Chapter 7 #2
“People don’t understand that when they ask me for a vision.
They want to know if what they want happens, but I can’t even explain that sometimes getting what you want isn’t the best option.
And that’s not me saying everything happens for a reason because nothing does.
It’s just that life is more complicated than that.
” She cleared her throat. “But anyway, to answer your question, no tarot, just crystal. Either way, they’re just crutches. ”
“Would you do without your, um, crutch?”
“Hm, interesting question. I don’t think I would. Don’t you have anything in your life that makes the rest of it easy?”
“Like a stress ball?” he said and then felt stupid.
“I guess so?”
He had to explain. He was not insulting her. “I mean, I think best when my hands are moving. I can squeeze the life out of one, and somehow it helps.”
“Yeah, so with a bit of crystal, I see a few weeks into the future.”
“It seems like a useless talent,” he said before the rest of his brain caught up and told him to stop telling the truth.
To his infinite relief, she laughed, and she twisted a little to burrow deeper into the sheets.
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re right. Most magic is pretty useless on its own. When you put all the talents together, we make one functioning coven.”
“I had no idea,” he said, fascinated despite himself.
Witches were an undifferentiated blob in his mind.
He’d seen one move an object without touching it, so telekinesis was actually a thing.
He knew they brewed up potions but was unsure of whether he got that knowledge from a real witch or the legend of La Befana, a crazy woman on a broomstick.
Maybe Le Befana was a real witch. “It’s not useless. ”
“It has saved my life.”
“I’m glad,” he whispered, suddenly battling the wolf at the idea of her in danger.
Silence fell between them. Logs crackled in the stove, but without the howling wind, his ears felt muffled.
“So what happens next?” he couldn’t help asking again. He hadn’t meant for her to use her talents, but now he couldn’t get the thought out of his mind.
She took a deep breath. “Do you really want to know?”
“Don’t I?”
“What I say will change your life. Even if you change your actions and what I say doesn’t come true, or it comes true perfectly, or you and I never understand what I’ve said.
That’s all on the table, but knowing something about the future will stick in your mind forever.
I have a sister who has never asked. We’ve lived together for decades, and she has never wanted the answer because she’s seen what it does to people.
I’ve had to pull back so hard because witches have gotten completely addicted.
They’ve been incapable of moving without asking me.
It’s not powerful, but it is dangerous.”
Which made it powerful. Her insistence on her own feebleness surprised him.
“What happens next?” he said and reached out gingerly until his fingers fortunately brushed her temple, and he adjusted his hand to cup her cheek. “There are many things I fear in this life, but you will never be one of them.”
He felt her breath against his wrist and tension leave her neck.
Her eyelashes closed against his thumb, and he took a deep breath, then immediately regretted it, because with the dinner packed away and the stove closed, the scents of the cabin faded in favor of the scent that had driven him mad in a blizzard in the woods.
Now, a foot away from the source, it threatened to overwhelm his mind completely.
He felt something stir within him as his wolf sat up, gazing at the woman.
We’re fine, he said, but the wolf ignored him.
He felt something pass between all three of them, something like the current between him and his wolf, only she was now involved in it.
Her eyes flew open, and he realized he suddenly could see her in the dark. She looked like she was glowing. He jerked his hand away and was immediately plunged into black again.
“What the hell was that?” he asked as he tried to touch her again, this time nearly poking her in the eye.
“Ow!” She batted him away, and their hands connected.
It didn’t happen again. Darkness was still dark. They were both breathing hard, and he was completely warm, like it was a hot New York summer and not a blizzard in winter.
“What happens next?” he breathed.
She surged forward, and her lips met his nose.
She lunged backward. “Sorry, I should’ve asked!”
He could feel, smell, and taste the trace of her lips on him, and suddenly it wasn’t just a New York summer; he was in a blazing furnace, and his wolf was howling within him like it had just brought down a moose.
He closed the distance between them, and by some miracle, his lips met hers.
She squeaked, then let her lips soften. He could not tear away even as he fought with the covers to bring the rest of his body flush with hers.
There were still a dozen layers of clothes between them, it seemed, but he snaked one arm under her head and the other under her ribs so he could bring her closer.
She fisted one hand in his shirt, and they rocked until he was half over her, so she could rest her head on the pillow, and he could keep ravaging her mouth.
He thought the smell of her was addictive.
The taste of her was simply the most delicious thing he had ever experienced in his life on earth.
He’d eaten at the best restaurants in the world with the best chefs attending his table.
He drank wines that sat undisturbed for five hundred years and cost as much as a mortgage payment, and none of it could hold a candle to the taste of her lips.
He knew two things with absolute clarity. One, he would never have enough. If he drank this every day for the rest of his life, it would not be enough. And two, no one else would satisfy him ever again.
The anemic plan to return to his life in an antiseptic tower in the sky and find some female shifter to bring there with him felt completely bizarre.
Nonna, you were wrong. A week in the woods didn’t make his life easier; it made life as he knew it impossible.
When she squirmed beneath him, rolling closer to him, he gasped and finally broke the kiss.
“This,” she said as she struggled to sit up and started shedding layers.
For a moment, he didn’t understand, and she stilled. “I Saw this.”
“I know.” He surged up to pull every shirt he wore over his head, popping three buttons in the process.
He fell onto her, skin to skin, and every inch of her burned him.
He leaned forward to capture her lips again, but she wouldn’t let him. “I’ve Seen this all day.”
He groaned as he got the rest of his clothes off. “I love magic.”
He reveled in her lips and then went exploring to discover how the patch of skin behind her ear tasted.
The delicate skin between her breasts intensified her scent, and he felt that connection stir again, the weird charge of electricity between them that shimmered and spiked.
He tried to ignore it as he took one nipple into his mouth and bit down exquisitely gently until she shrieked and levitated off the bed.
When she was shaking beneath him, he finally let go. “The things I want to do to you.”
“I know,” she said. It felt a little bizarre to be compared to her vision of his foreseen self. Did he match expectations? What a crazy thing to worry about.
He continued his explorations of her skin, kissing and licking his way down her stomach.
She thrashed beneath him. He wrestled until he pinned her hips and ducked his head under one of her legs so he could revel in the best part of her.
“Mateo! I haven’t showered in two days!”
He groaned. “Thank god.”
He wanted to soak up everything he could taste, but he also wanted to make her feel good, and so concentrated on her tiny, perfect bud until she shrieked when he got the pressure and angle right.
So he did that again and again and again, and her mindless thrashing became a rhythmic roll that worked with him and not against him.
Her protests to stop became exhortations not to stop. He could feel the wave of sensation roll through her, and then she was shattering around him, sending waves of nectar across his tongue, and he could’ve sworn before that nothing would have tasted better than her skin, but this did.
He didn’t let her rest but kept going until she was squirming and shrinking and protesting again, and finally, he tore himself away.
It wasn’t enough; it would never be enough, but it would have to do for today as he climbed her body now drenched in delicious sweat until his head was back in the open, and he realized he was starved for oxygen as her arms came around his neck and tried to strangle him again.
Breathing was overrated.
All four of her limbs were wrapped around him, and he didn’t have a good angle to make her feel even more.
Maybe that was on purpose.
“Do you want to stop?”
She pulled away with a look of betrayal and shock.
“I will kill you,” she said, spookily calm.
“If we stop?” He had to be sure.
“Yes!” she said, and then finally let go of him so he had room to maneuver.
He laughed as he considered how many times a witch had told a werewolf she would kill him in very different circumstances. This was better. He felt them align and thrust into her in one long, perfect slide, not stopping until he was home, even as she shouted.
“You’re huge!” she said with a growl, and he froze. Had he hurt her?
When he pulled away, she shrieked in protest and pulled him closer again. They fit together. Of course, they fit together; she was perfect. He pressed in, and she groaned, so he sped up, wondering if he could make her make that sound again.
He ignored the growing sparks at the base of his spine and the way his fingers went numb, so he could find the perfect angle, depth, and speed. Her babbling was growing more incoherent, but he didn’t think he had found it yet. He could do better.
She went rigid, and he almost panicked again, but felt her flutter around him as her eyes rolled back in her head, and finally, he let himself fall with her into perfection. Nothing would ever feel so good again.
That was a major problem.