More.
He doesn’t make me wait this time. In a matter of seconds, he’s rid himself of all his clothes. I strain my head around, wanting to get a look at him in all his naked glory, but he’s right behind me again, holding me in place by my hips. All I can see is his carved abs and broad chest, guardian mark prominent on his chiseled pec.
Oh god. I feel myself go weak just at the sight of him. Seeing his cock right now might reduce me to a quivering, begging, sopping wet mess.
Then I feel his rigid shaft pressing against me, into me, the wide head sliding between my pussy lips, stretching me. He doesn’t stop until he’s in to the hilt, my walls hugging his cock like a perfect velvet glove.
My upper body collapses into the plush green duvet, the fine fibers caressing my skin as Xander begins to move inside of me.
He starts slow, long strokes teasing me higher and higher. But then he becomes more intense, yanking my ass higher in the air and angling his hips to hit me over and over in my G-spot. I surrender completely to his body, wanting anything and everything he’ll give me.
Out of nowhere, another orgasm hits me. My fingers clench around the duvet, my knuckles surely turning white as I ride out the intensity of the explosions happening within my body. I feel that I might collapse in a heap, but Xander holds me steady, his grip keeping me right where he wants me.
Just when I think he’s about to come, he pulls out of me, leaving me even more needy and wanting that before, as if I hadn’t just had two mind-blowing orgasms. It’s still not enough.
“Xander,” practically whimper, turning to him.
He’s standing at the foot of the bed, and I go to him, facing him on my knees on the bed. He’s looking at me in that way again. Like I’m everything he could ever want or need.
Wrapping an arm around my waist and another around my neck, he pulls me to him, kissing me with all the hungry desire I’m feeling. Then we’re falling back on the bed together, face to face, his body pressing mine deep into the feathery bed. We kiss for what feels like an eternity, our bodies fused together, every point of contact pulsing with heat.
“I need you,” Xander whispers against my lips.
I look up into his eyes. “You have me.”
And Xander slides inside me again, his eyes locked on mine. My eyelids flutter shut at the pure bliss coursing through me.
“Open your eyes,” he commands.
I do, and find him staring back at me, dominating and controlling and loving and attentive all at once.
I smile, and he gives me that half-smirk I love so much. Then he makes love to me.
We’re completely wrapped up in one another. Connected body, soul and mind. We may stay like this for hours, or maybe it’s only moments. It doesn’t matter because time stands still as I lose myself fully in this man that I love.
And when I feel him swell inside me, pulsing and throbbing as he reaches his own release, I fall yet again, coming in long, deep waves of ecstasy that seem to stretch out endlessly.
I sink into another world, a state of bliss and satisfaction like I’ve never known, and the edges of my vision become fuzzy as I float on a feathery cloud. A faint, “I love you,” reaches me through my haze, and I smile, melting into it, falling into a peaceful sleep of silken kisses and warm breezes.
When I wake to the sound of a sharp rap at the door the next morning, I feel like it’s coming from very far away, like I’m hearing it from deep underwater. I just want to wiggle further down into the warm bed. Xander’s hard body is wrapped around mine, and I want to stay in our little cocoon, sequestered away from the rest of the world.
Xander groans as he throws the bedcovers off himself, not bothering to grab a shred of clothing, and opens the door to find Cora there, an elegantly handwritten note in her trembling hand. If she finds it shocking that Xander’s standing in front of her totally nude, she doesn’t show it. Whether it’s good training, I’m not sure. Because she looks terrified as Xander takes the note. She disappears before I can even say good morning.
“What is it?” I ask, sitting up in bed, the sheet falling down to my waist.
Xander grins and comes over to me, nipping at my neck. “God, how I’d love to crawl right back into this bed with you right now.”
So would I, but I can see in his eyes that something’s up. “Mother wants us to meet her in the sitting room in half an hour. She says it’s about the stones.”
That has me up and out of bed. I drop a kiss on Xander’s cheek but there’s definitely no time for more right now. I have to find the others in the guest wing and let them know so they can be there too.
“I need to tell everyone.”
He nods. “Yes, but first…”
Pulling me close, Xander kisses me with all the fiery passion of the night before, letting me know that no matter what we’re about to face, we’re in this together.
“Yes,” he agrees when he finally breaks the kiss, leaving me breathless and needy—for something that will have to wait. “Gather the others. But hurry. I want to get there before her. There’s something I want to show you.”
Rory
We find Nico in the green room of the guest wing sneering at the North’s tea selection and Ryker in the yellow room, window ajar as he fashions all of his bedsheets into a makeshift rope. Killian is in the blue room; he answers the door like he’s been expecting us. When I pop the door open to the red room where I expect Drew is staying, it’s obvious that I couldn’t have caught him more by surprise.
“Fuck!” he swears as I crack open the door. “Occupied! Give me a minute!”
When I crack open the door a little further, I peek my head in to see that Drew is completely naked save for an embroidered throw pillow that he’s holding protectively over his manly bits.
“Oh,” he sighs with relief when he sees me. “It’s just you.”
“Did I catch you at a bad moment?”
Drew eyes his jeans, which are slung over the back of a chair on the other side of the room, and smiles roguishly as he tosses away the pillow. “I dunno, Rory. You tell me.”
The old Rory would have blushed and squealed and looked away. But I’m not the same Rory that started this adventure anymore. I’m becoming something brave and new and exciting and…well, surprisingly horny, as fate would have it.
I don’t blush or squeal or run away when I see Drew in all of his well-muscled, naked glory now. In fact, I slip into the room, take a seat in the armchair that’s holding Drew’s jeans, and look longer than I probably ought to.
Luckily, Drew doesn’t seem to mind.
“I didn’t realize you slept in the buff, Drew.” I track him with my eyes as he crosses around the bed, fluffing the pillows and straightening the sheets. “Trying something new?”
“You felt these sheets, didn’t you?” Drew grins at me, flexing his muscles like the show off he is as he makes the bed before Cora can get to it. “Softest things I’ve ever felt. Beds like this were made for sleeping naked in.”
“You’re probably right.” I cup my hand against my mouth, lowering my voice to a secretive whisper. “I slept naked last night too.”
Drew raises his eyebrows, a cocky smirk on his lips as he entertains the idea of my naked body between these ultra-plush luxury sheets. But he can’t just let a flirty moment be what it is—a flirty moment. He wouldn’t be my best friend if he wasn’t such an expert at ruining things.
“Yeah,” Drew says, giving me a teasing glance. “But you slept in yours with the shifter—doesn’t count.”
“It didn’t occur to you that Mommy and Daddy North might be old-fashioned? Maybe they wanted us to wait until marriage.”
“Rory…” Drew sighs and shakes his head. “In this world, those marks you’ve got are as good as any wedding ring. You’re already a polygamist as it is.” Drew ducks, laughing as I ball his jeans up and throw them at him. “So stop teasing me with visions of that sexy body of yours before I make you an adulterer too.”
&nb
sp; “It’s so stupid,” I find myself saying. I watch with regret as Drew pulls his boxers and jeans on, covering the gorgeous thickness of his cock from any further wanton gazing. “In another life…”
“In another life, we’d be living in some shitty apartment splitting boxes of government mac and cheese every night.” Drew stops me before I can start—which is how I can tell he’s thought the same thing just as many times as I have. “Don’t pretend that you’d trade what you’ve got with Ryker and the others for some disappointing life with me, Rory. At least in this life, the sheets are Egyptian cotton.”
“I guess you’re right,” I say softly.
I want to pretend that I was just trying to play—just teasing Drew like we used to when I was just a girl and he was just a boy and there were no magical markings or fate-forged bonds to worry about. But seeing Drew like this—even now that he’s just searching for his t-shirt so he can pull it back on—it’s dredged up all the same old feelings that we’ve both been dancing around since that night we first kissed.
I want Drew. Drew wants me. But I can’t have Drew, and Drew can’t have me, and the point he’s just made is clear. Dreaming about this alternate timeline where we’re both poor and magicless and blissfully ignorant of the insane world of the Regime outside of the city isn’t just fruitless—it’s a temptation that neither of us can really afford.
At least, that’s what I think he’s trying to say.
But then he comes over to me, tall and shirtless and blue-eyed and golden. He tilts my chin up with his knuckles and bends over, resting his hands on my knees. Our lips are so close, the only thing left between them is breath. I can smell him. I can feel his warmth. And as he dips his mouth to my ear, I feel the same wanting I’ve always felt for him burn deep in my body, crackling like a wildfire.
“’Course, I would’ve fucked you on every damn surface of that shitty apartment,” Drew growls, running his thumb across my lower lip. “For that, maybe I could do without the fancy sheets.”
Xander clears his throat from the doorway, breaking the moment almost as soon as it first formed. Drew snatches his t-shirt up off the ground at my feet and I busy myself with straightening my skirt—all while trying to pretend that I’m not so wet, I’m pretty sure I’m going to leave a puddle of wanting in this chair when I get back up.
Xander doesn’t mention seeing Drew and I together to the others, which I’m grateful for. Ryker might like Drew just fine, but I doubt Nico would be too happy about it. It’s almost funny—my most jealous guardian is also my most open minded. I’m pretty sure if I ever wanted two men at once, Nico would be up for it. Just assuming, of course, that the other man wasn’t Drew himself.
“Come on,” Xander says instead, slipping his arm around my waist as Drew and I slink out of the red room. “There’s something I want to show you.”
We descend to the first floor in one strange, protective mass. My guardians, Drew, and Killian seem to form up around me almost instinctively. It’s like constantly having my own personal troop of bodyguards—which is an awful thought. Especially because I know that if they did need to protect me, they would—even if it cost them their lives.
All except for Killian, maybe—Killian who I know so little about and who reveals so little to try and rectify the fact. When I catch Killian’s eye, he just looks to Drew with a knowing sparkle in his eye—such an ass. He’s probably visited the future where Drew and I do get to fuck all over our shitty little apartment. But if he has, I’m sure he’ll never say. It’s all questions and no answers with that guy. Pisses me off something fierce.
At least whatever secret thing Xander has to show me is actually going to be revealed.
He takes us to the sitting room where I met his mother last night. Now that I’m not so busy choking on my own nerves, it finally gives me a chance to really look at the place.
The room is filled with equal parts regal, old-money artifacts—portraits and pedigrees, silver statues and polished gold frames—and fresh cut flowers, all of them a beautiful, startling white. Most interestingly, there’s a dueling pistol mounted on a mahogany plaque hanging on the wall and twin cutlasses crossed over the fireplace. Xander’s family might have traded his great-great-grandfather’s fighting spirit for a cushy life in a countryside estate, but they still have the relics of it on display.
“Did you want to show me your dueling skills?” I ask Xander with a hopeful smile. I incline my head toward the cutlasses and I almost see him crack a smile.
“Not quite,” Xander says. “Actually, what I wanted to show you was this.”
Xander lifts a framed photograph up off the mantle and blows an imaginary layer of dust away from it—if there was really dust in the sitting room, I’m pretty sure his mother would have Cora drawn and quartered. He waves me over, and I nestle my body against his side, placing my hand on his chest as I look at the photo in the frame.
“Oh, shit,” I say as soon as I figure out exactly what it is that Xander’s showing me a picture of.
The photo is of a group of people in front of a building that I recognize as the Regime capitol in the city. They’re all dressed for a photo op—so many dark suits decorated with Regime medals, pencil skirts and conservative heels. It’s not just any bunch of Regime goons that made me swear out loud in the North family sitting room, though.
It’s the sight of my mother’s face, smiling prettily at the camera in the center of the photo. Her dark hair is elegantly curled over her shoulder. Her face is young and fair. She even has her cheek resting against the shoulder of the man standing at her side. A man that, to my surprise, I also recognize.
My father.
I haven’t seen many pictures of my father. He died just before I was born, according to my mother, and the grief was so bad she got rid of most of his pictures. She showed me one of the few that remained on my birthday once when I was younger, but when I searched for it later, even that was gone; not even when I turned the house upside down after her death could I find it again.
My father’s eyes are a dull, misty blue. His hair is dark and a little messy, even though he wears a crisp Regime uniform. The smile on his face is infectious—I can’t help but smile back at him just looking at his image.
My parents look happy. Ecstatic, even. In love and full of joy. They even have Drew’s mother and father next to them, alive and well and standing proudly at their side.
But just a few faces away from them, I recognize more faces. Xander’s mother and father, looking not a day older than they do now even though this photo is over twenty years old. For my father to be alive in it, the picture had to have been taken before I was even born—but then I spot Dr. Belmont, grinning her red-lipped smile on the arm of a handsome man. She doesn’t look a day older than when I saw her last, although she does look a lot happier. Which is surprising, considering that the Warden is standing only a few feet away from her—also looking the exact same age he is today.
In fact, I’m betting that not a single person in this picture looks any older today than they did the day the photo was taken—a theory that’s confirmed when I see Killian’s red curls and silver eyes staring back at me toward one corner of the group next to a woman who has poor Cassandra’s same bone structure and white hair.
When I raise my gaze to the Killian standing before me in real life, there’s not even a line out of place on his face.
“How old are you?” I ask, taking a step back. As I look around me, I realize for the first time that I don’t really know the answer to this question when it comes to any of these men—save for, I guess, Drew. “How old are any of you?”
Xander, Nico, Ryker and Killian share a look. Even Drew becomes deeply interested in the carpet all of a sudden.
“Magical people…they live longer than normal humans, Rory. Someone should have told you before now,” Xander tells me gently. “Especially considering that it applies to you, too.”
“I’m not going to age.” My voice sounds strangely
distant as I touch the image of my mother’s curls. “But…that means…”
I turn to Drew, suddenly horrified. He gives me a sheepish glance and a chuckle as he rubs the back of his neck.
“You’ll look like this for decades,” he confirms. “And I’ll be all grey hair and saggy balls before you know it.”
“It’s one of the many reasons that human guardians are so rare,” Xander explains. “If they do their jobs right, their witches will outlive them significantly. Sometimes by centuries.”
“Don’t worry, Rory. I’ve always known.” Drew nods solemnly. “I made my peace with it a long time ago. It doesn’t change anything.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Nico agrees, crossing his arms over his chest. But obviously, he means it in a different way than Drew does right now.
Drew might have come to terms with the fact that he’ll die of old age long before I ever get so much as a wrinkle, but for me, the pain is still new as a fresh bruise.
“You’re not in the picture, though,” I say, turning to Ryker and changing the subject. “Or either of you.” I look at Nico and Xander each in turn.
Ryker laughs, leaning in for a moment. “No, little witch. The vargr didn’t fuck around with that shit. Vargr mind their own business. Keep their ears to the ground.” Ryker taps his own ear beneath his thick, messy hair in demonstration.
“And the empaths were always just as much of a danger to the Regime as they were an asset,” Nico explains. “Good for propaganda, of course, but difficult to keep in line—and that’s only if you can catch us first. That’s my cousin Archibald there.” Nico points to a suave-looking man with a sly grin, standing just to one side.
“Is he still with the Regime now?” I ask.
“Oh, no.” Nico shakes his head and wraps an arm around me, pressing a little kiss to my temple. “No, they took Archie out behind a chemical shed about three years after the great revolution. Wanted him to make human women into magical sex slaves or some kind of nonsense like that, I think. Death by firing squad. Last thing he did was make the soldiers they’d assembled for the execution feel guilt.” Nico smiles at his cousin’s face, looking sad but proud. “They still shot him, of course, but I bet they felt like shit about it.”
Emerald Vows: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Marked Souls Book 3) Page 10