“Queen Witch,” Sophia said, passing her arm through Laetitia’s and towing her inside their happy home.
Tavish MacCraig’s apartment
Sunday, October 5, 2014
9:55 p.m.
After exiting his bonsai hothouse, Tavish stared at Laetitia’s back as she stood in front of a huge canvas. Barefooted and wearing a cropped T-shirt and low-rise shorts, with her hair up in a messy bun secured by one of her paintbrushes, she was a sight to behold.
The tilt of her head revealed she was not concentrating on the blank space but was reading a mysterious book she closed quickly every time he appeared in the room, an endearing blush turning her cheeks pink.
The parquet grunted under his feet when he approached, and she turned, having already closed the book.
He looked down pointedly at the red-leather book cover. “What are you reading, Sprite?”
“Research material.” She eyed him head to toe, with a mischievous smile. “Hmm . . . I need your help.”
“Everything my lady wishes,” he said, bowing.
She pointed to the reclining chairs. “Let’s take these outside and put them together, like a bed.”
Following her precise directions, he helped her roll the chairs near to the pool, their backs to the beautiful live green wall.
Adjusting the scenario, she threw pillows haphazardly on them and pursed her lips.
“Yes, this will do. I need the floor easel put here,” she said, before stocking up on her palette hues of red, orange, pink, green, blue, and violet and picking up paintbrushes and the natural poppy-seed-oil medium she made herself.
“Now what?” he asked, intrigued.
“Strip. I’ll position you as I need.”
Fuck. He was pulling his shirt off, when a thought hit him. He frowned down at her. “Do you use live models often?”
Fascinated by the heated way he studied her face, she answered truthfully, “Of course.”
His need to erase every male body from his mind drove a potent rush of lust pulsing through his body. When he took off his underwear, he was rock hard, his sac heavy.
He stood there in the middle of the room, looking bigger and stronger naked than with his clothes on, overwhelming Laetitia with his extravagantly sculpted body. Every muscle and sinew rippled under his golden skin, and his erection was proof of his unruly desire for her.
“No’ anymore,” he growled, his sea-green eyes sparkling with turbulence and tumult. He scowled at her. “I just signed on tae be the sole model ye are going tae use from now on.”
There was confusion in her eyes for a moment, as if his wanting to pose for her was sheer craziness.
“But . . .”
He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “The only one, Laetitia.”
Yes, sir. She made a sound of amusement to disguise her appreciation for his body, which bordered on idolatry, but in all fairness to her, she was on fire for the six-foot-seven man in front of her. Imagining the thousand and one positions she could put him in, and what it would end on, she shrugged and smirked. “Don’t complain from cramps afterward.”
A growl and hard slap on her butt was his answer.
“Macho barbarian fifteenth-century Highlander,” she muttered, as he towed her to the chairs.
“Position me.”
She smiled inwardly at his fit of jealousy, as she gave instructions on how she wanted him, and stepped back, enjoying the view of that gorgeous walking fantasy of a male, erection and all. And it was for her eyes only. In a throaty voice, she said, “You are art in its most pure state, Tavish Uilleam.”
“It’s just a body.” He added derisively, “A scarred body.”
“Scarred?” she gasped. “No, never.”
Tavish’s stare followed her as she backed a few paces from him but not enough to go behind her waiting canvas. If he was aroused lying there naked, the tension in his body spiked when, gazing fixedly at him, she began to take off her clothes. What now!
Completely naked, she gathered her material and kneeled by his left leg, ordering, “No matter what I do, don’t move.”
A shudder rippled through him when one of her brushes caressed his longest scar, leaving a smear of blood red over it, and then up his hip and stomach, in a sinuous line, until it entwined with the sharp tail of his dragon tattoo.
He lay there, only his stare following her hand, his blood thundering in his veins, heating to the point of singeing him, as she covered the left side of his stomach, hip, and scarred groin and thigh in reds, oranges, and yellows, then blues, greens, and violets.
At each stroke Laetitia gifted his coppery-gold skin, at each delicate line painted, she felt a soul-deep throb begging for a release she didn’t understand, a release that needed out.
Her brushes gave way to her fingers as she breathed life into soft feathers, and, using his sunken crisscrossing scars as guides, testimonies to the living telltale of how his life had once been, Laetitia gave birth to a beautiful, powerful phoenix, a witness of how he felt now.
When she finished, he was beyond himself with lust. Huskily, he whispered, “Masterful.”
“This is how I see you, Tavish Uilleam. The dragon and the phoenix, the too-intense energy, the mix of masculine and feminine, the synergy between the vital, primal wildness and the domineering civility balanced to its max,” she said breathlessly. Her fingers danced over the drying paint and smeared it over his skin. “Just on that sharp edge, you found the perfect blend of danger and safety.”
“Laetitia.” Her name left his mouth in a groan, and his fingers wandered over her thigh, to find her sex, spreading her to discover her wetness.
She was panting when she looked up and caught his gaze. His sea-green eyes blazed with heated, stormy emotions, and she wanted to lose herself in those pools. “From the moment you crossed the lodge garden and knocked on my door, I’ve seen nothing but uncontrollable power, unbreakable strength. And unending, unmarred beauty.”
She shifted on the chair when his fingers got more insistent. Her legs parted, and she moaned when he dipped a broad, long finger fully inside her. “I find myself wet with need when I am around you. Wanting things I never did before.”
She was eerily beautiful under the moonlight, her white-blonde hair shimmered silver, tumbled around her face in disarray, over her shoulders, past her full breasts to her slim waist, a dreamlike, otherworldly creature showing herself to his pleasure. He sat up and leaned toward her, his fingers never stopping the soft thrust inside her. He cupped her head in his hand and bared her neck to his kisses. In a deep, low voice, he coaxed, “And what do ye want?”
“Wicked things—things I’ve never dreamed of doing before,” she whispered, closing her eyes. His mouth on her neck was driving her crazy; his sweet oak-chocolate scent drifting around her was making her drunk. When he bit on her pointed ear, any previous inhibitions loosened. She leaned to the side of the reclining chair and put the bottle of oil on his hand.
His head reared, and something animalistic gleamed in his eyes. “You want me to fuck your ass.”
Her nipples tightened to painful points when his fingers captured them, twisting and pinching lightly. “Ah, yes.”
His mouth took hers in a seductive, demanding kiss—not the kiss of a man bent on wooing but dominating. His hands fell down to her hips and clutched them. Breaking the kiss, he ordered, “On all fours.”
Goose bumps raced across her skin as she turned from him, and he began to rub oil on her in circular motions, kissing and lapping the tattoo on her back and her spine, until his fingers were rubbing the crack between her cheeks.
“Please,” she asked in a husky voice.
Slowly and gently, he pushed one, then two, fingers into her, rotating them.
“Yes,” she moaned, her nerve endings sparkling hot with the slightly painful sensation—the hurt actually feeling good—and she raised her hips against his fingers.
A slap cracked on her butt.
“Doona move,
” he said darkly, pushing his fingers deeper. In and out. “I’ve got more tae give ye, and I don’t want tae hurt ye.”
Suddenly, the sensation changed from a slight stinging to a painful fullness. She cried as she realized he was pulling his fingers apart.
“Tavish!” A gasp and a jerk from her brought his free hand down on her butt again, and he pulled her flush against his chest.
Her head fell back on his shoulder, and her mouth sought his.
“Hold still, Snowdrop, I’m taking ye there,” he promised, before taking her lips hungrily.
She moaned when the heel of his hand pressed against her clitoris, and he began a steady rhythm of opening his fingers and pulling them in and out, keeping her right there on the brink. With a mind of its own, her body moved, and she was grinding against him, in a state of agonizing pleasure. “Ah, God, Tavish!”
“Come, Laetitia,” he hissed, and pumped his hand faster, feeling her trembling under his assault.
Laetitia pulled on his hair and took his mouth again, as the wondrous sensations spiraled up and pushed her from the top, free-falling in a heated pool of lust.
When she broke the kiss and leaned on his chest, panting, eyes glazed with release, he growled, “I think ye are ready for something bigger.”
Flipping her onto her back, he pushed her knees back to her chest.
The cool night air did nothing to cool her too-heated body, and knowing he was going to enjoy the full view of their joining made her dizzy, as another wave of arousal started pulsing through her. Then a naughty thought entered her mind, and she smiled mischievously at him. “Wait a sec.”
Tavish watched mesmerized as Laetitia, sitting with her legs spread and knees up, hooked her arms under her knees and rolled onto her back; then, with a flexible movement, she pinned her feet back under her shoulders, and lifted her lower body up from the chair. “A variation of the Tittibhasana position.”
“Tittibha—What?” he asked, looking down at her skin glistening with oil, completely exposed to his eyes.
“A yoga position,” she answered with a naughty smile. She could see he had gone stiffer than before.
“Beautiful.” His hands stroked her thighs, up and down, and scooted near her. “How long can you stay like this?”
“As long as you wish. It’s—Ah!”
He didn’t wait for her to finish the explanation, burying his face in her, finding her hot and wet, making love to her womanhood with lips and tongue, with his gaze fixed on her face.
At each pass of his tongue and sucking of his lips, Laetitia’s legs began to shake harder; her eyes closed, and she pulled on his hair, as she felt her stomach clench. “I—Stop! Stop, Tavish!”
Then she felt a rush of air and slickness coating her already-too-sensitive rosette and his length gliding over it.
Opening her eyes, she watched in avid fascination, anticipation, and fear, as he generously lubed his erection, took it in his hand, and then guided it to her rear entrance, just its warm, pulsing head pressing on her.
Tavish raised his eyes to hers. “Do ye trust me?”
“Implicitly, Tavish,” she whispered. “Implicitly.”
The sureness of her answer washed over him in a freeing emotion. “You really do, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “Now hurry.”
He gave her a strained smile. “Take a deep breath in; then let it out slowly.”
And then he was pushing his hips, sinking the broad head of his penis inside her.
The stretching sting made her gasp, and she tightened in reflex. “I—I don’t think I can take it all.”
“Ye can! Ye can and ye will.” His voice, already a baritone rumble, had grown even deeper, raspier. His face tightened in concentration, and his fingers dug in her flesh, keeping her still. He pressed in slowly, feeling the resistance and pressure of the muscles, the velvet of her skin claiming him for her. Easy and slow! “Relax and take another deep breath.”
The need to burst forth took hold of him, as a supreme pleasurable sensation coursed through his veins when her muscles relaxed. He gritted his teeth and then pushed all the way in to the hilt.
“Ah!” Her hands gripped his forearms; all her nerve endings sizzled with his girth. He was so big inside her, she felt impossibly full, to the point of overstimulation.
“This feels so fucking good,” he hissed, in an almost pain-filled voice. Hold still, hold still. His face was contorted in rapture, his jaw locked hard.
She panted her way through the burning, stretching sensation until it lessened to a pulsing need for more. Her qualms faded into the ether. Her whole body trembling, Laetitia moaned softly, “Tavish?”
His hands clenched on her hips when she wriggled under him. “Aye?”
“Don’t hold back on me!”
“Damn, Laetitia! I don’t want to hurt you.”
Her nails dug in his arms. “You need to worry that I’m going to hurt you.”
He felt the last vestiges of his control snap, and he was not sure anything could stop the tempest of deep, penetrating thrusts he was unleashing on her body. If not for her moans of pleasure and pleas of need, he would be worried he was hurting her.
“Yes, yes,” she whispered in wild abandon, as one of her hands ran sensuously over her stomach and fluttered over her clitoris.
He reveled in the new sensations of her wrapped around him, and how good her oiled skin felt against his stomach.
“I’m close, Tavish,” she breathed, pressing down harder on her clitoris. The pleasure he was creating inside her was so overwhelming, time slowed.
“Almost there,” he rasped, and unleashed the last of his control. Slamming his hands on the chair mattress by her head, he drove into her faster and harder, again, and again, pushing her almost flat on her back, chasing his release.
“I’m coming, Laetitia. I’m coming so hard.” A thick growl rasped from his mouth. “Look at me.”
Their intoxicating musk permeated the air, along with their strangled moans and the sound of skin slapping against skin; then it all faded away, to be just Laetitia and Tavish staring at each other, as his hips thrust back and forth with a crazed pace, on and on and on, sea-green eyes holding violet-blues with a quiet intensity of a storm brewing.
He felt something breaking inside him, fracturing, and bending to her will, then being woven again together in a different pattern he didn’t understand—and was not ready to.
When Tavish orgasmed, there was no hoarse shout of passion, just ragged, heavy breaths, rippling muscles contracted into hard ropes, long and violent shudders running through his body.
He spilled himself inside her, staring at her with such open savagery she knew he had given her possession of his wild, untamed soul. His face framed by his midnight-black hair was painted with an utterly lustful, erotic bliss, and it undid her. Her climax tore through her body, and a starburst of euphoria blinded her with a bright-white glow of intense release.
He drew torturous breaths, as his own climax seemed to never end, and Laetitia’s body clenched again and again around him, leaving him dry.
He withdrew, pulled her legs down, and dropped by her side, taking her in his arms.
Looking down into his eyes, she asked quietly, “So, was it good?”
“Aingeal, ye have just showed me heaven.”
“I’m still there.” A satisfied sigh left her.
He smiled. “I’ll be dedicating myself to fulfill all of your fantasies.”
She giggled and kissed his chest. “It’s going to take a while.”
“I’m not in a hurry, Sprite.” He propped himself on his elbow, getting serious all of a sudden. “Laetitia, Alistair Connor and I decided it is best to postpone the exposition. Until we can settle everything . . .” With the real Laetitia’s parents.
Those unspoken words hung between them.
She was silent.
“It seemed best to retreat. Just for a while. We are close to finding them, and it’s not wise t
o let them have the upper hand,” he explained. “We can consider more fully just how and when you should meet with them. And what terms we are going to propose.”
She gave a nod to acknowledge his idea. “I understand.”
“Snowdrop, you know The Blue Dot will always—”
“Tavish Uilleam, I told you, I trust you implicitly,” she said. “I’m just not comfortable with this . . . knowing all I have built in the last eight years can go down the drain. And it’ll be all my fault. I could—should—have gone to the police, but I was so young and afraid. And after some time, it seemed craziness to do something.”
“I doona want ye afraid.” He scowled at her. “Never more.”
She smiled, endeared by his fierce command. “I feel safe by your side, Barbarian.”
I hope so. He kissed her and stood up, stretching out his hand to help her. “Come. We’re going to spend quite some time under the shower to be cleansed of all this paint.”
“Perfect!” She sauntered to the stairs, not bothering with clothes. “I also have a few wet fantasies I want to try.”
CHAPTER 38
Ireland
The smoke was so dense it clouded the air. Johansen grimaced as he cut through it. The smell was unbearable, as if his brother were already dead and decaying.
He marched into the room and threw open the curtains.
“What the fuck, Johansen?”
“I see you are . . . well.” But all that Johansen could see was a monster being ridden by a teenager who was clearly high, because she didn’t even look his way. “Finish this, for God’s sake.”
“You should have waited, if it bothers you so.” With his hands on the young woman’s hips, Andrew sped up her tempo. “Quicker, my pet. I have things to do.”
Johansen turned to the window, disgusted, restraining the urge to cover his ears, as their moans and grunts seemed to last forever. He looked back only after the woman thanked his brother for letting her pleasure him and left the room.
“It’s funny how you’re still shy and too gentle, Johansen.” Andrew’s laugh came from the corner. “Did you find her?”