“Wait, stop. I need to think.”
“You think too much, Ghost. That’s your problem. You need tofeel.” Her fingers find my waist, curling into my skin, and I shudder in pleasure, then let out a dark chuckle, holding her hands in place.
“You sound stoned, Mona. Come on, come here.”
“I’d literally go anywhere you asked,” she says easily. Ignoring the pleasure at her words, I coax her into my lap. She squirms against me, delighted as my semi-hard cock rises against her hip.
I can’t decide if this is a nightmare or a dream.
Needing to fix this quickly, I chant in a whispering tone while holding my open palm in front of Mona’s body as I cleanse her of the spell. Something changes in the air as she squirms and rubs her thighs together. It smells sweeter, her perfume coating every molecule. And as the air thins, and her perfume grows thicker, a strange blend of scents with my magic, the haze recedes, and Mona’s skin cools, her mind coming back into focus.
“What thefuck?” she rasps after a moment.
“Are you okay?” I ask cautiously, looking her over. The spell is gone, but still.
“Yeah… I mean, yeah. What was that?”
“She’s trying to… push you into a heat.”
“I thought they couldn’t get inside our little bubble you made?”
“The ward protects us from attack, yes. But she has your blood, so she can impact you directly. I incorrectly assumed Deidre wouldn’t waste anymore time trying to mess with you. She needed your blood for a spell, that’s what she told you, right?” Another miscalculation on my part.
Desperate to figure this out, I think aloud. “You’re obviously not going to get pregnant this fast. If we had sex right now, you’d have my seed inside you. That could increase your potency. But why is she… It doesn’t make any sense.” My gaze drifts toward the far wall, not really expecting an answer. While I try to work out the mystery, Mona’s hands keep lingering. Tracing my shoulders, dancing along my neck.
She thinks I’m too focused to notice what she’s doing, when in truth, it’s taking every ounce of power inside me to not react. To not give in. But when she runs her fingers through my hair, the pleasure fluttering inside me like scattered marbles, I still beneath her, trying to remember all the reasons this is a bad idea.
I clear my throat. “Are you okay? I thought I cleared the magic from your system?” I know I did. And with a second, clinical check, I can confirm the magic is gone.
“How come you were able to do that so quickly? Last time, you told Silas you couldn’t stop my heat.”
“That was a real biological heat. With blood magic, I might have been able to stop it—steal your free will and all. I wasn’t willing to do that. We didn’t have the time, regardless. This,just now—“ I point outside the cell, “this is unnatural. Magic induced. I can stop magic with magic.”
Though what they tried to do to her makes me furious, she’s still lightly tracing my ears, and my dick is getting harder, despite all the darkness around us. I feel like I don’t even have to ask, because Mona is an enigma and her natural state is insouciant, but I do anyway. “Why are you smiling?”
“You usually say very little. I’ve never heard you say as much as you have in the last hour. It’s just funny. It’s nice. I like it.”
Heat crawls up my cheeks. If I weren’t naked, she wouldn’t be able to tell how easily she makes me blush. My cock is still semi-hard and growing, and I try not to pay it any mind, but it’s really difficult when she keeps glancing down, biting her bottom lip, and squirming in my lap like she is.
She pushes her knee over my leg so she’s straddling me, forcing me to take a sharpened breath as my cock presses against her core. I shake my head quickly, attempting to push her off. “No, you’re not in your right mind.”
“You already said I’m clear.”
I look around the room, at anything but her. She frames my cheeks with her hands. “What’s wrong?”
Is anything actually wrong when your mate is in your lap? My cock is weeping, now fully erect. It actually hurts with need. Nerves rattle my insides. A quick glance shows it bobbing slightly, seeking heat. Seekingher.
“I just, I’m not—” I stutter.
Her knees part wider, pressing her warm core more firmly against my length, and I can’t catch my breath. My eyes fall closed as unfamiliar sensations overwhelm me. I force myself to shake my head.
“Not—not like this. Not here.”
“You’re pushing me away again,” she says, tone flat.
She’s right. I’ve been doing it since the beginning. Every time she reaches for me, I pull away. Every time she opens herself to me, hoping I’ll do the same, I close myself off. But how can I explain that what’s between us—this sacred pull, this gift I don’t deserve—terrifies me? How am I supposed to balance this hunger for her against everything else I carry inside me?
When her eyes glisten from the rejection, something inside me breaks. She tries to retreat, to shift off my lap, but my fingers curl into her hips. Digging, almost. Possessive.
