Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
“What?” Ryan gave a light laugh. “That’s silly. I love beds.” She smirked. “I love chairs outside even more. What about you?”
“Come here.” I sat up and patted the bed beside me.
She sat reluctantly on the edge.
From his pillow perch, Smoky started to wash as if he had no interest in the proceedings, but I could tell he was a giant faker.
I cupped her cheek and lifted her face toward the light, gently stroking the corner of her lip with my thumb. The place she’d touched herself earlier after our connection had singed my shoulder.
“Ow. What are you doing?”
“It burned. You really did lower your shields with me.”
She swallowed audibly and caressed my shoulder as I suppressed a wince. “Matching war wounds. It’s not always like that,” she said quickly. “Energy exchange rarely manifests physically.”
“Rarely? You’ve had this happen before?”
Silently, she shook her head, her expression begging me not to ask more.
I didn’t. As unreal as tonight had been, I felt hollowed out and raw and like I could sleep for a month. I couldn’t remember when I’d been so exhausted.
Maybe the weight of all the changes were finally crashing down on me, sparked by a back-to-back orgasm chaser.
“Let’s just sleep.” I brushed a kiss over her forehead. “I want to hold you. Will you let me?”
Instead of answering, she drew away to shed her dress before reaching over to turn out the light. She crawled into my arms, settling there with a sigh I echoed.
Until I yawned and glimpsed glowing green eyes fixated on us in the dark.
I jumped and Ryan laughed, bumping my chin with her head. “You knew he was there.”
“Yeah, but his stare is intense. He’s a total creeper.”
“Silly.” She reached up to lift the cat down between us, a furry cockblock. Not that my cock could do anything at the moment.
I’d already perpetrated blood-defying feats tonight. There was no way I was getting it up again before I had a solid eight.
Make that ten, because we woke just before noon.
Ryan’s arms and legs were wrapped around me, and her soft breast was against my mouth. And my dick had suddenly found the will to survive for another day.
Even if Smoky was stretched out on Ryan’s hip and watching me balefully.
Try it, buddy. She’s mine now.
I leaned up to check out the strangely silent clock on the bedside. I had three alarms. None of them had registered in my sex coma.
Since I’d technically quit yesterday, I couldn’t really find it in myself to care—until I remembered Mrs. Donnelly’s irate phone call and her rescheduled appointment for this morning.
Absently, I rubbed my shoulder and tried to tell my dick to simmer down. This wasn’t the time. I had to get my ass into the shower and—
Shit, she really had branded me the night before. I craned my neck to look at the definite wound on my shoulder. So much for it fading overnight.
We had rocked each other’s worlds in more ways than one.
“Can’t go again,” she mumbled into my shoulder. “Unless you do all the work this time. You get on top.”
I grinned and separated the tangle of dense dark hair over her face. A sleepy blue eye peered out at me as I kissed her nose. “Can I now? How about doggy style and every other possible position I can come up with?”
“I’m game.” She shook back her hair and rolled over, sending the unsuspecting cat flying with a thud. “Whoops! Oh, no. Baby, are you okay? Do you need help?”
I grabbed her hand and dragged it to my cock. “This baby of yours does.”
She made a noise as she yanked her hand free. “Come here, Smoky. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.” She flashed her stupendous ass as she crawled off the bed and onto the floor.
A moment later, she emerged victorious with the cat cradled in her arms. He was nestled against her chest where I had been just a short time ago.
I wasn’t terribly bitter.
“Sorry, sweetheart. Daddy didn’t tell me you were on top of me.”
“Daddy was too consumed with getting on top of you himself.”
“Daddy is a pervert,” she told Smoky, who head bumped her in agreement. “And we don’t have time to—oh my God, it’s noon.”
I propped my head on my hand and grinned. “Yeah. I’ve never played hooky from work before. It feels bad.”
“Bad unpleasant?”
“No, like I’m being bad. It feels good.”
She shook her head and set the cat on the bed, giving his rump a little push. “Head bonk some sense into him, Smoky.”
The cat promptly rerouted to lean adoringly against her thigh as she climbed back on the bed. I couldn’t fault his logic.
I also couldn’t just not tell Ryan forever that I’d quit. But if she thought I was crazy for willingly being late, telling her I’d given my notice would be akin to shaving my head and joining her coven.
“Do you have a coven?”
“Solitary witch, remember? And where are you getting your terms? Some witch show on TV?”
“No.” I tried manfully not to flush. “A supernatural glossary site. I ordered the paperback. It will be here in two weeks.”
She rolled her eyes skyward. “You’re a nerd.”
“It’s not my fault you haven’t allowed me any hands-on research yet. I have so many questions I could ask Miss Cleo.”
“Who?”
“That TV psychic from a million years ago.”
“I’m not psychic and reading tarot cards isn’t a game. It doesn’t have to be deadly serious either, but a tool for harnessing your intuition should never be treated dismissively.”
Great. Now I’d insulted her. The last thing I wanted to do.
“I didn’t mean to do that. I promise. I just made a stupid joke pre-coffee.”
“Would you use lack of coffee as an excuse for justifiable homicide?”
“Obviously not, as I didn’t attack you when you hid mine.” I gave her a quick, hard kiss, and she grimaced before she could school her features.
“Either my morning breath is exceptional today or you’re hurting.”
“I just need some balm from home. It’ll be fine.”
I reached out to touch the slightly puckered corner of her lip. “You touched yourself to take the burn from me.”
“You didn’t know what you were asking for. Actually, I wasn’t sure either.” Her laughter was unsteady. “New territory for me too.”
“That was the most amazing night of my life. Actually, the whole damn day was stellar.”
She smiled faintly. “So, you went out and bought a car that costs 100 grand to celebrate amazing sex?”
I didn’t tell her I hadn’t bought it yet. I was probably going to take it back and select a more cat carrier-friendly SUV. Something that felt more me. Or at least a bridge from old uptight Preston to the new edgier model.
There was no reason to go completely hogwild with this whole ‘living my life exactly as I wished’ thing. I’d already quit my job and gotten a new—albeit very small—tattoo and was having otherworldly sex with a witch.
Not like I’d gone in with half-measures thus far.
“It’s time to get rid of the grandpa car. I want something more fun to drive when I get away from my damn desk. Which I intend to do a lot more often.” I reached over to scratch between Smoky’s ears. “How do you feel about hiking?”
“I don’t.”
Her swift denial made me laugh. “How come?”
“I prefer walking on nice trails that don’t require me to bring a tank of oxygen rather than on ones that seem like training for the next Olympics.”
“Pretty sure there’s not an Olympic hiking event.”
“You know, it’s possible to meander too. Not everything has to be a race. You don’t always have to be testing yourself.”
She did have a point. Changing my mindset would not be a simple process.
“Okay, how do you feel about wandering by the lake?”
She grinned. “Very positively.”
I leaned over the cat to kiss her, mindful of her sore lip. “Kayaking can be slow too,” I said between gentle, playful kisses. Those were surprisingly enjoyable too.
She caught her tongue between her teeth. “I do like some fast things.”
“Do you now?”
“My dad has a power boat. We used to spend a lot of time on the lake. My mom gets seasick, but she always tried to make do.”
“Seems like she does that a lot.”
I blew out a breath. “I never saw it. I don’t know how I didn’t. I just figured they were comfortable together. Instead, it seems like they both settled. Her more than him, since he’s having all his cake and pie too.”
“Do you know she doesn’t?”
I did a doubletake. “You think my mom is cheating too?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Do you think she knows about his affair?”
“I didn’t,” I said at length.
“But now you do?”
“My brother clued me in that he’d confronted our father sometime ago. Dad claims she knows. That they have a happy life.”
Ryan shook her head, her lips twisting into a smile. “He surely does. Why not, when he gets the best of both worlds?”
“You think that’s what that is? That being with one person is somehow less?”
“No. No,” she repeated softly, her changeable eyes drifting over my face. “I think if it’s the right person, there is nothing better than a bond of fidelity.”
I covered her hand with mine. “I agree. Which is part of why I want to do something different. I’m tired of listening to people who claim they once loved each other rip each other apart. Even worse is when things matter more than human beings.”
“Says the man with a six-figure crotch rocket.” She scraped her nail over the center of my palm, letting me know she was teasing.
But she wasn’t, not deep down. At the very least, she didn’t trust people with money. From her comments, her mother had questionable taste at the very least, and she’d probably known some real doozies.
“I didn’t have much else before. Making financial goals and pleasing my clients were my only benchmarks.”
“Sounds stimulating.”
“It wasn’t. At all. Why I need a change. I don’t want to turn into my father, rationalizing shitty behavior.”
She remained silent and let me get the rest out.
“I definitely don’t want to forget what it’s like to help people. To me, that’s the only good reason to be a lawyer. And helping Mary Donnelly sock it to her husband by taking him for everything he’s worth plus the toy poodle isn’t at all what I had in mind.”