In the Company of Witches
“While I’m not averse to cage play,” she said, “I have a feeling they won’t put us in the same cell when we’re arrested.”
“I’m capable of making you think I’m in that cage with you, doing things that you’re powerless to stop.” He was closer now, his voice husky, the eyes overpowering her. Hellfire, another moment and she was going to…
“Ice cream,” she managed. “You promised me ice cream.”
His look of dark promise was enough to keep her wet, but his lips quirked. He took her hand. “Come on.”
He crossed the street with a casual glance. Once again, the cars slowed the minute he put his foot in the street. She told herself it was a small town, where people slowed for pedestrians, but with Mikhael, people seemed compelled to do what he wanted. She didn’t know if that was magic or his charisma, or an intoxicating combination of both, but it rankled that it worked on her as well. She dragged her feet a little. “Where are you taking me?”
“There.” He tugged her onto the curb, showing her the local favorite ice cream shop. “Fudge sundae, right? With nuts?”
An ice cream shop was like a bakery, alive with joyful smells that appealed to a sensory-oriented creature like herself. Once inside the door, she brought him up short to inhale. When she opened her eyes, he was considering her in that intent way that warmed her skin. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“The same thing.” At her puzzled look, he ran his thumb over her knuckles. “You inhale the smells, the sounds, because it’s all about pleasure and comfort. The way you immerse yourself in it makes me feel those things. Pleasure, because watching you do anything is pleasurable, and comfort, because it’s a comfort to know that someone still takes time to savor something simple.”
She gave a nervous laugh. She never laughed nervously. “I’ll invite you to watch me floss my teeth and see how pleasurable that is.”
“Raina, you could stand on your head belching the alphabet and make it sexy as hell.”
Laughter bubbled out of her. The sensual roll of it turned heads. He was supposed to be helping her with that, but apparently he hadn’t anticipated her laughter. His eyes glowed warmer, though, and he tugged her up to the counter.
“I can do the fudge sundae,” the store clerk said, “but not the nuts. Kids’ peanut allergies. Owner doesn’t dare risk them anymore.”
Mikhael muttered something under his breath but nodded neutrally enough. “Okay, make the sundaes to go.”
Raina made a face. “Crap. I like the nuts.”
“No worries. You’ll get them.” Mikhael handed her the sundae, then took her back out onto the sidewalk. Nodding a block down, he indicated the drug store. “That looks like a place that has nuts.”
With a firm pressure on her shoulder, he eased her into one of the whimsical ice cream chairs arranged beside round tables. Though the sun was hiding behind the clouds, she was bemused to find the seat and back warm, as if heated by its beams.
“A little service I provide,” he said, registering her puzzlement. “I don’t want you to get cold. Wait here.”
Her stomach did another little lurch at the romantic gesture, but she made an effort to hide it. “I’ll wait only because I want to. Not because you told me to do it,” she said.
“You keep telling yourself that. But you move off that chair, it won’t only be my magic warming that beautiful ass of yours.”
When he threw her one of those devastating stern looks, she retaliated by standing up, turning a circle and sitting down again, wiggling her very fine ass. She heard his chuckle as he crossed the street in those long, ground-eating strides, and it left her smiling. If someone had told her a Dark Guardian could give her screaming orgasms, she could roll with that. But that he could make her laugh, make her feel young and silly in all the good ways…
Dipping into his sundae, she tested the strawberry topping. When she saw him at the cash register paying for the nuts, she poked two eyes and a nose indentation into his ice cream with her finger, using one of the cut strawberries as a bow mouth. Then she sucked the stickiness off her fingertips.
As he returned, his glance fell on it, as well as her sitting with her hands primly folded, a smirk on her face. “I expect a bite of yours.”
“I don’t share.”
“Funny. Neither do I. Not certain things.” Pulling the bag of salted peanuts out of the small brown sack, he used the saltshaker to crush them up before tearing open the top and sprinkling a liberal amount over the top of the sundae. “There you go.”
It touched her, the expectant look he gave her, wanting to be sure she was pleased. So she closed her hand over his, still grasping the sundae to keep it steady, and caressed his fingers. “Thank you.”
He sat down next to her, pulling his chair close so they were shoulder to shoulder and could people-watch as they ate. She did give him a bite of hers, and he gave her the strawberry mouth she’d made. He put it on her tongue, then dipped his finger in the fudge, painting some on her lips so she could have the two tastes together. Then some of Mikhael, because he put his lips over hers, teasing her with his tongue until she put down her spoon and touched his jaw, ran her fingers through his hair and savored the kiss to the nth degree.
When he pulled back, he didn’t go far, their eyes still close. She didn’t want to say anything, didn’t feel like saying anything, and he didn’t seem to, either, for they just considered each other for a long moment before he settled back, his arm pressed against her shoulder blades. Occasionally he took bites of his sundae one-handed as she continued to eat hers. Though they took their time, the ice cream remained cold, either a function of the shop’s freezer and mix, or more of Mikhael’s touching form of kitchen magic.
“So what happened, last time you were in town?” he asked. “Li said it didn’t go well.”
Li really needed to have a lock put on his mouth. “I couldn’t hold the magic at the house and here. Too much distance between the two points.”
“And the house takes a lot of energy.”
“I was attracting too much attention in town, so when I pulled in more magic to camouflage myself, I had to weaken what was at the house. We had clients. The weak spot…One of them was killed. We made it look like a heart attack.” Her jaw tightened and she wouldn’t look at him. “No, I’m not going to tell you which one of them did it, because it wasn’t their fault; it was mine. If you want to haul anyone to Hell for it, that would be me.”
“Raina.” Her chair scraped as he turned her so her knee was pressed against his. Then he put pressure on that arm behind her back, slipping the other under her knees. Before she knew it, she was settled in his lap, her ice cream steadied by his brief touch over her fingers. He tilted his head. “You think I’m that kind of monster?”
“You don’t deny being a monster.” He was like sitting by a fire. A strong, steady flame, even warmer than the chair.
“No, I don’t. I fit two of the requirements—I’m terrifying and I kill. But I’m not indiscriminate about it.”
“The terrifying part or the killing part?”
“Both.”
Maybe the reason she didn’t fear that side of his nature was because her own kind had it, the killing part. Leaving it alone for now, she dipped her spoon in his sundae, offering him another bite of it, since she was blocking his access to it. He didn’t seem to mind, his foot braced on the table leg crosspiece to hold her so she was leaning comfortably against his chest as she fed him and herself. She even gave him another bite of her own sundae.
“So what happens if you don’t have your protection up around people like this?” He nodded to the passing foot traffic.
“Think sirens, sailors, sharp rocks. Only they turn on each other. Then, when I’m gone and they regain their senses, their wives are filing for divorce, the girlfriend is moving out, or they’re being hauled to jail for assault, or worse. As long as it’s masked, muted, they’re fine. I’m just distracting, like any other beautiful woman. I can dial it up or down at Sweet Dreams to make them feel more comfortable and relaxed, help them make their choices, but I’m safest there.”
“Does that ever make you feel trapped?”
“I like being able to do something like this, but really…no.” She meant it. “You’re right. It’s my sanctuary. My place. With my staff, and the variety of guests I entertain in the parlor, I never lack for stimulating company. And the grounds themselves…so much ancient life there…”
“You never get lonely?”
That was an entirely different subject, one that had nothing to do with location, and everything to do with…other things. “Do you?”
He touched the side of her face, brushed his knuckles over her cheek. A variety of expressions crossed his face, things that twisted low in her stomach. “Not today,” he said.
“Mikhael—”
“Funny running into you two kids.”
SNAPPING OUT OF HER REACTION TO HIS RAW HONESTY, Raina turned to see Derek Stormwind and Ruby, her best friend in the whole world, approaching the table. Obviously, Mikhael had seen them coming, because he showed no reaction to Derek’s sardonic intrusion. It was obvious, and expected, that Derek could see through the spellwork, which meant he’d enabled Ruby to do the same, or she was proficient enough to do it herself.
“Ramona,” she muttered. That was the last time she’d take her other best friend’s casual reaction to a not-so-casual situation at face value. She’d likely contacted Ruby the second she went into the shop. Raina should have stayed and spent more time reassuring her, but Ramona never paid attention to words—she read other things, and whatever she’d read off Mikhael and Raina had unsettled her enough to call in the cavalry.
Awkward was a descriptive understatement, since Raina sat on the lap of the guy who’d fucked Ruby twelve ways to Sunday, a male who Derek considered a borderline adversary on a lot of different levels. But Raina wasn’t one to get twisted up in knots over social faux pas.