Chapter Thirteen
Effie…
My heart’s going faster than my sister Bea’s magic carpet when she mainlined some Nitro into her speed spell.
I cover up how jingly-jangly I’m feeling by pressing my hands against the cave’s wall, glad for the zap of damp chill that eats its way from my fingertips, because I am burning up right now with adrenaline, nerves, and a whole lotta lust.
I turn to face the gray stone and wait, forcing myself not to give in to something as embarrassing as begging for Darius’s dick, even though I’m already starting to justify doing so in my head.
I mean, come on, I’ve seen him naked. Even if the man is a shower and not a grower, he has a lot to offer.
I’m on the edge of realizing that I may have taken things too far when Darius walks over to me, shifter fast. On the inhale he’s standing near the cave’s opening, the moonlit waterfall behind him, and on the exhale he’s directly behind me, so close I can feel him even though he’s not touching me. Not yet, anyway.
“How much of this is bravado and how much of it is real, witch?” he asks as he skims his palms over the hairsbreadth of air between us, taunting me by the almost-but-not-quite of his touch.
“Does it matter?” I manage to get out instead of screaming, Just put your hands on me already, you ass.
“You know it does,” he says, dipping his head lower, so his words make my curls drift against the back of my neck, a teasing not-quite brush of him against me. “Are you just talking, or do you really want to see what it’s like to be with an alpha?”
Too impatient to play this out any longer, I take the half step back so my ass is snug against him.
He lets out a low growl that travels up my spine like a delicious shiver.
Still, there’s just something about this moment when I have ten toes hanging over the cliffside with a million miles of sky underneath them that has me so high on anticipation that I can’t help but get in one last poke at the werewolf.
“Do you really think being with an alpha is all that different than being with any other guy with a massive ego?”
“Funny,” he says, letting his hands drop to my hips long enough to nudge me forward again, barely enough so a single moon ray can fit between us, “but you’re dodging the question, Effie. Do you want this? Do you want me?”
“Would you like me to magick up a neon sign that says yes?”
The low rumble of his chuckle brushes against my skin, warm and teasing.
That’s not how this is supposed to work.
He’s grumpy and snarly, and I’m the one pushing his buttons, just like I do with everyone.
And yet, here I am melting back against him—or at least trying to.
Like an asshole, he keeps me in place without any effort on his part.
“I want to hear you say it,” he says, a soft, possessive demand. “Tell me you want me.”
Okay, if clear enthusiastic consent is what helps to get him off, who am I to get in his way? Still, that doesn’t mean I’m willing to give up my power position completely. Mr. Big Bad Wolf is about to find out that with me, control is all about give and take.
“You first,” I say.
“Nice try, but that’s not happening. You first, witch.” He slides his index finger from my hip and slips the tip under the waistband of my drooping sweatpants.
It’s like lightning exploding in the sky on a moonless night.
I lose every sense of anything except for where he’s touching me, skin to skin.
My nipples pebble to sensitive points, and a needy sigh escapes before I even know it’s coming.
I can’t keep my eyes open, my breathing is coming in short pants, and my thighs are already tingling in anticipation as my core clenches around nothing but the thought of Darius inside me.
The man isn’t touching my bare skin beyond the slightest bit of his finger, and I’m on the edge of an orgasm.
His free hand goes to my hair, pulling it to the side and exposing the long column of my neck completely. “Say it, Effie Sherwood.”
At this moment, I would agree with a flat-earther if that’s what it takes to move this along, but at least what I’m about to say is the truth.
“I want you.”
I barely get the words out before he’s kissing his way down my neck and sliding the rest of his hand under the waistband of my sweats.
He cups my pussy and pulls me back against him.
The heat of his hand so close to where I want him, mixed with the electric feel of his lips and the hardness of his cock pressed up against the small of my back, has me trembling.
“Please,” I beg, too caught up in the want wrecking me to have anything even close to pride.
He nips at the sensitive spot at the base of my neck and then gives it a quick kiss. “Please what?”
“Are you going to make me say everything?” Okay, maybe I do have a little sass left in me, but it doesn’t account for much considering I’m pleading for him to fuck me.
“Yes.” He easily locks me in place even as I’m fighting to rub myself against the heel of his palm, desperate for some relief. “I like the sound of your voice when you’re all wound up like this, knowing I’m the only one who can give you what you need.”
“You’re not the only hot guy in the world,” I grumble, my frustration mounting.
“True, but none of them can get you this desperate and you know it. Everyone else just gives you what they think you want, but they don’t understand you.” He rotates his wrist, coming so close to giving me what I want that I want to cry. “But I do.”
Fuck this. I’m not about to let this go on any longer.
If he’s not going to get me off, I will.
I slide my hands, icy from being flat against the cave wall, up under the hem of my hoodie and cup my boobs, biting down on my bottom lip and concentrating on the feelings of pleasure flooding through me.
“Your ego is out of control,” I say as I tug on my nipples in just the way I know I need to to get me where I want to go.
It’s not easy for me to get off this way, but I’m so fucking on edge right now anyway that I think a splash from the waterfall would send me over.
“You think I’m all ego,” Darius says, his voice no more than a rumbly whisper. “That’s only true if I can’t back it up, and witch, you’re about to find out that I can.”
I’m about to tell him to prove it when he brings the heel of his palm down to my clit at the same time that he slides two thick fingers inside me.
It’s impossible to muffle my groan of pleasure.
I can’t even roll my nipples anymore; the buzzing going through me in waves is too much already for anything but enjoying the ride.
Every part of me is vibrating with a sensation I’ve never felt before.
It’s more than lust or pleasure or the anticipation of release.
It’s like a part of me that I didn’t even know was there is being unlocked and set free.
The cave walls are gone. The waterfall has disappeared.
The woods, the other werewolves, the rest of Witchingdom have transformed into a barely remembered dream.
There’s only Darius, holding me up and whispering in my ear.
“You like how I work that pussy, don’t you,” Darius says, but it’s not a question because he knows the answer. The sureness is there in the low rumble of his voice as he pumps his fingers in and out at the same time that he rubs the heel of his hand against my clit.
If he expects an answer, he’s about to be very disappointed, because there’s no way I can form a single solitary word. Not when my whole body is already tensing up, ready to let go and get washed away by the orgasm that’s been building since practically the first snarl.
“Have you run out of words, witch?” He pulls his hand away, stealing my orgasm from me. “That’s too bad.”
“Darius.” His name comes from that desperate place deep inside me. “Please, don’t stop.”
“Don’t worry,” he says, pulling his hand out from my waistband, “this is just a short pause.”
I’m about to lodge a formal complaint when he takes hold of the hardest-working string in Witchingdom that’s holding my sweatpants up and tugs it loose.
There’s a half second when my pants stay up, and then they fall to my ankles.
Darius’s hands are on my hips in a heartbeat, and he spins me around so my back is nearly touching the wall and I’m facing him.
There’s something hungry and almost feral in his expression, as if he’s already lost the battle for his self-control, but he refuses to acknowledge it.
“I’ve got you,” he says.
I have a whole two seconds to wonder what he means, and then he lifts me straight up in the air so my aching core is at mouth level for him.
He holds me there in midair without the aid of anything but his own strength for a beat without moving, as if he just wants to take in the view.
I have other plans. I have the wherewithal to sling my legs over his broad shoulders, but that is the last thing I do with anything even close to a conscious thought, because the next thing I know, his hands move from my hips so he’s cupping my ass, then his mouth is on my pussy and he is making out with my clit like it’s his job.
And he fucking looooooooves his job.