Witch's Hunger

by Deborah LeBlanc

“Maybe,” Socrates said and stretched.

  “You on the other hand may not be in hiding, but you sure seem pretty chilled considering all that’s going on.”

  “My job has always been to look after you, warn you of impending danger and offer advice, all of which you routinely brush off.”

  Viv headed for her bedroom door, then stopped and turned to him. “I take your advice into consideration...sometimes.”

  “My point exactly,” Socrates said.

  “I said sometimes because most of the time what comes out of your mouth is nonsensical ranting. You have an attitude, cat.”

  “A familiar mirrors his mistress,” Socrates retorted.

  Viv blew out a breath. “Whatever. I don’t have time to argue with you. I want you to stay here. There’s a lot going on, and I don’t want you to get hurt. I know you’ve overheard about the Cartesians and that we’re missing some of the Originals. I don’t need to be worried about you, so stay put.”

  “Oh, I plan to,” Socrates said. “But if I may...and even if I may not...I will leave you with this one piece of advice, Ms. François.”

  Viv rolled her eyes. “What?”

  “The gentleman who awaits you downstairs...”

  “Yes?”

  “Be careful, Vivienne.” Socrates looked at her solemnly. “Beware of him.”

  She frowned. “What are you talking about? Is he dangerous?”

  “In more ways than you know. He won’t harm you physically. In fact, he’ll do quite the job of protecting you. It’s your heart that concerns me.”

  “Well, don’t let it.”

  “Vivienne,” Socrates warned. “He may be your undoing.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I remember. I can’t marry or live intimately with a human. I don’t need to be reminded of that again.”

  Viv left the bedroom, closed the door and hurried down the stairs. She slowed considerably midway down the staircase, when Nikoli swung around the newel post at the bottom step and faced her.

  He was breathtakingly handsome. She wanted to jump from the middle of the staircase right into his muscular arms. And she knew without question he’d catch her effortlessly. So strong. So tempting. She’d give up half her Grimoire to taste his full lips.

  “Are you all right?” Nikoli called up to her.

  His voice startled Viv back into action. She clambered down the stairs. “Sorry. Just thinking about the supplies we need. Wanted to make sure I didn’t forget anything upstairs. Now we have to go to the back of the house, to the workshop. That’s where Gilly keeps her bloodstones.”

  Nikoli gave her a small smile, bent at the waist and swept his right hand out like a gallant knight. “After you, milady.”

  Viv squashed back a groan of desire, then held her breath as she scooted past him. If she had to inhale his scent one more time, all bets were off. She’d strip him naked here and now and have her way with him.

  Keeping her eyes focused straight ahead, Viv meandered through the dining room, then into the kitchen and to the back door. She opened it, went down two steps and signaled for him to follow her outside.

  The workshop was a thirty-by-forty-foot structure, painted beige with forest-green shutters. Evergreen foliage grew in planters that bordered the two front windows. It looked more like a cottage than a workshop.

  They never locked the building, so Viv let herself in and flipped on the light.

  She turned to motion to Nikoli and nearly ran into him as he was right at her back. Viv swallowed hard and pointed to the satchel hanging from her right shoulder.

  “I’ll get the bloodstones,” she said hoarsely. “How many do you think we’ll need?”

  “Four for each holding area. So twelve should do it.”

  “All right,” Viv said. “I’ll bring sixteen just in case. You never know. One might break or we may wind up needing extras. Always better to have more than not enough, right?”

  Nikoli gave her a sultry look. “I agree. It’s always better to have more.”

  Viv cleared her throat and pushed her way past worktables covered with artist’s palettes, paintbrushes, strips of canvas and jars of crystals and dragon’s eye that they occasionally used for spells. Gilly was the expert when it came to understanding the properties of every gem and crystal known to man. To Viv, they all looked like pretty rocks.

  Beyond the tables, near the back left corner of the cottage, Viv found a large woven basket sitting on the floor. It was filled with the bloodstones. Gilly had either hit a sale or had been hunting them on her own and hit the mother lode.

  “Would you mind holding the satchel open while I go through these?” Viv asked Nikoli, who stood at her side.

  “Of course.” He took the satchel from her shoulder and opened it wide.

  Viv squatted near the basket, and Nikoli followed suit. Trying her best not to bump into him, she started rummaging through the bloodstones, choosing the largest in the lot. She might not have been touching Nikoli, but there was no getting past his scent, a mixture of leather, musk and fresh, rain-kissed air. She felt her breath quicken.

  What that man did to her should be against the law. No other male had ever affected her this way. A jumble of emotions flip-flopped within her heart and mind. And that wasn’t even taking into consideration the physical reaction he caused in her. Her body seemed to disconnect from her brain and simply react to him. She was thankful for the sweater she’d chosen to wear, for she felt her nipples harden.

  Viv narrowed her eyes and forced herself to concentrate on the bloodstones, rummaging through the entire basket.

  “Are you certain we won’t need a ladder?” Nikoli asked.

  “Positive.” Viv struggled to keep her eyes away from his mouth. So far she’d collected eight fist-size bloodstones. “The ones I put in the satchel are the biggest bloodstones we have. The rest are smaller.”

  “As long as they’re larger than the one on my actual scabior, it should work. It just needs to protrude above the top of the post. By the way, those posts are solid, right?”

  “Of course,” Viv said. “Any Loup could swipe down a hollow post in a nanosecond.”

  “I figured as much,” Nikoli said. He peered into the satchel, then stuck a hand inside and scrounged about. He glanced up at her. “What’s with the yarn?”

  “Backup,” she said. “For emergencies.”

  Nikoli grinned. “You know I want to ask what emergency would call for red yarn, but you’re a Triad, so I’ll leave it at that. Red yarn it is.”

  Viv couldn’t help but smile back at him. He knew when to press and knew when to pull back, the markings of an intelligent man.

  She went back to rummaging for bloodstones, chose eight more of the largest remaining stones in the basket and placed them gently into the satchel.

  With that done, Viv sat back on her haunches. “I think that’s all we’ll need. Oh...wait.” She swiveled to her right, dropped to her knees and crawled to a small, white cupboard a foot or so away. She opened it and pulled out a pouch that had FIRST AID written across it in red.

  She looked back and tossed the pouch over her shoulder to Nikoli. He caught it in midair, then dropped it into the satchel.

  “I thought you did your own healing,” he said.

  “Oh, we do. But having a Band-Aid around never hurts.” Viv crawled back over to him, all the while wondering why she just didn’t get to her feet and walk out of the workshop.

  When she reached him, she sat cross-legged on the floor. She dug through the satchel: bloodstones, flashlight, first aid kit, yarn. “I think we’re good,” Viv said, chancing a look at his face. Big mistake.

  While she’d been taking inventory of the items in the satchel, Nikoli had evidently lowered himself beside her to check out the contents, as well. When she turned to him, they w
ere but a breath apart.

  Both of them froze, eyes locked, and in that moment the rest of Viv’s world disappeared. All that existed was the scent of him, the brawn of him. His gorgeous face, his silky hair, his Van Dyke that she longed to touch. The only thing either of them had to do was move a fraction of an inch and their lips would meet.

  Her body raged with desire. Her mouth went dry, her breathing labored.

  Before Viv knew it, not knowing who made the first infinitesimal move, she found her lips on Nikoli’s. From the moment they touched, their kiss grew fervent, hungry, familiar. His mouth, his essence, felt like something Viv had never experienced before but had craved, starved for it for an entire lifetime.

  She had no thought of the Cartesians or her Loup Garous. Of any mission or plan. All she had on her mind was the feel and taste of Nikoli Hyland. And the feeling that she’d die without more.

  Nikoli leaned forward, gently pushing her onto her back. Viv’s legs uncrossed naturally.

  He sat beside her right hip, never moving his mouth from hers. His hands cupped the sides of her face, stroked her hair. His fingertips ran down the sides of her neck. His tongue probed the inside of her mouth, and she sucked on it greedily, wanting him to explore every inch of her. Wanted his tongue to run down the length of her body and back up again.

  Viv had no conscious thought of time or place. They could have been in the middle of a public arena for all she cared. She wrapped a hand around his neck, pulling him down harder against her, and moved her other hand to his chest, feeling the tautness of him, searching for buttons. She found two and quickly unfastened them, her knee brushing against the hardness trapped behind his black jeans.

  Finding a third button, Viv fumbled with it, then felt one of his large, strong hands grasp her wrist and gently pull it away. He held her hand against his chest, over his heart, and she felt the maddening beat of it. It matched her own.

  Without breaking their kiss, Nikoli moved her hand from his chest to over her head, where he held it against the floor. The fingertips of his free hand roamed down the side of her cheek, traveled down her neck, then lower. Over her sweater, across her left breast. Lower still, until she felt his fingers find their way beneath her sweater.

  The softness of his touch drove her mad. She wanted to rip off her clothes and press her naked body against him. She needed to be filled, to be fed.

  Nikoli’s fingers hesitated over the top of her half-cup bra that barely contained her rock hard nipples. That’s when she finally broke their kiss and panted. “Yes—yes.”

  Viv closed her eyes and arched her back, encouraging him to take more. His fingers found her right nipple, and he rolled it gently between his thumb and forefinger. She groaned loudly, felt her body quiver. She had never been touched so completely. The sensation went beyond flesh on flesh. It reached down to her core. Viv heard herself begging, pleading, “More...more.”

  Nikoli didn’t hesitate to oblige. He lowered his mouth to her nipple, ran his tongue over it, let his teeth softly scrape over it, and Viv felt her hips rise and fall. Rise...fall, as if she rode the hardness that gave claim to his own arousal.

  As his lips and tongue worked their magic over her right breast and nipple, his hand moved to her left breast, where he found it swollen with passion, that nipple just as hard as the other. He gently rolled it between his finger and thumb, then tugged on it—released it, then ran his thumb over it.

  Viv became blind with need. She groaned with desire.

  When Nikoli’s mouth and tongue moved slowly across her sternum to her left breast, Viv thought she’d lose her mind. She desperately needed him inside her.

  “More,” Viv cried out. “Oh, Nikoli...”

  The sound of his name seemed to trigger something in him, for his fingers traveled quickly down her stomach to the top of her jeans. He unfastened them, and she felt his fingers work their way inside.

  “Yesss,” she panted and lifted her hips.

  His hand moved lower, his fingers inching their way beneath her panties. Then finally...finally—his hand cupped her heat.

  Viv groaned loudly and arched her back again. He lowered his mouth to hers once more, and his tongue pushed its way into it. It darted in and out of her mouth. Soon his middle finger dipped into the swollen wetness of her and took on the same rhythm as his tongue. In...out, his finger reaching to the farthest depths of her being. Viv felt a wave of pleasure build up inside her. Higher, stronger, and she held her breath, waiting for it to crest and wash over her.

  She didn’t have to wait long.

  With his fingers stroking, probing, pressing deep within her, Nikoli’s palm brushed against her swollen nodule of lust, and Viv cried out. His palm brushed against it again, his fingers plunging deeper, and in that moment the tsunami that had been building inside her reached its peak and crashed over her again and again. Her mouth flew open, but she remained wordless—mindless, as the powerful orgasm consumed her.

  She finally let out a guttural moan of pleasure so loud it deafened her own ears. Nikoli held still as her body contracted around his finger. The waves of pleasure seemingly endless. Viv shuddered until the waves calmed.

  She never felt him remove his hand or refasten her jeans. The next thing that drew her consciousness to here and now was the touch of his hand on her cheek. He kissed her lips, her nose, her eyelids.

  When she opened her eyes, he was looking down at her, smiling softly. His eyes never left hers as he straightened her bra and lowered her sweater.

  Warm butter seemed to flow through Viv’s body, and she didn’t want the sensation to ever end. She wanted to stretch like a cat and curl up next to him and sleep. She didn’t want to let this moment go. She didn’t want the peace she felt within her body and mind to leave.

  His hand moved over her lips, and Viv smelled her own passion on his fingers, which sent a flare of heat through her body once more. Nikoli must have sensed it because he drew his hand away and placed it at his side.

  He kissed her gently. “You’re so beautiful, Vivienne. So much woman.” He let out a deep sigh. “We must go now,” he whispered and released her hand that he’d locked over her head.

  She tugged at him. “But...you...”

  “Shhh,” he murmured and kissed her again. “There’ll be time for that later. Right now we have things to tend to. Come.”

  Viv wanted to say, “I just did,” but kept the comment to herself. She felt as though she’d been left to wander in déjà vu-land. Her premonition the night she’d first met him had been spot on, almost to the exact moves.

  She felt light-headed when Nikoli helped her to her feet. He took the satchel and hefted it over his right shoulder.

  On wobbly legs, Viv followed him out of the workshop. He closed the door behind them, then took her hand and led her to his Camaro.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, opening the car door for her.

  “Yes,” Viv said softly. The world still looked glossy through her eyes.

  He smiled at her, and they loaded into the car and headed for the ferry.

  Despite where they were headed and all that faced them, Viv had never felt more alive in her entire life.

  Chapter 17

  As they drove to the dock where the ferry was moored, Viv found herself wishing the car had a bench seat so she could sit closer to Nikoli. They rode in silence, but she kept her eyes on him as he watched the road. Every so often, he’d cast a look in her direction. At times his expression held the appearance of ultimate satisfaction. Other times, he appeared disconcerted. A confusing combination.

  Viv didn’t want to think about what had happened in the workshop. She just wanted to feel it. The residual power of it still echoed in her body. If she overthought it, like she did most things, she’d miss out on the simple sensation of pleasure.

  It did
n’t take long, however, for her mind to take the reins and say, Bitch, what did you just do? She grimaced at the voice yelling in her head.

  What had she just done? When Viv thought back on it and tried seeing it through Nikoli’s eyes, she imagined him thinking her to be a wanton harlot in heat. Condemnation and embarrassment attempted to override the pleasure she’d tried so desperately to hold on to.

  Viv folded her hands in her lap and rolled her shoulders forward. The last thing she’d ever want was for Nikoli to think of her in such a negative way. But there was no way for her to undo what had already been done.

  She peered over at Nikoli and caught him watching her with a smile. They’d stopped at a red light at the corner of Toulouse and Dauphine.

  “Uh...” Viv said, unsure of how to say what she needed to tell him. “Back there... I mean at the, uh...the workshop. I—I don’t know what came over me.” She lowered her head and wished for once her hair wasn’t pulled back in a braid. Her cheeks felt like they were on fire. “I just wanted to, uh...to say I—I’m sorry. I don’t know what—”

  Before Viv could finish, she felt Nikoli’s hand gently take hold of her chin and turn her face toward him. Holding her there, he steered the car over to the side of the road with his free hand, came to a stop, then shoved the gear into Park.

  He turned to her. “Vivienne, don’t ever apologize for being who you are. You’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever known. Not only physically, but your heart, your mind. I was drawn to you the moment we met. You never need to apologize for your passion. It’s refreshing, exhilarating. You’re open, not only in what and how you think, but in your sexuality, and you allow your body the freedom to express itself honestly. I lo—appreciate that about you.”

  “But isn’t a woman’s body reacting to sex normal?” she asked.

  Nikoli arched a brow. “Far from it. Some women, for whatever reason, have trouble letting go. They need to be coaxed to give their body permission to experience sexual pleasure. Others see their sexuality like an old shoe, ready to slip onto anyone’s foot.”