Chapter 23
Livvie
I was on a ten-shot of espresso high, desperate, and needy, and all I wanted was Wes. His hands. His mouth. His skin against mine. Him inside me.
I put my hand on his cheek and turned him so I could kiss his mouth, so I could push my tongue between his lips, slide against his.
He turned away then smiled as he glanced back at me. “Hold on, baby. I’m going to take care of you, I promise.”
The words warmed me, washed down my body like a caress.
It wasn’t his fault I couldn’t stop touching him, couldn’t stop kissing his cheek, his throat, lowering my head to bite at his nipple, then dragging my tongue over it through his shirt.
My pussy clenched, soaked, and as much as I needed release, I wanted to wait for him.
He set me on my feet, and I almost couldn’t stand still long enough for him to pull the door open before I pounced on him, threw myself into his arms, used my momentum and my body weight to force him against the door so I could kiss him without obstruction, without worrying about Leonard or my grandmother or magic or anything else but my mate.
He tangled his hand in my hair and tilted my head so he could kiss me the way I desired, the way I needed like I needed my next breath.
I didn’t know what was happening to my body, what portion of control I had surrendered to the need inside of me, but I couldn’t stop kissing him, didn’t want to stop, either.
My pussy throbbed with want and he pulled me inside the house then spun me into his arms, and I slid my hand between us, cupping his cock through his pants.
I was on fire, burning for more of him. There wasn’t time to do more than flick his pants open and shove them down as I knelt in front of him and took him into my mouth.
As I heard my front door close, my tongue swirled at the tip, caught the drips of precum on the head, then I sucked him deep into my throat, took as much as I could, then pulled back.
He inhaled, sharp, the sound as decadent to my ears as the taste was to my mouth.
He was satin and silk, power and ferocity, and I wanted him so bad I ached with it.
“Oh, fuck, Liv.” He shoved his fingers into my hair, curling them in and out against my scalp, then guiding me to the rhythm he liked.
His body flinched and bucked, and I wanted to taste all of him, but he pushed me back and lifted me to my feet.
Instead of letting him take me to the bedroom, I stripped and threw a leg over his hip.
He pushed into me fast and fucked me against the wall, then we moved to a chair, to the floor, to the dining room table. We christened every room as ours before we came up for air and I lay against him in the bedroom, panting, my pussy sated, his fingers still toying with my nipple.
I looked up at him. There was… he was… oh, God.
“I love you, Wes.” The words burst out of me, uncontainable once I had the thought. But no less truthful for how abrupt they sounded. I meant it, felt it in every part of my body. It wasn’t the adrenaline, the anger, or even the afterglow talking. This was me. From the heart. In love with him.
He glanced up from beneath those obscenely long lashes and the desire in his eyes made me want him all over again. Not as much as his words did, though. “I love you, too, Liv,” he breathed out on a whisper.
My heart swelled and my body vibrated. I wanted him again. Knowing he loved me too made it all the more important that he knew the me who was scared—terrified—of losing him. Who would shatter and splinter if it ever happened.
I wanted to be honest, to let him know the depths of my feelings, but it was so personal.
He put his hand on my face, tilted it toward him. “Where did you go?”
I smiled because it was easy now that he was here, now that I wasn’t watching Leonard trying to kill us. “Wes, when Leonard was…” He knew what Leonard had done. “I was angry, enraged. All I could think was what if he won? What if he took you from me? Or me from you.”
I swiped away what might or might not have been a tear, then gazed at him, heart in my throat.
“I didn’t know how I would live without you, if it would make me go dark, if it would kill me…
” I was sure it would have. Surer now that I knew he loved me, too.
I’d known before. A man didn’t treat a woman the way Wes had been treating me without at least some measure of love in the mix.
He brushed his finger down my cheek to my jaw then around to my chin. “All the force in the world isn’t strong enough to take me away from you. Armies. Men with guns. Things that go bump in the night. Nothing is so strong as to take me away from you, and there is no place I would rather be.”
His words sent warm shivers through me. I loved him.
I wanted to scream it to everyone I knew.
Shout it at passing cars. Make sure the world knew.
More, I wanted them to know he loved me back.
My smile came easy as I buried my head in his shoulder and held onto him like I would never let go.
And if the choice were mine, I wouldn’t.
He grinned and urged me away. “I want you now. And I’m going to want you always.”
“Wes.” But there were no more words, no need when he lowered his head and captured my mouth in the softest, sweetest kiss I’d ever been a part of.
He skimmed his hand along my hip and turned me toward him, letting his still-hard cock rest between us as he continued to kiss me, to make love to my mouth with his tongue.
The slide of his body against mine, the gentle brush of his fingertips, the eroticism of the moment wasn’t lost for the leisurely pace he took. Every cell in my body whipped to life, charged by the electricity of his touch.
He slid his dick between my legs, then inside, and moved slowly while he mimicked the rhythm of his hips with his mouth. The effect was mesmerizing. I’d never been so cherished as I was by his eyes, by his hands, by this man. And I never wanted it to end. Ever.
“Liv.” My name is a whisper and I'm intoxicated by the emotion he put into the sound. “I want...will you take my bite? Let me make us one…”
He had such hope shining in his eyes and I’d never wanted anything more. “Yes. Please, yes.” I tilted my head and exposed the sensitive part of my throat, waiting as the pressure in my belly continued to build. This was the moment I’d dreamed of, waited for.
He quickened his pace, thrust a little harder, a little deeper until my pussy clenched and I milked him, then split apart as he sank his teeth into my neck.
Nothing in my life had prepared me for the depth of my feeling for him.
And I was sure nothing would ever compare to this moment.
Nothing I could ever recreate without him.
Loving him, or admitting it, made the sex better, sweeter, and there was no going back anymore.
We’d become all or nothing, and nothing wasn’t an option.
The best part was that when we joined together, so did our magic. With a complete certainty, I knew I could draw on his magic, whatever it was that made him a dragon shifter, and it would make me even more powerful.
And Wes would be a stronger dragon shifter with my magic. We would forever be stronger together.
The next morning, after another three or four rounds of lovemaking, and fucking, and everything in between, we showered.
“What is this?” I asked, tracing a tattoo on his neck I’d never seen before. It looked like an orb surrounded by red and blue flames, but it was so intricately done it looked real! I’d never seen a tattoo this lifelike.
“What?” he twisted around, but it was in a spot he wouldn’t be able to see without a mirror. “Wait.” He squinted at my neck. “My clan tattoo is on your neck.”
My eyebrows flew up. Jumping from the shower, I grabbed a hand mirror, sloshing water all over the place as I did, and then returned to the spray.
I had to let the mirror stay under the water to keep it from fogging up, and it was hard to see with the water streaming across the reflective surface, but I got enough to tell it was a small version of the tattoo on Wes’s arm.
“Whoa,” I whispered.
As I handed the mirror to Wes for him to check out the new markings on his neck, a pop of green on my arm flashed at me. I turned it over slowly to find, in the exact same spot as Wes’s clan tattoo on his arm, the same marking as was on his neck.
“Do you think this could be the tattoo of my clan?” I asked.
He froze in the act of peering down at the mirror, trying to get a good look at his neck.
“I bet it is.” He reached out of the shower and set the mirror on the counter before pulling me into his arms. “We’re the first witch and dragon mated pair.
There’s no telling what we’re going to see, or accomplish, or come up with. These tattoos are just the beginning.”
I fingered the spot on my neck that felt a little tender. “Am I touching it?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’m glad it’s there. I want the world to see that I’m yours.” I moved my other hand to trace the flaming orb on his neck. “And that you’re mine.”
He lowered his lips to mine. “I agree with that, wholeheartedly.”
After our shower, we lay on the bed with the hand mirror and properly looked closely. “This is pretty cool.”
“You know.” Wes took the mirror, laying it to the side before cupping my cheeks again.
“I told you in the clearing, but I have to say it again. You’re amazing.
And I know you’re going to continue to be amazing.
With every passing day, you’ll come more and more into who you are and who you’re meant to be. I can’t wait to watch you blossom.”
“I love you,” I whispered.
Wes pressed his lips to mine softly, reverently. I deepened the kiss, unable to get enough of him. I wanted more and more, and never wanted it to end.
When he came up for air, my mate chuckled. “I love you, too, my little mate.”
Pushing his robe aside, I shed my own and climbed on top of him to show him—again—just how much I cared for him.