Sinful Magic (17 page)

She tilted her head back, caught up in his gaze. “You don’t have to do this. What about your bloodlust?” He was going slowly with her, giving her some time, but she knew that they had to have sex. “We can just do it.”

His fingers tensed. “Touching you eases my bloodlust. I want to learn you and teach you to trust my touch. To feel safe with me.”

“I am safe with you.” He’d rescued her, taken care of her, taken her pain away and stayed with her while she slept. “I know that.”

His hand on her face relaxed, wisps of blue heat flared in his eyes. “Safe enough to let me take off your shirt? Allow me to touch and kiss you until your magic rises and fires your shimmer?” His voice thickened. “Can you sit on the couch, with the sunlight pouring over your breasts, and let me draw you?”

A knot in her stomach eased, her heart picked up speed, and excitement skipped through her. Anticipation. She glanced at the long wall of glass. “But the windows

”

“Specially treated glass. No one can see you, except me.” He ran his thumb over her lips. “Only me.”

“Only you,” she said as he kept brushing her mouth, then dipped inside. She touched her tongue to his thumb and his jaw clenched.

He drew his thumb out and lowered his mouth to hers, while his hand on her waist crept up to brush the underside of her breast. He stroked her with his tongue and nipped her lower lip. Then licked it.

She shivered, feeling overpowered by just a kiss. Her body was softening, while her schema heated and thin threads of desire began spreading. It was never like this with anyone else. He kept brushing the tender skin under her breast until her nipple ached, while stroking her mouth with his tongue.

Pressure built low in her belly.

He cupped her breast, brushing her nipple through the shirt. Tremors of pleasure shot through her, arrowing down, and she felt a pop, then the energy flowing out, spreading, filling.

Key lifted his head. “Your magic. Feel it?” He drew his fingers around her breasts.

Her magic streamed toward it, turning her skin sensitive to his touch. “Yes,” she breathed, wondering at the new, full feeling of it. The way it followed Key’s fingers.

He switched direction and trailed his fingers down to the hem of her shirt. Grasped the edge and pulled it up.

Expectation heated her skin as her breasts spilled out.

Then he guided the top over her head and tossed it down. He got up, stepped between her legs, and knelt down. His hands settled on her thighs, his heat penetrating the soft cotton of the yoga pants.

Roxy sat on the couch, unsure what to do. Her nerves pulled tight, her emotions flinging between excitement and uncertainty. Key had seen her completely naked, yet this felt more revealing, more personal.

He lowered his gaze, his eyes growing hotter, taking on more blue. “Breathtaking.” He leaned up to her mouth and kissed her. Hot, open mouthed, demanding tongue. He ran his hands up over her hips to the bare skin of her waist.

Then higher.

Skimming, his palms created friction that her magic chased. She wrapped her arms around his neck, needing to taste him, wanting to know and savor the depths of Kieran’s mouth.

A hint of dark spice that fired hunger in her.

He drew his hands up to cup her breasts, feathered his thumbs over her nipples. She felt another chakra open, more magic, more pleasure.

Key moved from her mouth, kissing down her throat, until he captured one distended nipple between his lips, then grazed it with his teeth, followed by gentle swipes of his tongue. Then he switched to the other side, making love to her breasts with his mouth.

She was drowning in the sensations, her body heating, and her schema began to ache, burn, demand. She arched her body, thrusting her breasts high in an offering, to concentrate on that pleasure, not the pain in her

Key dropped his hands and caught her hips, pulling her tight to his erection. His hip was pressed to her schema, the firm contact easing the pain. Lifting his head from her, he raked his gaze down her body. “So damned beautiful.” He sucked in a breath, his nostrils flaring, color riding his cheekbones.

She could feel his long, thick erection pressed exactly where she needed it, a hot pressure between her thighs.

He leaned up, kissed her mouth, then slid to her ear. “Going to draw you now. Right now when you’re so fucking hot, I can’t think straight.”

She shivered.

“And then, little witch, I’m going to take these pants off of you. I want you to think about that. Lie back and think about what it’s going to be like when I touch you. You’ll be wet and slippery

” He groaned in her ear. “And I’ll have to taste you. Find out if you are as delicious as I’m imagining. Think about that, Roxy, what it’s going feel like when I spread your thighs and kiss you until you come for me.”

Key sat on the coffee table, thrumming with the need to capture her on the page. Roxy glowed with the fiery colors of sunset, desire softening her lines and swelling her lips and breasts. He looked down to her cleft in those yoga pants.

Damn. She was swollen there, too, her caramel scent so tempting he gripped the pencil tighter. He began sketching.

Fast.

Needing to record this. Not for him, it was imprinted on his brain, on his soul forever. But for her. To show her, before he took her completely, before he stripped off her pants, spread her open, and filled her, he wanted her to know how incredibly beautiful and special she was.

Drawing at hyperspeed, so fast a mortal would see only a blur, he saw her forming on the page. It inflamed his lust. He wanted her with ferocious desire that beat at his spine and swelled his cock so big, he was surprised the buttons of his jeans didn’t fly off.

Beneath his shirt, he felt the dragon moving, trying to wake. For her.

He glanced up at her, wearing just her pants, still flushed with desire and magic. It hit him how much she trusted him. She was giving herself over to his care, to their care, him and the dragon. It made his chest go so tight, he was nearly dizzy with it. This witch who’d fought her sexual magic for years trusted them to bring out her power. He changed pencils, desperate to capture the color of her witch-shimmer. He had his knees touching hers to keep the bloodlust under control.

As he looked up again, his gut tightened. Did she know how much he loved doing this? To him, drawing was sensual. Creating her lines on the page was foreplay. And she let him, gave it to him, didn’t fill the space with chatter. She—

She was special. Too special. He didn’t want to think about that.

The dragon shifted and moved, restless, desperate to come fully awake. To claim her. A small part of his brain noted it, wondered why this woman was so important to the dragon.

For Roxy. Our treasure.

It played over his mind briefly that the dragon thought that Roxy was his treasure. That was significant

his pencil slowed. A grain of anxiety he couldn’t name slipped into the heat blazing through him. He shifted his position so that he was no longer touching her.

His BlackBerry dinged a text message. His veins began swelling from bloodlust, his cock ached for relief, and Roxy watched him with suspiciously soft eyes. He grabbed the phone from where it was next to her on the couch and opened the text.

It was a picture message. “Damn!” It was Tyler and another woman, tied up. Both were pale and terrified. The message read: “I have the kid and his mother. I’ll give them to you for Roxy. I’ll call with instructions. Screw with me and I’ll kill them.”

He wasn’t going to screw with him, he was going to kill the weasel bastard. But was it Liam? Or his dumb-shit flunky? Wouldn’t Liam demand the Tear? Key flipped the sketchbook closed and slammed it down on the coffee table.

“What?” Roxy bent over and looked at the picture on his BlackBerry. “Oh no, it’s Tyler!”

Her desire faded under the heavy scent of worry and fear. “They saw me talking to him. Right before Joel led me to their car, I was talking to Tyler.”

He was furious at himself. They’d left Vegas and forgot about the kid. Mack could have been in costume and hanging around the signing, seen Roxy and him work together to save the kid. “Get dressed.” He forwarded the message to the other hunters, quickly explaining who the kid was.

Phoenix tagged back first. Key answered, “We screwed up.”

“Roger that. Listen, the woman is the kid’s mom. Ailish and I both recognize her, her name is Paige. I’m going to get Sutton on tracking this, meet us at the warehouse.”

He looked at Roxy, his loyalties torn. “I can’t bring Roxy.”

“She’ll be okay, she’s not releasing enough power to make the others lose control.”

“Her power’s getting stronger. I don’t want the unbonded hunters near her.” Once a hunter found his soul mirror and sealed the bond, the curse broke for them. But Roxy was caught in the middle, her powers releasing now, but not yet bonded.

To him. She belonged to him! The words rang in his head and worried him. Shit, he had to focus on Tyler. He added to Phoenix, “I can’t leave her alone.”

“Bring her to my house. Ailish is here, they’ll be safe. I’ll wait while Sutton’s tracing the message.”

“Done. And Phoenix, we’re going to save that kid.”

“Fucking A.” He hung up.

Key went into his bedroom and armed himself. He strapped on his knife harness, slid another into his boot. He unlocked his weapons safe and took out a Glock 10mm semiautomatic pistol. He carried that in his hand and walked back out to the living area.

Roxy was dressed and standing there waiting. Her gaze took in the gun in his hand, and her mouth tightened, but she didn’t say anything. Her muscles were tense, she had her arms crossed over her middle, and her witch-shimmer flickered on her skin. He smelled flares of her power.

A slow burn in his veins developed barbs, irritating the shit out of him. He knew the curse was rising to a dangerous level. Maybe it’d be better to leave Roxy in his loft. There was an excellent alarm system and he could close the bulletproof shutters over the windows.

But her flickering power changed his mind; she needed to control her magic, and Ailish could help her with that. He would stay in control. The drive to Phoenix’s house was only ten minutes. “Let’s go.” He strode to the stairs and started down.

“Where?” She followed, the sound of her flip-flops ringing loudly on the metal stairs.

“Phoenix and Ailish’s house. You’ll be safe there, and Ailish can help you control the magic you’ve released so far.” He stayed a few feet in front of her, trying to avoid her scent as much as possible. He went to the door behind the staircase that led to his garage. Waiting for Roxy to pass, he closed and locked it. Then he strode to his truck and opened the passenger door. The interior light showed him Roxy picking her way across the cement.

He could see in the dark and hadn’t thought to turn on the light. It was cool and gloomy in here, and he saw her shiver as she got in. Her tank top, while sexy, was barely legal the way it hugged her breasts and had only spaghetti straps over her shoulders. It was no defense against the chill of the garage. She didn’t have any other clothes, not even decent shoes.

He needed to take better care of her. Moving around the truck, he opened his door, got in, and slid the gun beneath his thigh. Then he reached behind the seats and grabbed a Windbreaker and tossed it across her legs. “Put this on.”

“Thanks.” She slipped into the blue Windbreaker and wrapped it around her.

Key opened the garage, started the truck, and backed out. He waited until the door was completely closed before he gunned the engine and took off.

His phone rang. Key pulled it out and looked.

Tyler’s phone.

He pushed the button and answered it through the Bluetooth installed in his truck. He said one short word, “Where?”

“Inland Storage in one hour. If you’re one minute late, I’ll kill the woman in front of the kid. We have people watching, don’t try anything, DeMicca.”

Key looked over at Roxy and mouthed, “Mack?” He was almost positive but she’d know his voice better.

She nodded, her face pale and tight.

Was Liam there? A flash fire of old rage and anger threatened to erupt, but he ruthlessly suppressed the emotions. “Why do you think I give a rat’s ass what you do?”

“Because you saved the kid. I was there, DeMicca, I saw it. And this is just the beginning. Bring me Roxy or I’ll kill both of them and move on to your friends.”

Those words released more memories of being beaten and tortured. But this wasn’t about him, it was about saving the kid. “I’ll be there in an hour with Roxy. You can have her as long as Tyler and his mom are alive.” He cut the call before he told the dickhead the gory details of how he was going to die.

“I can’t believe I almost had sex with him. I trusted him. After a year of no dating, no sex, I

” she trailed off, running her hand over her face.

Key tightened his fingers on the steering wheel. Another reason to kill the man. Bile-tasting acid made his chest burn. He didn’t like the thought of Mack touching Roxy.

Or any other man.

Getting control of himself, he asked, “You what?”

“I was lonely, empty, and I guess I thought sex would help. I should have known better. And now, it’s my fault. I got Joel killed; you told me a mortal bodyguard was a bad idea, but I didn’t listen. They must have done that memory-shifting thing on him.” She dropped her hands. “After they kidnapped me, Joel was really confused. At the underground garage, he got out of the SUV, looked around, and said, ‘This isn’t the airport.’ Liam laughed and said, ‘It’s your last stop’ and cut his throat. All that blood, poor Joel’s shocked face.” She folded her arms across her stomach and leaned forward. Guilt hunched her shoulders. Her scent soured with self-recrimination and queasiness.

He reached out and put his hand on Roxy’s hunched shoulder. “Are you going to be sick?”

She lifted her head and looked at him. “No. Just stop him, Kieran. Please. Don’t let him hurt Tyler or his mom to get me.” Her green eyes were fierce, yet damp with unshed tears. “I’ll go with you. That way Mack can see me, you can even give me to him to get Tyler out. Then come back for me.”