Something About Witches (8 page)

Her breasts were on the platform of a step and now her eyes widened as he came around with another length of rope. He positioned the rope horizontally over them, looped it around her back, then brought the ends under the step, tying the knot beneath. He’d made it snug so the rope constricted over her breasts, holding them there. Then he did another wrap so there was a taut line positioned just in front of her nipples, the twine pricking and teasing the tips.

“Derek.” All she could do was repeat his name now. Her sex was contracting, impossibly aroused. She was helpless, panting. Stepping back, he hooked a thumb in his pocket and studied her with approval, her body naked but for the corset, pulled below her breasts. But his chest was rising and falling like a man who’d been running, his cock a bar of steel against straining denim. Every muscle was delineated in his beautiful body like priceless erotic art of the male form. All of it told her he was far from affected.

“You’re not begging, Ruby.” He glanced left, and when she followed his gaze, her heart thumped into her throat. He was studying a barrel of assorted cattle brands, and next to them was a lit brazier.

She’d conjured it, so she couldn’t deny the primal, crazy desire. Whether or not she’d ever have the bravery to acknowledge or do it in real life, the idea of him marking her as his in some permanent way in this fantasy was overwhelming, tripping up her tongue and silencing any protest she might have.

“I want to put my brand on you. Doesn’t much matter how wrong that is; it is what it is.” He brought his face to hers, his hands closing over her tied wrists. His chest pressed against her distended breasts, and the sensitized tips screamed in a mixture of pleasure and pain at the stimulation of his body pushing the rope into them. It made her quiver harder against the ladder, made the wood rattle. “You
tell me, Ruby. Tell me who you belong to, no matter how much you try to deny it.”

“You,” she said. Her voice choked with the emotion of it. “You know it’s always been you. It always will be you. Please, Derek. Be inside me. I’ve needed you for so long. I’ve died a hundred times of loneliness and pain. I need you.”

“I’ve always been here, damn you.” She saw emotion in his face now, the same pain of loss, of betrayal. “Ah, hell. It’s a fantasy, right?”

He moved away, two steps, and lifted the brand from the fire, brought it back. Shifting behind her, he closed his hand on her shoulder, at the juncture of her throat. His thumb swept the tender section of skin on the inside of her shoulder blade, telling her where he intended to put it. “Say it, Ruby,” he said harshly. “Say it again, and keep saying it until I tell you to stop.”

“Yours. I’m yours.
Yours.
” She screamed it as the brand pressed to her flesh. It was less than a blink of time, but the pain seared through her instantly, white-hot, incredible. She embraced the agony, the purging. When he threw the hot iron aside, so violently it hit the wall with a clang, she began to beg again. He opened his jeans, and her eyes closed as he fit his sizeable organ at the wet entrance that welcomed him. Putting his hand on her opposite shoulder, that same juncture, he tightened his fingers on her throat. His mouth was close to her ear.

“You’re mine, Ruby. I don’t care how far you run, or how you try to push me away. I’ve lived for centuries. I’m never giving up on you.”

He pushed inexorably into the narrow opening provided by the spread of her legs. It had been over a month since her last time with Mikhael, so she was tight. The tissues, though soaking wet, weren’t used to loosening for a man’s penetration. Derek gave them no choice, demanding entry.

She took him in with a deep groan, and when he was in to the hilt, his hands came around, captured her breasts. That rope constriction made her shriek from the stimulus.

“Has there been anyone else? Anyone else been inside you like this?”

“Not like you. Not the places you can take me.”

He set his teeth to her throat then. “But there has been someone.”

She swallowed, not sure how to respond. It was something so different from Derek, and it was about the pain, about not letting the hunger become a monster that could consume her. She didn’t want the fantasy to take this turn, so she didn’t answer.

He deepened his penetration, making her whimper as he bumped her cervix, an intentional discomfort. “That won’t happen again. Ever. Say it.”

“Only you.” She could say it, because though she knew it would have to happen again, here in her fantasy she could pretend that Derek would be with her, that he was as much hers as she was his, and nothing else mattered.

“Little liar.” Withdrawing and pushing back in, he made her whimper again. Then he started to torment her in earnest, thrusting slow and fast, teasing her by pulling out to rub against her clit, then going back in again, sometimes pulling out only to fondle her breasts while he stroked his cock up the channel between her buttocks. Her sex wept in need for him.

He was a big man all over, such that the wood of the ladder protested. Her body might be fragile in comparison, but her need gave her the strength to meet him on every stroke. She took the punishment, the rough contact of his chest hair against that brand, the stretch of his cock inside of her, the pinching of her nipples.

She’d taken punishment from Mikhael to get a climax, but Derek brought true fulfillment with his demands. He wouldn’t let her get away with anything less than complete surrender. So it was that the tears were streaming down her face, her heart giving in with her body when he pulled out again, holding the climax just out of reach.

“Say it again, girl, and you damn well better mean it this time. You won’t ever lie to me again.”

“Only you. I’ll never…. let another man touch me again…. but you. Please, I can’t bear it. I’m yours. I belong to you.”

“Damn right you do.” He slid back in, and now he pushed her hair out of the way, nuzzling her throat, his fingers closing back over her breasts as he brought himself flush against her, thigh to thigh, his pelvis in tight against her backside, chest against her shoulder blades, the abrasion of that brand between them. He pinched her nipples and made a subtle, incremental adjustment, slid back in. Tiny, tiny movements of his cock inside her, rubbing in all the right places. He had her pushed full against the ladder steps, and, true to a fantasy, one of those steps was right against her clit, so that minute friction, within and without, the ruthless manipulation of her nipples, took her over. Everything else began to disappear.

“Derek….” It was a desperate wail.

“Come for me. And don’t hold anything back.”

The climax crashed over her. She screamed herself hoarse, unable to stop when wave after wave swept through her. Then he took her up impossibly higher by beginning to pump hard and fast, releasing within her. Her fingers dug into the rope above her, head dropping back against his shoulder. She turned to snap at his throat, held on as he kept pummeling her against that ladder.

It went on a long, long time. Bliss, ecstasy, the best parts of Heaven and Hell. Long after she was rippling in aftershocks along his length, he kept going, apparently wanting to underscore the lesson, the binding between them. She took it, her chest near exploding with feeling.

Hearing his erratic breath as he at last came down, she wondered if he was choked by some of the same emotions she was. Then, like a cold-water shock, she remembered it was her fantasy. That lantern was still burning strong. Whatever he was experiencing, it was what she wanted him to be
feeling. Her sense of loss was so great, she’d needed to share it.

Raina had herself a winner here, though it was a double-edged sword. A military spouse could share emotional and physical release with an absent husband or wife. But it might be too adept at what it did. Too painful for it to seem this real, when it really wasn’t. She needed to warn Raina about that, since Raina wasn’t as in tune with the emotional ramifications of sex as the physical ones.

However, as far as the physical part of it went, if it got much better than this, Raina would need to post warnings like they did for roller-coaster rides— no back problems, heart conditions, risk of seizure or stroke, etcetera.

Derek was placing long, lingering kisses on her throat, her shoulders, stroking his fingers through her hair as he did it. Then he dropped his touch to slide along her sides, relearning her shape, obviously enjoying the corset’s hold and indulging himself as she remained tied. “I want to do this to you all night long,” he said, making it sound like the enticing threat it was. “In a hundred different ways. I want you to be so sore that the last time I do it, I’ll need to ease into you. I’ll go so slow, so I don’t hurt you. You’ll take me despite all that, because that’s the way it is between us.”

She nodded, sniffling. She could deny him nothing, because as he’d said, she was his. “I love you.”

It was out there before she could stop it. The first time she’d ever said it, she’d barely been out of girlhood. The declaration had terrified her, because she’d realized it was more than infatuation, a young woman’s crush. The all-powerful sorcerer was a charismatic part of him, but it was the man, Derek Stormwind, the one who liked to swim with her at the beach, who didn’t like raisins but loved oatmeal-raisin cookies, who preferred riding horses to driving a car, the one who got cranky if she tried to elicit dialogue more complex than grunting before he had his morning coffee…. That was who she truly loved.

Even more remarkable, he’d said it first. And he saw all parts of her the same way. Though he’d told her she had tremendous potential as a witch, when it came to this, it was more basic than that.

At the end of the day, doesn’t matter who or what you become. It won’t change how I feel. We’re just two people doing our best to figure out each other’s hearts, and that takes more lifetimes than even I have. But I’d spend every one of them with you trying to learn. Trying to make you happy.

But what she’d become
could
change how he felt. She knew it. “I love you,” she whispered again, her voice broken with the weight of all the knowledge she now held about love and loss.

“I know that, girl.” He put his jaw alongside her temple. His hands cradled her breasts gently now, his body a reassuring bulwark. “Though it’s nice to hear.”

She closed her eyes. She shouldn’t have said that, even here in this fantasy world. It was time to end it. “Will you turn off the lantern? I want to sleep with you in the hayloft.”
Touch you in the dark.

“I’m sure I could conjure a saddle blanket or two to make that happen, protect this pretty, soft skin of yours. Hold on.” His hands slid away, though one lingered on her buttock, gave it a firm squeeze before he moved to the table, leaned over the lantern. She turned her head to savor that one last look at him before the fantasy was gone. It was good she was going to be leaving tomorrow. She needed to put some distance between her and this room. She’d never, ever use it again. She’d make Raina promise not to let her.

He was studying her in almost the same way, as if memorizing the way she looked. She imagined what he was seeing; her in the red corset, tied up for him, his seed still damp on her thighs.

Leaning down, he cupped the top of the lantern, blew it out.

S
HE WAS AGAINST THE WALL, EXACTLY WHERE SHE’D
started, except at some point she’d slid down to sit, her legs folded up in front of her. She was still fully clothed, though her panties were soaked, telling her she’d actually had the intense orgasm she’d experienced in the fantasy. The skin between her shoulder blades was sore and throbbing, as if the brand had marked her in truth. That bit of information startled her, but not as much as what was directly across the room from her.

Braced against that opposing wall, though still standing, Derek stared at her. Between them, next to the candle and pedestal, the branding iron lay on the floor. The residual magic was still sparking off it.

She was sure she lost all color in her face, because when she shot to her feet, she swayed, uncertain of her balance. Fumbling for the latch, she flung the door open and fled into the hallway.

The room was on the second level. Though she knew navigating the steep winding staircase of an antebellum
house when one was reeling from universe-altering climaxes and complete panic was inadvisable, she hit it at a run. As a result, she stumbled on the third step. Grappling for the banister, she lost purchase, flailed.

In that harrowing moment, when she teetered on the brink of physical catastrophe, she wasn’t too worried. She’d given Raina the most important instructions, after all. Dying might deal with all of it, and wherever she ended up, Heaven or Hell, she wouldn’t have to face this. She wouldn’t keep making the wrong choices, over and over.

“Ruby.”
She fell against a dense wall of air, one that caught her at a forty-five-degree angle before she could pitch down the stairs. True to a sorcerer’s nature, he pulled that power right from the closest elemental, the sturdy old oak of the stairs. For a second, as that energy surrounded her, she could feel the last day of the oak’s life, the recipe of a summer day; warm wind, animals foraging and hiding among the full greenery of the trees, the intent heat of the sun.