Hexed (The Gwen Sparks Series Book 4) (15 page)

“Where the hell did you come from?” he asked me.

I focused on his soul, testing to see if it was expired or not. Not. Ignoring him, I walked down the short aisle. The sounds of my boots hitting the concrete floor reverberated against the cinder block walls. Ms. Willow sat in the last cell, curled up on her bed. At my arrival, she lifted her head and sat up.

“I never thought I’d be lucky enough to speak of a visit from Death,” she said, standing. “I have a feeling I won’t get lucky a second time.”

Smart woman.

“That all depends,” I told her.

“I cannot tell you who hired me,” she responded.

I clucked my tongue and shook my head as though berating a child. “We’re not off to a great start here. Help me help you.” I grinned humorously.

“I’m not afraid of dying. My sacrifice will be for the greater good.” She smiled back, knowing—or at least thinking—she had me. Hadn’t anyone ever told her not to taunt Death?

“You may not be afraid of dying,” I said, shifting my energy again. I reappeared inside her cell, enjoying the way she jumped backwards in surprise. “But does your family feel the same way? Are they so willing to die for your cause?” Fear widened her eyes. My grin turned into a full smile.

“You can’t,” she gasped. “It’s against the rules.”

I leaned forward, invading her personal space. Whispering, I said, “As you know, I don’t give a fuck about rules.” To prove my point, I placed my palm over her heart. Her already wide eyes grew even wider as her mouth fell open on a breathless gasp. White wisps began to lift from her skin, twirling around my hand like a snake.

“I don’t have to take your soul all at once,” I told her. “I’ll take it a piece at a time. You’ll feel like you’re being ripped apart. Are you prepared to endure that torture? Are you prepared to have your family pay for your crimes?” More of her soul lifted from her body, thickening around my arm. Her eyes shot to the white mist, so full of fear that tears trailed paths down her cheeks.

“Your boss didn’t tell you about this part, did they?” I smirked.

I released my hold over her and sent her soul back to her body. Her shoulders curled inward as she inhaled sharply as though coming up for air after being submerged.

“What are you doing to her?” the vampire called.

“Do you want me to show you?” I asked him. His head shook back and forth so rapidly that he blurred for a moment. “Then mind your own business.”

Using one hand, I rubbed the stubble lining my jaw as I stared down at Ms. Willow. She had stumbled back until her legs hit the cot, and then she fell onto the thin mattress. Her bony hands trembled beside her thighs.

“Dorian.”

Fuck. I looked up to find Micah in the doorway, his ocher eyes glowing in anger. Werewolves were so much fun to piss off.

“You’re interfering with a police investigation. Unless you want to move into the cell next door to Ms. Willow, you’d better leave.”

I released an exaggerated heavy sigh and stared down at Ms. Willow. “Name?”

“Now, Mr. Hade,” Micah ordered.

Keeping eye contact with the witch, I said, “Fine. I have to pay some other people a visit anyway.” As I turned to leave, the springs in the cot creaked.

“Wait,” Ms. Willow called.

I spared her a look over my shoulder and waited. I wasn’t really going to torture her family, but she didn’t know that. Her emotions for them were enough to get her to cave. Stupid.

“Hecate.”

I was not expecting that. “The goddess of spirits and night apparitions?”

Ms. Willow nodded, falling back onto the cot. She hung her head as though disappointed in herself. Or maybe she feared she had disappointed Hecate; the mother of witchcraft. This was worse than I thought.

SOMETIME AROUND ONE in the morning, I felt Dorian climb into my bed. I guess this was going to be a regular thing. I couldn’t say that I minded. He sidled up behind me, his bare chest pressing against my back while his arm slid over my waist and held me to him. He dipped his head toward mine, inhaling the scent of my hair. His fingers formed a fist, bunching my shirt within his grasp.

Slowly, he trailed his hand below the covers and over my thighs. His fingers raked over my skin, igniting electricity and desire. Heat pooled between my legs as my eyes slipped closed and devoured the sensation. I hadn’t seen him all day and didn’t realize how much that bothered me until this moment. Being around him, feeling his hands on me, grounded me. Though I didn’t know who I was, I knew how I felt when Dorian was beside me. The feelings I had for this beautiful and dark stranger gave me a sense of normalcy.

His fingers caressed a path along my inner thigh, silently begging me to open up to him, while his lips pressed kisses along my bare shoulder. I tilted my head back to see him, to look into those stormy eyes, and Dorian captured my mouth without warning. He flicked his tongue along the seam of my lips, nipping at my bottom lip before my jaw slackened and invited him in. When our tongues twisted a white-hot need shot through my body. His kisses caused icy chills that flowed from the top of my head all the way down to my curling toes.

Dorian’s hand sunk between my thighs, cupping my sex. My legs fell open, welcoming his touch, needing it. Despite his major mistake and the fact I couldn’t remember him, I still wanted him. There was something about him that beckoned to me, reeled me in and captured me completely.

The hand between my legs didn’t move, didn’t provoke the need he had created. He just held me, cupping me while his mouth tasted me. I could feel him lengthen and harden behind me, his erection pressing against my behind.

Dorian broke away from my lips and stared down at me. Swirling gray clouds twisted through his sockets, darkening around the edges. Only the shift of his eyelashes told me that he was studying my face, focusing on different details.

“I don’t know what this is,” he said, his voice genuinely mystified, “but I think I’ve been waiting for it my entire existence, waiting for you.” The hand cupping my sex came up to trace my jawline so softly that I couldn’t be sure he was really touching me. He traced the pad of his finger along the plump flesh of my bottom lip before he leaned down and slid his tongue into my mouth again, removing his finger and kissing me with such fervor I squeezed my thighs together to pacify the building ache.

In one fluid motion, he flipped me over so that I lay lengthwise along his body. His hands skimmed up either side of my waist and then trailed down to cup my behind. Strong fingers caressed my legs, pulling them forward so that they rested on either side of his waist. Sitting up, he wrapped an arm around my waist and used his other hand to lift my tank top over my head. His mouth closed over a hardened nipple, his tongue swirling around the sensitive peak. My back arched, sending my lower region to grind against his erection. A deep growl vibrated through his throat at the connection.

Tonight he showed no hesitation toward me, no second thought as he sucked, kissed, and licked my breasts. And I couldn’t seem to find that earlier hesitation from last night. Tonight, all I could focus on was the way he had looked at me, the way he had crawled into bed and held me against him as though being beside me gave him peace. Something had changed tonight and, while I wondered what, I didn’t want to break the spell he put me under to ask.

Lifting me, Dorian laid me back onto the mattress as he had last night. The strength of his arms, the ease in which he could position me as he chose, amplified my already heady want for him. His eyes settled on my face while his hands worked my pajama shorts off my legs. Even when I was fully nude, his stare never broke away from my face. I was so entranced in the storm clouds rolling through his eyes that I hadn’t even noticed he had disrobed himself, too. The tip of his erection teased the entrance of my silky folds, already wet from the sheer magnetism of him. It was intoxicating, this thing between us. He skimmed one hand up my arm until his fingers interlocked with mine. Pushing forward, he buried himself inside of me and, for a moment, I saw stars from the exquisite feel of our bodies connecting. I was already tiptoeing the edge, wobbling on shaky legs and on the verge falling into the euphoric oblivion.

Heat pooled in my abdomen when he began to roll his hips slowly against me, pressing kisses to my skin. The soft brush of his hair against my breasts felt like another pair of hands. I raked my nails against the sinewy ridges cording his shoulders, feeling the flex of muscles working beneath my palm.

Dorian withdrew from me painfully slow, pushing forward in the same manner over and over. My eyes rolled into my skull, delirious with pleasure. The pressure built with each thrust of his hips, within reach but not attainable yet.

I wrapped my legs around his hard waist so he could push deeper. The movement caused another sexy groan out of Dorian, one that fueled me further. Slipping his hands beneath my waist, he picked me up and fell back on the bed so that now I was on top. The man was a flippin’ acrobat in the bedroom. My breasts pressed against his chest while he kissed up my throat and guided my hips against him.

An explosion of electric tingles exploded from between my thighs, traveling down my legs and rendering them useless. I clenched around Dorian’s length as the last tendrils of orgasm traveled through my boneless body, and felt him twitch inside of me moments later.

I stayed plastered to his body, my arms twined around his neck while I breathed against his skin. I could still taste him on my mouth, now mixed with the scent of sweat. His hand came up and cradled the back of my head as he held me to him.

“I missed you today.” Dorian’s soft voice echoed through my room. Leaning back, he looked at my face, his eyelashes fluttering as he searched for something there.

“I missed you, too,” I heard myself saying and realized that I had actually missed him. All day I wondered what he was doing, and why he hadn’t included me in it. If he was searching for a way to fix my memories, shouldn’t I have been with him?

“Did you find out anything new today?” I asked, aware that he was still inside of me, still semi-hard.

The lowering of his lashes told me he was looking down, away from my face. Did he have bad news? What was worse than what I’d learned today?

Looking back up, he produced a small smile. “No, I didn’t learn anything new today. I just helped the spirit walkers with extracting expired souls.” His hand came up and caressed the side of my face while he leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine. A sense of unease nagged my mind. He was hiding something.

I felt him fully harden inside of me again while he pressed kisses along my skin and hands roamed against my back. He was distracting me and, just for tonight, I would let him.

The scent of bacon wafted into my bedroom, waking me from one of the best night’s sleep I’d had since losing my memories. My eyelids slowly peeled open as I came back to reality. Warmth pressed against my back, a strong arm holding me against a hard chest. Dorian. Flashes of memory from last night played through my mind: the feel of his hands guiding my hips, the taste of his mouth, the feel of flexing muscles under my hands, fingers raking against skin.

Sliding out from under Dorian’s arm, I softly fell to the floor before standing up. Early morning light filtered through my window, lending enough light for me to search for clothes. I slipped on a pair of flannel pajama pants and a Broomsticks T-shirt. Just as I was turning to tiptoe toward the door to the bathroom, Dorian’s voice sounded and made me jump.

“You wouldn’t be doing the walk of shame, would you?”

That caused me to smile, considering this was my bedroom and my apartment. “No, I’m doing the bathroom walk.” Dorian still lay on his side, an arm tucked under the pillow. His hair fell against his sleepy face, while the blanket draped only over his hips. My eyes perused his chest and washboard abs, utter perfection lying in my bed like a wet dream come to life.

“You keep looking at me like that,” Dorian said, his voice either raspy from sleep or desire, “and you won’t make it out of this room.”

While I entertained the idea of shucking my clothes and climbing back into bed, my bladder reminded me that I needed the bathroom. Pity.