by Michele Hauf
“No, this is just the thing we need to take our minds from more dire things. It’s not wrong, is it?”
“What?” He kissed the top of her breast as he unbuttoned yet another button. Mmm, soft, luscious, flesh-smelling, tangy sweet.
“Us ignoring that other thing.”
“The world will be fine for a few minutes. We need to do research, yes?”
“Right. Oh...yes. That’s nice. You going to go...all the way down?”
“I am.” His fingers danced over her stomach and continued to unbutton. Tamatha tilted her head against the wall and closed her eyes. “Pink lace,” he commented on her matching bra and panties. Two more buttons, and he spread her dress open to look over her long, lithe figure. A tattoo at her hip featured an owl, wings spread, soaring toward him. “What does an owl symbolize?”
“Athena,” she offered, “the Greek goddess of learning.”
“Most definitely you.” He glided his hands over her stomach, feeling the muscles beneath tighten and release in his wake. “You are gorgeous, witch.”
She smirked. “You didn’t say that with quite as much accusation as you once did.”
“You are undeserving of my scorn.” He licked from one breast to the other and cupped them in his hands, cursing the fact he must wear the half gloves. But it was for her protection. “You smell so good. I want to taste you.”
“No objections to that. But when you taste things, are you always getting a read like you showed me in the elevator?”
“Not unless I want to.” He dashed his tongue from between her breasts and up her neck. “Anything you don’t want me to know about you?”
“No. And I much prefer this method of your gaining knowledge to the ‘eating the heart’ method.”
“Agreed.”
“Let’s get you a little more comfortable.” She unbuttoned his shirt and he helped her to pull it off. When she tapped his gloves he shook his head.
“My thorns contain poison. One little slice...”
“Yes, I won’t forget that. I can deal.” Her hand spread across his chest and her eyes danced with marvel. “So much dark hair. And so soft.”
He chuckled. “If I got anything from my werewolf father, it was thick hair. Good thing, too. I don’t worry about going bald.”
“Mmm, and it goes down further.” Her fingers walked down his muscled abdomen and teased at the dark hairs below his navel. “Your father is a werewolf? I didn’t know that.”
“Was that something I was supposed to provide during your questioning?”
“Maybe, but I’ve realized you protect yourself, first and foremost. So, half wolf, half raven?”
“I’ve never thought of it that way. Raven-shifting is simply an innate skill of mine. If I have to label myself, it’s simply ‘demon’ because I have no werewolf qualities beyond the abundant hair.”
She tickled her fingers up through his chest hair and tapped his mouth. “Let’s go up to the bedroom, demon. I want to get you naked.”
“More research?”
“I’ll never tell.”
“That means yes.”
“Maybe.”
Oh, it was a yes. And he didn’t mind at all.
Ed grabbed her hand and led her up the stairs. He flicked on the lights, which were set around the ceiling cornice and beamed subtle halogens every ten feet around the room’s circumference. Not too bright, but enough light so he could admire every sensual curve that designed her body.
Tamatha strode across the room, dropping the blue dress in her wake. Pink lace panties barely covered her sweet, peach bottom. She turned a teasing wink over her shoulder and crooked her finger for him to come to her.
* * *
Ed unzipped his trousers and Tamatha slid them down his legs. As he stepped out of them to stand in nothing but dark blue, form-fitted boxer briefs, she walked around behind him, her fingertips drawing over the sigils on his shoulder and gliding down his back where the black lines formed an art gallery of life events.
“You have so many marks back here. These feathers trace your entire spine. The same as the one on your neck. Oh! They connect.”
“Yes, it’s one long trail. The feathers are indicative of the corax breed,” he said of the long black sigil that started at the side of his neck and trailed down his spine to the top of his buttocks.
The feathers were thorned along the shafts and seemed to have a depth, as if she could push her fingers into the blackness. Tamatha stroked the feathers and marveled over their subtle movement upon the steely muscle that wrapped his body. It was a two-dimensional drawing that took on three-dimensional life under her touch. Amazing. This was going in her notebook.
“Born with it,” he added.
“Really? A baby with tattoos?”
He shrugged. “A sigil. Unlike tattoos, sigils alter and grow as I age. I imagine it was but a fine line down my spine when I was a baby.”
He let out a pleasurable moan as she danced her fingers along the pale gray marking at the back of his hip. It was circular but again thorned and tribal in style. Most of his sigils were, and she associated it with the deadly thorns on his knuckles he wouldn’t allow her to study.
“First official fuck,” he said with a gasp. “That one.”
“Really? You’ve a sigil to mark the first time you had sex? Do you have one that tallies every time you get it on?”
“Cheeky of you, but no. You think I would have a back full of hash marks?”
“Would you?” She rested her chin on his shoulder and hugged him from behind. “Don’t tell me. It’s not important. Besides, I’ve lived four times as long as you.”
“Should I be asking about your tally marks?”
“I take my lovers with a discretionary eye. I have had my share over the decades. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Love Often, eh?”
“Exactly.”
Returning to stand before him, she glided her fingers through his chest hair, marveling over the soft thickness. His abs were hard and ridged, a count of three rises and falls as she moved lower. She stopped at his boxers but then couldn’t stop herself from pressing a hand over his very obvious erection.
“Oh!” She met his curiously wondering gaze. “You really are...”
He nodded. “For your pleasure, my lady.”
“I need to take a look at this.”
He gripped her wrist, halting her from tugging down the boxers. “Tell me first—are you curious or is this for your research?”
She shoved him backward to land on the bed. “Both.”
Tamatha’s demon lover winked and clasped his hands behind his head as she shimmied down his boxers and tossed them aside. His erection was impressive, regally straight, and—
“This is so cool. It really is ribbed.” She ran her thumb over the definite ridges that circled from below the bold, thick head of it. She counted four and they were spaced about a finger’s width apart. “This is going to be fun.”
“I have never had a woman take such delight in my penis before.”
“Really? I’m sorry for you.”
“I mean—well, you know, it has never scared anyone off.”
“I should say not. I want to play. You okay with that?”
“You play all you like, sweetness. Did you want me to join in while you’re playing?”
“No. Lie back and—” she gripped his hard rod “—take it all in. I know I’m going to enjoy this.”
“I’m going to have to change my thinking regarding your research,” he said as she tickled her tongue around his penis corona. “Oooo, yes. Research. Goood.”
Trying a few strokes up and down his length, she noticed he didn’t have the usual salty tang that most did. He was clean and perhaps even a little cool, as
if he’d come in from a brisk outdoor walk and the chill air lingered on his skin. Yet with every stroke she could feel heat replacing the coolness. Ed groaned and muttered something about her having her way with him being perfectly fine. She lashed her tongue over each of the ribs on his length. They were so firm and like a sex toy waiting for her to experiment.
Shimmying off her panties, she straddled his hips and directed the head of him against her folds. Wet and hot, she needed connection. His molten heat steamed her skin. Mmm, she pressed hard, using his erection to satisfy her achy need for contact. Rocking her hips, she rubbed the ribs against her clit, dragging his penis up and down, increasing the friction and luring her pleasure to the edge.
“You know exactly what you like,” he said. “Ah, that’s so good.”
“Good? This is sofuckingsweet.”
Now was not the time for chatter. Because the focused sensation of his hot cock gliding over her swollen clitoris was rapidly conjuring a heady storm in her core. With her free hand she clasped her breast and squeezed the nipple, rocking her hips faster and faster. Ed’s encouraging moans spurred her to press his length harder to her.
And with a thrilling shout, an orgasm swept through her system, shivering and quaking and spilling through her pores. Tamatha gasped and stopped humping him as she quivered into the delicious surrender.
Ed sat up and swept aside her hair, then kissed her breasts. “You are incredible, witch.”
The sweetest accusation ever.
“So good,” she said on a gasp and kissed him quickly. Hungrily she devoured his taste.
“I can taste your fire,” he said. “The hot, fiery magic within you. It’s powerful.”
He lifted her by the hips and she wrapped her legs about his back as he lowered her onto his stiff, wanting erection. The man groaned deeply as she enveloped him. He pulsed and swelled within her. Swearing, he hissed, then lifted her by the thighs to rock her up and down upon his shaft.
Still fluttering in the orgasm, she squeezed her insides about him, coaxing him to join her in the bliss. And with a few more glides up and down, her lover bucked beneath her and shouted. He clasped an arm across her back and clutched her to him as he came along with her.
Bodies trembling, breaths gasping, together they fell back onto the soft gray bedsheets, panting as they rode the exquisite wave.
Tamatha kissed him. He bracketed her head, dashing his tongue in deeply and mimicking the actions his penis had made inside her. He was still inside her, both at loins and mouth. Sweet possession.
She glided her hands through his hair and traced the glossy horn nubs. Breaking the kiss, she slid upward and licked one of the hard nubs, which felt like warm hematite against her tongue.
“Holy—whoa.” Ed gripped her about the waist. “That’s...”
“You like that?”
He nodded as she licked him again. “Never had a woman do that to me before. Actually, I never allowed it. Why, I have no idea. I’m going to come again if you keep it up.”
That was an invitation she wouldn’t pass up. She tested the other horn, and it was warm and solid, smooth, and didn’t taste like anything. Ed’s gasps and increased breathing enticed her to lick harder and to swirl her tongue about the circle of it. And like that his chest bucked, his hands slapped the bed, and within her, she felt his cock harden again as he came.
Her lover groaned from his very being and pulled her down to collapse on top of him. Tamatha nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder and clasped a hand within his fingers half-covered by the leather glove.
“That was incredible,” he muttered. “How’d you know to do that?”
“Just being curious.” She hugged her breasts up to his panting heat and nuzzled her cheek against his chest. “You’re a nice big cozy snuggle.”
“No one has every used nice, cozy or snuggle to describe me.”
“It’s the truth. Can you handle that, Evil Overlord?”
“My evil cred may take a hit, but yes. Bring it.”
Chapter 10
Tamatha woke to a beam of red light dashing across her face and smiled to realize she lay in Ed’s bed after spending the night snuggled next to his gorgeously muscled, sex-warmed body. But he wasn’t in the bed now. Turning her head, she found he stood near the wall, looking up, as if following a spider along the ceiling. But she couldn’t see anything.
“What is it?” she asked sleepily.
“You can’t feel it? Something is trying to intrude.” He shook his hands over his head as if to chase away the invisible entity. “What is it?”
She sat up and closed her eyes, tapping her littlest fingers together to invoke her connection to air magic. Instantly, a malevolent feeling fell upon her bare shoulders and teased at the back of her neck.
“Oh, shit, that’s malefic magic.” She threw aside the sheets and hopped out of bed. Grabbing her bra and panties and hastily putting them on, she then rushed down to the living room.
“What is it?” Ed followed her. He wore only boxers and his hair was tousled. He looked so eatable. And she would get to that. But first.
Emptying her bag on the couch, she sorted through the magical accoutrements and grabbed the amethyst-hilted athame. “I forgot all about warding this place last night. You distracted me.” She winked at him.
He nodded acknowledgment. “I aim to please.”
“You did please. More than a few times. But we forgot the important stuff.”
“You said you had to go home for supplies.”
“I do, but shoot. Maybe I can work with what I have. I have to do this now because something malefic is trying to get in.”
“Maybe I’ve something you can use?”
“Unless you have a store of salt somewhere, I don’t think you can.”
“Fresh out of that condiment. What do you need me to do?”
“Stand back and let it happen.” She dipped the athame into a vial of blessed rainwater, then walked to the center of the living room and stood before the stained glass windows that beamed in colorful morning sunlight.
“I have never seen a more beautiful witch,” Ed commented.
Smiling to herself, Tamatha redirected her focus. Reveling in a compliment from her lover could threaten to lower the efficacy of any spell she attempted. Drawing in the air before her, she marked out the sigil against malefic magic and recited the incantation. Tapping her little fingers together, she activated her air magic and focused her inner eye to encompass the entire building Ed lived in, including the surrounding streets.
A pulse of power echoed out from her being and pushed through the air. Behind her, Ed swore in quiet fascination. And when the energy returned and entered through her soles, she closed off the ward and sealed it with a final dash of the athame across the invisible sigil she had drawn before her.
Turning to the fascinated demon, she nodded. “It’s done.”
“I felt that. But I don’t see anything.”
“Exactly. The best wards are invisible yet strong. That should hold. But not for long. I didn’t have any sage to make it stick. And blood might even be required to really put up a good block against the intrusion. Malefic magic is way out of my realm. It’s beyond diabology, which I’m only beginning to study. But I put it off for a while. You think whatever has been trying to get into your place might be involved with the cemetery killings?”
“Possible. In my line of work, I’m always dealing with nefarious people.”
“Evil-overlord stuff?”
“Yes, but this feels like it is to do with the current situation.”
“I need to do some research on Les Douze today. Do you mind if I shower here? I want to head straight to the Archives from your place.”
“Not at all. You want me to join you in the shower?”
“Oh, yeah. Do you have a vacuum?”
“A, er...vacuum?”
She smirked at his apparent lacking knowledge. “You know that electronic thing that you push through the house to suck up dirt?”
“Ah. I have a maid who does that once a week.”
Tamatha shook her head. “Bachelors. How about a broom?”
He winced. “Perhaps? Why the compulsion to clean?”
“I want to sweep up the salt around your tub so you can get into it with me.”
“I think I remember where the broom is kept.”
* * *
The depths of the Archives’ room that harbored grimoires and all documents and tomes related to the species of witch was Tamatha’s favorite room. It was the largest room with high, arched ceilings painted in the fresco style of da Vinci, though there were no religious scenes, but rather depictions of Samhain, Beltane and the great Hecate. This room contained twice as much information as any other. Witches were the most abundant of the paranormal species.
It was a workday, but Tamatha had nothing more pressing to tend to. Dusting and tidying she achieved by slowly pacing down an aisle of books. Her OCD magic took care of straightening, dust dispersed in her wake.
She paused at the end of the aisle where the fluorescent lights didn’t reach. This far quadrant of the room repelled modern electricity. It was where the books on malefic magic were kept. Old-fashioned candle sconces provided lighting, and two beeswax candles took to light with a snap of her fingers.
A familiar shiver crossed her shoulders. Malefic magic had been trying to infiltrate Ed’s home. That made her suspect whoever was behind whatever was going on was a witch who practiced malefic magic. But witches didn’t practice such magic. If so, they were branded a warlock and shunned from both the Light and Dark.
The only warlock Tamatha was familiar with was Ian Grim. She didn’t know him personally. Never had a reason to work with a practitioner of such foul magic. There were dozens of other warlocks, surely, but she’d need to do more research if all paths led that direction.
Stepping forward, she felt the shadows creep over her like black ink spilling over her skin. The hairs on her arms tingled. Hisses lured her to the left of the bookshelf. Scents of decayed thyme and earth infused the air. A low growl sounded more from within her head than before her. It was the magic toying with her.