How to Marry a Warlock in 10 Days (25 page)

“Oh, I wish,” she sighed dreamily.

“I was an experiment.” Dred shrugged.

“Would
you
like to experiment?” the woman asked.

“Maybe another time,” Middy said, trying not to blush.

“Oh,” the waitress pouted. “Can I get you two anything to drink? A dance with the Green Fairy?”

“Does it have real fairies in it?” Middy asked, completely serious.

“She is so cute!” The waitress slapped Dred’s arm playfully and sauntered off, shaking her ass as she went.

“Well, does it?” Middy asked again.

“No, it’s absinthe. They call it the Green Fairy. That’s like asking if they make Girl Scout cookies out of real Girl Scouts.”

“Don’t they?”

“She seems to like you. Maybe you should ‘torture her’ to get her to talk.” Dred raised a brow. “What did I tell you?”

“Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Don’t try again,” Middy warned.

“Can I think about it?”

“Trying or the . . .” Dred winked.

He looked like sex on a stick when he did that. “I have no control over what you think about,” she said repres-sively.

If she was being honest with herself, she’d admit that she loved the idea of him fantasizing about her, no matter what he pictured her doing. It was the fact that she occupied his thoughts when she wasn’t around.

“Would you like to?” he asked in a silky tone.

For all of her need for control, she didn’t want that. “No. If I did, I might as well go back to fucking myself.”

“No one said you had to stop. I’d like to watch.”

“You did watch!” Middy’s voice was a harsh whisper.

“It was beautiful,” Dred said as he leaned in against her so that his voice was just in her ear.

She didn’t know how he managed it, but this felt intimate. Even though they were here with all of these people, he was talking about something that was just theirs.

“I want to do it again. I want us to watch each other,” he said and pressed his lips to the soft pulse at her throat.

“What are you doing? We’re supposed to be gathering information,” Middy whispered.

“We are. Remember when I asked you about trust? This is where you trust me. People are watching. Some are magickal, some are not. Your arousal must be real.”

Dred took the lead, though it looked as if she chose their course as he was still on the leash. They made their way to a divan that was partially surrounded by curtains, but afforded a view to the sexual melee going on around them.

Their absinthe arrived via seemingly invisible hands and Dred took a drink and rose up on his knees so that he was above Middy on the divan. She was still clutching the leash like it was a lifeline, but she knew that ship had sailed a good hour ago.

He kissed her, careful to keep his hands at his sides, but used his mouth like a chalice to feed her small sips of absinthe. It was an intimate act that went beyond the erotic and sent tremors through her body.

Dred used his tongue to clean a drop of the spirit she missed on her bottom lip and then he held the glass to her lips. She held the burning liquid in her mouth and he kissed her again, sharing the bite of the Green Fairy.

She didn’t want anyone to see her doing these things, but yet, when Dred touched her, nothing mattered but that: his hands, the heat of his body, the taste of his lips. Middy still wasn’t sure how putting on this display was going to get them anywhere.

He’d said she had to trust him.

So she gave herself over to him, put herself wholly into his keeping and played the game.

Middy was torn between losing herself in Dred and watching everything that was going on around them, from the couple in the alcove next to theirs where the woman had a corset piercing that began in the small of her back and ran up to her shoulder blades to the tangle of limbs and bodies in the alcove across the way.

Dred didn’t seem to mind whatever she wanted to do.

His hands and his mouth were occupied only with her.

With this smorgasbord of sexuality for the taking, he just wanted her.

Middy had an epiphany.

It was a soft whisper against her skin, it was a kiss. It was no more substantial than a drop of water in an endless sea, but it rocked her to her core. This could be as close to love as she’d get with Dred Shadowins.

That wasn’t the epiphany.

It was that she could live with the realization. Not only live, but perhaps even thrive. A new peace filled her, but unfortunately, it would have to take a backseat to the urgency that was building in her clit.

“Want some company?”

Hell no, they didn’t want company! Middy almost growled audibly. They wanted to— Right. They did want company if they were going to get any information.

She looked up to see a man with two rings in each nipple and chains attached to them that disappeared into his kilt. Middy imagined what it would look like on her real-life, dress-up Dred doll. It would be tasty, just like everything else. The kilt, not the rings. She could only pray that the chains weren’t attached to what she was sure they were attached to.

“Yes, we would.”

He smiled, the expression softening his appearance and he sat down on the divan. “Is there anything in particular you’re looking for this evening?”

“Yes, there’s—”

Dred had forgotten the game and had spoken without permission. They didn’t want to blow their cover so she jerked on the leash. The look on his face told her that she was going to pay for that later. That and the images of her over his knee that were racing through his mind were a pretty vivid clue.

She thanked Morrigan that their thoughts were only connected when they were engaging in sexual activity.

“Did I give you permission to speak?” Middy watched him for a long moment, as did their guest. “No, and I still haven’t. Lick my boot.”

Her mistake.

Dred knelt and licked from the ankle of her boot all the way up to the soft place behind her knee. He didn’t look down like a true sub would have, but met her eyes during the whole display.

“My mistress would beat me if I looked at her in such a way,” the newcomer offered.

“He does as I command. If he has no spirit, what use is he?” Middy asked. “So, as I was saying. A friend of mine was here last night and had a particularly . . . interesting treatment.”

“And you’d like the same?”

“Yes, indeed. I want the same room he was in, too, if that’s possible.”

“The treatment and room?”

“I’m not sure; he wasn’t altogether coherent this morning.” Middy nodded knowingly.

“His name?”

“Tristan Belledare.”

“Hmm, I remember him. He didn’t pay for a treatment. Just rented a room. I wish he had though. My mistress would have enjoyed him.”

“He must have been with someone,” Middy encouraged him.

“I can’t really tell you that.”

“You will tell me. Right. Now.” Middy threw caution to the wind and grabbed hold of the chains that led from his nipples to . . . and tugged.

“As you command,” he breathed deeply, obviously enjoying the pain. “A blond woman, petite. She kept calling him hero.”

“We’d like that room,” Middy said as a sick trepidation rose inside of her like bile. Had he been with Tally?

“I’ll be back with the keys.” The man left reluctantly after Middy let go of his chains.

“You’re a naughty witch,” Dred said into the shell of her ear. “He didn’t want you to let go.”

“Too bad for him.”

“Too bad for him, indeed. In all of this bacchanalia, you don’t see anything else you want?”

“What kind of question is that?” Middy did her best to look bored and at ease with her environment.

“Besides me, Midnight. I’ve seen you looking, but it was only a passing glance. You were a virgin. There’s no other flesh that intrigues you?”

Middy shook her head and it was an honest answer. She didn’t want anything but Dred Shadowins and she had a sneaking suspicion that the potion didn’t have anything to do with it.

“I would ask you the same question, but I don’t think I want to know the truth. I’ve decided what I want to believe and I’d like to stick with that, thanks.”

“Not even if I could answer the same?”

“Not even then, Dred. It was easy enough for you to lie about loving me earlier. Why should this be any different? Your lust isn’t the consolation prize.”

Dred’s attention was suddenly on something that wasn’t her. Well, that had lasted a grand total of twenty minutes.

Middy stubbornly shut that voice out of her head. It never said anything that she wanted to hear anyway.

“Middy! Do you remember the servant who showed us to our room at Snow Manor?”

“The stinky one?”

“He’s here!”

“Eww! I mean, why?” Middy supposed even the un-washed needed love. She just hoped that they made him bathe before allowing him in a room.

“It looks like he’s on staff! He just went through a ser vice door.”

They dashed after him, pushing their way through the licentious crowd. It was as if the creature was waiting for them: He would slip out of sight and then Middy or Dred would catch another glimpse of him.

He turned just as they rounded a corner and then a white light exploded between them. The light took on a familiar shape and Middy cried out. How could Tristan Belledare be standing in front of them?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Things to Do in Loudun When You’re Still Dead

Tristan Belledare had watched with an unhappy frown as the events unfolded in the world below. He had to say that this was, indeed, bullshit. Yes, it was.

First, he’d been eaten by his ex-girlfriend. That sucked all on its own. It didn’t need any help. Second, he was still in love with Midnight Cherrywood. Third, he’d just taken a new job. From hero to Duke of Heaven. It didn’t have the nice ring to it that Crown Prince of Heaven did, but he’d have to earn that.

The new job? Babysitting his current love interest. Upon his untimely and rather sucktacular demise, he’d been made her guardian angel. Talk about a selfless act? She was in mad love with another warlock and it was his job to see to it that she was happy. He knew that Dred was the right one for her, but that didn’t make Tristan want her any less.

That witch was an accident waiting to happen.

It was damned lucky for her that she had a special gift; otherwise, her ass, as they say, would have been grass when she’d fallen off that broom. Not that Dred wasn’t all badass hero, too, but without Tristan’s little push, they would both be dead.

Now, where in the name of all that was holy had Dred’s angel gotten to? That was another question Tristan wanted the answer to. Merlin knew that the warlock needed one.

Crazy bastard.

Tristan had been shown many things after his death. He’d seen what had happened at Shale Creek. And he was thankful for more reasons than one. The first being that Dred had saved his ass. The second being that the image of Dred that had been forever burned into his mind was there not because Tristan had repressed desires, but because it was a repressed memory.

That made him much more comfortable in his own skin, needless to say. Tristan had been worried because he’d thought that if he had a man crush, he’d know it. It had been disturbing to think that his mind had been going places without him. That was a sure recipe for crazy.

Tristan watched with rising alarm as he noticed that the revenant belonging to Barista Snow turned to wait on the other side of the door for Dred and Midnight. Damn, but he hated that witch. She’d just been irritating on her own, with her mad quest for eternal youth, until she met Vargill and got power hungry.

Tristan continued to watch the scene unfold, sure that Dred would take precautions, but he was just barreling ahead, hell bent for . . .Damn it.

Tristan had no choice but to manifest himself. A bright, white light blinded the creature, which scurried from it like a roach caught out in the open at high noon.

“Tristan!”

Middy had seen him.

He watched as Dred turned at her cry and abandoned the chase to see to her.

Tristan chortled like a monkey who’d just won King Shit of Turd Mountain. Dred was in love with Middy! His aura was so bright, but the colors ran the gamut from the bit of black where the Abyss had touched him to the searing white spaces that were the goodness in him.

But they were all tinged with pink. A color that Tristan happened to know had become a bit of a compulsion for Dred. Yes, he would take very good care of Middy and they would have a fairy-tale happiness, if only Dred would recognize his feelings.

An old adage about leading a unicorn to virgins came to mind.

Midnight, he could see, was head over arse for him. Her aura bloomed wherever he touched her. When his attention was on her, Middy literally glowed. She could be seen from space.

Tristan could see where the potion had affected her, but it was such a small place. She would have come to this over time on her own.

Dred’s hands were on her now as he checked her wound and their auras both changed to a lovely purple. Tristan took that as his cue to go look elsewhere. As much as he still thought of Middy, this was where she was supposed to be. Tristan also knew that this increased need for her was Fate’s way of making his job easier. He had to admit, Fate was either one sadistic bitch or had quite the dry sense of humor. Middy would always be out of his league. If she used her gift selflessly, all that light inside of her, she would ascend and become a Crown Princess of Heaven. But Tristan wanted that for her: It was the pinnacle of her journey, what she was meant for.

He wondered briefly how very much trouble he would get into if he eased Tally’s pain from the transition just a bit.

She didn’t deserve this. All she’d done was fall in love with the wrong man after Tristan himself had broken her heart.

And her faith. Sure, his death had been horrible, but that wasn’t her fault. It was his own. Tristan wondered if he maybe should have been a Duke of Hell instead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A Dark, Marbled Affair

“I know that I saw Tristan,” Middy said as she followed Dred into the rented flat in Paris.