Bewitched, Bothered, and Bitten Page 13

  Before I could protest, the head of his erection nudged my pussy and he thrust inside me with one smooth slide. I sucked in a sharp breath at the sudden sensation of being filled. He moved languidly, as though he weren’t desperate for release, as I knew he had to be. With each long stroke, I felt him hit my g-spot. He shifted and changed the angle of his hips until he found a place inside me that made me gasp. Then he was relentless, thrusting against that spot over and over again until every muscle in my lower body was coiled tightly, clenching in anticipation of another orgasm.

  I protested when he slowed, causing my climax to recede slightly. Finn merely pressed against my knees with his hand, moving my legs so they were straight and he straddled my thighs. In this position, he felt huge and each thrust seemed to go deeper than the last.

  His slick hands grasped the cheeks of my ass as he moved faster. The arousal that had waned when he slowed grew quickly, once again bringing me to the edge of a mind-blowing orgasm.

  Finn brushed my hair away from the curve of my neck and leaned forward, placing his mouth against my ear and sank his teeth into my earlobe, eliciting a gasp from me.

  He kneaded muscles in my buttocks, his thumbs meeting at the top of the crevice between them. His mouth remained on my ear as he whispered, “I love your ass, Kerry. Has anyone ever fucked it before, sweetheart?”

  I whimpered as he placed his thumb over my asshole and put a light pressure against it. “No.” The sensation he evoked with his touch making my toes curl with pleasure.

  “Would you let me be the first?” he asked, his thumb caressing me teasingly, testing me.

  “Yes,” I choked, arching my back at his touch, craving it and fearing it in equal measures.

  Finn’s mouth latched onto my neck, sucking lightly, as he pressed his finger inside me. The oil coating his thumb created a tingling burn that I reveled in. He moved his cock and hand in tandem, pulling back and thrusting forward simultaneously, wrenching a cry from my throat.

  I had to come. I needed to come. The ache inside me was almost unbearable and a fine tremor ran through my limbs.

  “Please let me come.” I heard the plea in my voice but didn’t care. If I had to beg, so be it. I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  Finn sank his teeth into my neck and the climax that I craved crashed over me. My entire body seized, my vision fading and my ears filled with the thunder of my own pulse. I heard a high, keening cry and realize it was coming from my throat.

  Finn groaned against my neck, pounding into me hard enough that I knew I would bruise, but I didn’t feel pain. He shuddered against me, his thrusts growing uneven and gradually slowing as he sucked at the wound on my neck.

  Finally, he stopped moving, his cock buried deep so that his hips pressed against my ass, where his thumb was still inside me. I shivered as his tongue traced the bite on my neck to help close the wound. Slowly, he removed his finger and I shuddered at the sensation. Finn draped his body over mine, his softening erection remaining within me.

  I felt spent, utterly relaxed and slightly scandalized. No one had ever touched me the way Finn had or given me an orgasm so strong that I’d gone blind, deaf, and dumb. If his thumb felt that fantastic, how would his cock feel inside me? I shivered in anticipation at the thought.

  Finn pressed a kiss to the side of my neck where he’d bitten me and withdrew from my body, using his pajama pants to clean me gently. I rolled my head to the side to watch him disappear into the closet, nude. He came out moments later, a clean pair of pants in his hand and walked into the bathroom.

  I didn’t move as I heard water running for a brief moment before it shut off. When Finn re-entered the bedroom, he was wearing the clean pajama bottoms. He paused at the end of the bed, studying me with a satisfied expression on his face.

  “You look like you’re about to fall asleep.”

  “More like lapse into an orgasm coma,” I mumbled.

  Finn chuckled in response. “Do you want pajamas?” he asked.

  There it was again, Finn taking care of me. My heart melted a little. “Just a t-shirt and underwear.”

  He went back into the closet and returned with one of the huge t-shirts I liked to sleep in and a pair of my panties. He helped me into them then yanked the blankets down the bed.

  After we settled down into the mattress, Finn pulled the covers back over us and rolled me into his arms.

  I felt surrounded, consumed, and cherished. Throughout the day, Finn had done everything in his power to see to my needs. It was a lovely feeling, to be taken care of so thoroughly. I felt….loved.

  As I began to drift into sleep, I whispered, “Thank you for taking care of me today.”

  His arms tightened around me. “It was my pleasure.”

  I smiled as I sank into slumber. There were no more nightmares or visions as there had been the last two nights. My sleep was deep and dreamless. Because of Finn.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The next morning, I woke up early and felt more refreshed than I had in days. Sometime during our sleep, Finn had turned over and was lying partially on his stomach. I had draped myself over his back, resting my cheek against his shoulder.

  When I moved away, he sighed in his sleep, but didn’t stir. It seemed that my vampire was exhausted.

  I stilled. Somehow, I’d begun to think of Finn as belonging to me, despite my attempts to keep him at arms’ length. I held my breath and crept from the bed into the closet. I pulled on a pair of flannel pajama pants covered in penguins.

  I used the powder room in the downstairs hall instead of the master bath, hoping that Finn would get some much needed rest. As I washed my hands, I realized that sometime yesterday, between the breakfast he’d cooked for me and the massage with a happy ending, I had subconsciously embraced my relationship with Finn. The obstacles in my path no longer seemed as large or as important as being with him.

  Confusion and contentment fought for supremacy in my head and in my heart. I found my cell phone charging on the kitchen counter and realized that Finn must have plugged it in for me last night. He managed to find yet another way to take care of me.

  My throat tightened when it finally sank into my brain. I’d accused him of trying to take over my life and control me when, in reality, he only wanted to tend to me in a way that modern men rarely did any longer. It may have been old-fashioned, but it was something I would have appreciated from any other man I’d dated in the past. I felt like a heel. I’d characterized his actions in the worst possible light when he’d done nothing to deserve it. Well, maybe he was arrogant and pushy, but I never would have given him a chance to show me who he truly was if he hadn’t pursued me so intensely.

  My mind was in turmoil. So many thoughts and emotions swirled inside me that I couldn’t focus. I took a slow, deep breath and decided to take it one day at a time. My entire life was in shambles and all of us were in peril. The only thing I could do now was try to return Finn’s considerate behavior. In fact, I wanted to do for him what he’d done for me, not because I felt obligated but because I genuinely cared.

  With that thought in mind, I set the coffee maker to brew a pot of coffee and got to work making a breakfast casserole. I fried crumbled sausage, peppers, and onions and layered them on the bottom of a baking dish. Then I beat several eggs with cream before stirring in some shredded cheese. After a dash of salt and pepper, I poured the eggs into the baking dish with the meat and veggies and put the whole thing in the oven to bake.

  Finn still wasn’t awake when I placed the casserole in the oven, so I decided to wait until it was ready before taking a cup of coffee upstairs for him. I had several hours before the coven meeting at 11 a.m., so there was no rush and he deserved the rest.

  I poured myself a cup of coffee, adding creamer and sugar, and carried my phone into the solarium. When I checked, I saw that Donna had called me three times last night. Concerned, I tapped her name and put the phone to my ear.

  “Why in the hell haven’t you been
answering my calls? I was worried sick until Conner called Finn and he explained that you were working with Belinda.”

  Okay, so she was angry. “I’m sorry, Donna. I meant to call yesterday, but it was…stressful.”

  She paused before blowing out a breath. “You’re forgiven. But don’t scare me like that again.”

  I had to smile at her grudging acceptance of my apology. She talked a tough game, but Donna really was a softie at heart.

  Her voice softer and full of concern, she asked, “Are you doing okay?”

  My throat tightened. “I’m fine. Nothing a day at the spa and killing a warlock won’t cure.” She was quiet for so long I thought we’d lost connection. “Donna? Are you there?”

  “Why do you do that?”

  I winced at the hurt in her voice, though I wasn’t exactly sure what she was talking about. “Do what?”

  “You distance yourself from others with humor or sarcasm. Why?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  She sighed again, and it sounded sad rather than frustrated. “You do, Kerry. I’ve known you for years and every time I bring up your father, you avoid the discussion with jokes and self-deprecation. There’s so much about your history that I don’t know. And you’re even more aloof with others, like Lex or Belinda. I watched you and listened to you at the party a few nights ago. You do and say things to put others on the defensive, even those that want to be your friend. I don’t understand it.”

  I wanted to deny it, but she had a valid point. For years, I did things to purposefully annoy Belinda and other coven members, using the excuse that it was all in good fun, and I considered my slightly hostile banter with Lex to be his doing since he tended to be moody. In reality, I instigated it all.

  Some of my actions were meant keep my friends from knowing certain things about me. It hadn’t occurred to me that they weren’t like the coven elders and members. They wouldn’t look at me as though I were tainted just because of who and what my father had become and they wouldn’t care if I was the most powerful witch in the universe. To them, I was still Kerry.

  “You seem dead set on remaining alone and it breaks my heart,” Donna whispered. “I’m here for you. So are Ivie, Shannon, and Ricki.” She paused. “Finn would do anything for you. Please don’t push us away anymore. You don’t have to be alone.”

  Finn had said something similar all those nights ago on my front porch before my world had descended into chaos. I took a shaky breath when I realized that he understood me with the same depth that my closest friends did. He knew me, every part of me, and he still came after me and cared for me.

  Once again, something inside my chest shifted, settling into place as though a part of me had been waiting for this moment.

  “Goddess, I think I’m falling in love with him,” I breathed.

  “What?”

  Damn, I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Unfortunately, it was too late.

  “You love Finn?” Donna asked. “How is that possible? Just a couple of weeks ago I overheard you threaten to turn him into a lobster and have surf and turf for dinner.”

  I chuckled at the memory. My threat had only worked for a couple of days before Finn had gone right back to his sneaky ways.

  “There’s a lot I haven’t told you and I said I think I’m falling in love with him,” I answered.

  “Apparently,” Donna quipped, obviously irritated at my closed-mouthed responses. “Wait! You did it again! Here I am trying to be sensitive and tell you that I’m here for you and you change the subject.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “I didn’t mean to. Would it make you feel better if I told you something you said helped? So, thank you.”

  Donna stammered for a few seconds before answering, “Well, you’re welcome. Don’t you think for a single second that I’m letting you off the hook, Kerry. I want the whole story, every tiny detail of it, the next time we see each other. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Ugh. Don’t call me ma’am.”

  “As you wish, bitch,” I retorted.

  “Oh, bite me.”

  Smiling, I said, “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  I glanced at the clock and realized the casserole would be done soon. “Okay, I have to go. I made breakfast for Finn, so I need to go wake him up.”

  “Ooohhh, you have fallen hard. Usually you’re out the door before the guy can get up to pee and now it’s all, I made breakfast for Fiiiinnn.”

  “Shut up.”

  She laughed. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Bye.”

  I disconnected the call with a huge grin on my face. Somehow, my conversation with Donna made me feel as though a heavy weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I hadn’t realized how much of a burden those thoughts and fears had become or how much I’d isolated myself from my friends.

  I rose from the chair I’d perched on and turned to leave the room. I yelped when I saw Finn leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed over his bare chest and his hair rumpled from sleep. But it wasn’t how sexy he looked that caught my attention, it was the expression on his face as he looked at me.

  He straightened as I got closer to him, looping his arms around my waist, pulling my lower body into his. I stared up into his amethyst eyes and my heart leapt. There was tenderness and something more in their depths.

  Finn leaned forward and brushed his nose alongside mine in a sweet, affectionate gesture that made my knees weak.

  “Good morning.” His voice was still sleepy and rough.

  “Morning.”

  “Thanks for making coffee and whatever is in the oven. It smells delicious.”

  I pulled out of his arms. “Shit. I forgot about breakfast.”

  I heard him chuckle as he followed me back into the kitchen and, for the first time since my mother died, I didn’t feel lonely or afraid of what the future might hold.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Finn and I walked into the office building hand-in-hand. The coven meeting was to be held in one of Conner’s office buildings. The coven elders hadn’t wanted to go to his or Lex’s home and had refused any vampire or pack presence in our usual meeting place, so a compromise had been reached.

  With the exception of his security detail, most of Conner’s employees were human and the coven elders were convinced that any nefarious deeds that the vampires or wolves had planned would be foiled by the presence of humans.

  Honestly, I thought they were kidding themselves. A powerful vampire like Finn could easily control the few mortals on the floor and wipe their memories when the time came. If the vampires wanted to harm the coven, then a semi-public venue wouldn’t stop them.

  It seemed that the centuries in which witches had avoided vampires made us weak when it came to defending ourselves against attack. Because of the prejudices the coven instilled, many of our members had very little understanding of vampires and their abilities and even less knowledge of how to defend themselves. My mother had ensured that I knew about all the supernatural species, though many of the coven elders thought it was sacrilegious.

  Finn squeezed my hand gently, taking me out of my thoughts. We rode the elevator up to the tenth floor, still holding hands. He didn’t even release me when we entered the designated office for our meeting.

  He seemed to know where he was going, so I let him lead me down several hallways until we reached a door that was labeled, Conference Room 2. Finn opened the door for me and let me enter first, never releasing my hand. My feet hesitated for a moment when all eyes turned to us. All of the coven elders were present and so were quite a few of the regular members, both men and women. Belinda was seated at the head of the large conference table, an empty chair next to her. Along the wall behind her, Lachlan, Donna, and Conner were sitting and conversing among themselves.

  I tried to ignore the stunned stares from my fellow witches and the disgusted expression that each of the elders wore. I’m sure Belinda receive
d none of this when she entered with two vampires and a werewolf because she wasn’t the tainted one. Despite the fact that my mother had been greatly respected among the coven, I carried my father’s blood, the blood of a warlock that practiced the most forbidden magic. Donna wanted to know about that part of my life, but she would be horrified if she did.

  I kept my head held high as we walked to the front of the room, my face impassive, and refused to look away when someone met my eyes. Finn tightened his grip on my hand for a moment before he released it and moved to sit with the other vampires and werewolf.

  Belinda’s face held approval when she saw the gesture of affection between Finn and I and she smiled slightly at me. The High Priestess radiated confidence and strength. I wished I felt half as self-assured as she appeared.

  “We will begin soon,” she whispered as I took the seat next to her. “Are you ready?”

  I glanced over at her. “Not really.”

  She patted my arm gently, her demeanor reminding me a great deal of my mother. “You’ll do fine.”

  “Is it too late to change my mind about this whole successor thing?”

  She barely managed to stifle a sigh and I bit back a grin. I loved giving her a hard time. Some of my amusement faded when I realized that, once again, I was pushing her buttons and thus creating distance between us.

  “Thank you for believing in me, Belinda.”

  She seemed surprised at my words. “You’re the best choice for the next High Priestess. I don’t care what anyone says about your mother or your father. They won’t be leading this coven, you will, and I think you will do a damn good job.”

  As it had been for years, Belinda was the only one in the coven who had any faith in me. I nodded and she stood and called the meeting to order. I could see both the speculative and disapproving looks I was getting. Most of the elders looked as though they’d just bitten into a Lemonhead. The rest of the coven seemed curious and maybe a little uneasy.