“I already sent Fawn and the others in to see Rafe. While you were changing. In fact, they should have found him by now.” Missy looked toward the doors of the living room. “I can’t think what’s keeping—”
“TESS!”
Missy smiled. “Ah. I think they found him.”
“TESS!”
“Missy, one day I’m going to make you—”
“TESS!”
“—pay for this. Don’t you—”
“TESS!”
“—realize—”
“TEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!”
Missy raised an eyebrow. “Did that sound closer to you?”
“—what he’ll be like?”
The door to Graham’s library, where they had been sitting, slammed open and Rafe loomed in the entrance, chest heaving, eyes glowing, hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Tessa Bryony Menzies.”
“Yes,” Missy said, grinning over Rafe’s shoulder at Graham. “I do believe that last one was louder, wasn’t it?”
“I think it was, yes. But I’m a bad judge. I think he permanently deafened me. But at least he didn’t wake Roark.”
The couple stood there and grinned at each other until Tess had to restrain herself from slapping the both of them. She could only watch them from the corner of one eye, anyway. The other one was trained warily on Rafe.
“I think you two need to leave,” the Felix growled, never taking his eyes off Tess’s face. She wondered if he could see her swallow convulsively. “I want to talk to Tess. Alone.”
The menace in that statement made Tess dig in her heels. “That’s ridiculous. We’re in their house. They don’t need to leave. Besides, what do we need to talk about? The stuff with my grandfather is resolved, and the rest of the council said they’d be happy to talk with you at their next meeting. Everything is resolved.”
He half roared. It made him sound like an irritated … well … jaguar. “Fine. You do not wish for privacy? You will not have it. Now tell me why you never mentioned you were pregnant?”
Missy blinked and sidled around Tess and toward her husband.
“Right. And on that note…” The Luna pushed against Graham’s chest to force him out of the room and away from the door. “I believe that’s our cue to leave these crazy kids to themselves.”
Graham let her tug him down the hall, but before the door closed behind him, he turned to look over his shoulder and laughed.
“The carpet in there is not too uncomfortable,” he offered helpfully, “but I recommend you try the sofa if you’re allergic to wool.”
Missy dragged him away, scolding as she went.
Tess considered running and hiding behind them, but it wasn’t polite to cause the deaths of one’s hosts in their own home. Still, she couldn’t keep her gaze from sliding longingly toward the door.
“Tess!” Rafe stalked closer to her, looking almost more like a cat than when he was a cat. Something about that loose, deliberate way he moved. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” She stared at the center of that loose-hipped stride and forgot about paying attention.
“Tess…” His growl rumbled a warning. “Why did you not tell me you are pregnant?”
That made her gaze snap back to his face. “Not you, too.”
“Not me, too, what?”
“You’re not going to go on about curses and destiny and me getting seven women pregnant, are you? Because that’s, like, all Missy can talk about these days.”
“Stop!” He shouted it loud enough to make Tess jump. “Stop trying to distract me and answer the damned question. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I’m not.”
He opened his mouth to pour out another tirade, but stopped short in surprise. “What did you say?”
“I said I’m not pregnant.” She pushed herself up from the sofa and glared at him. “I keep telling people that, and they keep not believing it, but I’m here to tell you that it’s true. I. Am. Not. Pregnant.”
“Are you certain?”
If Tess had been holding a brick right then, she’d have thrown it at Rafe’s head with no hesitation. And a great deal of satisfaction.
“What is it with you people? Yes! I am positive I am not pregnant. Are you happy? Or do you have a rabbit you want me to kill to prove my point?”
His eyes narrowed. “How about you just let me check?”
He was on her before she could tell him what she thought he could go check. He caught her in his arms and tumbled her to the floor, twisting in midair to land on his back and cushion her fall with his body.
“This is all very helpful of you, and I appreciate your offer,” she bit out, already squirming to get away and struggling to ignore the way his slightest touch always made her crazy. “But get your hands the hell off me!”
“Not yet.” He yanked aside the collar of her sweatshirt and buried his nose against her skin. “Checking.”
He inhaled deeply.
Tess cursed and began to struggle. She felt the way her stomach turned over at his slightest touch and knew she needed to get away from him. Touching him turned her willpower into something out of Mission: Impossible—it self-destructed after fifteen seconds.
“Hands off, you furry bastard!”
He moved to the hollow of her throat, sniffed again. This time, his tongue darted out to taste her skin. She fought harder.
“I mean it! Get away, you lecherous lycanthrope!”
His teeth closed gently on her throat, and her womb contracted.
“Stop that!”
He didn’t stop that. Instead, he brushed aside the tail of her sweatshirt and slipped his hand inside her waistband, fingers gliding across her stomach and burrowing toward her already damp center. Damn him. She whimpered and tilted her hips forward. She felt his fingers dip between her slick folds and find her entrance. They slid deep, pumped twice, just enough to get her hips twitching, then pulled away. She suddenly realized she’d stopped struggling to get away. She was just about to kick him in the shins when he raised his fingers before him and inhaled. Then he frowned and licked them, savoring them like a spoon coated in cake mix.
He sucked the sheen of moisture off his fingers and purred with pleasure. Then she saw his eyes narrow and he glared back down at her. “You’re not pregnant.”
“Argh!” She felt her eyes roll back in her head and hoped it wouldn’t start spinning around while she spat pea soup. “What the hell have I been trying to tell you? The same thing I told Missy when she wouldn’t believe me, either! Well, to hell with all of you! I don’t need this shit!”
It would have made a great exit line, except that Rafe wasn’t about to let her exit. When her squirming became almost violent, he simply flipped them over and pinned her to the floor, making sure to settle between her legs where she couldn’t effectively kick him.
The sneaky bastard.
“Calm down.” He said this while he had her hands pinned to the floor beside her head and his erection nudged against the flimsy material of her yoga pants. “Do not be so upset. I was merely surprised. I thought you had to be pregnant.”
“Everybody seems to think I’m pregnant. Bad luck for all of you.” She tried bucking him off, but realized that was a very bad idea when all it did was slide his erection against her already aroused core. She went very still and contented herself with glaring at him. “But I’m not apologizing for taking care of things when you were so hot to trot you didn’t even mention the word latex.”
He reared and those amber Feline eyes glared down at her. “What do you mean you took care of things?”
“I mean I took care of things,” she snapped, not liking the way his eyes narrowed at her words. “Just because you’re irresponsible with sex doesn’t mean I intend to be. For God’s sake, if I hadn’t called Missy in a panic at two in the morning, I’d still be worrying about STDs. You never even bothered to tell me that shifters don’t get them.”
“You thought I mig
ht have infected you?” He was a picture of wounded dignity, but Tess saw his gaze soften. “I would never take a chance with your health, sweet Tess. Don’t you realize that?”
“But you did. You took a chance on getting me pregnant, which I had to take care of, and then you act like I’m some kind of villain when I tell you I did the responsible thing.”
Oh, shit. His eyes went all narrow and glaring again. “So you did do something to cancel my seed, then. Tess—”
“Oh, give me a break. What the hell kind of phrasing is that? Cancel your seed?” She snorted. “It’s not like I had an abortion, and if I had, it would have been totally my decision. For God’s sake, we had sex for the first time less than two weeks ago. We never talked about pregnancy or kids or even whether we might still be dating by the end of the month.”
Rafe looked less than impressed by her logic.
She tried to reason with him, still holding on to the naive hope that he was in the mood to be reasonable. “All I did was make sure that if one of your marauding little sperm happened to breach my defenses, that he’d quickly be shown the door. That’s it. It’s the responsible thing to do when two adults who should have known better didn’t talk about protection before they got down and dirty.”
“We will discuss responsibility later,” he said, looming over her like a personal black cloud. “Right now I wish to discuss what you used to show my marauders the door. Explain.”
She sighed and glared right back at him. “Wild carrot seed. I took a tincture every morning after we … had sex.” She found herself looking away, and realized she’d wanted to say after we made love, but she didn’t think one person could make love. That was the kind of thing that took two. “It makes the lining of the uterus too slippery for an egg to attach. So, no pregnancy.”
He hissed in displeasure. “And you did not think to discuss this with me? You did not think I had a right to be a party to this decision?”
She uttered a strangled scream. “What decision? Rafe, there was no decision. All that happened was me realizing I’d done the stupidest thing in my life and had unprotected sex with a man I’d just met. I realized that, and I took steps to make sure I wouldn’t end up paying for it for the next eighteen years. That is not something you needed to be involved in. If you wanted the right to voice an opinion, you should have voiced one before you decided it was okay to come inside me.”
He growled, sputtered and growled again. “That’s all well and good for the first time, but what about after that? It never occurred to you to discuss it with me?”
“Yeah, about as much as it occurred to you to discuss it with me. I didn’t hear you asking if I was on the pill, and you sure as hell never mentioned condoms, so don’t try to lay this on my shoulders, Simba. You’ve got just as much obligation to think these things through as I have.”
“I have obligations you haven’t even considered,” he snarled. “I have an obligation not to let my race die out. And that brings me neatly back to the topic at hand. If you are not pregnant, would you care to tell me why the seven women who just paid me a visit are?”
She set her jaw and met his glower with one of her own. It was either glower at him or let him see how much it hurt that he never considered the idea that she might be his mate. “Not my area of expertise, buddy. It’s your species and your curse. Figure it out for your damned self.”
“That is not an acceptable answer, sweet Tess.” His eyes did that glinty thing and took on the distinct glow of mischief. “You have clearly become involved in my curse, or we would not be having this conversation. There have not been seven Feline pregnancies in Manhattan in any given six months since before I was born, yet now I see that many in one week. And the only explanation I can think of centers on you. I find that to be very interesting.”
“I find it to be a pain in the ass. That seems to be all anyone can talk to me about. Apparently, that’s why all your Other friends like me—not because of my charming smile and gift for witty repartee, but because if you knock me up, your cousins can all do the same with the women they’re boinking.”
He raised an eyebrow, amusement ghosting across his features. “Boinking?”
Tess felt herself blush. “You know what I mean. It’s hardly flattering to know the rest of the world sees me as your saving womb, or something. Especially since that’s not even one of the terms of your damned curse.”
“And you know the terms, do you? Would you care to refresh my memory?”
“Shouldn’t you know it by heart? Isn’t that sort of your job?”
He leaned down until his lips brushed hers as he spoke. “Humor me.”
“Fine.” The self-control she exerted to stop herself from licking his lips should have qualified her for some sort of medal. A Purple Nipple, or something. “From what Missy told me, since you never bothered to, one of your tomcatting ancestors made the dumb move of trifling with the heart of a witch and needed to be taught a lesson.”
“Tess…”
His warning rumble probably had something to do with her editorial comments, but she didn’t particularly care.
“Since the witch was suffering from loving a man who didn’t love her enough to stay faithful to her, kittens or no kittens, she cursed him. She said that from then on, no spotted Feline would have an easy time getting the kittens her lover wanted so desperately. Until a spotted Felix found a witch mate and stayed faithful for a year and a day, there would be fewer and fewer children born to the spotted cats. That’s what Missy told me, and it looks like that’s just the problem you have now, isn’t it?”
He purred, his mouth curving into a smirk. “Not anymore.”
Tess rolled her eyes. “You don’t honestly still believe that I have anything to do with those women getting pregnant, do you?”
She knew she was in trouble the moment she said that. Because by this point, it sounded normal to her.
“Let’s consider it logically for just a moment, shall we? The curse states that in order for the curse to be lifted, a Felix—which could conceivably be you—would have to mate with a witch—and I will concede that I qualify—and remain faithful to her for at least a year and a day. Well, I can tell you right now, Pete Puma, that two out of three does not cut it when it comes to lifting curses!”
His smirk shifted into a grin, wide and pleased and toothy. “You truly do not understand, do you?”
“Understand what?”
That’s when he laughed. Laughed! As if he didn’t have her pinned to the floor, and she weren’t mad enough at him to chew through his hide.
“For a witch, you certainly seem to lack a basic understanding of magic.”
“What do you mean by that? Do you think you’re some sort of expert?”
“Not at all, but I believe I see what has happened, and I am surprised that you do not.”
“Do you work at pissing me off, or is this a God-given talent?”
He shifted her wrists to one hand and used the other to sneak beneath the hem of her sweatshirt again. When she bucked against him and tried to wriggle out of his grasp, he had the nerve to purr with pleasure and angle his hips to hers so that every time she moved, she stroked herself along the ridge of his erection.
“What do you consider to be the basis of all magic?” he asked.
She gargled in frustration. “Don’t even tell me you’re going to lecture me on spellcraft now. Listen, Sylvester, I’ve heard all this from my grandfather, and he went insane. I don’t need to hear the Magic One-Oh-One speech from you, too!”
He leaned down and nibbled at her neck, his hand gliding up to close, rough and warm, around her breast. “Just answer the question, sweet Tess.”
“Will!” She bit it out from between her clenched teeth. What she wouldn’t have given just then for the will to keep her nipple from beading eagerly at the first brush of his fingers.
“Very good.” He shifted to her throat and licked the hollow there. “And what is it called when you exercise will i
n order to cause a desired outcome?”
She felt his fingers close around her nipple and pinch, and she couldn’t keep her hips from rolling invitingly against his. She felt her folds parting beneath the soft cloth of her yoga pants and his erection nestled against her center as if making itself at home. She moaned.
“In—intent.”
“Very good, Tess.” He purred it against her throat while he pressed his pelvis into hers, grinding against her and making them both shudder. “Having discussed the topic of magic more than once with my Fae friends, I had been laboring under the impression that the key to spells—and therefore, one assumes, to curses—is to have a clear intent.”
Suddenly impatient, Rafe lifted his torso from hers and stripped off her sweatshirt, leaving it tangled around the wrists he still gripped in one hand. Then he leaned close to her, pressing skin to skin, and sighed at the feeling.
Well, he sighed. She moaned. Damn it.
Then he eased down, his hand slipping beneath her waistband and his teeth tugging her bra out of the way, leaving the cup bunched beneath her breast. He lapped once at her nipple and she shuddered.
“So if intent is the key to a curse, my sweet Tess…”
God, is he still talking?
“… what do you suppose was the intent of the witch when she cast her curse?”
He punctuated his question by closing his teeth around her nipple and nibbling. She almost came right then and there.
“Stop dicking around and just tell me what you’re talking about!”
She might have screamed it, but she didn’t care. Despite the fact that she was lying half naked on the carpet in the middle of the library of a couple she’d met less than two weeks ago.
He laughed and lifted his head, abandoning her breast but plunging his fingers between her legs to tease her soft folds. “You really do not know? Tess, Tess, Tess. What am I going to do with you?”
“I don’t know,” she hissed, “but if you don’t do it in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to have to hurt you.”
Her threat made him laugh harder. “Oh, we cannot have that.”
The phrase quick as a cat sprang to her mind as he shifted off her, stripped them both, and tumbled her back to the carpet. He had her hands pinned again before she realized they were free, but this time when she struggled against him, her shifting hips only succeeded in helping to position him at her entrance.
Drive Me Wild (The Others) Page 20