Witch Fire (13 page)

Jack glanced toward his bedroom, seeing her walk past the doorway as she got ready to sleep. She plucked her nightgown from the foot of the bed and pulled it over her head. He watched the silk sheathe her body. How was she? Beautiful. Wonderful. Luscious. Delectable. Irresistible.
Oh, by the way, I just made love to her twice.

“She's, uh, okay,” he said in a voice too low to carry to Mira.

“Has she tapped her magick?”

“Yeah. I think once she has some more training your cousin is going to be able to kick some serious ass, Thomas. We tried some defensive magick today and she slid me halfway across the living room floor on the first try.”

Thomas laughed with pride. “That's that Monahan blood. Hoskins blood is pretty powerful too. Did she come to it easily? How'd she tap it?”

His questions were eager. Jack knew how much Thomas was dying to meet Mira. Family meant a lot to him, and Mira had pretty much been out of the fold since birth. “You didn't mention the strength of the affiliation between fire and air. My magick drew hers. She was unbelieving at first, as you'd expect, but once she felt it rise, it was all over. She came to it pretty quickly after that.”

Monahan went silent for several moments. “You just keep your hands off her, okay? I know you've got a weakness for beautiful women, but this one is special. I don't want you messing with her head, got it?”

Too late.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Be at the airport at 7
A.M.
Go to the Northwest ticket counter to pick up your tickets. Your flight leaves at 9:09
A.M.
Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Watch your back. I don't have to tell you twice. It would be best if you got her out unseen, but if you can't, the Coven witches I sent will be there to back you up. I don't want anything to happen to Mira.”

“Harm comes to Mira over my dead body,” Jack replied vehemently.

“I know, Jack,” Thomas said in just about the gentlest tone the man could manage, which wasn't very. “I know what this job means to you.”

Mira appeared in the doorway with a comb in her hand. Her hair fell over her shoulders in dark, damp skeins, and her beautiful eyes questioned him.

Jack held her gaze for a long moment. It meant more to him than Thomas realized, more than Jack had ever intended.

“Yeah,” he answered, still holding Mira's gaze.

C
RANE REGARDED THE AIR WITCH WHO SAT IN A
slight stupor before him. Rage swelled from the mere pathetic sight of him.

They kept Marcus drugged with a low dose of Ketamine, which had the effect of a tranquilizer when introduced to a witch's metabolism, with only mild dissociative side effects. It was important to keep him mollified and a little confused since any air witch was dangerous, even weak ones like Marcus.

Marcus's hands were bound in his lap. He wrung them over and over, a clear sign of his agitation. As if the wide, wild eyes and gaping mouth weren't enough evidence of his mental state. He was kept a prisoner all of the time. They trotted him out when they needed the information only an air witch could provide.

Information like they needed now.

Crane had hauled Marcus to the frozen wastelands of Minnesota in deep February, all in order to see if he could somehow glean any intelligence about whether the woman resided in Jack's apartment or not. Mostly, Crane had received a big, fat nothing for his trouble, and he'd been worried he might have to admit David had been right about the witch not being at Jack's Minneapolis residence after all.

Then, finally, Marcus had heard something. The video and audio monitors in the room where they kept Marcus had shown him jarred from his sleep by some occurrence. The video footage showed him sliding out of the bed and trying to hide under it, obviously not happy that he'd gleaned information that Crane wanted and too addlebrained from the Ketamine dose to hide it well.

Crane reached out, grabbed Marcus's pudgy cheeks, and shook his head back and forth until his unruly black curls flew. “David says you heard something on the wind tonight, Marcus,” he said. “You're going to tell us.” He paused for effect. “Now.”

Marcus whimpered and rocked back and forth. “No, no, no, no!” he chanted. “I won't tell you. I won't!”

Enforced magickal servitude had driven Marcus a bit crazy, but it still hadn't broken him of these little ill-advised fits of rebellion.

Crane laughed. “Maaaar-cus,” he sang softly. “Our ward-breakers have been unsuccessful, and that means I don't have time to play games. He stroked his fingers through his jet black curls, then clenched them hard and fast and yanked his head to the side. Marcus cried out, and spittle, an unfortunate side effect of the drugs, trailed out of the corner of his mouth. “Now tell us, like a good little pet air witch, and maybe I'll let you go back to your room and have a cookie.”

Marcus sniveled for a moment, and then clearly enunciated, “No.”

Crane sighed heavily. “Marcus, you know why we need to call the circle, correct?”

Marcus nodded.

“So you know I'll do anything in my power to gain an air witch to close it, yes?”

He nodded again.

“Then what do you think is stopping us from using
you
to close the circle?”

Uncertainty flashed through his brown eyes, chased by a dash of fear.
Good.

“I'll tell you, Marcus. You're not very powerful, that's definitely one reason. Why, our little Marcus can barely call a light breeze, can he?” Crane laughed softly. “Damn those pesky genetics anyway. But the other reason, the far more important reason, is the cooperation that our Marcus gives us.” Crane smiled. “Understand?”

Marcus nodded.

“When we need to know things that only an air witch can discover, our Marcus helps us out.”

He nodded again.

Now they were getting somewhere. “If you want to keep your sizable ass out of that circle, Marcus, if you value your pathetic life in any way, you'll tell me what you heard right now. Otherwise, I'll substitute you for her and hope you have enough juice to close the circle. After your magick is bled out, I'll just find myself another weak air witch to mold to my pleasing.”

He whimpered and a tear slid out of his eye, but Crane kept his tight grip on Marcus's hair. “Okay.”

Crane released him.

He sniveled again and snot trailed out of his left nostril. Marcus wiped it away with his bound hands. “I heard a telephone conversation. It woke me up. I think there was a chink in the warding and some of it slipped out. I was so tuned on the apartment that I caught it on the air when it passed. The air witch is in Jack McAllister's apartment, but they're planning to move her to the Coven tomorrow morning.”

Crane smiled coldly at Marcus, and then turned to David, who stood near the door. “I don't care how you do it, you get those wardbreakers to find us a way in before dawn.” He paused. “Tell them their lives depend on breaking that warding. If they fail, they'll die slowly and painfully. Got it?”

David nodded.

With the proper motivation anything could be accomplished. They had to get in now, because once she was at the Coven, she'd be nearly impossible to take. They could try to snatch her en route to the airport, but that was a last resort because it meant a public magickal showdown.

And that would just be crass.

S
OMETIME DURING THE NIGHT,
M
IRA FOUND HER
way into his arms.

Jack buried his nose in her hair and inhaled, letting the faint fragrance of her perfume infuse his senses. Her breathing sounded deep and heavy and her body felt warm against him. Jack closed his eyes and wallowed in it.

But this couldn't happen. Whatever this was that he felt for Mira, it had to end. Once she found out who he was, it would be all over. She'd hate him. How could she do anything else?

The last thing he wanted to see in her pretty eyes was fear or revulsion when she looked at him.

While he didn't regret sleeping with Mira, it had been a huge mistake. He'd started out meaning to resist her and had failed. That lapse in his willpower would hurt both of them in the end, but especially Mira. As much as it pained him, all this had to be nipped in the bud. It would make things easier later on.

His arms tightened around her and she murmured his name in her sleep.
Damn.
He didn't want to let her go, but that's exactly what he had to do.

Jack eased his arms carefully from her warm body so he wouldn't wake her and turned over. It took about an hour of staring into the dark before he finally drifted off to sleep, dreaming of cold places.

Sometime in the predawn hours, Jack awoke from his chilly dreamscape to heat. Skillful fingers curled around his erection, caressing the length of him. His breath hissed from between his teeth at the sensation of her hand stroking him. She'd managed to get him hard while he'd been sleeping. Need rode high in his balls and his cock felt like a steel rod.

“Gods, woman,” he groaned. “What do you think you're doing?”

He'd turned over onto his back while he'd been sleeping, and she'd eased the covers down past his hips. Her dark head hovered by his side. The moonlight slanted through the window and caught in her hair. It still wasn't morning.

“Couldn't resist. Hope you don't mind,” she answered in a playful tone.

Hell.
He did mind. At least, his brain minded even if his dick didn't. His thoughts raced, finding tactful ways to get out of this without making her feel rejected. “Mira, we should—ah!”

She'd slid her lips over the head of his cock and was now tonguing her way down his shaft.

“Mira!” he cried out gutturally at the feel of her hot mouth engulfing him. It was so wet and soft. More than he could defend against. Point to Mira. Every shred of willpower he'd had a moment ago went
poof
.

She slanted her head up at him, revealing a sexy, mischievous expression on her beautiful face. It was an expression he was hard-pressed to resist. Then she dropped her gaze and licked up the length of his shaft…like it was a Popsicle. He made a strangling noise.

“I want to do this really badly, Jack,” she murmured before she licked him again. “Let me.”

“How am I supposed to say no?”

Her hair brushed his upper thighs as she engulfed his cock in her mouth again and worked her tongue against him. His fingers found those silky moonlit strands and fisted. Just how much could one man take? Mira had pushed him past his limit as soon as her tongue had touched him.

The mere sight of his cock, wet from her saliva, thrusting between her full lips, was nearly enough to make him lose it. She seemed to love having him in her mouth. She'd thrust him in until the crown touched her tonsils, then would spend time licking his shaft up and down and swirling her tongue around the head.

All that playing drove him insane.

The charm of her mouth, and the enthusiasm she showed in having him there, rendered him helpless. Did it have any effect on her? He wanted to know if this made her wet. Was she aroused from this?

“Hell, you're going to make me come,” he murmured. He fought the urge to thrust into her mouth, wanting to let her do as she wished with him.

She stopped for a moment and smiled up at him. “That's kind of the idea, isn't it?”

He moved fast, toppling her to the bed and dragging her beneath his body. She yelped in surprise and then laughed. Eager to touch her, he yanked up the hem of her pajamas and stroked her soft pink flesh until she moaned. Oh, yes, having him in her mouth had turned her on.

Jack stared down into her face while he caressed her between her thighs. He tunneled his fingers inside her to feel all that delicious wet heat. “I want to come when I'm deep inside you,” he growled. “And I want to feel your climax ripple around my cock before I go.”

Her breathing came faster and heavier at his words. She might seem innocent, but it excited her when he talked a little dirty. “I have no particular objections,” she murmured.

“But first, I need to taste you.” He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her deeply, his tongue skating against hers in the recesses of her mouth. After kissing her breathless, he worked his way down, yanking her nightgown farther up to expose the sweetly curved hollows and planes of her body, her luscious breasts with their responsive nipples.

He worshipped it all with his lips and tongue, occasionally with his teeth. Mira liked it when he nipped her here and there—the curve of her waist, the sensitive place where her throat met her shoulder. It made her shiver and moan.

Every wrinkle and pucker of each nipple got his full attention. Mira moved restlessly beneath him on the bed, her fingers kneading his upper arms and shoulders, her hips lifting and thrusting in an unconscious, needful way.

Jack enjoyed teasing her, enjoyed having control over her body. He'd love to bind her sometime, make her truly helpless to him. He wanted to tease her body to the edge of climax over and over so that when she finally went, she did it yelling his name and seeing stars.

He left her nipples even though he could spend hours there and ran the tip of his tongue slowly down her abdomen, into the dip of her belly button and over her mons. He kneed her legs apart and planed her leg with his hand before kissing and gently biting the place where her sweet inner thigh met her sex.

Mira's back arched and her hands closed around the blankets on either side of her.

“Do you like the way I touch you, Mira?” he asked.

“Jack, yes.” She raised her head and looked down the length of her body at him. “If you just blow on me right now, I'll probably come.”

Jack grinned and blew gently over her sex. Mira shuddered and moaned, letting her head fall back against the mattress. He inhaled the scent of her, musky and aroused. His balls ached and his cock had gone harder than steel. This erotic torture was torture for him too.

He lowered his mouth to her sex and licked her swollen, aroused clit. “Spread your pretty thighs for me a little more,” he ordered her gently.

Mira parted her legs and he slid a finger into her heat, then another, making her sigh his name as he began to thrust. Her wetness coated his fingers and her muscles clamped down, rippling and releasing.

Her body responded to the touch of his tongue and fingers. Jack used those clues to judge how close she was to coming and managed it, possessed it. When her body tensed and shuddered on the cusp of climax, he eased her from the threshold and built her back up. He did it over and over until the sweet sound of begging spilled from Mira's lips.

Jack sealed his mouth around her clit and worked his fingers around to rub over the sweet spot deep inside her. At the same time, he laved her aroused clit until Mira writhed beneath him on the bed.

“Jack,” she gasped. “Please, don't stop.”

This time, he had no intention.

Mira bucked beneath his mouth and the muscles of her sex contracted and released. She cried out, her back arching. Her beautiful breasts stabbed up into the air as she rode out the waves of her climax. He never relented, keeping up his attention in order to milk every bit of pleasure from her body that he could.

Gods, she was so sexy when she came. He wanted to make her do it over and over again.