Always Practice Safe Hex (Stay a Spell, #4)

by Juliette Cross

Like a rock falling to the river bottom, I felt the answer resonate deep inside. It wasn’t something I ever thought about. I was used to being the woman out front, leading in everything that I did. In business, friendships, relationships. I was the go-to girl for plans, for leadership, even entertainment as the life of the party. For everything really.

There was just no possible way I could hate a man who fought for the rights and safety of children. Belatedly, I realized he had slid out of the enemies category after our dinner at Daisy Duke’s.

“Well, well,” said Kaya before taking a sip of her drink. “Now you’re using magic to push away guys you’d normally be dragging to the dance floor.” Raising a haughty brow, I said, “I just wasn’t interested.” “Because there’s only one man who interests you.”

Though we’d just been talking about him, I hadn’t conjured him out of my fantasies or something. I hadn’t imagined him. Had I? I shrugged, exhaling a deep, agitated breath to focus on the music.

You just going to stand there and stare all night? I asked him, mind to mind. He didn’t answer, but I caught a quirk of his lips. Someone is shy? And I thought you were a man of action, I teased.

I’d requested another song right after this one, “I Melt with You” by Modern English. But that wasn’t what melded into the final notes of “Strangelove.” The crowd slowed its rhythm to move to the sensual tempo of “Lullaby” by the Cure.

This was a super creepy tune. Robert Smith crooned about a spiderman capturing his prey and eating him for dinner tonight.

The blue lights pulsed softly over his coal-black hair and pale-white skin, making him look like a dark angel. A dark angel intensely focused on his target. I shivered pleasantly.

The way this man moved and looked and watched. He tied me in knots, and it was all I could do not to bite his full bottom lip the second he stood in front of me.

Holy fuck. Gareth could dance.

My arms were still at my sides, and he was unraveling me with nothing more than his beautifully clenched jaw and piercing gaze. I didn’t want him to have all of the control, so I lifted my arms to encircle his neck, letting my fingertips trail along his nape. His grip tightened, pulling me closer till my breasts were against his chest and our hips grazed with each sway back and forth, back and forth.

“Are you the spiderman?” I asked, our breaths mingling, mouths inches apart. “No, Lavinia.” He shook his head then dipped closer to me. I was sure he would kiss me, but he skimmed his nose along my jaw until his lips brushed my ear. “You are,” he grated, biting my lobe. “And I’m so fucking caught in your web.”

“Gareth,” I whispered. No, it was part moan and part plea, but I didn’t care. I wanted more. I wanted him.

Still keeping us in a semblance of the dance, though I’d long since lost track of the song, of the crowd, of everything but my stealthy, patient hunter.

Then he angled his mouth and moaned into our first kiss, consuming me with luxurious laps of his tongue against mine, sucking on my tongue when I retreated. Like he couldn’t get enough of my taste. His other hand slid to the small of my back, then to my ass over the silk of my dress.

When I opened my eyes, I thought I’d spontaneously combust at the feral lust in his expression. Something else there too. I don’t know. His magic buzzed along my skin, making me want to rub up against him. Actually, I was rubbing against him.

I didn’t think to ask where we were going or consider if this was the right decision or not. I didn’t care anymore. I needed to quench the fire burning between my legs and sizzling along my skin. The one Gareth had started the first day I laid eyes on him.

I needed more than what I could do to her on the dance floor of my own club. Since she’d agreed to find a more discreet spot, it seemed she was of the same mind.

My office was the closest place for privacy. But not ideal for sex, especially not the kind of sex I wanted to have with Lavinia. The all-night-sweat-soaked-sheets kind. But right now, I’d take whatever I could get, my body rigid and feverish with need.

“You know the owner of this place or something?” “Or something.”

I pushed her back onto the sofa and then settled on top of her. Pure. Fucking. Heaven. I couldn’t even imagine how good it would feel to be inside her.

Immediately, my mouth was on hers, a groan slipping from my throat at her intoxicating taste. My vision hazed when she parted her thighs and welcomed me against her hot pussy.

“I Wanna Be Your Slave” by Maneskin pumped through the monitors and the walls. And fuck if it wasn’t so sadly true.

“Go on, Blackwater,” she teased, her hands wandering over my ass and then working between us to my crotch. “Don’t be shy.”

Growling, I wrapped up her wrists and pressed them above her head, watching as my TK tugged the cup of her bra down till her full breast popped free. She gasped, eyes wide as she glanced down then back at me. “You can do that?”

“Holy shit.” Her expression tightened in wonder and more arousal.

Telekinetics of the supernatural world were known for their abilities to move and crush objects with TK. But my talents were much more fine-tuned. I could use the power with whisper-soft delicacy and intricate manipulation, like unbuttoning corsets and holding the slender wrists of my woman to keep her firmly but gently in place.

This wasn’t something I’d planned to reveal, but I also couldn’t control my instincts to overpower her using all of my skills and assets. But only if she wanted me to.

Using TK, I slid the hem of her dress higher until I could see the triangle of black lace right below where I straddled her, my legs spread wide so I could reach her breasts from this height. Again, the hypnotic scent that was Lavinia’s alone punched me with another wave of burning desire.

“I want to eat you whole, Lavinia.”

She was entranced, watching my hands, her hips coming off the sofa, her milk-pale, rounded thighs squeezing together. If I’d let her go to touch me and do what she wanted, I’d come within seconds and that just wasn’t going to happen.

She was already opening her mouth, and I had to squeeze my eyes closed at the erotic sight of her eagerly parting her lips to take my cock.

“No topping from the bottom,” I warned, pulling my fingers free and giving her clit a light tap of warning.

“Goddamn,” I laughed, sliding out of her mouth. “Dangerous woman.” She panted, her eyes glazed with desperate need. “I wasn’t finished,” she said.

“You are the goddess,” I rumbled against her skin, scraping my jaw against the silken softness, then I captured her gaze, “And I am your slave.”

What the hell had come over me? I never said things like that to a woman. If anything at all, it was things such as just like that or harder or open wider. Never words of worship. But this woman was unraveling me, second by second. Moan by moan.

I never used my own ability of persuasion with a woman in bed. It just wasn’t as satisfying if she was compelled to do my will. Which is why watching Lavinia writhe and squirm and whimper with need, slowly com...

I had to focus to keep from letting the darkness out. That demon wanted to wrap her up and...

Taking her hand, I tugged her back toward me. But before she fell onto my chest, I used TK to lift her in the air, horizontal above me, and swiveled her around to face the other direction then lowered her pussy to my waiting mouth.

“Put my dick in your mouth and suck me hard. I want to feel those teeth again.”

“No teasing, Lavinia,” I commanded. “I want to come down your throat. Right fucking now.”

To think I had her dripping and I was drinking her down while she deep-throated my cock.

I used my TK to lift her and spin her around. She squealed and laughed, hovering in the air above me. Smiling, I lowered her to me and spread my fingers into her hair, cradling her skull. I kissed her deep and long. She made that sweet, soft noise in the back of her throat as she kissed me back, the tilted smile of a satisfied woman spread across her beautiful face at the same time.

“Next time, I’ll have a box of condoms ready for your pleasure.”

“I love how you’re so sure of a next time, Blackwater.” “I don’t need to be psychic to know that we both wa...

She was unraveling every part of me with slow kisses, delicate fingers, and insanely soft skin. I wanted to inhale her like a drug and stay high forever.

We kissed a while longer, but she parted us first. I wasn’t about to.

I didn’t want to frighten her with the thoughts going round in my head. There was no fucking way that our affair ended after this. This was just the beginning.

I smoothed her straps over her shoulders, wondering why I felt so compelled to share information with her. It wasn’t something grims did with anyone outside our own race.

“Are you different than most grims in other ways?” Sliding my palms to cradle her slender neck, I eased closer. “I am.”