Stone Cold Lover (14 page)

When his lips brushed the soft curls of her mound, her body jerked. She attempted to tug her wrists free of his grasp, but Spar had no intention of letting her go. Instead he angled his shoulders and insinuated himself between her thighs, forcing them to spread around him. He created a place for himself he would have slain a thousand demons to defend, and he intended to make the most of it.

With an appreciative hum, he let his tongue press against her soft fold, and savored the first taste of her. Sweet and wild and incredibly hot, it only fed his hunger. He licked again, this time parting her to delve deeper; she spilled across his tongue like honey from a comb, awakening a sweet tooth only the taste of her could assuage.

“Oh!”

Her cry was short and sharp, breathless with surprise and pleasure, and it only spurred him on. He feasted on her, on her delectable cream, her breathless cries, on the strong, beautiful essence of her. The way she melted against his tongue, growing softer and wetter on every pass, fascinated him. He felt her thighs trembling and straining against his shoulders and wanted to feel them clasped around his hips, clinging while he eased himself inside all this welling heat.

Lifting his head, he let his gaze run up over all her glorious curves to see her throw her head back and gasp for air. Her skin glistened with a fine sheen of perspiration brought on by the heat they generated together, and Spar knew he had never seen anything more beautiful.

Sensing his gaze on her, she forced her eyes open and met his, her own hazy and unfocused. A tiny crease appeared between her eyes. Her hands began to twist and pull in his grasp, demanding to be set free. When he released his grip, she lifted one small hand and cupped his cheek with tender intensity.

“Now,” she urged him in a hoarse whisper full of need. “Come to me.”

*   *   *

For a long, breathless moment he continued to watch her, his dark eyes gone black and glittering like his gargoyle’s. Fil felt not a twinge of unease. This was her Guardian, her protector, and he would die before he allowed her to be harmed.

Her hands shifted, tugged, urging him over her. He had stirred a need inside her that part of her feared would never be satisfied. Her pussy literally ached, empty and wanting, clenching around nothing. She had to have him, now.

“Please,” she begged, and like her own guardian angel, he answered.

With his gaze still locked with hers, Spar nudged her legs wider and settled his hips between them. She felt the head of his erection slide against her crease, a heavenly sensation made slick by her moisture and his. She arched helplessly into him, her body urging the joining she craved, and she heard his rough whisper tell her to relax, to be calm, that he would take care of her.

She knew that, trusted that more than she trusted herself at the moment, but it didn’t fill the aching emptiness. For that, he needed to take her.

Her nails dug into the smooth skin of his shoulders as she gasped out her plea. “Inside me, Spar. Please.”

He groaned as if the sound were ripped from his very soul, and in one powerful thrust he joined them.

Fil cried out, breathless and overwhelmed. She felt her body stretch to accommodate him and reveled in the flash of discomfort, in the way it melted into pleasure so great she wanted to weep for joy. Nothing in her life had ever felt like this, had ever shaken her so deeply it felt like dying and being reborn. She might as well have been a phoenix, consumed by flame and simultaneously created by it.

Spar was her flame, and she wanted more than anything to feel him burn along with her.

With hands, voice, and body she drove him on, rising into every thrust, clinging through every withdrawal. She wrapped her legs around his hips to pull him closer and savored the shift and flex of his muscles as he moved within her. She felt surrounded by him, encompassed, overtaken, and at the same time full of feminine power. By taking him inside her she had conquered him, and now she let him conquer her in return.

They moved together in heat and hunger. Passion might have lit the spark, but something else lived in the blaze, something new and tender. Fil could sense the tendrils growing inside her to curl around her heart, not to squeeze or crush, but to support and protect. It fed on the heat of their desire, growing stronger as their pleasure built.

The tension within her ratcheted higher. Her thighs quivered where they clung to his hips; her fingers trembled where her nails bit into his skin. She could feel the tremors begin deep in her womb and knew she was close. She could almost feel the edge of the cliff beneath her toes and needed only the tiniest little shove to send her flying over.

She found it in him, in the thousand pinpricks of blazing fire that burned behind his night-dark eyes, in the intense focus in his expression as if nothing in the world existed but her, in the shifting angle of his hips that dragged the head of his cock over the most sensitive spot in her passage again and again with relentless determination.

Mostly, she found it in the curling of his lip, in the way he bared his teeth and dropped his chin and pressed his forehead against hers.

“Mine,” he growled, and the sound rumbled through her like a shock wave, setting off a chain reaction that had her clenching hard around his shaft. Her entire body shook and her vision went not dark but bright, like a star bursting behind her eyes.

Vaguely, she heard herself cry out, but the noise meant nothing. All Fil could hear was the echo of that possessive statement, and the hoarse roar that followed it as he joined her in oblivion.

Chapter Ten

Fil woke to the chill of an empty bed. Stretching out a hand, she touched the cool crispness of cotton and nothing else. Spar was gone.

Disoriented, she pushed herself into a sitting position and felt the blankets slither down to her waist, leaving her bare to the cool night air. Never one to wake easily, it took her a minute to get her bearings, to realize it was night, that she had fallen asleep after the most amazing sex of her life and obviously napped for at least a couple of hours. A glance at the bedside clock told her it was getting close to eleven, which boded ill for getting a good night’s sleep in an hour or two.

Unless maybe Spar was willing to tire her out again.

Heat rose to her cheeks. The man made love to her one time, and already she couldn’t wait to touch him again. He should be labeled a controlled substance to keep potential addicts like her safe from his influence.

Pushing back the blankets, Fil reached down to snag the robe that had fallen to the floor hours earlier. At least, she assumed that was what had happened. Once the darned thing had opened under Spar’s touch, everything else had ceased to exist. Nothing had mattered but him. Touching him.

When she stilled, she could hear the gravelly rumble of his voice coming from the living room. Who could he be talking to? Did he forget to mention he had a sister and a couple of nephews living in Montreal he wanted to ask over for dinner?

Curious, she opened the door and padded down the short hall to the living room. Spar sat in the middle of her sofa frowning down into her cell phone. Fil recognized the voice on the other end immediately.

“I really wish you’d wake her up so I can talk to her,” Ella argued, worry threading through her voice. “I’m sure you took very good care of her, but I won’t feel entirely comfortable until I can talk to her myself.”

“You will do as my mate asks, Spar. Otherwise she will worry. I dislike it when she worries.”

“I will not,” Spar growled, and Fil assumed the thunder in his expression was for Kees’s benefit. “She is injured and exhausted. She needs to rest. I will not wake her simply to satisfy your human’s curiosity.”

Fill stepped forward and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t need to wake me. I’m up.”

Spar turned to her, but he didn’t look any happier. “Why are you awake? You need to sleep.”

“I did sleep, and I’m pretty sure I’ll sleep again at some point, but for the moment I’m fine. Ella, did you hear that?”

“I did. Spar, move the phone so I can see her.”

“Hold on.” Fil circled the sofa and took the seat next to Spar. “Is this better?”

He grunted and shifted her onto his lap. “This is.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“I do not care.”

Fil rolled her eyes and turned to gaze into the phone. “Sorry, El. I dozed off. I had kind of a rough day.”

Her friend stared back at her with wide eyes, an expression of surprise and delight suffusing her features for a moment before she seemed to catch herself. She cleared her throat. “So Spar was telling us. I’m so sorry, sweetie. How’s your side feeling?”

“Tender,” she answered honestly. “It pulls a little when I try to move around too fast, but mostly it’s fine. Spar said it could have been worse. I should be fine in a week or so. Did he call you to tell you what happened?”

“No, I called you. Kees and I just got in a little while ago and got your message. The battery on my phone had died while we were out. I’m sorry it took so long to get back to you.”

“It’s okay. You guys have more than enough of your own stuff to worry about.”

“At the moment I’m mostly worried about you.” Ella frowned. “Let me see the mark.”

Reluctantly, Fil raised her hand and held it palm-out to the phone’s camera. “Pretty, right?”

“I would not call it so,” Kees said, shifting into the frame. “Spar told you what it means?”

“That I’m right on the top of Uhlthor the Defiler’s most wanted list? Yeah. Great name, by the way. Sounds like a real charmer.”

“Fil, I am so sorry,” Ella said, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. “I should have known something was wrong after you told me about what happened at the abbey. I mean, I figured the
nocturnis
had tried to cast some sort of spell on you. I should have dug around more and found out what he did.”

“It’s not your fault, Ella. Even if you had figured it out, the damage was already done by the time I talked to you. There’s nothing you could have done to change it. Unless the Guild has some kind of snazzy time-travel mojo you’ve managed to uncover.”

“Not so much. Or if they do, it’s one of the billion secrets that disappeared when the headquarters was bombed.”

“Then don’t worry about it,” Fil said firmly. “It’s done. At this point, I’d rather forget how it happened and focus our attention on what can be done to get rid of it. I mean, a spell is like a curse, right? So aren’t there supposed to be antidotes to those? Counter-curses, or something like that?”

Ella sighed. “Theoretically, yes. The problem is that we would need to know exactly what curse was used in order to find the correct counter-spell. If we picked the wrong one, we could end up doing more harm than good. Besides which, you need some pretty serious skill to manage stuff like that. It’s delicate work. I might have a decent amount of power, but as far as Wardens go I’m still basically untrained.”

“I thought you were studying like a third-year law student.”

“I am, every chance I get, but at the moment I have to settle for learning the spells I have access to, and even then it’s kind of on a need-to-know basis. So far, I’ve had to know more about wards and bindings and portals than I have about curses. Sorry.”

“Again, not your fault. I really would like to get rid of this, though. There’s got to be something else we can do.”

“I’m going to push hard on the leads we have to another Warden,” Ella said. “An actual fully trained member of the Guild is going to know a lot more about this than either of us, so if I can locate him, he may be able to help.”

Fil made a face. “Great. Provided he’s still alive when you find him, right?”

Ella looked away.

“Wardens are not the only individuals with power,” Kees said, laying his hand on Ella’s shoulder in a clear gesture of comfort. “The magic they wield is the purest expression of such power, but for centuries there have been humans with the ability to channel the energy of the earth or to manifest simple blessings into the mortal realm.”

It took a moment for Fil to piece that together. “What? Are you talking about witches and priests? Do I need an exorcism?”

Spar snorted. “Exorcism is nothing more than sending the weakest form of Dark spirit to its room for a punishment. The mark of one of the Seven cannot be removed so easily, and especially not by the holy man of a human church waving a crucifix and chanting a simple prayer.”

“Well, if there are demons, then there must be a God, right? So why shouldn’t a priest be able to help?”

“God is such a human concept.” Spar shook his head. “There is the Light and there is the Dark. What you humans call gods are facets of the Light that you have built stories around to aid your understanding of the unknowable. A priest of one facet cannot hope to counter the corruption inherent in one of the Seven.”

“But a witch would do better?” Fil snapped.

“A witch’s treatment might be more direct.” Kees stepped in before Spar could reply. “Their kind can channel the energy of the earth and also apply the remedies it provides. It is unlikely to remove the mark, but it might help to slow its progression.”

“At this point, I’ll take that.”

“But how is she supposed to find a witch?” Ella demanded, frowning at her Guardian. “She’s human, Kees, like me, remember? I doubt she’s hanging out with the local coven, or whatever it’s called.”

Fil laughed. “You’re right, I’m not. But I might know someone who can point me toward one.”

“Who?”

“Tim Massello. He’s a professor at McGill, a sociologist or an anthropologist, something like that, but his real hobby is the supernatural. About a year ago, he hired me to restore a page from an illuminated manuscript. He’d come across it while doing research for a book he was writing on the evolution of witchcraft from historical persecution to modern paganism. He said he’d spent a lot of time talking to present-day witches for his project. I wonder if he’d be willing to put me in touch with one.”

“It can’t hurt to try, right?” Ella sounded almost enthusiastic about the idea. “You’ve got to give it a shot, Fil. I hate to think about that thing on your hand getting any worse. Or, God forbid, spreading.”