Anya Bast - Witch Blood

She sank to her knees and pushed the hem of his sweater up, running her tongue over his abdomen and unbuttoning his jeans. All she wanted was to drown herself in him, lose herself in this night and never return. Once she had his cock out, she stroked her fingertips over it. Thomas groaned.

He pulled her to her feet, hooked her leg over his waist and pushed his cock inside her roughly, as if he couldn’t wait another moment to feel her. She gasped as his long, thick length slid deep within her. Holding on to his shoulders, she let her head fall back in ecstasy. Thomas was strong enough to take her whole weight, so she let him.

After a moment, Isabelle tipped her head forward and stared into his eyes. They stood still, intertwined and intimately connected.

Lady, she loved him back.

In the closeness of his bedroom, with the rain pounding outside his walls, and his body one with hers, she knew it. Her life would be perfect in this one moment if only she’d had the freedom to say it.

Without a word, Thomas picked her up. Her legs wound around his waist, his cock still deep inside her. He moved her to the bed, lying her down on the mattress and lowering himself on top of her.

He took her wrists and pinned them to the bed on either side of her, stared down into her eyes and began to thrust. His hips bumped hers on every inward stroke. Her clit, swollen and aroused, tingled and pulsed with the need to come.

When she closed her eyes and turned her head to the side, Thomas commanded, “Look at me.” His voice was tender.

She turned her face to his and held his gaze, lips parted, while he stroked deep into the center of her.

“I love you, Isabelle.” The words came soft and steady, his dark gaze fixed on hers.

The ripples of pleasure became waves. Her orgasm overtook her body and mind, just as Thomas had done. All Isabelle could do was ride it out. Pleasure coursed through her, making her back arch. She cried out his name and felt Thomas go, too, spilling inside her with a hoarse shout.

Afterward, they curled up together in the center of his bed — limbs and sheets tangled — and listened to the storm come to an end. Isabelle snuggled into Thomas’s strong chest and closed her eyes as his arms circled her.

Despite the uncertainty of the future, she was happier than she could ever remember being. To make the warm feeling in the center of her chest remain for the entire night, she pushed the truth that it couldn’t last far, far away.

Tonight she would hang on.

Tomorrow she had to pull away.

THOMAS SAT IN MICAH’S OFFICE, IN THE NORTH WINGof the Coven. Micah and Isabelle sat at the same table, amidst scattered books and humming computer equipment. Tomes on quantum psychics, computer programming, and a variety of esoteric subjects stacked three rows deep surrounded them.

“We input what we knew about all four victims’ magick and magickical capacities and the order in which Boyle is taking them. By running that information through the software I tweaked, we found five possible patterns.” Micah slid a manila file folder across the table toward him.

Thomas flipped the folder open. Within were pages of data, graphs, and other information that Thomas couldn’t make heads or tails of.

“Here.” Isabelle flipped to the back of the file and pulled a couple papers out for him to read. “This breaks it down in normal people language. The rest of it is in Micah.”

She wouldn’t meet his gaze. Isabelle hadn’t looked him in the eyes for the last three days, not since the night of the storm. He wanted to shake her shoulders, make her tell him what was wrong.

Isabelle was the most confusing woman he’d ever known. Hot one minute, cool the next. Her fears were getting in the way of the feelings Thomas knew she had for him and he grew weary of it.

“Thanks.” He scanned the page. The second sheet simply had a list of names. Direct and to the point. That’s exactly what Thomas wanted.

“They’re forecasts,” continued Micah, “using the data analyzed. Those pages you’re holding list the names of the witches that might be at a higher risk of being taken by Boyle according to our calculations. Now, we don’t even know if Boyle is still out there, but I think we need to work on the assumption that he is.”

“He is,” answered Isabelle in a flat voice. “Can’t you feel him?”

Thomas glanced up to find her staring at the tabletop. “I can.”

Isabelle looked up and met his eyes for the barest of moments, then turned her face away.

Gritting his teeth in frustration, Thomas ran his finger down the column. His trepidation grew. “This is a very long list.”

“Yes,” replied Micah. “Unfortunately there are many witches on it because of all the probabilities.”

“Plus,” added Isabelle. “These are just the witches in the vicinity. We ruled out witches that live far away since Boyle seems to have enough pickings around here without having to go elsewhere. However, there’s really no telling if he would travel or not to obtain a victim, so that makes the results even less reliable.”

“Great,” Thomas muttered.

Micah shook his head. “He won’t go out of the area. Why would he go to the trouble? It’s not logical when he has such a wide selection here.”

That was for sure. Thomas glanced up at Micah. “How many are there?”

“One hundred and fifty-one.”

Thomas clenched his jaw and stared hard at the list. “One hundred and fifty-one possible next victims. That’s a little under a quarter of the registered witches in Chicago.”

“And,” Micah put in, “those are only the witches in our database. As we know, not all witches are officially registered with the Coven.”

Thomas tossed the papers to the table. “Then how helpful is this?”

Micah shrugged. “It’s better than nothing.”

He picked the papers up again and scanned the list of names. They couldn’t ignore them. One of the names he looked at now might be the name of the person that Boyle was currently targeting. There was nothing to do for the witches who weren’t registered, but somehow they had to find a way to cover all the witches on the list. “We’ll figure out a way to monitor them.” He scanned the list again. “Anyone we know on here?”

Micah and Isabelle didn’t answer. Thomas raised his gaze from the sheet and glanced at both of them. Isabelle was looking hard at Micah, who looked guilty. Anger flared. “ Tell me .”

Micah indicated the paper he held. “On that list there? No. There’s no one on that list directly connected to the Coven.”

Thomas’s fingers tightened on the sheets of paper. He hated it when people tried to conceal things from him. “And on the list before you cut out witches for location?”

Isabelle glanced at Micah. “My mother was on there.”

Thomas raised his gaze and studied her. “But you took her off because she’s no longer in the Chicago area?”

“My mom left for California a couple of days ago.”

Satisfied, he nodded. Folding the papers and sticking them in his inside suit jacket pocket, he said, “You both did very well to narrow it down to these names. I’m going now to see how we might be able to monitor these people.”

“I’ll walk you out,” said Isabelle to Thomas, rising. “I need to meet Mira and Jack.”

Together Thomas and Isabelle left Micah to his books and computers and headed into the corridor.

Isabelle had leaked away a little the morning after the storm. More and more of her had followed in the days afterward. When she’d refused to continue to sleep in his room, even in the guest room, he’d wanted to push, to force her , but he hadn’t. These nights he slept alone.