Chapter Twenty-Seven Lyra
That’s a wrap!” Vaughn called. “Great job, everyone. Lyra… a word?”
Rab grabbed my hand, and I gasped as he dragged me out of the test kitchen and toward the trailer.
“Rab!”
“Get your coat, Lyra. Let’s get out of here before they corner us for two hours of interviews.”
I dashed into the trailer, feeling like I was cutting school, and swallowed a nervous giggle as I ran back outside to find Rab had his coat on as well.
As soon as he saw me, he grabbed my hand and tugged me down the same alleyway I’d stumbled down bleeding from my side two days prior.
The lanterns glowed softly, the cobblestones were still damp from an earlier drizzle, and a mild breeze rattled the ivy on the walls.
Nerves skittered through my stomach, and I let out a relieved breath when we left the alley and hurried along the pavement on Main Street.
Rab was almost dragging me, he was moving so fast, and my pulse picked up to match his pace.
A few fallen leaves scudded around our feet, storefronts twinkled with Halloween decorations, and happiness bloomed in my chest. It was quaint, picturesque, and I wanted to capture this moment in my mind forever—the warm feel of Rab’s palm under mine, his urgency in getting me home, the giddy excitement of finding our way back to each other filling me.
“Lyra?”
I jerked my head up to see Sloane tailing us in her car. I’d completely forgotten that she was meant to pick me up after the show.
“Is everything okay?”
“Oh, aye. Everything’s good. I’m sorry, I should have called.” I tugged Rab’s hand, a bit breathless, and forced him to slow.
“I see. Rab, dear?” Sloane called.
Rab finally stopped and turned, a quick flash of annoyance in his eyes at being stopped making me smile.
“Please be careful with her. She’s still recovering, remember?”
“Och, I’m a bloody eejit. Dragging you down the sidewalk. Have I hurt you?” Rab’s hand went to my side, and I went dizzy at the touch of his hand at my waist. Need filled me.
“No,” I said, too loudly, and lowered my voice. “No, it’s fine. Really. Their healing magick is pretty incredible.”
“You’re going home with him?” Sloane called.
“Bloody hell, Sloane,” I said, throwing my hand in the air. “Why not announce it to the whole town?”
“Oh, sorry. Right. That’s me off to my own man. Let me know if you still need a ride tomorrow.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Rab said, and I almost melted in a puddle at the street. My magick tingled.
“High heels. Loafers. Trainers. Clogs. Chelsea boots,” I recited, and Rab grinned.
“Gotta run before this entire street turns into hedgehogs.” Rab dragged me away, and I waved to Sloane as we crossed the street and turned the corner onto Rab’s street.
“Rab.”
“Wheesht. Just let me get you inside.” Rab fumbled with his key at the door. “I need—”
Rab popped the door open and dragged me inside, slamming it closed behind me. And then my back was against the door and his mouth was on mine.
It was everything.
Everything.
It felt like all of my senses short-circuited at once, my mind going completely blank, and then everything narrowing to a singular point.
Rab.
His lips on mine, the heat of his kiss searing through me, and everything in my body roared back to life, and I knocked my elbow against a picture frame and sent it falling to the floor as I reached up to hook an arm around the back of his neck, pulling his mouth more tightly against mine.
“Shite,” I breathed, breaking away to try to see if I’d broken the picture.
“Fuck the picture,” Rab swore, capturing my lower lip with his mouth and sucking so hard my lip made a little popping sound when he let it go. “Bloody hell, Lyra. I want to eat you alive. I don’t even know where to start. I’m mad with wanting you. I can’t even—”
“Rab,” I gasped against his mouth as his tongue slid against mine. I broke the kiss, panting. “I’m afraid… I’ll turn your house…”
“Into a hedgehog?” Rab chuckled, the sound vibrating through me, and I pressed my breasts closer to his hard chest, brushing, loving the feel of his strength against all my softness. “Bloody hell, Lyra, you’re going to… just hold. Hold. One second. I know how to handle this.”
“With a condom, hopefully?” I asked, and Rab buried his face in my neck, laughing. And then he nipped at the sensitive skin there and need streaked through me. Arching my back against the door, I pressed myself against him, rubbing like a cat asking for cuddles.
“Shhh, just, hold. I have a spell. A protection spell.” Rab unhooked my arm from around his neck and pulled me farther into his house.
A chittering noise stopped me.
“Oh no, Rab. I’ve made some more already.” Damn it. There was no way that we could do anything. I really would turn the entire contents of his house into one massive…“Wait, what do you call a group of hedgehogs?”
“A prickle,” Rab said, flipping the light on to his kitchen and going to the fridge. I stopped in my tracks and started laughing.
“Seriously?”
“For real.” Rab took out a can of what looked like dog food, and I stared at him in confusion. “And you somehow have managed not to make any more hedgies. I just, well, I kept two of them. From that night. In the kitchen. Our kiss.”
I stared at him, floored, as he moved to a pen on the floor I’d completely missed and spooned out some food for two tiny hedgehogs that were clamoring for his attention.
“You kept them?”
“I… well, yeah. I wanted… I don’t know. It’s stupid.”
“No, Rab, tell me. We’re done keeping things from each other.” I put a hand on his shoulder and he looked up at me.
“I just wanted a reminder of the moment, I guess. A piece of you to hold on to.”
“Oh, Rab.” My throat went dry as my eyes filled.
“Right. Take the lass home and make her cry. That’s one way to her heart.” Rab dumped some more food into the pen and straightened, a frustrated look on his face. “Please don’t cry. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, it’s just… It’s really sweet.”
“Sweet? I don’t want to be sweet. I want to be strong. Manly. Able to lift you over my shoulder and carry you into my cave.”
I laughed and looked down at myself as he put the food away.
“I doubt you could lift me over your shoulder.”
Rab slammed the refrigerator door and moved toward me, a feral look in his eyes, but stopped a second away from touching me.
“The spell. First, we do the spell. It’s a spell used for protection when people with transmutation skills are just learning their magick. I’d forgotten about it, but was looking through my grimoire to see if there was anything to help you with your magick and found it. Repeat after me.”
I nodded, doing my best to stay focused.
Rab’s lips lifted in a sultry smile.
“Darling, you’re massaging my chest.”
Oh my goddess, I was. I just wanted to keep touching him.
“Right, sorry.”
“Hold my hands. It seems your magick likes to use me as a conduit.”
“I’d like to use you as a—”
“Focus, darling.” Rab laughed. “What is, shall stay… until I say. No shift, no swirl, no change today. By thought made firm and will hold tight. My magick rests until just right.”
My magick unfurled inside me, shimmering through my limbs and wrapping around me as I invoked the spell. Once finished, I met Rab’s eyes, sinking into their mossy green depths.
“Now what?” I whispered.
“Now this.” Rab bent, and I squealed as he lifted me into his arms and smacked my bum with his hand.
“Hey!” I laughed, taken completely off guard that he was able to carry me like this. The smack became a caress, and my insides went liquid as he slid his hands over my bum and down my thighs, the soft strokes sending heat rocketing through my body.
Soft light spilled across a floor with a simple navy knotted wool rug thrown over golden hardwood floors. And then my world righted as Rab laid me ever so gently down on the bed.
He could have tossed me like a sack of potatoes.
Instead, he lowered me softly to the mattress, like I was the most important thing in the world to him, and then he dropped to his knees before me.
“Lyra, I have dreamt of you countless times through the years. This still feels like a dream. That I could be here. Like this. With you.” Rab unzipped my boots and slid them off my feet, his fingers trailing up my stockings. “Darling?”
“Aye?” My breath hitched as he drew lazy patterns on my inner thighs with his hands, and my legs twitched, widening of their own accord.
“How attached to these stockings are you?”
“Och, not at—”
A rip sounded and cool air hit my thighs, followed by the warmth of his mouth.
“Oh.” I gasped, leaning back on my elbows as he rid me of the rest of my stockings and my underwear.
Desire burst through me in fizzy little pops, and I shifted against the bed, pulling my skirt up as his mouth moved higher.
His breath was hot against my skin as he softly kissed his way up my thigh, and when he reached the top, he started on the other thigh, making sure both legs were loved on.
It was true, he was worshipping me, I realized, and let out a soft moan when his mouth finally found where I craved him most.
He licked deeply, savoring me as if I were the most delicate of desserts, and I arched against his mouth. My thighs trembled as he lapped at me, taking his time to figure out what I liked, and I cried out as he slid a finger inside of me.
“Oh, Rab, I can’t…” Pressure built as he circled me with his tongue, mirroring the movement with his finger, and I shattered, coming apart around him, as he laughed into me.
His laughter vibrated against me, carrying little bursts of pleasure through my body, and I laughed along with him even as I gripped his hair and pulled his head up to look at me.
“I need you,” I said, simply but urgently.
“Bloody hell, Lyra. You’re a goddess. My goddess.” Rab stood and stripped his shirt off, and I blinked at him.
He was so mind-numbingly handsome. Broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist, and muscles ridged his abdomen. I wanted to touch every inch of him. Preferably with my tongue.