Read Online In the Company of Witches by Joey W. Hill - Free Book Online

then. She released her elbows and arched involuntarily, her body snapping back. But his hand was already on her back, biceps flexing to hold her close to the rail so she didn’t hurt her nipples. He did it all without a break in rhythm, suckling her.
    She wanted to touch. She put her fingers in his hair, the smooth, thick strands. It was like a horse’s mane, and she thought of kelpies, magical, deadly creatures.
    He lifted his head as her fingertips slid over his temples. The steady gaze that met hers was serious. “Did I give you permission to touch me?”
    “No. But I want to.”
    “Then ask, Raina.”
    Her throat ached. Though the reassuring warmth of salty tears, of one’s humanity—so to speak—was more vital than one realized, at the moment she was glad she was a tearless witch.
    “I don’t know how to ask.”
    “Yes, you do.” He produced two more lengths of silver chain. He had to be conjuring them, because no male carried pretty jewelry in his pockets unless he had a plan to impress a woman. She didn’t think Mikhael expended much effort on impressing women, since he managed to do that well enough without trying, damn the bastard.
    He folded her hands back on her forearms, obviously intending to bind her wrists to them. He had his head bent over his task, but when she made a noise he lifted it. Gazing into those dark eyes, so close, she realized it was as intimate and familiar as she’d been with a man in a very long time. Perhaps ever, because this instance was weighted with a lot of different things, the most important one being trust. It only increased the ache, because it was as he said; none of it was about more than this moment. Just the pleasure they could give each other.
    It wasn’t hard to say the words; they wanted to leap off her tongue. Allowing herself to say them, that was terrifying, a gate she had to push open with enough effort that she stumbled on the first word. “W-Will you let me touch you?”
    Her cheeks burned in mortification, and her body jerked as if in protest of her going over that wall. More succubus energy spiraled out, coiling around him like a python. Her adrenaline spiked, but he made a calming murmur, cupping her face, fingers caressing her throat. The gesture made her chin lift despite the hold of the chain around her neck. He caught her, holding her so the strength of his touch restrained her there as he stroked her windpipe with fingers that could crush it without thought.
    “You may.” The silver chains disappeared back into his pocket, her wrists left unbound. He lowered his head to her breast again, allowing her to do as she would.
    Sliding her hands back in his hair, she savored the ability to do so, but she also curved her arms around him, one hand slipping to his nape, then the space between his broad shoulders, holding him to her as he kept pleasuring her breasts, until she was bumping against him rhythmically, pleading for far more than that, incoherent sounds of need as she clutched him.
    His arm was around her, too, holding her close. She was twitching on her legs, so aroused, so close to coming. She was drowning now. Those coils of energy had expanded. To anyone with preternatural senses, they were now surrounded by a filmy mist tinged with pale crimson, the hint of blood. That vapor fogged the human mind, an aphrodisiac that took them higher and higher until, even if they realized it, they wouldn’t care that their lives were in peril.
    That mist caressed Mikhael’s bare shoulders, whispered over him. If he had any visible reaction to it, it was to goad her further, taking her up higher, as if he had a mist of his own making.
    Giving each nipple ring one last tug with his teeth, he rose, sliding out of her grip. “Put your hands back on your elbows and keep them there.”
    She didn’t think it was possible for her arousal to get any more intense, but the pitch of that low command did the trick. Her sex contracted so hard she shuddered. Moving up