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“I appreciate it,” I say softly. “You bringing me back here.”
He shifts his stance, a frenetic energy moving over him like he’s uncomfortable standing so close to me. “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to persuade you to stay home and lay low until I figure this out?”
“You apparently haven’t dealt with many Stonecroft women in the past.” I throw him a small smile. He’s not getting off that easy.
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, mussing it even more. “Perhaps we can help each other, then?”
“Are you offering to partner with me? Help me find the killer?” I raise my brows, and my lips part in surprise.
“I don’t think I have a choice.” His jaw flexes and that energy rolls over him once again.
I bite my lip. “My grimoire, with the files copied to it, is back in the car in the woods.”
Xander frowns. “That’s not it right there?”
He points to something behind me, and I turn. Sure enough, my grimoire is sitting on the dresser next to my bed. I walk over and run my fingers over it wonderingly. “How on Earth did this get back here?” I muse aloud.
“Grimoires tend to have a mind of their own,” Xander says. “Yours especially.”
I turn back to him, worrying my lower lip between my teeth. “This is all so strange for me…I never knew about magic or witches or any of it before this week. I think Sybil tried to show me when I was younger, but then I became an adult and turned my back on it. Forgot about it entirely.” I take a deep breath and release it. “I let her down.”
Xander crosses to where I stand and places a hand on my shoulder, tentatively, as if afraid I’ll bite. “I very much doubt that’s the case.” He catches me in his golden gaze. “You’ve got more power in your pinky finger than most witches. In the matter of a few days, you’ve managed to bond with a grimoire. You’ve battled a demon and won. Not to mention being stubbornly gutsy in your pursuit of justice.”
Where Xander’s fingers touch the bare skin of my shoulder, I can feel the sizzle of his heat, his dragon magic. Intense, like five burning brands, but it doesn’t hurt. Something within me yearns for more fire. I angle my body closer, just a slight movement, looking up at him from underneath my lashes.
He takes a step closer, too, his chest a mere inch from mine. His breathing is uneven, and I can see the planes of his muscles through his thin, damp T-shirt. “No, Rowan, you are quite unlike any witch I’ve ever met,” he says, his voice low and rough, smoke and midnight mixed.
Magic pulses through me, a song of silk and starlight. I reach one hand to the side of his face and trace my fingers slowly down the side of his jaw, light sparking between us as I do. The gold of Xander’s eyes deepens, and I can feel his dragon surge to the surface. I should be scared, but I’m not.
With a growl, Xander lifts me by my ass cheeks, and we crash into the wall behind us. His mouth meets mine with fury and fire, his tongue claiming me. I wrap one leg around his waist, the other foot anchoring me to the ground. My fingers wind through that damp, messy hair, then down his back, crushing him closer. I can feel the solid mass of his chest and his hips. The rock-hard length of his dick presses against me and I moan. Heat flares between my legs, magic and desire both.
Xander’s hands move to the front of my tank top and he tears the wet material off of me. I shimmy my shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. He buries his face in my breasts, kissing the tops of them, then with another growl, he snaps off my bra and it joins the shirt in a pile below us. I gasp as his tongue runs over each nipple, and when he sucks one of them into his mouth, my eyes flutter and my sex clenches.
I’m burning hot. Non-human levels of hot. It’s not just Xander’s dragon magic. It’s my own, flaming and flaring like a comet. I run a hand up his chest and the sparks flying from my fingers make his shirt burn. He doesn’t so much as flinch as my magic washes over him, disintegrating every inch of clothing above the waist. We’re skin to skin now, and I can see the glorious stretch of his torso, feel his hard muscles beneath my fingers.
Xander moves his lips up the side of my neck and back to my mouth. He captures my wrists in one hand and presses me back harder into the wall, my arms above my head, both feet on the ground again. His other hand yanks my jeans down, ripping the denim, exposing my thighs. He pulls back a moment to look me in the eyes, then his mouth meets mine again, his cadence slower now, his tongue probing even deeper.
His fingers trace the outlines of my hip bones, one and then the other. A groan escapes my lips, and he growls again, his mouth vibrating against mine. Then he slips his free hand down over the core of me. He glides a finger over the slick edges of my sex, and he moans when he feels how wet I am. My heart is racing so fast I think it might explode. He circles his thumb lightly over my clit and the spike of pleasure makes my knees buckle.
He enters me without warning, one long, rough finger gliding all the way in, a quick plunge, then out again. I cry out and my whole body quivers. A second time, in and out, quick and deep. Stars float before my eyes and I close them, but he reaches up and takes my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes. His golden gaze holds me as he moves his hand slowly back down my torso, along the planes of my stomach. He pauses for a moment at my opening, until I suck in a breath full of need and longing and buck my hips against his hand.
Slowly, he penetrates me, in and out. The harsh sound of my breathing mixes with the sound of his finger moving back and forth in my wetness. An agonizing pleasure builds deep inside, and my magic sparks off me like a bonfire. Xander’s skin sizzles as my power burns against him. I’m so close. The ripples build and build and build…
He pulls his finger out of me abruptly, releases my wrists, and kisses down the front of my body, breasts to stomach to hips. He grazes his teeth over my right hip bone and I let out a shudder of ecstasy. I’m so close that the mere thought of his tongue entering me is about to push me over the edge… I sigh as he moves his attention to my left hip. Almost there…
And then he pulls back again. I think for a moment he’s just teasing me, but he says, “What is this?”
My head clears quickly at the harsh tone of his voice. I look down to see what the hell he’s talking about. He’s on his knees, looking between my face and my hip bone. More specifically, the dark mark above my hip bone.
It’s small, smaller than a dime even, and shaped like a tiny raven in flight.
I have no idea how it got there.
I blink in confusion. “I—I don’t know…”
“Don’t play with me, Rowan,” he growls, rising to his feet in a hurry. “It’s the mark of the Raven Society.”
A wave of anger moves through me. Being brought to the brink of orgasm and then yelled at will do that to a girl. “I don’t know how that got there, Xander,” I snap. “And if you knew what it was, why the fuck did you ask?”
