Adamant Spirits, page 194
Hands resting on the cool steel walls of the cargo hold, I’m helpless as he runs his hands over my neck, down my back, over my hips. His lips trail down my back, lighting fires on my skin as he moves. “I’m going to fucking love you tonight, Willa,” he says, his voice gravelly, evidencing that barely leashed monster inside.
“Good,” I reply, breathless.
His palm spreads out on my back, and he slides it down as he kneels behind me. Closing my eyes, I absorb the feel of his hand on me. The way his calluses scrape over my skin. He grips the back of my skirt, and I hear the soft scrape of metal teeth as he lowers the zipper down.
The skirt loosens, pooling at my feet, and Jack groans. My black lace panties are drenched with anticipation, and I know there will be no going back to my good friend BOB when all this is over.
Jack’s hands run down my hips, over my thighs, and down to my ankles as he lifts one of my heeled legs from my skirt before doing the same with the other.
He moves slowly, torturing me with each graze of his fingertips. He kisses my hip, dropping lower and running his lips over the part of my ass exposed by the thong.
“You want me, Willa?” he asks as his hands trail up the insides of my thighs.
I turn around, wanting to see him—needing to see him. The sight of Jack—a powerful hunter—on his knees before me washes away the rest of my nerves. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”
He grins up at me and leans forward, his fingertips grazing where I ache for him. His index finger hooks the lace, and he pulls it to the side, holding my gaze as he leans in and runs his tongue over me.
My body convulses as fire spreads through me.
Yeah, sorry, BOB. Consider this my breakup. Fucking-A, there will not be anything left of me after tonight.
I grip Jack’s hair as he sucks at me, tasting me, devouring me. I sink back against the wall, and Jack comes with me, his mouth never straying as he grabs one of my legs and throws it over his shoulder. My entire body feels like it’s on fire, every nerve ending firing with precision while he fucks me with his tongue.
His hand goes to the other, and before I can protest that I’m going to fall, he throws my other leg over his shoulder, pinning me to the car with his hand and his tongue.
“Fuck, Jack.” I’m hovering over the ground, held up only by him as he tastes me, my orgasm building, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I come apart, unable to hang on any longer, as my body shatters into a million tiny pieces. The release tears through me with such force that I’m sure there’s no fucking way I’m going to survive.
He moves his hands to my waist and lifts, slowly lowering me to the ground before gripping my hand and pulling me toward the door. He yanks it open and steps to the side. Carefully, I climb in and situate myself on my back, staring up at him. He looks down at me with more passion than I could have ever imagined.
I bite down on my lip as he leans forward and grips the lace of my underwear, slowly lowering it off my body.
“Now you,” I say when he tosses my thong to the floor. “I’m naked, seems only fair.” I’m near-breathless from the circus performer shit we did a few minutes ago, and when Jack grins at me, I practically melt into the backseat.
Jack watches me as he undoes the button and zipper on his slacks, shoving them to the ground along with his boxers. When I take in my first full sight of him, I swallow hard. I’ve never seen a dick in person, but I’m pretty sure he’s larger than normal.
“Like what you see?”
I nod frantically, already aching for him. Climbing into the car, Jack covers my body as he trails his hand up my thigh. He reaches my center, his finger stroking my clit. Each touch building me up, sending me closer and closer to another orgasm. He lowers his head and circles my hardened nipple with his tongue before closing his mouth around it and sucking gently.
I arch up off the seat as I decide there isn’t a day that will go by where I won’t think of this man above me. It brings tears to my eyes, but I quickly blink them away as I spread my legs as far apart as the seats will allow, using my hands to urge him up toward my center.
I want him inside of me. No, it’s more than a want or even a basic need. It’s as though my entire world was black and white until tonight. Jack brought color into my world—gave me a reason to rise with the sun.
He covers me, and I feel him at my entrance. As he slides into me, the pleasure is replaced with a pinch of pain, and he stills, pulling back to look down at me. “Fuck, Willa, I didn’t know.”
“Don’t stop, please.”
“But you’re a—”
“Is it a problem?” I ask, holding my breath for his answer.
“Not if it isn’t to you.”
“It’s not.” He reaches down and runs his finger over my clit as he takes my mouth, thrusting into me with one swift move. I cry out, his kiss swallowing the sound, and I grip his shoulders as the pain is replaced with a new type of sensation. He pulls back and thrusts into me again, and it’s all I can do to hang on for the ride as another orgasm tears through me like lightning through a stormy sky.
The wicked way he’s loving me makes me believe, if even for a moment, that there could be a tomorrow for us. That maybe, just maybe, this could last longer than a magical ball in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.
He moves faster, in and out, and I grip him with my legs, my body teetering on the edge of total loss of control. Jack releases my mouth and buries his face in my hair, thrusting, thrusting, until he stills, his dick pulsing as he empties into me.
Bodies slick with sweat, we stay together, neither of us willing to let go of the other for fear of losing what peace we found here tonight.
Jack
Passionate.
Fiery.
Sexy as hell.
I can’t even conjure a single sentence to explain the galaxy shattering experience that was sex with Willa.
Hell, sex doesn’t even seem to cover it. If she were a Witch, I might be worried she’d placed me under some kind of spell, because there’s not a single part of me that isn’t already craving her. And as we lie together, in the backseat of a car I can’t help but feel like it was placed here for us. I hate that in a mere two hours and a handful of minutes, our night will end, and we’ll be ripped apart.
The past few hours pass in a whirlwind of sex and whispered words, and while I know one night can’t change the world—I really fucking wish it could.
Because even if I manage to free her—we’re natural-born enemies. The world will be against us. We’ll be hunted mercilessly by both sides, and even as amazing as tonight has been, I’m forced to ask myself: Is it worth the fight?
I look down at her, surprised to see her chocolate gaze on mine.
Hell fucking yes it is. Because she is.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks.
I reach up and run my fingers through the satiny strands of her hair. “You promised me you’d tell me where you’re being held. Who has you?”
Her eyes fill, expression changing, and she looks away from me.
“Please, tell me so I can come get you, Willa.”
“If you come for me, you won’t make it out, Jack. Phillip has a dozen wolves guarding his estate. And that’s not counting the witch—” She trails off, paling as her eyes widen. “Oh no.” Willa covers her mouth with both hands.
“What’s wrong?” Panic surges through me at the terror on her beautiful face. “Willa, what is it?”
“We just had sex like three times.”
“Yes.”
“That’s three rounds of unprotected sex.”
“Ye—oh shit. Can you get… I mean, are you—” My brain begins to panic even before my blood starts pounding. I search my memory for what I know on Shifter lore. Could I even get her pregnant? Ugh, what the fuck was I thinking? I mean, it’s not like I carry condoms around, but still, I could have fucking pulled out.
“The Witch, she said I’d be fertile, but—” She trails off again, not giving me a minute to respond before her body relaxes. “We’re good. I’ve been shift blocked.”
“Sorry, what?”
“The Witch made it so I couldn’t shift. My wolf half has been blocked from me for months, and I can’t fully enter my fertile period unless I’m free of the block, which was supposed to happen when I got married.”
“Because you can shift then? Can you only—you know—when you’re in wolf form?” I don’t know why the sheer task of asking her if she has to have sex as a wolf to get pregnant bothers me, but it does. Mainly because that would put a damper on a future relationship for us if she wants kids.
Wait—kids? What the fuck is wrong with me?
“No, I can’t only get pregnant in my shift form. But if that part of me is blocked, I can’t become fertile, which means we’re okay.”
“Okay.” I blow out a breath and run a hand over the back of my neck. “You said he has a dozen? How old are they?”
“Old enough. You can’t come get me, Jack. You won’t walk away from it.”
“I can’t leave you in there.”
She pushes up and straddles me as she raises her hands and cups my face. “We have tonight, right? One night of forgetting.”
“I don’t know that one night is enough for me.”
Her eyes fill, and she leans in to kiss me before pulling back and running the pad of her thumb over my cheek. “Then you’ll need to wait until I’m married.”
“What? Why?”
“Because the shift block will be removed then.”
“You would kill your own kind—”
“I would fight my captors if it meant getting to be with you.”
“Then, tell me where you are.”
She smiles, caressing my cheek. Then, she presses a quick kiss to my lips before turning and climbing out of the car. Once she’s outside, she bends over and retrieves her thong from the ground. “Later. Right now, I want to explore.”
“Explore?”
“Yes. We’re on the ship, Jack. When will this ever happen again?”
I can sense that she’s trying to change the subject. I glance down at my watch and see we have a mere two hours until dawn. That only gives me one hundred and twenty minutes to convince Willa that I can save her.
That I need to save her.
It’s funny to me because I came here for answers. For information. Not once did I consider meeting someone I couldn’t lose. Mainly because I’ve been there. I loved Delaney Astor, and after her death, I never thought I’d find another.
There won’t ever be a time I don’t feel guilt for her death or pain over the fact that I lost her. And I’d be lying if I didn’t at least admit to myself that even here, in the aftermath of this groundbreaking, earth–shattering sexual experience, there’s a huge part of me that feels like a complete asshole for sleeping with a shifter when it was Willa’s kind who killed Delaney.
But Willa is different—I can see that.
And the idea of losing another woman I care for—I can’t do it. I get to my feet and grab her, pulling her toward me. “If you don’t tell me, Willa, I’ll still find you.”
She stares at me a moment before nodding. “I’ll tell you.”
“Then let’s go party like there’s no tomorrow.”
“We already fucked like there’s not,” she says, and the word rolling off her tongue makes me grin.
“Dirty.”
“What can I say, I had a massive awakening tonight.”
I reach forward and run my thumb over her cheek as she leans into my touch. When I rescue her, I’ll have to be honest. About everything. I know better than to think I can keep secrets from someone I’m hoping to build a relationship with.
But for now, it’s nice to pretend there is nothing between us. To act as though I didn’t come here seeking information about who orchestrated an attack on my best friend and the woman I’d loved two years ago.
Here, in the quiet of the ship’s cargo hold, cloaked by the magic of this ball, I’m just Jack. And she’s just Willa.
And we’re not enemies but rather lovers who enjoyed an evening wrapped in each other. I was broken when I stepped on this ship. Haunted by the ghosts of my past and plagued by an uncertain future.
While I’m far from free of both, Willa changed my life. She removed my bindings, and I don’t think she even realizes it.
“I’m happy I met you, Willa.”
When she smiles up at me like she’s doing right now, I can’t help but grin right back at her. She may be shadowed by her own reality, but she’s a fucking ray of sunshine in mine.
“I’m happy I met you too.”
Willa
One hour, forty-six minutes.
That’s how long I have left with Jack. Not that I doubt he’ll come looking for me, but I don’t think he’ll be able to find me. At least, I’m hoping he won’t.
It doesn’t matter what kind of Hunter he is. Phillip’s pack will tear him apart, and I couldn’t survive that. Not after what we’ve shared. So, instead of dwelling on the steadily dwindling time, I focus on the beautiful ship we’re moving through.
My fingers threaded through his, we step onto the Sky Deck and are greeted with the same thick, muggy air from earlier when we stepped out onto the balcony on our way to the elevator. Only this time, it feels even heavier. Or perhaps that’s just my heart.
I’ve always been hopelessly romantic. What can I say? I grew up reading the greatest romance novels around. Insta-love is my bread and butter, but I can’t ever say I believed in it. The idea was just something I appreciated.
But Jack—I won’t call it love. It’s still too early for that—but there’s something about him that calls to me, a deep-rooted instinct telling me that he was made for me and me for him.
Is it possible that I mated with a hunter?
He glances down at me and grins, making my heart practically skip a beat. Shit. If I’d been doomed to live a loveless life before—now, it will be miserable as well. I know with an unwavering certainty that I will spend my eternity with Phillip longing for Jack. Still, I wouldn’t trade a damned thing.
Dastardly Deeds plays a hypnotic tune, the purple neon band name scrawled across the drums being played by an incredibly handsome red-haired man with a grin plastered on his face as his amber gaze darts over the crowd.
The lead singer is a Siren, evidenced by her shining aqua eyes and mint-blue hair. I glance back at Jack, who’s studying the entire scene before him with complete fascination.
The lead singer’s nude gown showcases generous curves and is covered in sparkles, making her look like she’s still wet from her last dip in the ocean.
She’s flanked by two guitarists, one with black hair and red eyes and another with long brown hair and a full beard. I can tell without a doubt that he’s a shifter like me—or a werewolf as some humans refer to us.
The crowd dances to the beat, and I realize that this music is the same as what we heard down in the saloon before. Whoever cast this—The Proprietor as she’s known—is powerful beyond any comprehension.
My body is sore as Jack and I head for the bar, the ache between my legs a constant reminder of the intimate hours we spent wrapped in each other.
A dragon shifter blows out a flaming breath as a warlock wearing a bright white t-shirt and ripped black jeans tosses a card into the flames. It catches fire for a split second before bursting into at least a dozen butterflies that climb up into the sky above. Cheers erupt around us as the flaming insects float up to the sky before popping out of sight, one by one. So much joy around me, and yet I feel so fucking alone.
Even as I try not to focus on them, each minute that passes is one closer to my trip back to my life. Back to Phillip and a future I would give anything to change.
“Hola, hermosa niña,” a man with a thick Spanish accent purrs from across the bar. I glance over, my gaze landing on a man with long dark hair that’s cut short on one sides. He shakes a mixer as he studies us with knowing ice-blue eyes.
“Hol—hello,” I reply, not even wanting to try to speak Spanish. Let’s just say it’s not my strong suit.
“English then? English I can do.” He grins at me. “What can I get the two of you?”
“Whatever your signature is,” Jack replies and squeezes my hand before lowering his lips to my ear. “We’re still here, Willa.”
After pressing a quick kiss to my cheek, he straightens. Am I truly wearing my feelings on my sleeve then?
“Are you both having fun tonight?” My attention is drawn back to the bartender as he moves his hips to the beat while shaking ingredients in his mixer.
“Yeah, it’s a night to remember, for sure.”
“Si, Hunter. Hopefully, this will be evidence enough that we aren’t all bad.” The bartender winks before pouring the pale red liquid into two glasses. Then, he pulls out a bottle of orange juice and fills the glasses to the top before sliding them over to us.
Lifting my glass, I down the liquid, needing something to take the edge off so I don’t spend what’s left of my night with Jack terrified of what’s to come.
“Damn, niña. That’s strong shit,” the bartender comments appreciatively. “Would you like another?”
“Yes, please.”
Jack passes me his glass, and I tip it up, drinking the fruity cocktail down.
The bartender chuckles as we turn away. “Have fun, si?” the bartender calls. “And if anyone asks, Ransom treated you right!”
Jack pulls me to the dance floor and tips my face up before taking my lips in a kiss that wraps around me as the alcohol surges through my system. We move together, losing ourselves in the beat of the music as I try not to focus too intently on the passing time.
He kisses me again as we dance, and when he releases me, I glance around, my gaze drawn to a woman standing in the corner by herself. She’s incredibly beautiful, but her radiance is dampened by the sad smile she wears. With her dark hair swept away from her face, I can see the red gown she wears hugs her waist before spilling into a huge blood-red skirt that shimmers in the moonlight.
