by Sarah Piper
That’s all…
Despite her earlier declarations, the doubts crept in again. And there, in the darkest part of my tattered soul, pain flickered.
I forced a smile and pulled her close. “Whatever you need, Cupcake. You know that.”
Didn’t matter what I felt in that moment. I’d meant what I said—I’d give her anything she asked for, without question. I knew what it felt like standing on the edge of the cliff, staring down over the yawning chasm of grief, the fear of death nipping at your heels. Times like that, all you wanted was to feel alive. I fucking got it.
But it still stung.
I held her gaze, and her eyes softened, a sad smile just barely touching her lips.
“It’s not like that, Ash,” she whispered, as if she could read my thoughts. Hell, maybe she could. I could sarcasm my way out of just about anything, but I’d never been great at hiding my feelings—especially from her.
“I don’t need sex,” she said. “I don’t need a distraction. I need you. I… there’s so much more to say, so much I want to tell you about. But right now, everything feels so… so fragile. A lot of bad shit happened, and even though I made it out, I feel… off. Like, there’s this thing inside me, this magic, and it keeps getting stronger, but I’m not sure what to do with that. There’s this whole legacy thing we found out about, and I’m supposed to lead the witches… I don’t even know what it all means. All I know is that sometimes, when I close my eyes, all I see is a big, black pit. And all I want to do is jump.” She shivered again, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I don’t even know what’s real.”
“You don’t have to figure it out tonight.” I cupped her face, tilting her up to meet my gaze again. “And you don’t have to figure it out by yourself.”
“I know. But for a little while, I thought I lost you.” A tear slid down her cheek.
Brushing it away with my thumb, I said, “You haven’t.”
“I need to feel you inside me,” she said again. “Not just to feel good and forget everything else, but to know that you’re really here. That you’re whole. That you’re not going to disappear on me the minute I close my eyes again.”
“That’s not gonna happen,” I said. “I’m never leaving your side again. That is a damn promise.” I leaned in close, kissing her swollen lips, her chin, her collarbone, sweeping lower with each pass. Her skin was hot and slippery, and when I got to her breasts, she arched her back, pressing herself against my mouth as I sucked one of her nipples between my teeth, my fingers finding the other one and tugging, rolling, teasing her just right.
“Yes,” she breathed, threading her hands into my hair.
Back in the cave prison, there’d been no time for teasing or slow, lingering kisses. I hadn’t even laid eyes on her bare breasts before tonight—only her thighs, a quick blur of pale skin as she’d wriggled out of her pants and climbed into my lap, desperate to give me the strength to fight off the devil’s trap poison coursing through my blood.
Well, it’d worked. She’d strengthened me in more ways than she’d even realized, and ever since that moment, I’d dreamed of this one—the chance to truly taste her, to inhale her scent, to make her gasp with pleasure at the hot slide of my tongue between her thighs.
I almost came just thinking about it, but I forced myself to hold out. Right now, it was all about her. All about bringing her to the edge of bliss and back again.
I licked and sucked, kissing every inch of her silky skin as I worked my way across the lower curves of her breasts and down her ribcage, dragging my tongue over her hipbone, across her belly, and across the tops of her legs.
When I was finally down on my knees, I gripped the backs of her thighs and looked up at her through a spray of hot water.
“You’d better find something to hold on to, Cupcake. Because I’m about to go all in on this gorgeous pussy of yours, and I’m not coming up for air until you damn well forget how to stand.”
Five
GRAY
Without warning, Asher slid his tongue between my thighs, his mouth hot and demanding and insatiable and oh my God I was already trembling. I braced one hand against the tile wall and fisted his hair with the other, but there was no way I’d be able to hold out much longer.
With a surge of hot water sluicing down my back and clouds of steam smudging Asher from my view, I melted beneath invisible kisses, my body going wild for the teasing, fluttering strokes of his tongue and his soft moans of pleasure, each one vibrating through my core and making my knees weak.
“You’re… amazing,” I managed, wanting him to know how much I was enjoying this. How much he was unraveling me, one delicious kiss at a time. “Don’t… stop.”
Holy hell.
It was no surprise that an incubus knew how to please a woman. But before tonight, we’d only been intimate together once—for about ten minutes in the cave prison, if that—yet somehow Asher was reading the unique needs of my body as if he’d studied it for years, sensing my shifting desires before I’d even consciously registered them myself. Everything he did—every kiss, every hot breath, every nibble—felt like it’d been custom designed just for me.
I would’ve come five times over by now, but it turned out Asher wasn’t just a master of my body’s desires.
He was also a master of the epic tease.
I ached for release, but each time I felt those initial tingles building in my core, he’d pull back, easing the perfect pressure of his tongue, blowing a hot breath across my clit until the elusive orgasm slipped away once again.
And then he’d come back, his mouth whipping my body into a new frenzy.
I was going insane.
After everything I’d come through, every demon and battle I’d fought, this was going to be my end. Tonight, I would die in the shower by this man’s mouth.
And I was pretty sure I’d be smiling when I did.
Asher shifted before me again, dragging his tongue along my clit, then dropping lower to leave a trail of light, fluttery kisses on my inner thigh, all the way down to my knee.
“This is torture,” I groaned. I tightened my grip in his hair, tugging him back up toward my center, but that only seemed to encourage his incessant teasing.
“Torture?” He glanced up at me, his eyes fiery, his mouth wet with the evidence of my desire. “I can taste how much you love it, Gray.”
He was right, of course, and he left me no choice but to give up the last bit of my control, putting my pleasure in the hands—and mouth—of the incubus who’d been driving me crazy since our very first meeting.
The incubus I’d somehow fallen in love with.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, then leaned forward again, his tongue flicking and teasing, his hands sliding up to cup my ass and pull me close. My hips arched to give him more access, and he slid his tongue inside me, stroking and sucking as his lips buzzed my clit.
“Ash,” I breathed, tugging his hair, my body rocking against his face, desperately chasing the release he was holding just out of my reach. I felt the pressure building inside again, more intense this time, my core throbbing, and I bit my lip to stifle a groan of pure frustration.
He was going to stop again, and I was going to ache. To burn. If I didn’t come soon, I’d explode.
“Please,” I begged, my head lolling back as he plunged in deep, then pulled back, grazing my clit with his teeth before sucking it between his lips. His hair was silky on my palm, and I fisted it tight once more, desperate to hold him close.
“Don’t stop,” I whispered now, near tears from the slow build, the sheer intensity pushing me to the absolute edge of my limits. “Please don’t tease me.”
A sound that might’ve been laughter escaped his lips, and he slid a hand between my thighs, his fingertips grazing my entrance. Then, without warning, he thrust two fingers inside me, curling to hit the perfect spot with each thrust as he licked and sucked, faster now, deeper, more intense, almost there, and I…
“As
her! Don’t stop! Don’t… oh my God… That’s…” I was out of my mind, babbling and gasping for breath as the heat rushed up my thighs and finally, blissfully, thank-the-fucking-universe-I-thought-I-was-going-to-die-fully exploded in a white-hot starburst of pure, unadulterated pleasure.
A tremor rolled through my body, starting in my thighs and working up my core, my chest, my spine, across my scalp, and down my arms. Whatever Asher was doing to me, I could feel it in my fingertips, my toes, everything warm and tingling, pleasure breaking over my body like waves against the shore.
And still, he didn’t relent.
He kissed and sucked until I thought I’d burn up from the intensity, pushing past the sensitivity, the too-much, too-hot, too-good, too-everything rush of sensations until I suddenly felt the pressure building again, my muscles convulsing into another wave of bliss as a second orgasm burst inside, chasing the aftershocks that still lingered from the first, combining to ignite my heart, to steal the very breath from my lungs.
My knees finally buckled, and Asher laughed, catching me in his arms as he rose to his feet.
“Told you I wasn’t stopping till you couldn’t stand up anymore,” he teased, holding me against his chest.
I nodded, leaning into his embrace. It was all I had left. Couldn’t stand up? I couldn’t even speak anymore. If it wasn’t for the embarrassingly loud panting coming from my mouth, I would’ve thought I’d forgotten how to breathe, too.
Without another word, Asher lifted me up, guiding my legs around his hips. I had just enough strength left to wrap my arms around his neck and hold on for dear life as he spun us around and pressed my back against the tiles. Water streamed down his face from his hair, and with a fiery gleam in his eyes, he shifted his hips, giving me a taste of just how turned on he was.
“Yes,” I whispered, answering the unspoken question with a bubbly laugh. “God, yes.”
The press of his steel-hard cock against my entrance stirred me back to life, and I welcomed his touch once again, feeling every perfect inch as he slid inside me, filling me up.
The moment we connected, I felt the tug of his incubus hunger, an invisible force that unleashed an answering call in my own magic. I realized then how much he’d been holding back.
“Take it,” I urged him, knowing he wouldn’t unless I offered, despite everything we’d already shared. Everything he’d already given me.
He nuzzled my neck, kissing his way up to my ear. “You sure?”
I shivered in his arms, his voice and the proximity of his hot, wet mouth threatening to unravel me once again. Everything he did with his lips drove me wild.
“It’s yours, Ash. I’m yours. Don’t you know that by now?”
“Mmm. I’m starting to get the idea.” Asher claimed my mouth in a bruising kiss I gladly returned, my burned, swollen lips all but forgotten. Beneath the saltiness of my desire still lingering on his tongue, I tasted his unique fire, like cinnamon and hot peppers. It made my mouth water for more.
Unlike our time in the prison, tonight there was no resistance on his part, no worries about what consequences awaited us on the other side. We were in love—the real deal. Only Sebastian meted out punishment for something so pure, so beautiful. The universe worked in mysterious, mind-bending ways I’d probably never figure out, but one thing was absolutely sure: when it came to real love, there were no consequences.
Pinning me against the wall again, Asher rolled his hips, sliding deep inside me. I felt my magic flowing into him, connecting with his own power, melding, strengthening. He grew harder with each thrust, his eyes full of love and lust and beauty as he held my gaze, our breath mingling, water running in rivulets over our curves and dips, both of us sliding closer and closer to the edge.
I clung to him, my heart beating strong and steady despite the terrors this night had brought. In Asher’s arms, I was safe. Tonight, in this raging storm of grief and pain and confusion and fear, he was my anchor.
And for all his toughness, I suspected that I was his, too.
“Harder,” I breathed, biting down on his shoulder to keep from crying out as he obeyed my wishes, plunging deep inside me, my back sliding against the tiles. I kissed his neck, his jaw, his beautiful mouth. I gave him everything I had. And I took everything he offered.
There was power in telling a man what you wanted. Power in claiming your desires. Power in recognizing his, and giving in to those as well.
Like me, he wanted it hard tonight, too. Hard and deep and soul-shattering.
“Harder,” I said again, and I kissed him fiercely, feeling my body clench around him, and that was all it took. The now-familiar rush of pleasure snuck up on me fast, shattering me as Asher moaned into my mouth, coming hot and hard inside me, shuddering against me as tears spilled from my eyes.
He didn’t ask me what was wrong. Didn’t offer pity or sympathy or platitudes. In that instant, I knew he was feeling what I’d felt, and he just continued to hold me, to remain deep inside me, his gaze locked on mine as he waited for me to finally catch my breath.
Something strange and thrilling had just passed between us—something that went beyond the magic and his incubus energy and the raw desire. Time seemed to stop. And there, in the ocean-blue depths of his gaze, I’d seen the ferocity of his love for me, his passion. I saw his loyalty to Ronan and the brotherhood he felt for the others. I sensed their presence, too—all of them. It was as if my connection with Asher was calling out to Ronan, Darius, and Liam as well.
And of course, Emilio. My wolf. Our wolf. His essence was fainter than the others’, but he was still there, still with us.
Still alive.
Tears continued to spill, and Asher kissed them away, one by one.
“He’s okay,” I whispered, knowing Ash would understand. “He’s still with us. I can feel him.”
“Yeah. Me too,” he said. “When we… finished… Something about it brought them all in. I even thought of Liam’s spooky ass.” Asher laughed. “Does that sound fucking crazy or what?”
“It’s our bond,” I said. “Being together like this brings us all closer. I think it’s only going to get stronger now. Not just with you and me, but with all of us. Did you really feel Emilio, too?”
“Not as clear as the other guys, but yeah.” He finally set me down, still holding me as I regained my footing on the slippery tub. The jeans I’d cast off earlier were balled up in a wet heap in the corner, still bloody. I’d be throwing those out the first chance I got.
“I know it was bad,” I continued, toeing the filthy jeans. A stream of red water ran out beneath them. “But if Emilio…” I swallowed hard, unable to say the d-word out loud. Died. “I would feel it, if he did.”
I would feel it. I knew that for a fact. Believed it with such unshakeable faith that even when Darius knocked on the door fifteen minutes later to tell us a car had just pulled in, even when I opened the front door and saw Elena’s shocked, vacant eyes, even when Ronan met my gaze and shook his head, wordless, his whole body covered in wolf’s blood, I still believed Emilio was okay. That any minute he’d walk in behind Ronan and Elena, naked, grinning his wolf’s grin, cracking some joke about how he’d lost all his clothes during the shift that’d miraculously healed his body.
As we stood in the entryway, the door wide open, Asher’s arm came around my waist, holding me up. Our bodies were still warm from the shower, hair dripping into our eyes, and even when I felt his own gasp of shock at Ronan and Elena’s obvious despair, I kept looking past them, looking out into the darkness, searching for my wolf.
When was he coming back? Had he driven separately? Had he decided to stop for supplies? Did he have to file a report at the station?
My mind served up all kinds of logistical questions, because despite the painfully obvious evidence laid out before me, some part of me still believed that my thoughts, my intentions, my imagination, my heart, my bond with him, my hope, my faith, my magic… that all of those things were stronger than Death.
>
Stupid girl.
“We couldn’t save him,” Ronan finally said, his voice cracking, his face as pale as the moon. “Emilio is dead.”
Six
GRAY
“He isn’t,” I insisted. It was that simple. Emilio wasn’t dead.
Which meant that Ronan and Elena had left him in that warehouse somewhere, bleeding and probably unconscious.
I was wearing only a thin robe I’d found hanging on the back of the bathroom door, but I didn’t care. Ignoring Ronan’s desolate stare, I pulled open the hall closet and grabbed the first jacket I saw, already shoving my bare feet into a pair of old boots.
“Let’s go. We need to find him and bring him back here. He needs medical attention.”
No one made a move.
“Why are you guys standing around? Let’s go!” Now it was my voice that was breaking, a tiny crack on the first word that’d turned into a fissure by the last, huge enough for all the doubts and fears to seep in.
My knees buckled, and I felt a pair of strong arms come around my waist from behind, catching me before I hit the floor.
“He’s gone, baby. He’s gone.” Asher’s voice, which only moments ago had been a source of pure pleasure, was like rusty nails on a china plate now. I wrenched free of his hold, still refusing to accept that Emilio—strong, powerful, beautiful Emilio—was dead.
I could still feel his presence. His essence. Why were they all looking at me like I’d lost my mind?
I stepped toward Ronan, leaning in as close as I dared. My skin and hair were still damp from the shower, and here in Ronan’s forbidden presence, steam rose from my body in iridescent swirls.
I searched his eyes, seeking the lie. The loophole that would let our wolf be okay.
But Ronan was a shell. His eyes were empty. It felt like his whole body was about to turn into dust and blow away.
I looked to Elena instead. She hadn’t uttered a word since they’d walked in—just stood beside Ronan, her mouth opening and closing as if she couldn’t suck in enough air, her hands coated in dark, dried blood.