Page 18 of Wolf, Willow, Witch
“I’m not afraid of you, Lincoln,” she lied and scooped Gunnhild into her palm. “I’m tired. Fucking you doesn’t sound better than sleep, so.” She shot him a lazy grin. “We’ll get it done in the morning.”
Get it done.He silently mouthed each word and raised his brows, nodding slowly. He followed her with his two-toned eyes as she crossed the living room and made for the stairs. She swallowed to wet her throat and worked to conceal the shame brewing hot in her cheeks.Get it together, she thought.What the hell is wrong with you?But she knew exactly what had gone wrong. It was Lincoln Stone’s fault. His power, his charm, his energy, everything about him disarmed her.
Usually, Tehlor prowled around, found someone to have a good time with or syphon power from, and went about her life unbothered. But Lincoln made the prospect of an unremarkable act—sex, coupling—into something delicious. Something she yearned for. Something that eroded the concrete she’d built around her heart and turned her into a blushing schoolgirl.
Tehlor closed her bedroom door and let her weight go heavy against it.
“Stupid,” she seethed, whispering under her breath, and banged the back of her head against the wood. “Stupid.”
Gunnhild squirmed and nibbled Tehlor’s knuckle, asking to be put down. Tehlor set her on the floor and plopped on her rear. She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged her shins. The rat scurried to the dresser, climbed a tiny rope bridge typically strung from corner to corner in metal cages, and curled up in her puffy, circular bed next to the jewelry box. Like always, her bedroom was dimly lit and a fuckingdisaster. Clothes littered the ground. The attached bathroom was wrecked. Lotion bottles, perfumes, an overflowing trash can, and dirty underwear crowded the space. The longer she sat there, looking at her hovel, the more unbearable her nervous energy became.
After a moment of wallowing, Tehlor jolted to her feet and stomped around, filling the laundry basket, tidying the nightstand, scrubbing her bathroom vanity, and fluffing her bedding. It took an hour, maybe longer, before she gave herself permission to stand in the center of her bedroom and look around again.
She exhaled, deflating.There. Some goddamn control.
What did the Breath of Judas even look like? How would they get their hands on it? What would happen afterward? Would Lincoln just walk away again? Crawl back to Bishop’s house and wait for them to arrive with the not-priest and then, what, kill them, eat them,what?What happened once Tehlor didn’t need Lincoln and he didn’t need her and—
Tehlor had to turn her mind off. She huffed and crossed the room, yanking impatiently on her nightstand drawer. A single pre-rolled joint was all she had left from her last run to the dispensary, but it would do.
She ran a bath. Added caramel salts and a bath-oil melt. Searched through drawers until she found a lighter. Sighed.
Once she’d slipped into the soft water, she lit the joint and closed her eyes, tipping her head against the dip in the tub, exhaling smoky plumes. Her skin stung at first. After she took two long pulls from the joint, her muscles relaxed, and the tension drained from her body. She puffed slowly, holding the smoke in her lungs until they spasmed, and then let it curl from her nose and lips. Her mind drifted. Everything quieted, like static on a television, or rain on a porch. As she soaked, she tried not to focus on a single thing except being alive. It was then, as her eyelashes fluttered and she inhaled deeply, that she felt the knot beneath her navel pull tighter. The touch was ghostly; amorphous. It moved through her in steady waves—pleasure, or something akin to it—and plucked tenderly on her nerves.
Tehlor cracked her eyes open. She paused, holding the joint to her lips, and pushed her thighs together.Well, fuck. She swallowed, enduring the creeping incline of heat and pleasure climb inside her. It was like she had her hand between her legs. Like she was teasing herself.You bastard.
The connection linking Tehlor and Lincoln protected her from him. Kept him at bay. Forced him to preserve her life in order to keep his own. But it also meantsharing. Pain, pleasure, wounds, touch. Tehlor felt him unraveling inside her. His grip, secure and firm, was an internal pressure she couldn’t escape. She sighed and set the roach on the side of the tub, chewing hard on her bottom lip. Somewhere downstairs, probably on her fucking couch, Lincoln Stone was getting himself off.
Tehlor wanted to strangle him.
Tension pulled like a string through her center. She was chasing an echo. Running after a ripple on a still lake, unable to reach the source. She couldn’t pin down where the pleasure stopped and started. Couldn’t access the necessary rhythm that would push her body to a place where climax was accessible. She stared at the white ceiling, watching steam blur the air, breath hitched, skin feverish.
She could endure it, or she could entertain it. Being alone, but not, and seen, but not made the idea of beingwithhim easier to swallow. He couldn’t see the way her back arched, or how she touched herself beneath the water. He couldn’t hear her shredded breath, or judge how her jaw slackened, how her body shuddered. The heat curling inside her knotted and flexed. She felt the strain in him. The resistance. Recognized his gritted teeth, a weight in her own mouth, and the throbbing in his groin, pulsing through her pelvis. She propped her leg on the side of the tub and plunged her fingers deep, widening herself on bony, tattooed knuckles, and imagined it was his hand. She came like that, thinking of him, and felt his orgasm shake through her seconds later. The pressure caused her back to bow. She lurched forward, smacking her free hand over her mouth to silence a shout, and bucked her hips, sending water splashing onto the bathroom floor.
Everything blurred. She caught her breath, staring at the showerhead clipped to the wall, and let her head sink beneath the water. The world went silent except for her heartbeat, drumming in time with his, like war horses. She breached and sucked in a breath, righting herself against the static rippling through her body.
Seconds turned to minutes. Her muscles unclenched and her pulse slowed. The water cooled. Every thought that’d emptied when she’d entered the bath came rushing back, clawing through her cloudy mind—fuzzy from weed and pleasure.
For a long, long time Tehlor had confronted sex and togetherness cautiously or with distinct intent. Never to bond with someone, not to build a life with someone, but for power, control, or information. She used people, but she was never usedbypeople. She got what she wanted and went on her way.
Whatever the fuck was going on between her and Lincoln wasn’t part of the plan.
Not the short-term plan. Not the long-term plan.
“Get the Breath of Judas. Power him up. Syphon his power. Easy,” she whispered and chewed her bottom lip. “Easy-peasy.”
Tehlor was a talented liar, but she’d never been very good at lying to herself.
She rose from the bath and stepped out. She didn’t bother with a towel, just stomped through her bedroom, threw open the door, and stormed down the hall. Her feet left watermarks on the staircase.
Lincoln lounged with his arm draped over the back of the couch, his wolfish head tipped toward the ceiling, shirtless and relaxed in the center of the sofa. She inhaled sharply and rounded the furniture in the dark living room, and didn’t stop when he opened his eyes, startled. She moved efficiently, straddling him in one swift lunge, and seized his face with both hands.
His pointed ears stayed perked, framed by her thumbs. She ran her fingers through his fur and met his eyes. He snarled, confused or surprised, likely both, and went rigid. Water dripped from her nose and her soaked hair plastered to her naked skin. Despite being so,sodisgustingly enchanted by him, his power, how he looked at her, she was in control, at ease in her body.
Lincoln kept his palms open, hovering an inch above her hips. Afraid she might detonate if he touched her, probably.
Good, she thought.Be scared, sorcerer.
“You ever do that to me again, I’ll castrate you,” she whispered.
