She choked on a laugh, opening her eyes to look at him. “Undo the cuffs, and I’ll make it happen.”
“Nah. I like having you tied up and at my mercy. It’s fucking sexy.” His hard cock twitched and seemed to expand even more. His hands closed over her thighs and shoved them wide. “I can do anything I want to you now.”
Her heart thumped at the expression on his face, so hot and worshipful at the same time. She didn’t remember a time when a man had looked at her that way. “Jack.”
“Hmm?” He brushed his fingers through the thatch of hair at the apex of her thighs, dipping in to circle her clit. He pressed down directly on that tight bundle of nerves, then moved his finger over it in rapid strokes that had her hips arching off the bed.
Moans poured out of her, heat streaking over her skin. Her lids drifted shut again, and she steeped herself in what he was doing to her. He wasn’t even inside her, and she could feel orgasm beginning to build as she undulated under his hand. The muscles in her thighs shook and her arms ached from yanking on the metal bindings.
“Jack, please!”
Pulling her legs up, he rested her ankles on his shoulders. “Look at me.”
She did, dazed with the lust humming through her. His gaze locked with hers, the blue deep enough to drown in, the intensity electric. Rubbing the blunt crest of his cock against her slick lips, his gaze never wavered from hers. They groaned together when he pushed into her pussy, filling her as exquisitely as he always did. The expression in his eyes demanded that she stay with him, that she not look away. He withdrew, slow enough to drive her wild, then plunged back in, hard enough to make her sex clamp down on his thick cock.
Sweat trickled down their flesh, one more sensation to heighten the others. The friction from his thrusts drove her to the edge of climax, but she wanted this to last. Her body stretched taut, and each time he entered her, the cuffs squeaked against the wrought-iron headboard. Still, she didn’t look away from him. She could see everything he was feeling. The craving, the strain of holding back his own orgasm. Laying his palm on her lower belly, he eased his thumb between her thighs, stroking her clit in time with his thrusts. It was too much. Far too much. Her hips heaved upward, and she came hard.
A scream ripped out of her, and she arched hard against the restraints. A single wave of magic burst out, golden light that bathed their skin, melded their pleasure, amplified their orgasms so they groaned together. Her sex pulsed around his cock, milking his hard length. His come pumped into her, a hot flood of fluid. He shuddered over her, continuing to rock himself inside her. And still they stared at each other until he dropped his forehead between her breasts, panting. She shook where she lay, her body wrung out, her mind as blank as she had hoped when she arrived at his house.
The cuffs jangled for a moment before they fell away, and he tossed them onto the nightstand. Her body went slack against the bed, relaxing bonelessly. He drew her wrist to his lips and kissed it. “You’ll be bruised.”
She shook her head, licked her lips, and focused her magic for a moment. Warmth seeped beneath her flesh, and the pain in her wrists faded. Healed. “A little Magickal first aid. All better.”
“Nice.” He brushed his lips over the repaired skin.
“Mmm-hmm.”
He pulled her against him, rolling them so that her back was to his front. He wrapped his arm around her waist to keep her pressed to him. Silence descended on the room, and she could hear the steady cadence of his breathing, the tick of the clock on the nightstand, the click of Grim’s nails as he walked down the hallway.
It was peaceful.
She’d thought she wanted rough, fast sex, but instead he’d given her a connection that shattered her. He’d given her exactly what she needed. How he’d understood that when she hadn’t, she’d never know, but she was glad.
His fingers drifted up and down her arm, and maybe it was because he didn’t demand any information, or maybe it was because she needed to give it voice after locking it away for so long, but there in the dark where no one could see her cry, she could finally talk to someone about Bess.
“She was named after Queen Elizabeth—the first one, not this one.” Gods. Just that one sentence hurt. Opening this festering old wound hurt. No, forget hurt. That was a pansy ass description for it. It fucking burned a hole in her soul that could never be filled.
His fingers continued to stroke her shoulder and down her arm. “Right. I suspect she predated the current one by quite a lot.”
“Yeah. She was about a hundred years younger than me. She was such a little brat, too.” A reluctant smile curled her lips while moisture seared the backs of her eyes. “She was a hellion, determined to do everything her own way, and damn anyone who got in her way.”
“Must be a family trait.”
She laughed, and the sound was watery. “Maybe. She was ... a hippy before there were hippies. Bohemian and artistic, carefree and unwilling to live with the fetters of anyone else’s rules. She drove me batshit-crazy.” She shook her head, her hair rustling against the pillowcase. “It wasn’t until about ... I don’t know, the 1890s or so that we met again in New Orleans. We hadn’t seen each other in centuries.”
His lips brushed the nape of her neck. “The time had changed you.”
“Yes and no. I wasn’t a young bride chafing to get out from under my family’s heel. Even at a hundred, I was unwed and looked like a blushing girl, so that’s how society treated me, and I had to live like humans did. In my family’s home, under my uncle’s rule, until I got married and was transferred to my husband’s home and his rule. I just wanted out. And I had to deal with a hellcat baby cousin who didn’t listen to a thing I said, even though they made it my job to look after her.” Which had prepared her for her future career as a governess for spoiled, wealthy children once she’d been left a widow. It seemed like she’d been lonely most of her life.
“Her mother was that aunt who hated you.” His voice was calm and quiet in the dark, his hand squeezing her arm in support.
“Yeah, Aunt Agnes didn’t really foster a loving environment in her house.” Truer words had never come from her lips, but that had hardly been Bess’s fault. Selina had been miserable in that house for a lot of reasons. “To say little cousin and I didn’t get along was kind of an understatement, but the second time around, we were both adults and had been out on our own for a long time. She’d married a Normal man and he helped ground her, but didn’t try to tie her down. The guy was perfect for her, and she was devastated when he died. We’d become friends before, but that was when we got really close.” She licked her lips. “When she was killed, I just felt like ... we had lost so much time when we were apart, and then what was left was stolen from us.”
“She was your best friend.”
Her lips trembled and tears glutted her eyes. “Yes.”
Gods, yes, she had been. They were as different as night and day, but they’d loved each other anyway and learned to appreciate the other’s strengths. Nothing had ever in her life hurt as much as losing Bess. Not losing her mother, her husband, or any of her lovers or friends along the way. Death was just a part of living, but with Bess? No. She’d been so alive ... far more than Selina had ever managed. A piece of her had died with her cousin, and every year that passed seemed to take a little bit more of her, until she was cold and empty and so damn tired of all of it.
“You blame yourself.”
“No. Yes. Maybe, I don’t know. I always feel like it should have been me. I was the oldest, I was the cop, I was the one investigating the case. It should have been me to go first, not her. That ugliness should never, ever have touched Bess.” Sweet, light, vivacious Bess. She’d been the best part of Selina. And then she was gone, leaving Selina more alone than she’d ever been in her existence.