FUR FOR ALL, Book 5 in FIXED (14 page)

“Careful what you wish for,” Rafe growled, low and menacing. “Because you’re about to get it.”

He leapt for her again, but this time she wasn’t backing away. She met him halfway, returning every desperate kiss, every frantic caress. She felt him tug at her dress, yanking the fabric from her waist to her shoulders so he could see her 109

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breasts. His eyes fixed on her nipples and he gave a hungry growl, reaching for them.

She slapped his hands away. “No. Not until you give me what I want.”

“Fine,” he growled, seizing her hips and lifting them off the floor. He sat back on his heels and tugged her into place, maneuvering her like a doll until he had her where he wanted her. Her ass perched on his thighs and her knees settled against the small of his back, digging into the sensitive flesh. She couldn’t care less. She braced her hands on the floor while he swung her legs up high, bracing her ankles on his shoulder so that when he leaned forward, he forced her knees back against her chest, bending her almost in two. He set one hand on the floor beside her head and reached between them with the other to grasp his cock.

Looming over her like a great, dark shadow, he bared his fangs and growled.

“You want me, sweet Tess? Then take me.”

He drove deep with one hard thrust and sent Tess over the edge before she even realized she was teetering.

He didn’t slow down for her climax, just leaned against her folded legs and began thrusting wildly against her, riding her through her crisis. She thought she might have begged him to stop, but he ignored her. His hips worked like a piston against her, slicing through her tight sheath to reach the heart of her, then gliding back and plowing into her again. When she slumped weakly to the floor, too wrung out and breathless to do more than lie there and accept his thrusts, he just growled and kept up the steady, possessive rhythm. Her legs slipped off his shoulders and he caught them in the crooks of his elbows, keeping her legs spread high and wide for him. His eyes burned like yellow flames above her, and she felt the harsh glide of his cock against her internal walls beginning to force her back up toward another peak.

She began to struggle, anxious to get away, not from him, but from the unbearable pleasure-pain of his possession. No one in her life had ever made her 110

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feel like this. She hadn’t even known feeling like this was possible, and it terrified her. She could see, behind her tightly closed eyelids, the absolute perfection of their togetherness. In that moment, she knew, with a certainty that went beyond tarot cards, beyond magic to the fabric of destiny itself, that this man would be the air in her lungs until the day she died. He went beyond being her lover or her mate to being the one person in all the world who could make her whole for the rest of her life. The beauty and terror of the knowledge filled her, and she cried out, shaking her head in denial.

“Yes!” Rafe roared, shoulders hunching, arms shifting to force her legs even wider for him, as he thrust even more fiercely into her welcoming pussy. “Eyes open, Tess. Look at me. Look at me, damn you!” Her eyes flew open and locked with his just as he gave one last, mighty thrust and began to pour his seed inside of her. She stared into those pools of molten gold while her body came apart in his arms, and she knew she would never be the same again. From now on, she would be his. Whether either of them liked it or not.

Rafe came back to himself feeling simultaneously like he’d been beaten within an inch of his life, and like he’d just told a roomful of five-year-olds that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. How one man could feel so beat down and so bloody evil at the same time was beyond him, but that’s how he felt.

He shifted gingerly and found Tess still lying beneath him, and judging by the feel of the pile beneath his hands, they still lay on the living room carpet like victims of an eight point earthquake. He shifted again and heard her groan softly. Shame flooded through him and he began to ease his weight off of her.

She looked pale as cream and still as death as she lay there, eyes closed, beneath him. The only sign of life he could see was the rise and fall of her chest 111

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as she drew in shuddering gulps of air and the glistening tracks of moisture that slid down her cheeks and into her golden-copper curls.

He felt his stomach clench. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry,” he whispered, reaching for her but snatching his hands back before they touched her soft skin, afraid of hurting her even more. “Sweet Tess, I swear I didn’t mean to hurt you. Come on, baby. Open your eyes and look at me. Let me know if you’re okay. Tess?” She shuddered and laid a hand over her eyes, shoulders shaking as she struggled to catch her breath.

Rafe swore. “Shit. Okay, stay right there, baby. I’ll get a blanket to wrap you up in, then I’m taking you right to the hospital. God, baby, I’m so sorry.”

“Sheesh, will you calm down, you big baby? I’m fine.” She lifted her hand from her face and smirked at him, looking more amused than traumatized. “You didn’t hurt me—well, not really—and it’s not like I didn’t ask for it. Hell, I think you made me beg for it, before it was over. So chill, okay?” Rafe felt his tension deflate like a popped balloon. He thought his sigh might sound like one, too. “Okay. Sorry.” This time he did reach out and touch her, tucking a stray curl back behind her ear and stroking his thumb over the curve of her cheekbone. “So then you’re not mad at me?” She shook her head. “Not about the sex. But we have more than sex we need to talk about.”

“Right. You need to tell me about your meeting with the council members.”

“No.
You
need to tell me what the hell is going on, and why you were lying in wait for me when I left Granddad’s house.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “I don’t spill ‘til you do, buddy.” Rafe grinned. He couldn’t help it. Her expression looked so fierce, but with her dressed bunched up under her arms like that, she looked too ridiculous to take seriously and too cute for words. When her eyes narrowed, he schooled his expression into more serious lines and reminded himself she probably didn’t 112

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want to know he was struggling to take her seriously. That was the kind of thing Tess would certainly take exception to.

“Right.” He scooped her up in his arms and got to his feet, and felt a surge of pleasure at the way her arms automatically curled around his neck to hold him close. “And I’ll spill whatever you want. Just as soon as I get you into a nice, hot bath.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Would you stop treating me as if I were made out of glass? We had rough sex. So what? In case you hadn’t noticed by now, I
like
when we have rough sex. Now will you stop trying to coddle me—”

“It’s a Jacuzzi tub.”

“Right. We’ll talk about it in the bath.” 113

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Chapter Thirteen

She would never admit it to Rafe, but the bath did feel wonderful. She could practically hear her sore, aching muscles sighing in relief as he lowered her into the steaming water. And when he turned on the jets, she was too busy whimpering happily to mind when he climbed in behind her and pulled her back against his chest. The tub was more than big enough for two, after all.

Whether or not it would be big enough for the two of them and the erection she could feel swelling against her back was another matter entirely, but she’d give it the benefit of the doubt for now.

Her head fell back to rest against his shoulder. The water swirled and bubbled around them and the damp heat made their skin stick together. It felt like heaven. Tess murmured in pleasure as Rafe lathered a washcloth and began dragging the nubby fabric over her skin.

“Now why don’t you tell me about dinner tonight.” Tess opened her eyes and sighed. “I’d really rather you tell me what the deal is between the Council of Others and the Witches’ Council first. That way I might have a clue about what parts of dinner tonight were important.”

“But I’m bigger.” He nipped at her earlobe. “That means I get to decide who goes first. And I’ve decided that you should.”

“You realize it’s the mark of a barbaric mind that you would use your size as a threat to intimidate me.”

“Yes.”

She sighed. “I really don’t get it. Why don’t you all just forget about using me to spy on each other and have your meeting, already. Wouldn’t that be a whole lot easier and more straightforward?” 114

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Rafe rubbed the washcloth over her stomach and flicked her earlobe with his tongue. “Who else was there besides you and your grandfather?” She sighed, trying to sound as put-upon as possible. Which was very.

“Jeremy Knowles, Republican, New York, and William Horatio Bambridge IV, New York State Supreme Court.”

“Hm. They’re both council members?”

“Yeah.” She arched her neck when he began to nibble down the side toward her shoulder. No sense in making things difficult. “Knowles holds the current High Chair, and Bambridge holds everybody’s dirty secrets.”

“There’s always one of those.” He nibbled his way across her shoulder, laving the skin in his wake. “What sorts of things did they make you tell them?” She steeled herself against an attack of shivers. “I don’t remember. Once they broke out the rubber hoses, things get a little fuzzy.” He bit down and growled.

“Ouch! Sheesh, if you’re that hungry go fix yourself a snack.” She jerked away and turned halfway around to glare at him. “They asked me what I thought about you, where you took me, what Graham seemed like.” She paused and changed her voice to a mumble, her gaze shifting away. “If I used magic to read you.”

The silence in the room sounded louder than the tub jets. No one moved for a long minute, then he took her chin in his hard and forced her eyes to meet his.

“Did you?”

“No! Of course I didn’t. I don’t do that kind of thing. Magic isn’t there to be used like a pair of psychic X-ray glasses.” She scowled at him, offended, and he smiled back at her. “Glad to hear you think that way. Not everyone is so ethical, though. Think about it, Tess. How 115

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many people who have the power to do something they want to do also have the power to resist the temptation?”

“What, you think all witches are unethical?” He hesitated. “I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to!” Tess scrambled to her knees and crossed her arms over her dripping chest. “You’re nearly as bad as they are, aren’t you? You think that anyone who’s different or separate from you must be somehow morally lacking.

What
is
it with men?”

Rafe blinked and shook his head. “Okay, I think I missed a step in there somewhere. How did we go from talking about what happened when you had dinner with your grandfather to accusing me of racism?”

“You’re the one who accused me of being all amoral and sneaky and manipulative.”

“No, not really. As I recall, I simply asked you to qualify a statement you’d already made.” He raised an eyebrow. “I think I’d remember if I called you amoral and sneaky and manipulative. Because those aren’t the first words that come to mind when I think of you.” He stroked a hand down her water-slicked thigh. “It’s more like luscious and tasty and…lickable.” He suited actions to words, leaning forward and tracing his tongue along the seam between her hip and thigh. When she felt his breath against her damp curls, she jerked away and nearly fell backward into the water. He caught her before she hurt herself, and Tess found herself pinned between his hard body and the hard porcelain of the tub.

“Let me go.”

“No.” He shifted his weight to keep her in place. “We’re not done talking yet.”

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“Aren’t we? Because I told you everything I know, and you seem determined not to tell me a damned thing. So what else do we have to talk about?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you things…”

“Then try telling me things. It’ll be a refreshing change of pace at least.” He sighed. “I really didn’t want to get you into the middle of this.”

“Oh. My. God. Don’t try and pull that protective crap with me. You put me in the middle the minute you started asking me questions about my grandfather, the same way he did by asking me questions about you! Sweetheart, it don’t
get
any more middle than I am right now.”

“All right. But let’s get dry first.” Rafe pushed himself out of the tub and reached in to scoop her out, wrapping her in a fluffy towel before knotting another around his hips.

Tess gave a wistful look back toward the tub and sighed when he turned off the jets.

“Minx,” he laughed, pushing her out into the bedroom and out again toward the living room. ‘Don’t worry. I have plans for that tub, too. We’ll get to those later.”

“Spoil sport.”

“Maybe, but right now I’m a hungry spoil sport.” He deposited her on the couch and headed back into the kitchen. “You want anything to eat?”

“I just came back from dinner!”

“Is that a yes, or a no?”

Tess rolled her eyes. “No. Thank you.”

“Okay. I’ll be right in. Why don’t you go ahead and light a match in there?

The fire is all laid out, it just needs to be lit.” She found the matches on the mantel where everyone should keep some, she thought, and struck flame to tinder, watching as little fatwood sticks began to 117

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burn. The small fire began to give off heat almost immediately, and she settled into the chair closest to the hearth to wait for the werecat with the munchies.

When he returned, he carried a tray piled high with sandwiches, pretzels, what looked like oatmeal raisin cookies and a gi-normous glass of milk.

“I said I wasn’t hungry.”

Rafe looked up from setting the tray on the end table beside her chair.

“That’s why I didn’t bring you anything.” He missed the widening of her eyes as he settled himself down on the carpet near her feet and reached for a sandwich.

“Now, what exactly do you know about the Accord of Silence?”