, bent over for a spanking — way better than that zen meditation DVD bullshit. She felt more centered and at peace now than she had during any of her visualizing peace sessions. No, a little BDSM was definitely the cure, and she was about to get her Sunday dose.
The smooth surface of a paddle moved across her ass and she moaned quietly, the anticipation building as Rick stayed silent behind her. Wooden paddles were her favorite; they had a warmth only surpassed by the leather of a flogger. They just felt good against her skin, and her body weight shifted from foot to foot as she prepared for the first heavy slap and the swooning sting that would follow. He was teasing her though, moving the paddle slowly over her ass, down one thigh, and up the other. Then he slid it between her thighs, gliding the edge between her pussy lips until she was gasping from the tension. Her mouth opened, but she kept herself from speaking and his approval was a silent wave that she sensed rather than observed.
He pulled the paddle away, and she heard the rush of air just before the first smack landed.
It jolted her hips forward, and she tugged on the chains, hissing through her teeth as the echo of pain followed. The second came just as the heat began to warm her skin, and then a third before the sting had even ebbed. At the fourth, she started to babble even though she didn’t mean a word of it, “Please, please, please…”
“You want it harder, baby?” His voice had a playful growl in it, and that insane little voice inside her had Heather nodding.
“Yes, sir,” she said with a whine, and she did want it. She wanted a sharper sting, she wanted to feel the way her body rocked with the force of his swing — and she got it. The next smack of the paddle had her crying out as the pain flashed across her nerve endings and rippled out over her skin like a chill. It made he
r body hum, and then he continued. One after another. Heat building on heat until she felt that delicious tension coiling deep inside her, making her pussy clench and her hips roll. Seeking more, seeking that edge that she could fall off of if only he would let her. If only he’d guide her over. Her fingers were wrapped tightly around the chains, and she flexed them between swings, but it was a lifeline. A tether to reality as her head swam with all the sensation, and she wanted to drop off into subspace and dive deeper into it.
She wanted to ask him to do it harder.
Maybe he had heard her thoughts, read her body language, or she’d actually begged out loud, but the next swing was much harder. The pain lit up inside her like a flashbulb, and she screamed, but it quickly devolved into a moan that left her hovering at the edge of an orgasm. Her skin was hot, and the pulse in the welts across her ass seemed to be tied directly to her clit. The paddle slapped against the floor and then his hands were moving over the searing skin, one slipping over her hip to dive between her thighs. Heather knew she was moaning and whimpering, a constant stream of noises as his fingers found her clit and he pressed himself against her ass. Just as the fabric of his boxers scraped across her skin, scratching at the welts and lighting up the pain in new ways, a thunderous wave of pleasure crashed through her and she dug her nails into her palms.
“Oh God, sir, please — fuck — please, I can’t hold it!” Heather shook her head, trying to push back the orgasm as it threatened to hit without permission. The trembling shook her and she whined, but then his voice rumbled against her ear.
“Come for me, pretty girl.” And at his command she did. It was a white-out of pleasure behind her eyes, and her body tightened and shivered against his as his fingers continued to roll in tight little circles around her clit, dragging out the pleasure until she was gasping through the end of the orgasm. Just as she was beginning to come down, her cheeks damp with tears, he thrust inside her. It was a whole new wave of sensation, and they both moaned loudly. Her thighs trembled, spread too wide by the chains, but Rick wrapped his arm around her waist and held her tight against him as he started to move. His cock filled her, and pushed her towards another orgasm faster than she was prepared.
Deviant Attraction: A Dark and Dirty Boxset Page 30