Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Delainey’s room was a sanctuary.
The coven had eventually come up from the basement and spent hours poking and prodding at Reece and Delainey to no avail.
There was hope they’d be able to break the manacles in the morning, and Aya had said something about pulling an all-nighter, but exhaustion was dragging at Reece.
The prospect of sleeping in an actual bed for the first night in days was something he couldn’t resist.
The room wasn’t what he had expected.
She was a witch. There should have been candles on every surface, herbs and stones for protection, whatever they claimed to offer.
And while he saw a few, an amethyst, a tourmaline, what might have been hematite, they were clustered in a group that made no sense for protection or amplification.
They were nice-looking, shiny rocks and nothing more.
A massive computer setup occupied a table in the corner, two giant monitors and a gaming chair that looked fairly comfortable, not that he was going to sit down and try it.
The room itself was smaller than he’d expected, with hardwood floors partially covered by a worn rug in deep purple, and the walls painted a slate gray that made the space feel close, almost cocoon-like.
A single window to the left of the bed let in the moonlight through sheer curtains, and a floor lamp beside the computer desk provided the only other source of illumination, its warm glow pooling over stacks of books and a half-empty water bottle.
“Are you a gamer?” he asked. He had never considered it before.
“I’m a web designer,” she said. “Freelance. I get to make my own hours. It doesn’t suck.”
No, it wouldn’t.
His whole life was the pack. He worked for Cole, did what was necessary, and kept things running. There wasn’t exactly space for freelance work, and he didn’t mind that. But this was another piece of the puzzle that was Delainey, and it took effort to not ask more.
How had she gotten into it? How long had she been doing it? Was she any good? Of course she was. She wouldn’t be doing it if she wasn’t, wouldn’t be paid for it if she sucked. She might hold it against him if he said anything that impugned her skills.
Despite the exhaustion, he felt a bit desperate. This would, hopefully, be the last night they were bound together. He stressed that to himself.
In the morning they would walk away, and he had a feeling deep in his gut that Delainey would stay away from him for good.
Every time she looked down at the manacles, she had that caged animal look in her eyes.
It had become clear how much she didn’t want to be confined. Not that he could blame her.
They would sleep beside one another tonight, wake in the morning, and hopefully her coven would have a solution.
Then the best he could hope for were stolen glimpses while Nico cozied up to his own witch and Reece was left alone.
He should have been eager to find someone else, anyone who could erase the memory of her, but his wolf was so absolutely against it that Reece could feel phantom claws scraping at his insides for even thinking it. Just thinking it. He wasn’t actually considering it.
There was no one who could replace Delainey.
They were both staring at the bed. Reece tried to walk to one side and Delainey to the other, and the manacles started to burn. The cuffs flared hot enough that the heat radiated through his wrist and up the tendons of his forearm, a sharp, bright pain like pressing his palm to a stovetop.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Delainey said.
It was a standard queen bed. A quilt in shades of purple and gold was folded neatly at the foot, and two mismatched pillows sat propped against a simple wooden headboard. They couldn’t even get six feet apart. Delainey scrambled onto her side and glared down at the empty space beside her.
“Get in,” she ordered. “And don’t say anything about sleeping on the floor. If one of us rolls the wrong way we’re going to wake up in excruciating pain, and I would rather avoid that.”
Reece didn’t argue. He slid under the covers, and the bed dipped under him.
The borrowed sweats were too short at the ankle and tight across his thighs, and the mattress was softer than anything at the pack house, sinking under his weight until he could feel the outline of springs beneath the padding.
He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, trying not to think about Delainey right next to him.
Her bed smelled even more like her than anywhere else had.
He was hyperaware of every inch of space between them, and every inch that wasn’t.
Their body heat mingled, making it almost too hot for comfort, but the softness of the bed was a luxury after days in the forest.
All he wanted to do was reach out and hold her, which was insanity.
He didn’t want witches. He didn’t fall for witches.
This was him temporarily going out of his mind.
A clock ticked on the wall somewhere, an unfriendly reminder that their time together was growing short with no way out of that. He needed to force himself to sleep, close his eyes, even his breath, let nature take its course.
But that wasn’t happening. His body was thrumming with need.
All he had to do was reach out, and some part of him was sure Delainey would reach back.
She had been all sharp edges since they got back. Even now, in pajamas and a purple silk bonnet, that sharpness hadn’t abated. It wasn’t the clothes that made the emotion. It was every shield she kept up.
So when he felt fingers brush over his thigh, he thought he had to be hallucinating. Or maybe the coven had a cat that had snuck under the bed and could mimic human hands.
But no, it was Delainey.
She didn’t say a word, didn’t acknowledge what she was doing, and Reece barely dared to breathe. Her fingers walked over his thigh and dragged around like she was drawing designs on him. He expected her to pull away.
He was beginning to realize that when it came to Delainey, he needed to expect the unexpected.
She rolled onto her side. He was a magnet drawn to her, mirroring the action.
In the dark, her brown eyes were almost black, and this close, he could count the individual lashes framing them, could see the small scar just below her left eyebrow he’d never noticed before.
Her eyes were wide and her face was almost open, though she was still holding some part of herself back.
He wanted to tear that wall down, break it open, get past it so she could never put it up again when it came to him.
He could be hers if only she asked.
She reached up slowly and tapped two fingers against his cheek. He leaned into the touch and let her cup his face. Her palm was warm and slightly calloused at the base of her fingers. He saw in her eyes that she was thinking the same thing.
This would be over by tomorrow. They could leave each other behind. They would have to. They would turn their attention to figuring out who had kidnapped them and exact their vengeance. But this connection? No, it would be gone, unforgotten, as if he could ever forget this woman.
Ah, fuck it. If this was his last chance, he was taking it.
He leaned in and kissed her.
It should have been a gentle exploration. They were finally in a bed, finally had all night with little threat of rogue wolves or more kidnappers or whatever dangers they were facing.
But Reece devoured her, and Delainey gave as good as she got.
She slung her hip over his and straddled him, half pulling him up and taking control of the kiss, fingers digging into his flesh hard enough to bruise.
The bed frame creaked under the shift of their combined weight, and his hands found her waist through the thin cotton of her shirt, the heat of her skin burning through the fabric against his palms.
He was hard and ready, would take her right now if only her stupid pajama shorts weren’t in the way.
Without breaking the kiss, she trailed a hand between them and found his cock already jutting out of the band of his borrowed sweats.
He gasped as she took him in hand and stroked.
Her grip was firm and sure, and every nerve ending in his body narrowed to the slide of her fingers, the drag of her calluses, the unbearable friction of skin on skin.
He was barely holding it together, hips rocking into hers. He wouldn’t last long, and he didn’t give a damn. As soon as he was done, he was going to feast on her.
A door slammed down the hallway, and Delainey froze.
She pulled back and let go of him like he’d burned her. A feminine voice yelled something he couldn’t quite make out. Another answered. The spell was broken.
Through the thin walls he could hear footsteps on the landing, the old pipes groaning as someone turned on a faucet, and the low murmur of continued conversation that might as well have been a siren.
They weren’t in some secret hideaway, a world where no one could bother them. They were in her home, a coven house shared with four other witches, with two werewolf guests in addition to him for the night.
Sensitive ears everywhere, and more sensitive noses. They weren’t alone, she was a witch, and he’d had his tongue in her mouth while her hand was on his cock.
That couldn’t happen.
Delainey rolled off him like she’d been electrocuted.
He braced, waiting for her to call it a mistake, to tell him to pretend it never happened, or warn him it would never happen again. She scooted to the farthest edge of the bed, as if any amount of space could erase the attraction that wouldn’t seem to go away.
The air between them was thick and charged with everything they couldn’t be.
His cock jutted out, desperate for more of her. It was a different torture than the manacles, worse because he was beginning to believe that Delainey was everything to him. In the morning, he would have to let her go.
At some point he must have drifted off, because he roused from sleep sometime in the pre-dawn hours to find her body nestled against his.
Her back was fitted against his chest, one of her hands resting over his where his arm circled her waist, and the silk of her bonnet was smooth against his chin. He tightened his arms around her.
All he could think was that yes, this was where she belonged.