Kim Harrison - The Witch with No Name

“I’m sorry. Maybe we shouldn’t have—”

Trent’s hand slipped from mine, reaching to cup my cheek. “Don’t even think it,” he said earnestly. “The past few months have been the best in my life.”

He was looking at my lips, and my pulse quickened. “Tell me it’s going to be okay,” I whispered.

His fingers ran a tingling path down my jawline as his hand dropped from me. “It’s going to be okay. You want to go home?”

To a soggy church with no kitchen or electricity? Or Ivy’s parents’ place where the tension was so tight that it almost sang? Even better, a hotel room where I’d dodge my mom’s pointed questions while the news inescapably blared? “No,” I said, reaching up to feel his new lack of stubble under my fingertips, and I froze when he took my hand, kissing my fingertips.

“Damn it, Rachel,” he said, the pain in his voice startling me. “When I saw you on the floor, I thought I’d lost you again.”

He was holding my hand close to his chest, and I felt a pang of guilt for his fear. “I’m hard to get rid of.”

“Yes and no.”

The silence stretched and neither of us moved. It had gone quiet downstairs, and the world felt empty. “Do you think the undead who find their souls tonight will suncide?”

Trent nodded, a shadow in the dim room. “If the curse holds and they aren’t pulled back,” he said, then gave my hand, still in his, a slight squeeze. “At least Cormel can’t blame you.”

“He’ll find a way,” I grumped, and Trent seemed to pull himself together as if turning a page in his weekly calendar.

“There is a meeting tomorrow with a few key people. If you’re not busy, I think your presence would be helpful.”

Apart, no one listened to us, but together they might. “Let me guess,” I said, bringing a knee up onto the couch and turning sideways so I could arrange his still-damp hair. “Whoever is in charge of the I.S. during this mess, the head of the FIB. Ms. Sarong and/or Mr. Ray.” I hesitated, smiling. “Mark, maybe.”

Trent laughed, the sound of it seeming to ease some of the ugly uncertainty away. “I’d really like you to be there, not necessarily as a demon representative, but as, ah . . .” He winced.

“As someone who might be able to fix this mess?” I said, and he exhaled in relief.

“Something like that.”

His hand was on my foot, and I couldn’t help a soft moan when his thumb ran right up the side of the arch and pushed on the nerve that ran to my back. “You know, I’m starting to see some benefits from dating a man who has weekly massages,” I said, and he began to squeeze my foot in earnest.

“Actually, I’d like Dali there as well,” Trent said, but I was hardly listening. “I wonder if he’d come if I asked? Etude, if he could stay awake. The elves are behaving badly, and I’m wondering if there’s enough worry to gain letters of intent from them that would outline their concern and their policy against further elf-to-vampire aggression.”

He let go of my foot and motioned for me to turn around. “Your shoulders look like rocks,” he said. “All the way down to your feet. Five minutes, and that bath of yours will be a hundred times better.”

I gathered my hair and turned as he swung one leg up onto the couch, tossing the back cushion to the floor to make more room as he settled me before him. “Sort of like a species intervention?” I said, then stifled a moan when his hands, strong from reining in impossible horses, began working my shoulders. “That’s old school.”

“What works never goes out of style.”

His voice was preoccupied, and my head dropped forward. Trent’s leg was beside me, bare where his robe fell away. “I’ll see if I can work it into my schedule,” I said, imagining there were better ways to use a couch. Unable to resist, I leaned back, ruining my shoulder rub but not caring when I tilted my head into him and found a freshly shaven patch of his neck. His arms shifted to go around my middle, and I smiled when my lips found him.

Trent’s hands never stopped moving, becoming gentler as he touched my stomach and made a tingling path higher.

I turned my kiss into a soft, awkward bite. Oh, this isn’t going to work at all.

Shifting, I turned to face him, settling almost into his lap with my legs wrapped around him. Arms about his neck, I found his ear and nibbled on it as my one foot kicked off another back cushion. More room. Much better.

Trent’s hands held my waist, his thumb moving, pressing as he began to work his way inward to pull my shirt from my pants. My heart thudded as he slipped behind it, fingers both rough and smooth making a scintillating path up to find the curve of my breast.

His breath against my neck was delicious, and I made tiny hop kisses from his ear to his lips. Trent’s touch became aggressive, and breathless, I pulled him to me, very aware that his robe wasn’t covering much between us. His mouth against mine sent tingles over me, our passions rising, building upon each other.

Shock jolted through me when his teeth fastened on my lip. My eyes flashed open to find him looking at me, and my pulse hammered even harder at the heated desire in them.

“You’re wearing too much,” he whispered, and I groaned when his hands eased to my back, motions firm with intent as he reached the top of my pants. His lips found my neck, and I took a long, slow breath as his fingers worked to undo them. My knees were to either side of him, and the sudden give of the button was electrifying—the sound of the zipper bringing me back from the rising ecstasy.

I met his eyes to see his desire mirroring my own. I wanted everything, I wanted this. The silence was profound. I thought about Ray safe in her bed, then Jon and Quen at the stables. My hands were behind his neck, my fingers playing in the damp ends of his hair. “Is it worth it?” I said. “Everything you gave up?”

He couldn’t take my pants off with my knees to either side of him like that. There was only one foot on the floor, and it was his. I smiled, knowing he was stymied. “You tell me.”

I leaned to find his ear. I felt him tremble, his hands on me hesitate and move against me even more strongly as I nibbled on his ear. “I’ll let you know tomorrow,” I whispered.

“Mmmm.” His grip on me shifted, finding my center of gravity. “I work best under pressure.”

“Me too.” I barely breathed the words, my hand trailing down his chest to wiggle the last tie closing his robe open. I tensed, knowing he was going to have to do something drastic if he wanted my pants off. His balance shifted, and I countered it, wanting to prolong this. He saw my wicked grin, and he smiled, changing his attack.

He went for my shirt, and I shivered as he pulled it and my chemise over my head in one smooth motion. They fell to the floor beside the couch in a soft hush. The cooler air gave me goose bumps, but they vanished in a wash of heat, driven away as his eyes traveled over me an instant ahead of his hands.

His robe was open, and I eased closer to him, my hands tracing an ever-circling path inward to find him. Trent’s breath quickened as I dipped to his inner thighs, and then I gasped when he unexpectedly found my breast and gently bit me. “You wicked elf . . . ,” I whispered, reaching for him, then almost lost it when he pulled a trace of energy from me.

My eyes widened at the scintillating feeling icing through me. We’d played with the lines before, and my pulse quickened. It was going to be like that, then.

I felt our auras begin to shift to find a middle ground, and I almost lost it when he suddenly dropped the line and everything he collected washed back into me, balancing in a wave of sparkles along my spine. “Ooh,” I groaned, and in that instant of bemused sensation, he shifted his weight, pushing me back into the couch and pinning me there.