Witch Fire (14 page)

Feral and half-drugged with sexual need, he climbed up her body. She wore a languorous look on her face as she watched him advance on her. The look of a woman well satisfied. It became her. It made Jack want to keep her that way forever.

Jack settled himself between her thighs and hooked the back of her knees around his elbows, spreading her legs for him, and placed the head of his cock to her slick entrance. “I can't get enough of you,” he said in a low voice. “You make me crazy. You're not too sore for this?”

Mira bit her bottom lip and shook her head.

He gripped his erection and guided the head of his cock inside her slowly and carefully, so as not to hurt her. Her heat enveloped him. Just having half his shaft in her was enough to make him spill prematurely, but he resisted the urge. He had more control than that, though with Mira it was hard won. Inch by inch he slid within until he was seated balls-deep inside her.

Mira sighed and murmured his name as her body adjusted to hold him, her satin muscles rippling around his shaft.

By the wan light of the moon he could see his cock glistening with her juices as he withdrew and the way it tunneled past her labia when he pushed back in. Jack thrust a couple times, deep and slow, before he let go of her legs and settled down over her, seated within her to the base of his cock. He could feel her velvet-soft rear against his balls and the pulse and ripple of her glorious, perfect sex around his shaft.

Jack eased in and out of her as he covered her mouth with his. Every little moan and sigh, every little needful restive movement against his body drove him right to the edge of a climax.

Yeah, he wasn't going to last long.

“Hard,” she murmured. Mira laced her fingers through his hair and ran them over the stubble he needed to shave off his jaw. At the same time she circled her long, slim legs around his waist and gathered him close to her. “I want to feel you hard and fast.”

Nope. Not long at all.

“Are you sure? Aren't you sore?”

She raised her head to look at him. Her eyes were dark with lust. “Hard, Jack.”

He grinned wickedly, slid a hand over her breast, to her hip, then cupped one of the perfect mounds of her ass…and took her hard, deep, and fast.

“Yes,” Mira hissed.

Every thrust of his cock penetrated and possessed. He stared down at her, her heavy-lidded eyes, lips swollen from his kisses and parted slightly. He slid a hand between their bodies and stroked her clit. She tossed her head from side to side and then arched her back. Her body went tense as she lost herself to another orgasm.

His own climax rippled up out of his balls. He buried his cock deep inside her and groaned out her name as he came. Breathing heavily, he rolled to the side and dragged her up against him.

The aftermath of the pleasure still rode him, but behind it laid the sharp tang of regret. He closed his eyes.
Damn it.

“Mira.” He swallowed hard and tried to catch his breath. “We have got to stop doing this.”

And just how could he do that? He racked his brain. How the hell could he resist this woman? In the names of all the Gods and Goddesses. How?

She snorted, dropped a kiss on his mouth, and murmured, “Why?”

M
IRA AWOKE TO SEE THE COLD PALE LIGHT OF THE
edge of morning slanting in through the bedroom window. Jack lay sprawled on his back beside her, beautifully nude.

She stretched, feeling a delicious ache all through her body, most especially between her thighs. Mira had never had sex that many times in a twenty-four-hour period, had never wanted it that many times in a row before, but with a man as skilled as Jack…Like some incubus, he had the power to make her never want to leave his bed.

It was like he'd opened up the floodgates of her repressed sexuality. As if with his kiss in the kitchen he'd awoken not only her magick, but a door leading from the sexual wasteland where she'd been existing.

Mira thought of how many times Jack had brought her to orgasm.
Frigid? Not quite.

She touched her lips, remembering how the need to feel his cock in her mouth had ridden her so hard, made her aggressive. Mira had wanted to feel him come against her tongue, wanted to experience Jack losing himself utterly to the touch of her lips on his cock. She'd had that for a little while, until he'd wrested control back from her. Jack was a man who liked to be in command, there was no doubt about that.

Turned out she was a woman who liked him to have it.

Mira curled up on her side and watched the pale light creep over Jack's body, illuminating one of his flat nipples. Her eyelids drooped in fatigue and she wondered for a moment what had woken her in the first place.

Something rattled…like a doorknob. Mira sat bolt upright. Voices murmured softly, sounding far away. Still, it was enough to throw her into panic mode.

She shook Jack awake. “Jack!” she said soft and urgently. “Wake up, Jack!”

“What?” he murmured sleepily. “What's wrong?”

“I heard something.”

Jack sat up. The sheets rustled with his movement and then they both fell silent. The sound of the doorknob rattling came again.

“Did you hear that?” she whispered.

“Hear what? What are you hearing?”

“The sound of someone trying to open a door and people murmuring.” She drew a breath as it came again, louder this time. Her adrenaline spiked. “It's coming from both the front door of the apartment and the door leading from the roof.”

“It might be your magick magnifying sounds as a warning.” He paused. “Fuck. Mira, get dressed.”

She moved quickly, finding clothes and pulling them on while Jack did the same. Jack found his cell phone and called someone, probably the Coven witches Thomas had sent, and quickly told them what was happening.

The sounds that only she could hear got louder. She stood in the center of the room, listening as the intruders broke the locks on both the doors at almost the same time. She and Jack were trapped in the middle. The wards on the penthouse broke with a snap of vibrating energy that made her flinch.

Jack winced in response, able to feel the wards break, too. It was a subtle, yet alien, sensation. If they'd been asleep they might have slept through it.

She looked wide-eyed at Jack, who stood watching her with his shirt in one hand. “They're in,” she whispered unnecessarily. Her chest felt nearly empty of anything but her heart beating and the warm pulse of her power. Mira's breathing came fast and shallow. At least her magick had given her a little warning, and they weren't being caught with their pants down…literally.

He shrugged his shirt over his head, grabbed her by the upper arm, and pulled her behind his body as he inched toward the bedroom doorway. Mira glanced around desperately for something to use as a weapon and then remembered her magick. It glowed there in the center of her chest in a reassuring way. Hopefully, she could access and direct it.

The sounds she heard now were less in her mind and more in her immediate physical reality. Feet shuffled on the floor. It sounded like someone not quite managing to be quiet.

Jack pushed her into the corner of the bedroom and put his finger to his lips—as if she needed to be told to be quiet—and waited by the side of the bedroom door. Mira heard someone inch nearer. Before she could draw another breath, Jack sprang through the doorway.

A ball of fire appeared, manifested by Jack, she assumed, lighting the living room so brightly that Mira had to shield her eyes. Jack sent the ball hissing through the air. One of the intruders screamed in pain and a gush of liquid hit the hardwood floor.

Fire, meet water. Of course they'd sent water witches to trump Jack's fire.

Voices rose in anger. Furniture overturned. She inched closer to the doorway, unable to remain idle while Jack risked his life on her behalf.

“We just want the woman, Jack,” one of the men said gruffly. “You're outnumbered and out-magicked. Just hand her over and we won't have to kill you to get to her.”

“Fuck you,” Jack growled. A fist connected with someone's face.

Leave it to Jack to be direct.

An old-fashioned, magick-free knockdown, drag-out fight ensued. Men grunted, cursed, and snarled at each other, feet scuffled, lamps broke, fists met flesh.

How many men was Jack attempting to fight off? The thought left a cold ball in the pit of her stomach.

Feeling for her magick in the center of her chest, she tiptoed closer toward the doorway. She caught the edge of her unpredictable power and prepared to pull it, mold it, and use it if she had to. It was her only defense, and maybe it would be Jack's only defense, too.

“There you are,” said a man who'd popped like a jack-in-the-box out of the darkness on her right.

A strong hand twined through her hair and yanked, making Mira yelp in pain and lose her hold on her magick. He dragged her through the doorway and into the living room by her hair. She pitched a fit, struggling against the man and kicking and swearing. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her up fast and hard against his body. Her breath crushed out of her lungs. Mira gasped and went still as nausea threatened. Everyone in the room went silent.

Jack stood with his hand curled into the shirt of one of the intruders, obviously in midpunch. There were six of them that Mira could see, all dressed head-to-toe in black. Jack had made quick work of two of them. They lay sprawled on the floor.

She stood in the center of the room, taking in the scene. All eyes were on her as she winced and fidgeted against the hold the man had on her hair and body.

“Awww, what a pity. I hate when they're pretty,” said the man Jack had ahold of. “It's such a waste.”

Jack punched him.

The man holding her started to drag her around the couch, away from Jack and toward the door. Mira struggled against him and only succeeded in making the grip on her hair even more painful. She yelped, feeling like her scalp would rip off in his hand at any moment, but she still managed to kick the man's shin with her heel when he released her waist. He grunted and cursed at her, but didn't let her go.

Jack stalked across the room toward them. “Take your hands off her,” he growled low. His rage seemed like a palpable thing there in the room with them. Something you could touch. It heated the very air and prickled over Mira's skin like licks of flame. He spread his hand and a ball of fire ignited. “Or I'll burn every inch of skin off you.”

Mira believed him.

The two men behind Jack moved on him. “Behind you!” she yelled. Jack turned at the last moment and threw his fireball, but one of them—a water witch, obviously—extinguished it immediately.

Both men attacked Jack at the same time. One of the men's fists connected with Jack's jaw. The other kicked him in the stomach and then punched him in the head.

Mira screamed as she watched Jack fall to the floor in a heap and instinctively
ripped
a hank of her magick from her chest. Saying it hurt was an understatement. It felt like Jack's fire ball had hit her right between her breasts. She gasped, but ignored the pain. After imagining what she wanted it to do, she tossed the magick up in the air, molded it with her intentions, and exploded it.

And hoped for the best.

Immediately, a blast of air threw the man who had ahold of her backward. He took some of her hair with him. Mira cried out in pain, her hands instantly covering her aching head.

The room descended into chaos.

Wind swirled around her but did not touch her and, if she'd done it right, not Jack either. Anxiously, she hoped so. She couldn't see him because debris formed a tornado around her. It obscured everything in her view but did not enter the four-foot bubble encasing her. Wind shrieked and furniture smashed.

Mira clamped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. She fell to her knees, screaming at the top of her lungs, though she couldn't hear her own voice over the pandemonium she'd unleashed.

Everything fell silent.

“Mira,” Jack breathed in a rasping voice.

Mira opened her eyes to find Jack standing in the center of the room, glancing around wide-eyed. His clothes were ripped and blood smeared his face.

Shaking violently and clutching the place in her chest where she'd torn her magick, Mira struggled to her feet and looked around her. The whole room had been swept clean. All the furniture, rugs, artwork, books—everything that had been in the room previously was now smashed and splintered along the edges of the walls. Only she and Jack stood unharmed in the center of the room.

Everything else was…destroyed. Every
one
was…

Her breath came in short, fast gasps.
No, no, no.
“Tell me I didn't kill them,” she said in a rush, glancing around at the debris.

Pain throbbed in her chest where she'd ripped out the hank of her magick. Metaphysically—if one could feel metaphysically—her chest felt bloodied and wounded. The pain reached all the way up through her throat to her head. She tottered to the side a little and caught herself before she fell.