Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Roz stretched, a pleasant soreness between her legs. She paused, some part of her worried that Alaric had left in the night. Despite being tethered to her, the same insecurities she had with other men raised their head—that he left after he got what he wanted from her.
Then there were cold lips on her cheek and she smiled.
“Good morning,” she said. “Have you been here all night? Do you even sleep?”
“I did leave for an errand,” he admitted. “And no, I don’t need to sleep.”
“Not even nap?”
“There are times that I am…not really here,” he said. “Sometimes I blink and Pumpkin Hollow has jumped another few years. Maybe I’d fallen asleep and didn’t know it.”
“That sounds…disconcerting.”
“It can be. It happened just as cars became popular, that was quite a scare. But I missed out on the early motion picture era and instead experienced it in color and sound.”
“You go to the movies?” Roz asked.
“Often. I cannot leave Pumpkin Hollow. I like to sit in the diner, or go to the park and just sit and watch. I believe it’s called people watching?”
“I wondered why you don’t talk like someone from the 1690s.”
“Cinema,” he said, pulling her close. “But there are some things I have wanted to experience. Plumbing, for example.”
“Oh,” Roz laughed. “You’ve never taken a shower?”
“No need. And I do not enter homes, it is invasive.”
“Let me show you,” Roz said, leading him to the bathroom. She turned the knobs and the shower surged on. “Usually I wait for the water to warm up, but I don’t know if you can feel it.”
He stuck his hand under the stream, fascinated as it didn’t go through his skin, but washed over him. The water turned reddish brown as the blood and dirt washed off his hand.
Roz stepped back to give him space to experiment, to lather with her soaps and shampoos. He stayed under the stream until the water ran clean beneath him,
“I think I like the shower,” he said.
He stepped from the shower and dried off. Alaric marveled at the towel as he passed it over his skin. “Last night the blood beaded, but the water cleaned me off,” he said.
“You’re right,” Roz agreed. “Would that be blood magic or sex magic?”
“Best to continue both, just to be sure,” he said. Roz laughed, stepping back into her bedroom. She paused at the pile of clothing she hadn’t noticed before sitting on her desk chair.
“The errand I ran,” he said. He lifted the clothes, grinning as he was able to pick them up. “My old wares.”
“From the museum?” she asked, with a mix of apprehension and dread.
“Yes. I returned the books we borrowed and took some of my clothes. Before you say anything, it is not stealing because they were mine to begin with. I don’t recall lending them to the museum.”
“Fair point,” she said, looking around the room. “Where’s your robe?”
“In a bag. I refuse to put it back on. I do wonder what will happen when I put these on. What if my clothing is visible to others, but I remain invisible? At least it will lend credence to my existence.”
“Or that I’ve finally lost it and spelled a set of clothing to follow me around,” Roz said.
“No clothing then,” Alaric said, dropping his towel on the ground. “I will walk about naked.”
Roz laughed. “And if someone does see you?”
“It would not be the first time I’ve walked through the square naked,” he said, his grin wolfish.
“Really?”
“I told you, all my sins were absolved by dying. I did it on a dare, while piss drunk with the other men of the coven. The joke was on me, they stole my clothes and I stumbled around looking for them. I was found in the pig slop trough the next morning, only awoke when they threw the food atop me.”
Roz laughed again and Alaric moved toward her, tilting her face up to him. “I will tell you all sorts of awful stories if they make you laugh,” he said.
“I can see why your reputation wasn’t exactly wholesome. Were you always this way?”
“Just with the woman I courted,” he said, sliding his fingers through her hair. Goddess, it felt good. He was so gentle and thorough, untangling the knots of sleep with deft hands.
“Is that what this is? Courting?”
“Yes. I thought I was clear, but now I realize I never asked you. Rosalin, may I court you?”
How could she say no to that when his hands were in her hair, when he’d made her come twice last night?
“Yes,” she said. “You may, whatever that entails.”
He bent to kiss her, soft and slow. He helped her out of her towel, pushing her back to the bed, his mouth never leaving hers.
Roz settled onto the edge of the bed, Alaric between her thighs, his hard cock trapped between them. He lay her on her back, kissing along her collarbone before straightening, grasping his cock in his hand and running it along her pussy.
“You’re so wet,” he groaned.
“I don’t know if you remember, but you gave me an amazing orgasm last night,” Roz said.
“How could I forget the way you said my name?” he said, his wolfish grin back.
He pressed the tip of his cock into her, sliding a hand along her thigh.
“I endeavor to make you yell it often. Mostly while orgasming, but I suspect there will be times where it’s in anger.
” He slipped another inch into her, his grip tightening on her thigh.
He thrust into her, each deeper than the last, just the way she said she liked it the night before. “When you’re alone, what do you do?”
“What?” she asked, taken aback by the question.
“Show me how you play with yourself when you’re alone,” he said. Roz reached down, her finger circling her clit. It slipped over the surface easily, soaked from the way he worked her now. She pinched her nipples with her other hand, rolling the bud around to bring it to a peak.
“Like this,” she said, her chest heaving. His thrusts came faster, harder, deeper as he watched her, his gaze moving from one hand to the other as she worked herself.
“I’m not going to last long, watching you like this,” he said, his voice strained.
“Fuck, me neither,” Roz said, her fingers moving quicker.
Alaric’s thrusts were hard and deep, shoving Roz across her bed.
The only thing keeping her in place was his grip on her thigh, his cold fingers pressed into her skin.
She liked the ache of it, the edge of pain his grip caused.
She liked the reckless abandon on his face as he watched her, practically salivating at the sight of her getting herself off.
When she came, it rocked her entirely. She arched into him, her pussy spasming over his cock. “Yes! Alaric! Right there!” she cried. Alaric didn’t stop, even as his thrusts became jerky and haphazard, his gaze locked on her face.
Then he thrust into her a final time, his cock jerking, his body rigid. Roz rode the waves of her orgasm, her fingers slowing on her clit as Alaric pulsed inside her. Alaric no longer used her thigh as leverage, but as support as he came.
For a long moment Roz stared up at Alaric, her mouth partially open as she tried to catch her breath. Alaric stroked a hand along her thigh, his cold ghostly fingers leaving goosebumps in their wake.
He bent down to kiss her, soft and gentle. Then he crawled into bed and pulled her against him once more.
“We can’t stay in bed all day, I have to work,” she murmured.
“Even the Puritans had a day of rest,” he replied.
“You don’t strike me as a Puritan,” she said.
“They would have hanged me for heresy. Oh, wait.”
Roz shoved him playfully, then nuzzled into him. “Thirty minutes.”
“As you like,” he said, placing a kiss on the top of her head.