Kim Harrison - The Witch with No Name

His robe fell open around us, and I blinked up at him, reaching to play with the hair behind his ears, letting little spills of energy trace a path where my lips had been.

“Hold still for just a bloody second,” he said, and I shivered as he pulled my pants off, dropping them inside out next to my shirt. I arched my back, reaching for him as he returned, his hands tracing my lines from my foot to my hip, and rising higher until he found my mouth with his lips.

We kissed, breath coming fast as waves of energy swung back and forth between us. My hand ran over his tightening muscles, delighting me in how he tensed as I moved from his neck to his arms to his back and down to his buttocks, where I traced little circles.

His hands clenched in my hair as he nuzzled my neck, finding the old scar hidden under my new skin and nibbling it to life.

I could feel him pressing against me, and unable to deny myself and him any longer, I reached to find him. His breath quickened, and we began to move with each other, tiny sparks of energy shifting between us. His head dipped and he found my breast again as I eased my touch inward, muting the energy in my hands until it was a soft, gentle hum.

He gasped as I found his smooth skin. I slid my touch upward, tightening my grip, enjoying his smoothness and wanting him inside me.

“Not yet,” he panted, and he shifted out of my easy reach.

I wiggled, and he pinned my arms next to my head.

A jolt of desire shook me, and I lunged for his mouth, his neck, anything as his weight settled on me, pinning me where I was. I found his lips, and he met my fervent need with his own, adding to my desire until I moaned.

I pulled one hand free, traveling down his back and circling in to find him again. His weight lifted, and I guided him in, exhaling as he entered, arching up to find him, letting him fill me.

Exhaling, he pushed against me, and my eyes opened. He looked wonderful over me in the dim light. A rising feeling of sparkles widened my eyes, and I gasped as he slowly pulled energy from me, almost like a slow climax. I could hardly breathe, letting him draw it forth until I couldn’t stand it anymore and I pulled it back, making him start as our energies mingled.

I felt him there in my chi, his masculine taste on my lips, my skin, the line now being slowly pulled back into him again.

I let him take it, his warm masculinity slipping away, leaving me wanting, needing. “Oh God,” I moaned, balancing, on edge as I pulled it back to me with the sharpness of a cracked whip.

His grip shifted, and I gasped when he took back, his lips drawing on my breast, his need filling me. Sensation slipped from me in a scintillating wave, tripping over every neuron where we touched. I felt my desire building, and with a ping of emotion, I tipped our energies over the edge in one quick wash.

“Oh God, Rachel,” Trent gasped.

The unexpected jolt shook me. I reached for him, straining, and with a glorious release, my body shook.

Trent’s hands on me clenched, and he groaned, climaxing right as I did.

I couldn’t breathe. We hung in a joined sensation of ecstasy as our energy, shared and mixed, pooled and settled, perfectly balanced between us.

My heart pounded. Slowly I opened my eyes, seeing him above me in the dim light. He was smiling.

“Hi,” he whispered, propping himself up on an elbow so he could shift the hair from my eyes.

I could still feel him inside me, still feel little jolts of sensation when either of us moved. Smiling, I reached up and tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear. How could I be this lucky? “Hi,” I breathed, my hand moving to feel the slick sheen of sweat on his shoulder. “I’ve ruined your shower.”

“I can take another.”

He didn’t move, knowing better, and I winced. “Sorry about that.”

He knew I wasn’t talking about the shower, and he leaned down to kiss me, our lips parting with a sound so familiar, so right, that it made me ache. “Have I ever complained?”

“No, but—”

“Shut up, Rachel,” he said, then kissed me some more. I couldn’t very well talk with his lips moving against mine like that, and I gave up, giving in to the moment until I had to breathe again.

“We probably should have found a better place than this,” I said, and he gave me several more kisses to shut me up.

“It’s my house.”

He was down to short sentences, which meant he was relaxed and feeling good. I smiled up at him, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. Why in hell had it taken me so long to realize I loved him? “Okay, but you share it with two other men and two toddlers.”

Trent’s eyebrows rose, and he glanced over the top of the couch to the stairway. “You live with a vampire and a family of pixies.”

Content, I sighed. “And yet we keep finding ourselves in this position.” I watched his eyes lose their focus as my inner muscles released. Exhaling in relief, he shifted to lie beside me. There was just enough room on the couch, and I felt happy when he tried to cover us both with the free fold of his robe.

“I’ll have to remember that one,” he said, arm draped over me. “Get you to think about pixies and vampires to get you to let go of me.”

Embarrassed, I ran my fingers over him, following the line of his muscles. “I’m worried. They don’t have three miles of forest and a gatehouse between them and the crazy people.”

I sat up and he sighed, shifting to sit beside me. “I know,” he said shortly as he stood, gathering up my clothes before he pulled me up into his arms. “I’ll get you back into Cincy before the sun comes up. Promise.”

I gave up, the feeling of being loved pushing all else away as he carried me through his rooms to the warm bath he had drawn for me. And as he used his foot to open and close the doors, I found myself looking over his simple yet complex world, wondering how I fit in. Maybe I should give up on the thinking and just do it.

That had always served me well in the past.

I couldn’t see the sun apart from the glow on Cincy’s towers, the blood red slowly shifting to a more familiar gold as it crept down the sides of the buildings as the sun rose. Mark’s was busy, the music muted and the conversations tense with fear. It would’ve been impossible for Trent and me to have found a seat when we’d arrived a mere five minutes ago, but Ivy had been here for hours, rightly worried that the streets would be closed off when the suncides began. We clustered at her table to watch the news on her charging laptop.

Trent fidgeted as we waited for both our drinks and David, the Were currently at Cormel’s emergency city meeting. They’d started about an hour before sunrise, continuing as the expected suncides became reality. Trent hadn’t been invited, but I’d convinced the shocked man that crashing the meeting was a bad idea. David could bring back the real dirt, and Cormel wouldn’t dare stuff the alpha Were in a hole to be forgotten—not as he would Trent. And whereas yesterday I might have gotten mopey about how Trent had been kicked out of his own meeting, now it only made me mad. I loved him, damn it. And everyone else, demons included, would have to get over it.

But the insecurity remained.

Grimacing, Ivy waved Jenks off as his dust blanked the screen, and I leaned forward to hear. Most of the people here were watching something similar on their various devices, and the unending circle of the same bad news of suncides and interviews was making me nauseated.

“. . . are asked to keep 911 calls to life-threatening emergencies,” the professional woman said as she stood outside Cincinnati’s main city building. “Suncides will receive faster responses using the number at the bottom of the screen.” She took a breath, eyes flicking past the camera to track the sound of a passing siren. “Impromptu meetings across the U.S. in major population centers continue to search for ways to cope and hopefully stem the unprecedented numbers of vampiric suncides linked to soul reunions.”