by Sam Crescent
“Don’t worry, Tala. I’ve got you,” Channing says, reaching up to push my hair behind my ear. “I’ll tell them the truth. Holter kidnapped me because he found me alone on the road. He took me here, beat me up, stabbed me, stole my clothes. He was going to murder me until you stopped him. Nothing about my story is a lie, baby.”
He’s right. The only part we’ll leave out is why Holter took Channing. It’s irrelevant anyway, now with Holter dead.
“I know people at the hospital. It’s all good, sweetheart. I promise.”
I lean into his touch, his words. I do need this, whatever this is. Love, I suppose.
Chapter Ten
Channing
My tie is choking me. Again. It’s been almost a year since I stood here, almost in the exact same place, grappling with my tie while waiting for my brother’s bride to walk down the aisle. But it’s not Rafe’s woman I’m waiting for this time.
It’s mine.
The music starts up, the guests—family and friends, shifters and humans—settle in their seats. After the whole Bryce Holter thing settled down, and my wounds healed up, Tala finally agreed to marry me. I almost lost her again six months ago when I told her I wanted to join her on the local police force. It took a hell of a lot of convincing, but I kicked ass all the way through the academy, and I think she likes having me by her side. She’s my boss now, instead of Rafe. And Rafe had to hire somebody new to replace me at the shop. I like him more, now that I don’t have to take orders from him all the time.
I’d rather take orders from my woman.
“Look alive, bro,” Rafe says, elbowing me. “Here she comes.”
Sweet Jesus. A door opens from outside and there she is. She’s walking toward me with the sunlight shining behind her, her white dress glowing and her beautiful dark hair shimmering.
Goddamn.
Her eyes are sparkling in the soft light of the church. I never thought this would happen. There’s a tightness in my chest and in my throat. Weylin is standing on my other side and he reaches out and squeezes my arm, just for a second, reminding me to breathe, I think.
When I catch my breath, it comes out as an exhalation with her name on my lips.
“Tala.”
She smiles, stepping up to stand next to me on the dais. I know there are other people here, watching, but I don’t care. I stare at her, drinking in her beauty, basking in the reality that she’s finally marrying me.
The ceremony starts and we exchange the vows, the rings, the kiss. The kiss. This is where I almost lose my cool for real. Her dress is insane. The neckline plunges low between her breasts and hugs her curves tight. She’s a present wrapped in silk and I want to unwrap her.
So when it’s time to kiss her, I go for it, really go for it. I only stop when she bites me, gently, on my bottom lip. “We have an audience, Channing. Remember?” I hear her words, but her voice is anything but angry. It’s amused, I think. And aroused.
The music roars to life again. We step down from the dais, and I get high-fived and back-slapped all the way down the aisle. The second we’re outside, I draw her to me, kissing her again.
“We’re supposed to meet the photographer in the garden behind the church,” she says, laughing when I let her pull away to catch her breath.
“We will,” I promise her. “Soon.”
I’ll die if I don’t have her now. Waiting for hours until the reception is over? No way.
I take her hand, leading her out to the parking lot by the reception tent, where I saw her more than a year ago, for the first time since she broke my heart.
“Where are we going?”
I smile. “We’re coming full circle, baby.”
She smiles back. Yes. She’s game for this, then. I pull my car keys out of my pocket and open the back door. My car is hidden, surrounded by trees. I glance around. No one is watching.
“Get in,” I command, not that I need to. She’s already sliding into the back seat, tugging me behind her by my tie.
I slip inside, pulling the door shut. She’s kissing me. Everywhere. My neck, my face, my lips. I take her lips in mine and she bites me again. Damn. “Tala,” I moan.
She’s unbuttoning my fly with one hand, massaging my cock with the other. I thrust into her hand, desperate for relief. “Tala. I want us to go at it hard, baby.” I know she knows what I mean by this. I want us both to shift and then screw until we both end up scratched and bleeding.
“We can’t.” She laughs. “Not now, at least. We’ve still got photos and a reception to get through.”
“Fuck,” I gasp as she wraps her hand around me like a vise. Then she suddenly releases me, leaving me aching. Through a heavy-lidded haze, I realize she’s reaching under her dress, slipping off her panties. “God, yes,” I say, my words a hoarse growl.
I wrap both hands around her body, laying her flat on the seat. I want to rip this dress off her.
“Remember, Channing. Careful.”
It’s like she can read my mind. “Later then,” I promise her. Just wait until later.
As carefully as I can, I push her skirt high, sliding my hands along the smooth, silky skin of her thighs. She lifts up, high enough to capture my mouth with hers, kissing me, kissing me. Her breath is soft and panting and the sound of it pushes me past my last threshold of self-control.
“Tala…” It’s all I can manage. I cover her body with mine, lifting her hips up to mine, then I shove my cock into her, all at once.
She cries out, arching her spine, wrapping her legs around me. “Channing.”
I pause, catching my breath. “Goddamn, Tala. I will never get tired of hearing you say my name like that.”
She smiles. “Anytime you want,” she says, her voice husky.
Anytime and forever, now that she’s married me. The thought sends another surge of sizzling heat through my cock. I thrust again. Deep. It’s not enough. I plunge into her again, harder this time, going deeper still. Her breath catches on a sharp inhalation and I know I’ve hit right where she likes it. I do it again. And again. She starts squeezing me with her inner walls every time I push into her, setting me on fire.
“Fuck, Tala,” I gasp. When she wraps her legs around me tighter, pulling me in impossibly closer, I lose my ability to talk. “I … ah, God. I’m going to … Tala.” I give up trying.
Suddenly, I notice her chin is tilted high, a low whimper escaping her lips. I know what this means. And not a minute too soon. I drive myself into her on one last, savage thrust. “Channing!” She screams my name, her hips crashing into mine as she works herself on my cock. “Husband,” she whimpers. “Husband.”
That does it for me. I come in a white-hot blaze, wave after wave of blinding pleasure crashing over me. A harsh cry rips from my throat. My hips keep thrusting, riding the aftershocks. Husband, she said.
“You’re mine,” I manage to whisper. “Forever, Tala.”
Mine.
The End
www.evernightpublishing.com/roberta-winchester
MY VERY SOUL
Tesla Storm
Chapter One
If there was anything to be said about the house of Elliot Rochester, it was this: something about it was wrong. It was huge, yes—a mansion if ever I had seen one and breathtakingly beautiful. The sprawling building sat at the edge of a glassy lake, complete with swans. The west-side walls were blanketed in a thick carpet of ivy, and the garden on the east side was lush and meticulously cared for. Every bloom was perfect, and not a petal seemed out of place. Every brick was aligned with the next, and every shutter was hung perfectly level. But that was it—the place was too perfect, as if it would disappear in the night, taking all the inhabitants with it.
It also had exactly zero cell service.
It wasn’t, strictly speaking, my idea to work for a billionaire recluse in rural New Hampshire. In fact, it was the complete opposite of what any freshly graduated journalist would want. But as it turned out, my mother had been right—there just w
asn’t much you can do with an English degree. At least live-in tutors made money.
The front door, in keeping with the rest of the home, had an old-fashioned and heavy brass knocker that I stared at for at least thirty seconds before actually using it. And just as I expected, the person who answered the door was not my boss.
“You must be Miss Edwards,” she said, pushing a shock of curly red hair out of her green eyes. “Come in.”
“Jessa,” I corrected her with a small smile. “Please.”
“Oh.” She smiled back, revealing a little gap between her two front teeth. “Then you can call me Grace. Grace Peterson.”
I offered my hand to her, but she reached for my bags instead.
“I’ll get you settled in.” She lifted my suitcase as if it weighed nothing. “Mr. Rochester will want to have dinner with you.”
So formal. I shouldered my duffel bag and dragged my footlocker over the threshold.
The inside of the house was just as immaculate as the outside. The banister curling around the staircase was clearly hand-carved, and the walls were hung with paintings that must have cost a fortune. I tried not to stare.
“This is your room,” Grace explained, depositing my suitcase in front of a massive mahogany door complete with wall sconces on either side. With a smooth movement, she unhooked a ring of keys from her hip and dislodged a long, antique-looking specimen. She slid it into the lock easily, and with a metallic clunk, the door swung open.
Inside, there was a four-post bed enclosed with heavy velvet curtains, a stone fireplace, and a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the west wing of the house. From my window, I could see a candle lit in the downstairs west wing, the light nearly obscured but for one small sliver between curtains.
“You’ll want to wash up,” Grace advised, giving me a once-over. “And dress for dinner.”
She gave another half-smile, pocketed the skeleton key, and slipped away.
I tried not to think about her judgmental stare at my t-shirt and jeans.
****
Taking a page from Grace’s book, I wore a dress to dinner. It was the only one I brought, but judging by the attire of the rest of the dinner party, I would need to buy more. Addison, the little girl I’d be spending my days with soon, was dressed in her Sunday best, a pink cotton dress and matching hair ribbons in her pigtailed hair. She was the picture of good manners, waiting quietly to be served and only staring at me when she thought I wasn’t looking
Grace wore a different dress—a black, low-cut number that highlighted her ample chest, freckles sprinkled above and below her collarbone. And at the head of the table, in a sleek black suit, sat Elliot Rochester. The shirt inside his suit jacket was unfastened at least two buttons down, and he had abandoned his tie to eat. The swell of his Adam’s apple peeked through the gap in the shirt, leading to a square jaw covered in a faint shadow of dark stubble. From this side of the candles burning on the table, that was nearly all I could see. Well, that, and the dark eyes peering from beneath a head of dark curls.
“You graduated from where?” he asked me, savagely spearing a potato with his fork. “Some public university?”
“Michigan State,” I answered, sawing a piece of steak in two.
“Mmph.” Another bite of potato, just as violent as the first. “So you think you’re overqualified. Too good for the job?”
He locked those dark eyes on me again, and the full force of them felt like a palpable thing, like a wall of inexplicable fury coming across the table at me.
“I’m not too good for the job,” I replied carefully.
“But you do think you’re overqualified,” he pressed, a nasty smile twisting his features.
I met his gaze levelly. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
Grace’s fork clattered to her plate, earning a look from everyone at the table. I wondered absently whether it was intentional because in a second, she was clearing her throat and speaking.
“Why don’t you tell Jessa your favorite subject, Addie?” she prompted the little girl.
“Oh, that’s English.” Addie smiled wide. “Just like you. I want to be a writer.”
I returned her sweet smile. “That’s wonderful! We’ll have to work on that as soon as possible.”
A snort of derision came from the end of the table.
“That is,” I continued, against my better judgment, “unless your daddy doesn’t approve.”
I raised my gaze to Mr. Rochester, not shying away when those black eyes bored into mine. I didn’t even blink.
“Uncle,” he corrected me stiffly. “I’m her uncle.”
I was still staring at him, my jaw set and my dinner forgotten, when Grace rose suddenly.
“Addie, time for bed,” she announced. And with a twitch of her mouth, she took the little girl’s hand and left the cavernous dining room.
“I think I’ll join them.” I rose from the table, nearly knocking over the empty wine glass by my place setting. And I nearly made it out the door before a soft, strangled sound came from him and halted me.
“For us to coexist, you’ll need to understand,” he managed with difficulty. “I can be … difficult at this time of night.”
I shot him a glare. “And I am tired.”
Without another look in his direction, I followed Grace and Addison up the stairs.
****
It was a few hours after dark, as I was in the hazy space between sleep and awake, when I heard the subtle chunk sound from across the room. Soft as it was, I nearly jumped out of my skin in the darkness. It could have been anything—old houses made plenty of night noises, didn’t they?—but it wasn’t anything. I recognized the mechanical sound from earlier in the day.
It was the lock.
To check test my hypothesis, I crept across the room and tried the door handle. It didn’t budge. I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the fear snaking up my throat. I tried to tell myself that I was safe in here. After all, wouldn’t I rather be locked in than out? Here, nothing could get to me. But that did little to ease my terror. If Grace Peterson were locking me in this room, she was trying to keep me away from something. The question was … what?
That settled my mind a bit. Questions, no matter how dangerous, were the territory of journalists everywhere. The more dangerous the question, the better the story. And that was what convinced me to climb back into bed, only succeeding in resting my eyes for an hour or so.
Sleeping in the eerie chamber at the top of the stairs proved even more difficult when the moon rose—full and luminous—to flood through the space between the dense curtains. With intentions of dousing that light, I rose from the soft mattress and padded to the window. Taking hold of one velvet curtain, I yanked the heavy fabric to the side, but it hardly budged. The next violent pull moved it half an inch.
Maddening.
Digging my fingers deeper into the velvet, I gritted my teeth, planted my feet, and prepared for the end-all-be-all death match with the curtains that prevented me from my much-needed sleep. But then, a sound.
The echoes of furniture being jarred made me freeze, hands still buried in material for a moment. Something like a snarl followed, more thumping, and a short squeal. My curiosity got the better of me, and I dropped the curtains to press toward the window. Below, the only light to be seen was the candle still burning in the bottom window. And after a quick flash of movement, that too was extinguished.
In the oppressive blackness that followed, only one sound could be a heard. A soft, mournful howl echoed through the mansion, raising goosebumps on my flesh.
Chapter Two
For the rest of my first week, I was mostly spared any interaction with the master of the house, which was to my liking. My bedroom door was also unlocked, which made me feel as though the events of the first night were all part of an elaborate nightmare. My time was spent mostly with Addie, who obediently completed her grammar exercises, played the piano, and sat politely. It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, i
nteresting work. But something about the household—something beyond the strange first night that I wasn’t sure I remembered quite right—still kept my interest.
In Grace’s small smiles and frequent disappearances, there was a secret. And in Elliot Rochester’s black eyes, there was something far more dangerous. But it was something I liked looking at all the same.
The only interruptions of my time with Addison were the nightly dinners Mr. Rochester insisted upon, always consisting of multiple courses, a red and white wine, and other perfectly ridiculous luxuries. I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy them though. They provided me with an opportunity to watch him, and in some deep part of me, I suspected he was watching me too. Taking stock. Making judgments.
Tonight, Addie had abandoned the adult dinner for something more kid-friendly in her room. I couldn’t blame her. One of the courses was a cold soup, some kind of gazpacho with a blood-red shiraz to accompany it. It was not something that would have appetized me at her age, either. I was taking my first swallow of wine when he finally looked up from his own bowl and addressed me.
“Is the soup to your liking?” He rested his elbows lightly on the table, peering at me with sudden intensity. “If it isn’t, we’ll send it back.”
“I haven’t tried it,” I admitted. “I’m sure it’s just as delicious as everything else. I’m just not used to … this.”
His head of raven curls cocked to one side, and the movement revealed a warm glint to his eyes. They weren’t black after all— they were deep brown, flecks of gold showing under those dark lashes. A faint smile curled under the straight line of his nose.
“This being … the finer things?”
“I suppose.” A smirk crossed my features. “I am a lowly journalist from the Midwest, after all.”
His smile widened to show a flash of white teeth. “You’d better get used to the finer things, Jessa Edwards from the Midwest.”
“Or what?” I countered. “You’ll hors d’oeuvre me to death?”