Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
What I’d lost had been the ability to choose, to access a part of myself that only came alive around the people I loved.
“Livie? Are you okay?” Casey asked.
I realized I’d stopped, but we were still connected. And I wanted to stay that way. I didn’t want some quick orgasm to flash through me so I could go back to being his enemy again. I didn’t want some weird victory over him.
I leaned over, slowing the moment, reveling in it. I looked down at his gorgeous face, loving every plane and angle. I ran my hand over the softness of his hair and kissed him. Really kissed him, letting our mouths learn each other again.
At some point we turned over again and he was on top of me, and I loved how he pressed me down, how his hips started to move. It was softer this time, as though he wanted this moment to last.
“I missed you,” he whispered as he thrust inside me, filling me up, reminding me how good it had always been between us.
I wrapped myself around him and let go of everything but him. I floated on pleasure and comfort, on the warmth I always felt when I was near him.
When the orgasm hit, I let my head fall back and urged him on.
His fangs struck even as he fucked me hard and, for a moment, I was free.
Chapter Fourteen
Liv
I woke when the moon was rising. I’d woken up from a dreamless sleep this time, and I should have felt fabulous. I’d slept the whole “night,” and it had been forever since that had happened. I normally woke every few hours and took a tea to try to get back to sleep. Once more vampire beats most medicine or therapies. If you’ve got problems, fucking a vamp will solve a lot of them.
Casey had left me a note that he was going to meet with some experts about how the hounds would have gotten here and we’d talk later. There had also been a carafe of coffee waiting for me on the dresser along with the note.
Coffee was off-limits for the Profane. We drank the teas Myrddin offered us for healing.
I was not Profane anymore.
Profane didn’t wake up naked with fang marks on their necks and their bodies humming with satisfaction. At least not the way I’d done it. I’d actually been prim for a person who called herself Profane.
Or maybe I’d been given a name and conditioned to act in a certain way.
I sat there in the middle of the bed I’d shared with Casey the night before, and a shiver went through me. What I’d seen in my dreams had felt so real. More real than my memory of the event.
For the first time I had to consider I was wrong. Logic dictated that the scenario had to be on the table.
I was about to get up and get dressed when the there was a brisk knock on the door and then Kelsey was sweeping in, Eddie at her back. And a bunch of hellhounds.
The hounds who’d been trying to murder her the night before were now sniffing at whatever Eddie was carrying. They were dancing around, and Puff was busy getting underfoot.
“Down, Hestia. This is for Olivia. It is not for canines.” Eddie put the tray down. It was covered with a cloche.
I held the sheet to my boobs because I was naked and now there were a shit ton of people and creatures in my room. “Hello, privacy?”
Kelsey’s lips turned up in an amused grin. “Yeah, we were never big on that, were we? Do you remember the time you let all the kids sneak into my bedroom while I was naked? Payback is a bitch, sister.”
“Shouldn’t they be back with their mom?” I wasn’t interested in meeting the legendary First Woman. Not at all. Curiosity wasn’t helpful in my position. It led to bad decisions like the one I’d made the night before. Night. Day. It was all confusing here. Everything was confusing here.
“She wasn’t home so she’s going to come here and pick them up when she gets back. I find it interesting she happened to be out. Tix told me she rarely leaves her realm.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, that grin turning wicked. “So, Casey was humming earlier. I think he’s in songwriting mode.”
Dear goddess. I did what Kelsey had done that day she’d referred to so long ago. I pulled the covers over my head and prayed the universe would swallow me up. In my defense, I hadn’t known she was naked when I’d sent the kids in to wake her up, although she’d been with Marcus Vorenus the night before, so I should have.
He would do it. Casey, that is. He would write some dumbass song about how his love had healed me or something, and then he would go one further and write an entire musical around it. He’d done it before. It was terrible. We’d made fun of it, the other witches and I.