Page 9 of The Witch & the Hound
I poured him more wine because my hands needed a task. He took the glass, careful fingers brushing mine. My stomachflipped again.His touch was a sparkler, a small contact, long tail of heat.
Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the way he filled my kitchen, steady and impossible to ignore. Maybe it was the fact that I now had very explicit knowledge about what was under those dark grey pants.
But the words slipped out before I could stop them.
“What if I were seducing you?”
His amber eyes snapped up, wide and hot all at once.There you are, I thought, as if I’d just coaxed a wild thing to the edge of the trees.
The knife in my hand wobbled dangerously over the cheddar.
Well, no taking that back now.Door opened. Threshold crossed. The house waited to see what we would do next.
Chapter 5
Bram
The world stuttered.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing… no soup, no clock, no glass wall spilling moonlight across her jungle of herbs. Only her voice, ringing in my skull like a bell I'd never been allowed to answer before.
What if I were seducing you?
Every careful wall I'd built crumbled to dust.
When sound came back, I was still standing in her kitchen. She was still across from me, knife in hand, freckles sharp against flushed skin, breathing fast. Waiting.
I crossed the space between us before I could think better of it.
Her wineglass wobbled when I slid it carefully out of the way. The plate of cheese clattered softly against the butcher block. I planted my hands on either side of her hips, caged her in, andlifted her like she weighed nothing. I set her on the island like an offering.
She gasped, legs parting instinctively to balance, her knife abandoned. I pressed her gently back against the wood, the cropped sweatshirt riding up to bare the pale curve of her stomach.
Freckles everywhere. A constellation of trust painted on skin.
My hand slid beneath the fabric, cool palm against her overheated skin. She shivered, from the temperature contrast or the touch itself, I couldn't tell. The sound she made, half laugh, half whimper, nearly made me lose myself.
I bent low, teeth grazing her belly. Testing. A nip, then another. Not to hurt. To mark. To ask.
Her fingers dug into my shoulders, but she didn’t push me away.
Good. She understood.
Instinct surged, wolfish, undeniable. The belly was the place of vulnerability. The place a hound exposed when it chose trust. And here she was, letting me taste hers.
My tongue swept over her skin, chasing freckles. My teeth scraped, gentle and reverent, a promise as old as my bones:I will not break you. I will guard you.
Her laughter broke, turned breathless. “Bram…”
I lifted my head. Her eyes were wide, pupils blown, freckles dark against flushed skin. Her breath hitched like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh again or beg.
“I shouldn’t,” I said, though my hand stayed under her shirt, splayed wide across her warm belly.
Her legs tightened around me and her hips shifted against the butcher block, pulling me closer.
I kissed her stomach again, sharper this time, dragging teeth over skin until she gasped and arched into me. The sound went straight through me, shattering whatever restraint I'd been clinging to.
I pushed her shirt higher, my mouth finding the soft underside of her breasts. The tender skin between. The curve beneath. And then, finally, those dusky pink nipples that had been taunting me through the fabric of her shirt.
