Page 23 of Wolf, Willow, Witch
Tehlor warmed against him. Her heart thundered, and her face flared hot. She wanted to know if he could feel her lightheadedness, taste the desire sparking in her mouth, or track the quickness of her blood.
He hummed. “So, that’s your big, nasty secret, huh? Wanting something so badly it drove you to violence?”
“You don’t seem impressed.”
“I’m not,” he assured and tilted his head.
She tasted his breath. Coffee. Brown sugar creamer.I hate this. Hated waiting. Hated how easily he’d detonated her. Hated how three days of calculated silence had led to this. But she didn’t hate him, and he didn’t hate her, and that was a lovely, frightening surprise.
Tehlor craned toward him. “C’mon, sorcerer. Don’t be a fucking coward.”
Lincoln kissed her. It was the kind of kiss she’d only experienced twice before. Once when she was drunk and lonely, searching for a spark of connection on a crowded dancefloor, and again with the girl she’d battered, the rival who’d stolen her spotlight and shattered her heart. She met him with vigor and hunger, searching for sustenance between his parted lips. Maybe she was a challenge to him, something to conquer, or maybe she was a collector’s item, something to poach. Either way, Tehlor Nilsen was wild because of him, graceless andwanting.
Guilt panged, shaped like Bishop’s name, but Tehlor didn’t stop when Lincoln backed her against the wall. Her tailbone smacked the balance bar and she grabbed onto it, anchoring herself as he pried lovingly at her mouth, kissing her deeply, thoroughly, with fevered patience she hadn’t expected. He made a soft noise, like a moan but raspier, at the snag of her teeth on his lip, and pressed his hips between her thighs, forcing her legs apart.
Lincoln cracked his eyes open. “You brought me back to make you more powerful, right?”
Tehlor sighed, resisting the urge to grind into his pelvis. “At first, yeah.”
“What about now?”
“Can we talk about this later—”
“Tehlor.”
She gripped the balance bar harder and snaked her free hand from his shoulder to his nape, clutching him the same way he’d held her moments ago.
“Fine. Yes, Lincoln. I pulled you out of the wall and sewed the dog head between your shoulders because I wanted to be more powerful. I’m sorry, I know, bad move. How many times do you want me to say it?”
“I read about being a vorðr,” he said, sliding his hand beneath the waistband of her sweatpants. He palmed her hip, teasing at the soft pout of her ass. “It means guardian, I think. Protector.”
“Sometimes, yeah,” she said, breathless. “Guard, guardian—whatever. Same thing.”
Lincoln’s mouth ticked upward. He kissed her again, quick and full, then pressed his lips to her jaw, lower, suckling sweetly on her pulse. “You’re always in a hurry, you know that? Lookin’ for a shortcut, tryin’ to bypass shit wherever you can.” His teeth grazed the smooth curve where her shoulder met her throat. “I can make you powerful, but you need to let that guilt go.” He dragged his hand out of her sweatpants and splayed it across her stomach, feeling upward across her sternum, fingertips featherlight between her breasts. “I can teach you patience; I can give you power.” Laughter gusted across her neck, gritty and tempered. “I can make you worse,” he whispered, pressing his clothed cock between her legs, “if you let me.”
Tehlor grasped his face with both hands and brought his mouth to her own.I can make you worse. His voice reverberated, bouncing off bone, rippling across muscle.
For years, she’d made spiritual sacrifices, hunted relentlessly for access to godhood, sliced magic out of her skin, and stolen what she failed to excavate from within. And for years, she’d stewed in pathetic self-inflicted solitude, revering the power she craved while punishing the past life she didn’t have the strength to bury.
“Do it,” she said, sighing each word like a prayer. “Go ahead and try.”
Chapter eight
Thepre-cooked,perfectlyseasonedscalloped potatoes slid neatly into a casserole dish alongside garlic green beans. Tehlor sprinkled a bit of parmesan on top of the food and swatted her palms together, shaking away crumbs. She looked over her cookout contribution and sighed.
Lincoln bounced down the staircase dressed in an army-green turtleneck and dark denim. His labradorite pendant was concealed beneath the chic cable-knit material, and his two-toned eyes flicked from the not-quite casserole on the countertop to Tehlor’s face.
He snickered. “Store bought?”
“Restaurant take-out, obviously.”
She met his steady gaze and remembered two days ago, her fingers knotted in his short hair, holding his face between her legs, then her back pressed against the wall, watching his shoulders flex in the mirror across the room, her feet bouncing, his hips snapping. Sex was different with him—unlike anything she’d experienced before. She’d felt every shred of the act. Him, widening her. How she felt, warm and tight, squeezing him. She’d endured the growing heat of his climax while coming down from her own, gasping and clinging to him. His sharp, explosive pleasure had weighed heavy on her oversensitive body, blurring her vision, causing her head to spin. It was a new bond, spirits and bodies, magic and flesh. Too intense to name, maybe.
Being with Lincoln, seeing herself through his eyes, feeling her body through his own, brought the surreal, primal truth of their interconnectedness to light.
Tehlor Nilsen would never find another lover likethat. She could never make someone else her vorðr. The thought paralyzed her.
She imagined herself an insect accidentally perched on a carnivorous plant. Stuck; petals folding in. But Lincoln had been a conscious choice, and Tehlor was not defenseless. She found her feet glued, regardless. Limbs frozen, struggling against the inevitable.
