Spellbound (14 page)

“Victoria,”
he growled, just before he bent and sank his teeth into her hip. Punishing her. Marking her.

She sobbed, so aroused her body hurt. “I hate that she knows how good you feel. The sounds you make. I hate that you wanted her so much.”

“Not as much as I want you,” he breathed, nuzzling his cheek against hers. “Not even close.”

The other leather cuff magically secured itself on her ankle.

“She was targeted today,” he told her roughly. “Struck right on the street in broad daylight with me beside her.”

Victoria's breath caught.

“I told you how dangerous this hunt is. Told you they'd come after those around me. It could've been you—”

His voice broke. Sliding his hands gently beneath her torso, he cupped her breasts and pulled her up onto her knees. He moved onto the bed, tugging and milking her nipples. His chest was hot and hard at her shoulder, his hair a soft caress against her neck. Her back arched, pressing her aching breasts into his hands, her balance fully dependent upon his strength.

“It could have been you,” he said again, his lips at her throat. “And I couldn't have borne it, Victoria.”

“Let me help you. Please.”

“You'll help me now.” He gripped her nape firmly in his hand and urged her forward, anchoring her by the waist as she folded to press her cheek against the bed.

Her arms pushed through her splayed legs and were instantly bound to the bar by leather cuffs. She was helpless and unable to move, her hips arched high and held wide, her sex open and positioned for his pleasure. The deepest penetration.

Victoria creamed with excitement and anticipation. The more restrained she was, the hotter Max got. The hotter he got, the more she wanted him.

He straightened and snapped his fingers. It was the only warning she got before the lash of a flogger stung the back of her thighs. She moaned into the comforter, absorbing the sting of pain into her clenching core. Inside her, something rebelled. But it wasn't stronger than her desire. Max took her places she didn't want to go and yet couldn't wait to get to.

His hand stroked over the heated, smarting skin. “Stop fighting me.”

“Fuck me.”

The flogger came down again. She gritted her teeth against the pleasure/pain. Max used the perfect amount of force, his actions skilled and methodical. She couldn't help but wonder at the practice he'd had, the darkness in him that made him need unequivocal subjugation.

“Stop analyzing me.” His voice was low and controlled, quietly authoritative. He whipped her again, striking new flesh with unerring precision. When he was done, the temporary marks he left would form a clear artistic pattern. “Stop doubting me.”

“Max . . . ” The plea in her voice came from a wellspring inside her that only he'd ever tapped.

“Stop second-guessing me. I spent only two days away, Victoria, and you seem to have forgotten what you promised me.” The suede straps whacked against her buttocks. “To serve, obey, and please me. To never question an order or deny me anything. To never tell me no.”

“I give you more than I've ever given anyone.”

The flogger came down harder. Not enough to bruise her, but enough to tighten her attention on him. On the sound of his steady, unaffected breathing. On her pounding heartbeat.

To make her wetter. Needier.

“You're too focused on your vulnerability,” he crooned, massaging her burning flesh with gentle fingertips. “It was a gift you promised me when I claimed you, but you've never really given it, have you? But I've kept my promise to you. To cherish you . . . treasure you . . . to keep you safe.”

“Your life is dangerous, Max.
You're
dangerous. That's part of the package.”

“Are you still arguing with me, kitten?”

She tensed, but he switched his game on her. From pain to pleasure. His clever fingers gliding over her exposed pussy. She shivered as sensation darted through her, tightening her skin. A gasp escaped her as he rubbed her clit, circling over it with featherlight pressure.

“Such a pretty cunt,” he murmured, his breath hot against her glistening folds. His tongue teased her, rimming the opening to her sex. “Soft and tight and creamy. I'm going to fuck it hard and have the most delicious orgasm inside it. I'm going to pump you full of thick, slick cum.”

“Yes. Max . . . please.”

He straightened and caught her hips, rolling her carefully to her back. She lay splayed before him, her ankles and wrists by her ears. “You won't come.”

She whimpered and swallowed hard. “I've obeyed you.”

His silvery eyes stared down at her from within a face sharpened by lust. There was a wildness in his gaze she hadn't caught before. “In practice, if not in spirit?”

Alarm tingled through her. “What happened today, Max?”

Gripping the back of her thigh, he took his cock in hand and stroked it between the lips of her sex, coating her with the pre-cum that leaked copiously from the tip. He was so big and hard, thicker than she'd seen before. Veins coursed down the length of the shaft as well as up his straining forearms, his body poised to mate as hard as he'd promised.

“I vanquished one of them,” he bit out between clenched teeth.

Then he rammed his cock into her, his magic slamming into her with equal force.

Victoria's mouth opened on a silent scream. Possessed by him. Ravaged.

Seven

S
he came. She couldn't stop it. Primed and too ready as she was, it took only the brutal thrust of that big cock into her tender sex to set her off. Dark magic pounded at her as hard as Max did, every plunge into her pussy accompanied by a surge of power. She quaked beneath him, her sex milking his shuttling cock, her vision blackening for a moment as her blood coursed hot and fast.

Gripping the backs of her thighs, he kept her pinned and spread for his maddened fucking, a captured vessel for his raging lust. His hips powered between hers, his sac smacking rhythmically against the curves of her ass. His cock pumped her slick pussy, plunging in and out, his body working like a well-oiled and high-performance machine.

“Mine,” he growled. “Mine.”

“Max . . . please.” Victoria didn't know if she was begging him to stop or never to stop, her body reveling in the rough treatment, loving the act of being used for the sole purpose of giving him pleasure. His cock drove relentlessly into her, thrusting through grasping and greedy tissue, sliding furiously across sensitized flesh.

He threw his dark head back, his hair drifting around his broad shoulders, muscles straining and neck arching as a rush of white-hot semen spurted inside her. Her hands and feet flexed with the need for movement, her chest heaving for breath as he emptied himself without missing a stroke. A virile snarl reverberated through the massive room, a sound of primitive masculine satisfaction that had her coming again.

Her body was still racked by the potent climax when he yanked free of her. The bar disappeared and he flipped her, mounting her from behind and hammering deep. Sprawled prone on the bed and blanketed by his fevered, sweat-slick body, Victoria clawed at the comforter and bit into it, stifling the cries of pleasure she couldn't contain.

Her eyes rolled and then closed, her senses overloaded by the smell of Max's hardworking body, the feel of his muscles flexing against her as he succumbed to animal instinct and lost everything except the need to ride her and come in her. His cock retained its desperate hardness, his magic pulsed in her, flooding her. His aura was smoky and dark, tainted by magic he'd absorbed from the vanquishing earlier that day. She understood his black mood then. Understood what was driving him so hard.

She surrendered, opening herself in every way. Max felt it and snarled, his hands gripping hers, their fingers lacing tightly. Magic cycled between them, the essence cleansed as it filtered through them both.

His face pressed into the crook of her neck, his sweat blending with her own, his chest heaving with exertion. He fucked her like a man possessed, and maybe, in a way, he was. She could only take it, take him, and come. Over and over again.

I love you.
He nudged her thigh wider with his knee so he could thrust deeper.
Love you.

Victoria pressed her cheek to his.
I know.

Xander straightened from his lounging pose in a darkened shop doorway across the street from the apartment building where Westin lived with St. John. The warlock had left earlier, a fact made evident by the sudden void where magic had pulsed before. Still, a quick reconnaissance had revealed he'd left powerful wards in place. That was to be expected.

What Xander hadn't anticipated was Westin's absorption of some of Sirius's magic. That development infuriated him. He'd carefully manipulated Sirius into thinking he was the bright one, giving him false confidence. Xander had planned every word and action to goad the other warlock into striking at Westin first. He'd deliberately appeared in the shadows at the precise moment of Sirius's attack, catching Westin's attention and thereby luring the Hunter to strike out and vanquish his foe. The plan had been for
him,
Xander, to absorb Sirius's power, not Westin. Then he would've been powerful enough to draw the attention of the Source of All Evil. He might have become as potent as the Triumvirate had once been.

But all wasn't lost. Westin would pour some of that hijacked magic into St. John, making it easier for Xander to do so as well. The Familiar had been feral once. A hefty dose of black magic and a tiny seed of doubt about Westin would push her over that edge again. Sirius had been useful in coming up with that plan. If Xander could turn St. John, she'd be uncontrollable, wild, and Westin would lose the augmentation she gave him. He'd also be knocked off his game by being at odds with his lover, and that's all Xander needed—a single opening.

“There you are,” he murmured to himself as a lovely blonde spun through the revolving doors of the apartment building as if he'd conjured her.

Dressed in a new outfit composed of slim black slacks and a blue sleeveless blouse, Jezebel Patridge ignored the greeting of the doorman and glared at the world around her. She could've bridged the distance between the building and anywhere she chose to go, but she clearly had no idea where to end up and probably lacked the desire to leave. She wanted Westin. Taking off wasn't going to help her cause. But waiting around for him was clearly not sitting well.

Xander stepped out of shadows and sent out a soft pulse of magic to attract her attention. When she glanced his way, he shifted as if hiding from her gaze and set off at a brisk walk. Fleeing. Or so she'd think.

And she would chase him. She was a Hunter, after all. And he was a rogue, presently on the Council's most-wanted list.

Five minutes later, Patridge's hair was spread out in a golden halo on the dank ground of an alley, her chest split by a dual hit of magic.

Xander squeezed his wrist and smiled as he dripped his tainted blood into the cavity.

Max circled Victoria's nipple with his tongue, his hips rolling softly as he stirred his cock in her cum-soaked depths. She mewled, her fingers stroking weakly along his back. She was exhausted, her short cap of hair wet with sweat, her skin flushed a rosy pink, her dark lashes fluttering over closed eyes.

He gentled her while soothing himself. He was as exhausted as she was by his violent need to dominate her. To rut in her until he doubted he could stand. And she'd let him.

It angered him that he hadn't seen his need for what it was—the black magic inside him seeking an outlet in his beloved Familiar. His soul mate. The woman he loved more than he'd ever thought himself capable of loving anyone.

Now her skin tasted of that taint, her addicting vanilla essence muskier and more provocative to his senses. He was spiraling down the drain and taking her with him.

Turning his head, he teased her other nipple with light laps of his tongue. “Am I hurting you?” he asked, his voice hoarse from the many times he'd roared his pleasure while coming.

“No,” she whispered, her fingers digging into his ass with the barest force. “Don't stop.”

His cock slid in and out of her leisurely, concern for her comfort foremost in his mind. He'd stop if he could, but he needed the connection, needed to be certain that everything was okay between them. The smell of her skin, the softness of her body, her touch . . . nothing in his life had ever been as necessary as she was.

Shifting carefully, he began to stroke the head of his cock over the sensitive bundle of nerves inside her. He felt the tension in her rise, listened for the catch in her breath. When she seized in orgasm, he groaned and followed her, coming along with the delicate rippling of her cunt.

He was gasping and shuddering with pleasure when he felt the warding around his loft signal the presence of magickind. He was on his feet in an instant, his cock wet and semi-erect, his body tapping into his newly stored magical reserves to strengthen muscles weakened by hours of hard sex.

You have exceeded our expectations once again,
the Council said, a multitude of voices speaking eerily as one—a hive mind of the most powerful witches and warlocks of all time.
You vanquished Sirius with astonishing swiftness.

“That's what you wanted, isn't it?” he asked, tugging on a pair of jeans. He cast an eye toward the bed and saw that Victoria had curled onto her side in a catnap.

Your power is impressive. We would like to see a demonstration of it.

“The fact that Powell is dead is demonstration enough.” He moved toward the front door, his right arm at his side, the palm filling with a ball of roiling magic.

Do not forget that it is because of our forbearance that you are not a hunted rogue now.