Chapter 25 #2
“All those stories?” he murmured into her ear. “All those ‘impossible’ tasks? The mortals figured it out every damn time, because they were humble, clever, and above all, persistent as hell.”
“Is one out of three good enough?” she mumbled.
He rested his chin on the top of her head, beard tickling her scalp. “We’ll figure it out—I promise. The whole coven’s getting together tonight for the Solstice. If you’re willing to loop them in, they probably have ideas.”
“Maybe…” She hesitated and pulled back. “Do you really think I’d be welcome with them?”
His face was firm as he nodded. “It’s the first night of Yule. We’re obligated by ancient laws of hospitality to welcome all.”
“Really?”
“Nah, but I’ll keep ’em in line.” He planted a kiss on her forehead and squeezed her arms. His hands lingered there, gentle bindings, and he paused, breathing her in first once and then a second time.
“What’s that perfume?” He slid one hand down her arm to lift her wrist to his nose and huffed it deeply, the tip of his nose tickling the delicate veins of her wrist.
“It’s not perfume—technically. It’s Egyptian musk oil.
They say that when Shakespeare wrote about Cleopatra’s sails, ‘so perfumed that the winds were lovesick with them,’ he was talking about Egyptian musk.
It was what drove Mark Antony so wild.” She hesitated, realizing she had been rambling, and he probably didn’t care about all those details. “Do you…know anything about fragrance?”
“Nah. But I’d love to hear what you’ve got to say about it.”
“Well, the oil smells different on whoever wears it. The scent mixes with your natural smell instead of covering it, and it comes out totally different depending on things like skin pH, how oily you are, how hydrated you are, and even what you ate that day. So the smell ends up being a kind of…elevated version of you.”
“So you’re saying it’s actually you who smells so good—that tracks.” Then he studied her with a half smile. “You’re kind of a nerd about smells, aren’t you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “A ‘nerd’?”
His eyes crinkled in humor. “I just mean you know a lot.”
“I’ve always had a strong sense of smell…It’s usually one of the first things I notice about a person. I could even guess pretty well who was in the office when I got in just by the colognes in the lobby. Some people say they’re ‘visual’ people, but I guess I’m…what’s the word?”
“Hell if I know.”
“Olfactory? Yeah, that’s it…” The realization she’d had the night before—about how she could smell spells—came to mind.
She knew she should share it—that he would want to know it, would be delighted, in fact.
But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell him what Baba Yaga had said about who, what, she was.
Or at least, what the crone claimed she was, because she didn’t know yet how to feel about it.
If it was something that she wanted, or if it even mattered whether she wanted it.
The witches had described the first step of their becoming as a sudden awareness, but everything that followed was a course of action.
A course she didn’t have to take. Not if she didn’t want her life to change irrevocably and completely.
But she stopped thinking about that because Stephan lifted her wrist to his lips, kissing it before opening his mouth to bite lightly at the bones.
When she didn’t pull away, he dragged her closer and shifted his attention to her face, hand sliding down her jaw to slip behind her neck and hold fast. Snow shook free from his hair and landed on her cheeks, where it melted immediately into cool streams that ran down her already flushed cheeks.
“How do I smell?” he said in something dangerously close to a growl.
“Like the trees,” she exhaled. “Like the mountains. Like those wild, beautiful places where you don’t have to do anything but be. And right now?” She inhaled something musky and a bit sweet. “Like you’re ready to finish what we started.”
“I am if you are,” he rumbled into her ear, gripping her tightly as he pillaged her neck.
Her collarbones. The rise of her breasts.
She rose to her tiptoes, assuming control by winding her hands in his hair and pulling hard.
His eyes widened in surprise and pleasure as she met his hunger and then raised it, intent on getting as much of him as she could.
Would it be enough? Enough to satisfy that Stephan-sized desire in her chest?
She slid her hand to where he was already stiff below his pajama pants.
There was enough there to fill anything, but even so, she had her doubts.
Because though she kept telling herself this was just a stopover, designed to wrap up neatly in a day or two, that did not fit with those moments when he had said “we have time,” and it had felt true.
Maybe they had it, maybe they didn’t, but there was no doubt she wanted it. That both of them wanted it. That didn’t make it practical or true in a cosmic sense, but at that moment, it was so real.
She slid his sweater up and over his head so that she could run her hands down his chest, down every muscle she had caught rippling beneath his shirt in his videos.
There was just so much of him to explore, to touch, to kiss, to tease.
Her hand traveled to his waistband, and this time he didn’t stop her as she ran her hand down and up, tracing his ridgelines and finding the spot where it domed and lingered there.
And then finally slipped him free. Every image her mind had conjured as she’d eyed where his clothing pulled tight over his muscles in his videos fell short. She knelt to take him in her mouth and delighted as his body shook with the pleasure of what she did to him.
“Where do we want this to go, Sunshine?” he breathed, hands on her head, tangled in her hair. “I need to hear it.”
She let him go and slid up his body, and pressing into him, she said, “I want us to act like we don’t have more time. Like maybe this is all we’ll get, and anything we don’t do, anything we want to do, we’ll always have to wonder about. I don’t want to be left wondering. You have a condom?”
He let out a low, pleased noise that could only be described as a purr, but if it came from a lion, not a housecat, and then produced one from his pocket—prepared, it seemed, for this eventuality.
She tore it open and slipped it on and as she did, he asked, “What happened to no sex with me, ever?”
“It went away as soon as I accepted that you would never think I owed it to you, which was around the same time I realized—I owe it to myself.”
That was all he needed to hear. He pushed her back against the wall with his hips and she grabbed fast as he lifted her easily into the air, just the way she’d known he could as she watched all those videos of him.
His teeth raked along her neck, and there was a rough need in how he handled her that caused the fire that had lit in her belly to travel in every direction.
She’d given him permission to let loose, and he had.
All she’d slept in was his Muddy Boots shirt, and he didn’t even bother to remove it, only pushed it up high enough to thrust himself inside her.
The feeling of fullness was unlike anything she could have expected.
Her hands gripped the bars tighter as she let out a gasp.
His hands slid up and down her sides before finally settling back to squeeze her hips, guiding them up and down.
Every time he thrust himself into her, she inched a little deeper, previously unexplored regions of her body expanding to make room for him.
The way all parts of her seemed to. All of those places she would have sworn he couldn’t fit, he managed to find his way inside.
Again and again. They couldn’t be more different, couldn’t come from more different worlds, and yet he just kept showing up, showing her things she hadn’t realized she was missing.
His eyes bored into her as his hips played the exact rhythm of her pleasure, and just as she thought she was about to peak, he pulled them off the wall and carried her to the bed. He laid her out on her stomach and ran his hands over her ass, squeezing before entering her from above.
“Oh fuck, Sunshine, I…” But he couldn’t keep talking, only groaned as he thrust all the way to the hilt, and she gripped the bedspread, trying to hold steady against the overwhelming pleasure crashing through her body.
Again, he deftly traveled the line of just too much, but he always pulled away before it became overwhelming, bringing her to the edge over and over with every thrust.
When she tightened around him, his thrusting grew even more intense, ragged and uncontrolled, and he chased the heels of her ecstasy, letting go only when he was sure she’d finished.
He collapsed beside her on the bed—hot, sweaty, looking as satisfied as she felt. She crawled over to put her face to his chest, and he looped an arm around her lazily.
“I didn’t…” she gasped, giggling as she did. “I didn’t know it could be like that.”
“Good?”
“Great,” she murmured, her brain too much of a puddle to think of a more creative adjective.
He smoothed her hair back. “Oh, Sunshine, your bar is so low. I was pretty overeager. But next time…”
Next time, she thought, turning the idea over in her mind. She’d told him to act like they didn’t have time, and she’d meant it, but there could be a next time. Sex could feel like this again—like the sort of thing people lost themselves in. With this man who was so warm, so open.
If this wasn’t just a stopover. If she took what he’d offered and refused her parents’ deal.
Was that something she was ready to do?