Nava Katz Box Set 2

by Deborah Wilde

  Rohan slid me off him. He crossed the room in two strides and pulled out the bottle of lube with a bow stuck on top. The curve of his swollen mouth tilted up in a filthy smile. “What would you like me to do with this, sweetheart?”

  “Fuck me please,” I said in my most polite voice.

  “How?”

  My cheeks flamed and I mumbled my reply.

  Rohan cocked an eyebrow, smugly enjoying this.

  I jutted out my chin. “I want to try butt stuff.”

  It was like I’d poured gas on a fire.

  With rough, impatient motions, he wrenched me around and pushed down my skirt, which fluttered to the ground at my ankles.

  I kicked it away.

  One of Rohan’s finger blades traced up the outside of my bikini briefs. I shivered, but when it slid under the elastic, I stopped him and wriggled out of them.

  “This is a set. No wrecking them.”

  “Got it.” He planted my palms against the wall, the blunt edges of his fingernails digging into my skin. “Keep them there.”

  There was a sucking pop, then a cold, gooey liquid dripped down the crack of my ass.

  I yelped.

  “Relax.” He kissed the side of my neck, suckling the skin until the tension drained from my shoulders. “You want to stop at any point, say the word.”

  I nodded and pressed my forehead to the wall, sighing as he slid one finger into my ass, easing me into readiness.

  One finger became two. My entire body tightened, not in pain, but in this dangerous, luxurious eroticism.

  Rohan pulled his fingers out. “Do you want to stop? I can happily get you off another way.”

  I turned around, cupping his face in my hands. “I want all of you.”

  I could feel Rohan’s pulse thrumming against my skin, a staccato rhythm that danced through my blood. All other thoughts—about my future, my lack of magic—flew away, scattered to the four winds. All that existed, all that mattered was the two of us, filling me with a headiness that left me cotton-headed and unsteady.

  For years, I’d run from this exact type of moment, and now I couldn’t run to it fast enough and grab on for all I was worth. I smiled at Ro, because I was too far gone to do anything else.

  His eyes glittered. “Get in the bedroom.”

  I jumped on him, my legs wrapped around his waist and my arms draped around his neck. “Take me there.”

  “Doing all the work as usual,” he grumbled, shutting up pretty damn fast when I dragged my lips along his. His hold on me tightened, our kiss a drugging, maddening needy mess. He crashed into furniture twice and hit his toe once, but we made it to his bedroom where he deposited me on the mattress.

  Snapping on the warm bedside lamp, he arranged me on all fours, my ass up in the air. There was a click and whoosh of his belt coming free, then the metallic rasp of his zipper. He swore when his jeans didn’t come off fast enough.

  His impatience to fuck me made me giddy. I pressed my cheek to the cool mattress, lust blazing like wildfire through me and stroked Cuntessa, who was peeved at having been ignored this long.

  Ro’s hand covered mine for a brief instant. “I’ll make this good for you, I swear.”

  “I know.” My heart thudded.

  More lube ran along the crack of my ass and the blunt tip of his cock pressed against me.

  I puckered. Stopped. Exhaled. “Okay.”

  Slowly, he worked his way inside me, one hand stroking along my spine, while I teased Cuntessa. I held my breath because how could I possibly have room for him? But he was so careful and patient, and then he was inside me with a sweet burn that stole my breath with the intimacy of it.

  Ro froze and gave a shaky sigh. He curled his body over mine, his hands over my breasts and rocked his hips.

  The feel of him buried deep scattered my wits. I slammed back against him, drowning in raw, unquenched desire. “Please.”

  Ro planted one knee on the bed, working me with a steady rhythm that made me see stars.

  My fingers on my clit matched his tempo, all of it growing more frenetic and desperate. We were one body, one soul. All that existed was prolonging this building starburst. My babbles became incoherent moans. My knees were splayed, the bedframe rocking underneath us.

  Ro’s hands roamed my body with a wild ferocity, murmuring how right this was, how much he loved me.

  As my orgasm grew, I threw him a filthy smile over my shoulder, the twin to the one he’d shot me earlier tonight.

  Ro’s cock pulsed inside me, his hand tensed on my hip and he came with my name on lips.

  It sent me over the edge with a wild cry, the big bang supernovaing through me. I tumbled to the mattress in a boneless daze, tingles quaking like aftershocks.

  Rohan pulled out and crashed onto the bed next to me, blinking stupidly.

  I rolled onto my side and looked at my boyfriend, with his gaze unfocused, his hair sticking up every which way, and an utterly enamored grin on his swollen lips. He’d never looked hotter.

  I would suffer through everything I had five times over, if it led me to that look. Even when we were both wrinkled, I’d never tire of it. My heart expanded out to fill every part of me.

  “There’s one more gift in that bag.” I moved only enough to pull the edge of the covers over me. “But you have to go back and get it.”

  He nuzzled my cheek, then rolled off the bed and swaggered to the bathroom.

  I laughed, enjoying the clench of his glutes when he strutted. Naked Rohan on parade. We’d be working that into our regular routine.

  Ro washed his hands and brought me a damp towel before going to retrieve his gift. I’d washed myself off by the time he returned.

  He rapped his knuckles against his present. “What’s this?”

  I shrugged and he tore off the wrapping paper revealing a thin blue binder.

  Rohan settled himself on the bed, propped a pillow behind his back, and flipped it open, snorting when he saw the handwritten title on the lined loose-leaf paper. “‘One Night with a Rock Star?’ I knew it! You totally wrote fanfic about me.”

  “As I’ve told you, many times, I found you insufferable back then. My adolescent heart belonged to Zack. I wrote this yesterday in the style of the stories I wrote those many years ago.”

  Two paragraphs in, Rohan slapped his hand over his mouth. By the end of the first page, his face was frozen in a grimace. “I just met you! This is the worst instalove.”

  “You think when I was fifteen I was writing a slow, mature relationship where we got to know each other? No. Dude met me, I rocked his world, and he couldn’t live without me by the end of that first night.” I grinned smugly. “Much like your real-life experience.”

  Rohan flipped the page. “Yeah, I guess that’s how it was with Lils.”

  I smacked him and he snickered.

  “‘I plundered your mouth with my tongue, my throbbing manhood pressed to your vajeen!’” The binder slipped from his hand, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

  “The ‘j’ is soft. I do have a thorough French education.”

  “My mistake.” Rohan got himself under control, more or less, and continued reading with the gravity this work of art deserved.

  A few minutes passed, a few more pages rustled.

  “A duel?” He peered at me over the top of the binder. “Am I fighting my band members all at once for you or is this a one-at-a-time situation?”

  “Clearly you’re not reading closely. I let you take them individually. Wasn’t sure you could handle all of them together.”

  “Yeah, that’s the believability issue.” Rohan flipped back to the first page. “Are we in a time loop? Meeting my soulmate, fighting to win her, writing her the ‘song of my heart that would become my most famous chart-topper’—this is a very long night.”

  “I give you a gift of my tender fifteen-year-old girl feelings and you mock me?” With a huff, I took the binder away, but he snatched it back.

  “You made me a
n eighteen-year-old guy macking on a kid, which is creepy.” He pretended to beat me with the binder, before continuing to read. “‘Falling in love with you is not an option. I love you. I love you. I love you.’ Fucking hell. It’s two lines of badly written porn, one line of mush. Rinse and repeat.”

  “Hardly porn. We don’t do more than kiss.”

  “You kiss. I plunder.”

  “You can stop reading at any time.”

  Rohan clutched the binder to his chest.

  I pulled the covers over my mouth so he wouldn’t see my smile.

  There were no more comments from the peanut gallery, only a lot more laughter.

  Until he got to the end. “Are you kidding?”

  “It was a very satisfying and realistic end to our passionate love story.”

  “You reject me because you’re too young and you want to follow your dance dreams, so my eighteen-year-old, internationally famous, rock star self agrees to wait for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And stay celibate until you’re ready for me.”

  “Sacrifices must be made for love.”

  Ro pulled my legs out of the covers, yanking me across the mattress. I shrieked, giggling, and tried to fight him off. He caught my wrists, pinning them between our bodies as he stretched out over me.

  “Best. Birthday. Ever.”

  “I’m glad you liked it,” I said.

  “Can I give you something?” he said.

  “Always.”

  “Get under the covers.”

  Was this sexytime round two? I was a little sore, but what the hell. I made myself comfy.

  Ro left the room, returning shortly with his phone and a pair of earbuds. He climbed into bed with me and shut off the lamp. Plugging the earbuds in, he cued up a song then handed me the phone and both earbuds.

  “What am I listening to?”

  “My album. I want you to hear it before anyone else.”

  I curled my toes, a goofy smile blossoming across my face. “Really?”

  I snuggled into Ro’s side, my naked limbs tangled up with his, and hit play.

  Best. Night. Ever.

  29

  Wednesday was filled with phone calls. I touched base with my parents since I hadn’t done much more than fire off quick texts recently. Then I played telephone tag with Raquel, finally grabbing her after a meeting with representatives of the Russian government. She had lobbied hard for some kind of official status to any Rasha or witch living and hunting in that country declaring them free from prosecution. They’d just granted it.

  Raquel was elated. “With Russia onboard, the rest of the Eastern bloc will fall in line, and I’ll get my meeting with China. Speaking of which, how much longer are you going to laze around? There’s a seat waiting for you on the council.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Is this because of the no magic thing? Sienna took her seat.”

  “I know. She texts me once a day, threatening to poison me for inflicting this on her.” I outlined my plan to mentor at-risk young witches. “We’d have to meet with the different covens and see what they propose, then I could develop a training plan. Baruch is busy, but Ari could oversee it. If there are funds, I’m going to ask Clara—yeah, I can call her that too so there—to get a space that could work as administrative offices for her and a training/schooling/hang-out place for my girls. We could have bedrooms if we decided that they should stay for stretches at a time, and I was even thinking that down the line we could expand their training to dance or art or other sports that have nothing to do with hunting. Pursuing something I loved and getting better at it was so incredibly fulfilling. I could find that for these girls. What do you think?”

  “I think you need to take a breath,” she said. “But I also think you’ve found your calling. It’s perfect, and I’ll find the money to get this up and running. The council is all for folding Brotherhood assets into this new venture, but it’s a corporate entity, and everyone on the board is either dead or in jail. One of our witches, Mathilda, is a hotshot corporate lawyer, and she’s working on it with a couple Rasha who had passed the bar. Meantime, I’m slogging away at securing government contracts to keep us afloat. It’ll be lean times for a bit, but we’ll eventually sustain everyone working under our umbrella.”

  There was a burst of loud voices on Raquel’s end of the phone call. “Gotta run. Need to grab the American delegates.”

  “I’ll see you at Rohan’s show tomorrow?”

  “Obviously.”

  Flush with success, I called Leo and my brother to see how they were doing. All was well in their respective worlds. I wrapped up my calls and padded into the kitchen for a coffee top up.

  “Everything good?” Rohan placed fresh grounds in the filter.

  “Better than good.” I filled him in while the pot burbled merrily. “Have you heard from Drio?”

  We hadn’t seen or heard from him since the plaza battle. I’d tried to respect his space, but I was getting seriously concerned.

  Ro got the sugar out of the cupboard. “Drio’s…processing.”

  “He stopped Leo from giving up her magic. Isn’t that a good sign?”

  “I think it’s part of what he’s processing. We’ll get him back.”

  “By tomorrow?”

  “We’ll get him back,” he said.

  I had one final errand to run that day. Since I couldn’t hop back to Vancouver, Rivka came to me. We met for sushi at the local joint near Ro’s place.

  After small talk and catching up, including sharing my plans for my future, I got to the reason for my call. I slid Esther’s lighter across the table.

  Rivka dipped a piece of salmon sashimi in her wasabi. “That’s yours.”

  “I can’t tend the flame without magic.”

  “You did fine taking down Lilith.”

  “Because everyone lent their magic to the task.”

  She tapped her finger on the lighter. “Are you sure? Esther intended for you to have this.”

  “I’m sure. Pass it on.”

  The rest of the meal was lovely and Rivka insisted on treating me. When we got outside, we hugged and said our good-byes. It was a bittersweet visit. It was never going to be easy seeing Rivka. She’d always remind me of her sister, and she and I weren’t going to have that close relationship, but that was okay.

  Something pressed against my hip in my pocket.

  It was the lighter.

  “Rivka, really.”

  “I didn’t give it back.” She held out her hand and I dropped it into her palm. Rivka opened her purse, dropped the lighter in, and snapped the clutch shut.

  The lighter popped back into my pocket. Baffled, I pulled it out.

  “Nothing about you is easy, is it?” She took my arm and portalled us.

  Catalina’s apartment in Mexico City was located in the neighborhood of Colonia San Rafael, a quirky residential area with gorgeous old architecture and this cool abandoned theater, the Cine Opera. Around the corner from her place, a group of women sat outside holding a sewing circle.

  Catalina’s apartment, a third-floor walk-up, looked over a lively café and local market. It was small, but filled with vibrant abstract artwork that her daughter had painted.

  “You have a daughter?” I said.

  “Lucia. She’s fifteen.” Catalina set out a tray of herbal iced tea and these shell shaped pastries called concha that were sweet bread with a cookie topping.

  Not wanting to be rude, I took two. “Can I meet her?”

  “One day. Her father and I insisted she focus on her art and her studies. She’s had some instruction in her magic, but we want her life right now to be normal. You, on the other hand…” She shook her head.

  “The lighter won’t leave her possession,” Rivka said. They shared a meaningful look.

  “That. Right there. What was that about?” I said.

  Catalina tapped her finger against her lip. “I don’t think you’ve lost your magic.”


  “Impossible. Gog and Magog ripped it out of me.”

  “They ripped the gold magic out of you.” Rivka added sugar to her iced tea.

  “I don’t have magic. I’d know.”

  “Like you knew the first twenty years of your life when it was all bottled up?”

  I finished my concha. Did I even want magic back? Magic had upended my life, twisting me into the worst version of myself. I was happy. At peace. Why upset that balance?

  While I wrestled with my feelings, Catalina and Rivka quietly gossiped about mutual friends in the witch community. Some of the names I recognized. I smirked to myself when I corrected them on a story involving Hua and her lost bike.

  I was part of this world now and I didn’t need magic to continue in it. A lot of women were now powerless and it didn’t mean they’d be ostracized.

  I twisted the hamsa ring that I still wore. I hadn’t tried to take it off after I lost my magic because I hadn’t been ready for the finality of things if it came free. “What magic are we talking about?”

  “Not Lilith’s. That’s gone,” Catalina said.

  “Thankfully,” Rivka said.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  “I suspect that a number of genetic events caused the normal level of magic you previously demonstrated to develop a defense mechanism,” Rivka said.

  “In English for us non-science people?” I said.

  “Ari is older than you, correct?”

  “By twelve minutes.”

  “His Rasha genetics established a position of dominance in regards to magic. When faced with another magic bloodline in the shared womb, yours went dormant. It’s possible the same thing happened when the gold magic flooded your system, because there was no trace of electric current in that magic.”

  “Supposing that’s true. It was the Rasha induction that freed my magic the first time and that ritual is gone.” I slumped back against my chair.

  Catalina grinned at me. “How do you feel about that scorpion venom?”

  Oy vey.

  Back to Hex Factor HQ we went. Catalina led Rivka and me into the girls’ changing room where a free-standing, seamless plastic tub sat on the scuffed pink tiles. It was about shoulder height, with a short ladder to help me get in.