Asher #2
Her uninjured foot flattens on the bathmat and her shoulders slump before she looks from her puncturing fingertips to my face.
I expect there to be vindication in her eyes but instead, there’s a small apology that hits me square in the chest. A crushing feeling that my head is taking as a warning siren.
I should be colder to her. Treat her like the threat that Maddox, Thorne, and now Fox seem to think she is.
But I can’t maneuver across my own stubborn nature to believe this delicate woman could hurt me.
A more levelheaded version of myself rings in my ears to not underestimate her or any other would-be danger.
But I shove that noise away into a dark corner along with visions of what she might look like naked on her knees on the black-and-white tile.
Her lips not parting in a scowl, but wide open in needy expectation.
“Can you walk on it?” I ask, drawing her attention to her wound.
The color in her lips is starting to come back. “Yeah.”
She lifts her hand, but I trap it with my free one before she can pull away. “I’ll help you get in. I need to see if you’ve damaged any tendons.”
“That’s not ominous at all.” She relents and allows me to step her over to the side of the tub.
“Fuck!” She hisses as her uninjured foot dips into the water.
The bath isn’t scalding, but I’m sure it feels like hellfire to frozen extremities.
She tenses and stills as her body acclimates to the temperature.
The water loosens the mud off her skin and it swirls like ribbons around her calf.
We both watch it for a long moment, until the silence between us becomes too uncomfortable for me to bear.
“This should teach you not to run around in the winter.” Her nails dig deeper into my flesh, and I smile to myself at the small sting.
“You’re such a dick,” she grits out, her other foot adding to the graying sediment in the porcelain basin.
“I’m not as bad as Thorne.”
She gains her bearings and lets go of my arm, only swaying for a moment.
“How so?” Her towel loosens, giving me a better view.
There are plenty of fresh scrapes and scratches along her back, but it’s the bruises on her arms that my gaze snags on. They look to be about a week old from the greening around the lightening purples and reds. Who gave them to her, and why?
She leans back, reaching behind her to feel for the rim of the tub to hold onto, but she finds my outstretched hand for purchase. I press into her back, letting my bottom lip brush over the shell of her ear. “I would never leave you unsatisfied.”
Her shoulder blades expand against my chest with each heavy breath.
“Good thing Maddox was there to help me out.” She doesn’t have to remind me. Those few minutes of intensity between her and Maddox are fused and folded into my synapses. “Seems like the two of you are used to cleaning up Thorne and Fox’s messes.”
“That’s not true.” I bring myself flush to the side of the tub, wanting every point of contact I can get. “There are plenty of times that I have to clean up after Maddox, too.”
Her hand moves over top mine before she guides it to where the towel has opened across her middle.
“How gallant of you,” she mocks. “You get all the sloppy seconds after they’ve all had their fill.”
My fingers spread over her cool belly, opening the terrycloth and pulling it away with my free hand.
She doesn’t move to cover herself or sink into the water.
Instead, she reaches back to my wrist and brings both hands to her body.
Following her lead, I cup her breast. Knead around her perked nipple but careful to gently circle it until her head falls back to the crook of my shoulder.
“Wrong again,” I whisper into her ear.
I fight the pressure of her hand and move my fingers down the slope of her soft stomach.
She feels too good. Her body molds to mine so easily, like this is where she should always be.
I can tell myself that I’m pitting her own mind games against her or that she merely needs help to keep herself steady.
But the way her breathing picks up when my fingers gently pinch her nipple shows that we’re both lying.
“Prove it.” Breathy need fills my ear. “How am I wrong?”
Her head tilts and my lips press over her temple. Sweat mixes with damp soil, smoke, and something tart on her skin, filling my invading thoughts with her heady essence. If I could, I’d bottle that aroma and hang it around my neck.
“You have this idea that I’m an afterthought.
And maybe to you, I am. But to our coven and our sacrifices, ritual starts and ends with me.
I am the one who is responsible for how much energy is beckoned from beyond the veil,” I tell her, imagining her tied to the alter, dirt and all.
“The magic I earn takes time, patience, and strength to endure. But Thorne, Maddox, Fox, and I can’t elicit great power individually.
It takes all of us to fuck every last ounce of energy from our sacrifices, so they may be filled with the blessings from beyond.
The blessings only their bodies can harness. ”
I wonder how much magic her vessel would conjure.
“All four of us hold meaning and purpose to serve our sacrifices. Our reward isn’t just in the harvest’s yield.
” The tips of our fingers part her course hair, and the pad of my middle finger finds her clit easily.
“Our greatest achievements aren’t measured by volume of magic we restore, but in the eyes of our sacrifices.
How many cravings we feed or fantasies we fulfill.
That is our duty. To be the stewards that bring our sacrifices as close to our ancestors’ plane as we can safely, then bring them back unbroken and filled with our lifeblood. ”
A tentative stroke of my touch on her nerves imparts another when she holds me tighter, keeping focus where she wants it.
My cock stiffens as my eyes feast on the slope of her body from this angle.
The flat plane of her chest rises to two perfectly round mounds that part to create a deep valley between.
It’s a perfect passage that dips into her navel and down to where our hands meet.
“Lifeblood.” She masks her licentious huff with snark. “You make it sound like you’re preforming some sort of miracle.”
“Isn’t it?” My index finger adds pressure to her throbbing clit and her knees weaken.
“Gods,” she mouths more than mutters.
“If turning water to wine is considered a miracle, why shouldn’t the work of feverous flesh manifesting something our coven relies on be seen as anything other than prodigious?”
Pride swells within me, bringing my magic to the surface.
I want to show her what we are capable of.
It’s obvious that, though she’s been introduced, she has no idea how being filled with purpose can give you untold freedom.
Because for a brief moment, we aren’t concerned with our responsibilities, futures, or delicate relationships that all too often feel transactional.
In those frenzy-filled hours, we are the mechanism that winds and writhes with forces that others will never reach.
“Show me,” she says, turning in my hold and wrapping her arms around my neck.
In the split second between our eyes meeting and our mouths clashing, I feel it.
The returning call of like to like. And I take no time before diving into her to find where the resonance stems. I clutch her to me by the hip and nape.
The hair at her neck clings to the moisture of her arousal still covering my fingers.
She tries to lift herself by her toes but whines when she remembers her injury.
The sound echoes through me, bouncing to the back of my throat and ricocheting around my ribs.
I lift her by the thighs and pull her in as close as my clothing will allow.
Her hot center rubs over my lower stomach, and I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
“Tell me your name.” The demand rises above the lust-filled fog because if I’m going to participate in whatever fuckery this is, I’ll at least be able to say I got what information we needed out of her.
“No,” she dismisses between urgent kisses. “Not now.”
“I need to know.” My mouth moves to the side of her neck and I taste the promise repeated between her thighs.
She grinds against me and arches her back, opening up a space between our bodies to give me a full view of her perfect tits. My mouth waters as I take her nipple between my teeth and look up to her face. I catch the moment her eyes roll back before her lids flutter shut.
My hum of pleasure vibrates my teeth, making her legs tighten around me. She wants more. She needs it. Needs me. And what am I, if not dependable?
Turning us both, I sit her ass on the corner of the countertop.
She leans back, holding onto the edges of the marble as she watches me pull my jeans down.
Her eyes go wide when I take my cock in my hand and stroke it.
I line the head up and swipe it through her wetness.
She gasps and tilts her chin up, silently asking for more.
I tease her, only allowing the head of my cock to push into her tight pussy to the thick ridge before pulling back again. “Look.” I drop my eyes between us and feel her eyes follow. “Look how eager you are for me to fuck you.”
Her brows pinch but her pupils blow as she watches.
“Fuck, you’re so tight, Beth.”
“Elsbeth,” she corrects. “Never Beth.”
“Elsbeth,” I croon, sinking my cock into her slowly as my tongue forms every syllable of her first name, but I stop shallow. “Fuck. So tight.”
“Asher.” She spreads her legs wider, heralding me into our desires.