"Put your feet on mine Synthia," he said quietly, aware that everyone was watching us.
I exhaled and obeyed him, knowing his men were watching us, as well as my coven. When the song restarted he carried us both, his hand once again on the small of my back. Rubbing it softly as his fingers settled against it. My heart raced from his touch, the deep desire in his eyes made it flip-flop as he swept me around the room until everyone else faded away, leaving us alone inside the room.
I smiled as I looked down to see our feet together. Nervous at being so close to him and doing something I had only ever done with my father. It had been the last thing we’d ever done together. But with Ryder, it was intimate, sending heat flooding through me. I looked back up with the smile still in place to catch him staring openly in wonder at me. "What?" I asked growing self-conscious.
"You’re very beautiful Syn," he whispered tenderly.
I swallowed and tried to repay the compliment but thought better of it and lowered my eyes. The butterflies had left, but in their place were a million reasons screaming that I should be running, that I was treading on dangerous ground with him. When I looked back up he was frowning softly as he watched the emotions playing upon my face.
"Not used to getting compliments, are you?" He said moving us closer together until my body was completely flushed with his.
"No," I replied honestly.
"I scare you Syn, make you feel things you're afraid of admitting to yourself."
I met his eyes and refused to answer him. He already knew I was turned on by his touch and I wasn’t going to draw it out for him. I lowered my eyes and then turned them over to where Adrian was dancing with Claire. "Why is he here?"
"Because they will be attending the Engagement Ball and we can use all the help we can get right now to keep Arianna safe. I won't take chances with her."
"Where is she? If you guys are getting married I’d think you'd be dying to be together already. I know I would be….well with…" I was tripping over my tongue and his amused smile told me he was enjoying it, "If it were me Ryder, I'd want to be with you." I watched his smile fade and then I replayed what I had just said. "That came out wrong."
"I'd want you close as well Synthia," he whispered close to my ear. "Maybe I should ditch her and take my chances with you."
"That wasn’t how I meant it at all," I squeaked even as he smiled wider.
"And what if I did?" He asked still smiling.
"Well then I would say you are crazy." I asked and watched his smile fade away to the normal wicked grin.
"You think someone would have to be crazy to want you?"
"Well, you yes. Because you don’t like me remember? I'm sarcastic and stubborn and those are just a few of the things you don't like about me, I should start a list—to keep track." I said softly.
He did the last thing I expected him to do. He threw his head back and laughed while still moving us around the dance floor without missing a step. I had to remind myself to breathe. Smiling was one thing but watching this man laugh took years off of his face and replaced him with a rogue who was irresistible and his laughter was contagious.
Everyone inside the room was watching us closely. Those who had been dancing had moved from the dance floor, the song had also changed and yet I'd been too wrapped up in Ryder to notice anything. His touch and the sound of his laughter had instantly made my body flood with heat, it was unacceptable.
He growled seductively, pulling me out of the panic before I could get too deep in to worrying about it. His eyes narrowed on me, his body pressing further against me. "Come with me tomorrow night Synthia," he said huskily.
"Where?" I asked even though I shouldn’t have. I would have been attending the Witch Guild event tomorrow if I hadn’t been under contract. I'd cleared it for Larissa and Adam to go since I had no reason to keep them from attending the only holiday the Guild celebrated.
"An event my club is throwing, just something small," he replied smoothly but his grin had come back with blinding affects.
"Posing as Arianna?"
"No Syn, as yourself."
I narrowed my eyes on him carefully thinking over everything he had said. I had to be missing something. "Why would you want me to come as myself?"
He narrowed his eyes, his lips drawn back from his lips. I was walking in uncharted territory here. He'd never really been kind to me, hell we weren't even friends, more like enemies with slightly twisted benefits. He could choose from any woman he wanted and he was choosing me? Or maybe I was reading too much into this, maybe he wanted to take me somewhere private and kill me. It was the more likely scenario.
He leaned in close again, his hot breath fanning on the hollow column of my neck before lifting to my ear to whisper. "You're doing it again, over thinking, over analyzing everything. My club in action would better prepare you for the ball. It's a win, win situation Syn."
I shivered as his lips pressed against my ear as he inhaled deeply before moving back to where I could read his face. "No tricks?"
He smiled, but it was all teeth, "No tricks, just us, being who we truly are."
"No using your powers on me," I swallowed with the memory of how they felt.
"Not unless you ask me to and then I won't hold back."
I blinked and made a mental note to under no circumstances ask him to use them. I tilted my head thinking of what else I needed to ask but I was coming up blank. "This is for research only."
"No Syn, this is to get you to let go. You keep struggling to control everything around you. It's impossible. Well, unless you're me. Think you can handle that? One night of letting loose, just being yourself and not this tough shell you show off to everyone else?"
"I'm not a shell and I don’t try to control everything," I narrowed my eyes, "Okay, so maybe I do try to control things. The unknown can get people killed Ryder, if I lose control people die in my line of work."
His lips turned down as his eyes narrowed, "Mine too, I still allow myself one night to—well one night to let loose and be myself."
He'd hesitated, Ryder never hesitated. "If you tell me when you will end the contract between us, it doesn't have to be a date, but it has to be a time frame Ryder. If you can give me that, then I will give you one night of just being myself."
He tilted his dark head and stopped dancing. I stepped off his feet and watched him as he held out his hand to shake on it. Or so I thought until he gripped my hand and brought it palm up to place a gentle kiss in the soft flesh, "It's a deal."
Oh sweet baby Jesus, what the hell had I just agreed to do? The blood in my body was draining to one place and it was as good of excuse to use as any. When I was around Ryder, I spoke gibberish and my brain was located in my neither region. I had to get away from him and fast, before I did something I would live to regret. You didn’t sleep with a man like Ryder and walk away the same woman you had been before. If I gave in, things would change inside of me, forever.
I turned in time to watch Adrian storm from the room, Adam following close on his heels. Larissa stood silently watching them leave as I did. Ryder's men closed in around us and I wondered at what I had just missed.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Glorious mind fuck, she's addictive. It makes my mind go to places that it hasn’t even fathomed before. She denies me, while denying herself. She's growing weak. I can feel as she trembles against me, her walls coming down slowly even as she struggles to keep them up. The scent of her need makes me want to pull back the delicate petals of her flower and devour it, consume it, fuck it.
She's a drug, a virus in my system that needs to be eradicated. Nothing about her makes sense, she's a walking contradiction. She isn't what they say she is. I'm old enough to know the difference. See the difference. Yet, unable as I am to figure her out—or why her blood calls to me—why? Why should it? If she is what they say she is, the only thing that should respond to her is my cock and yet my mind is on her. Every. Fucking. Minute.
When
she came to my room, glorious with need I wanted to take her, make her need my cock more than she needed to breathe and yet I couldn’t. I want her to come to me of her own accord—strange for me, as I take what I want without guilt. Without remorse.
She isn't human, not even fucking close. It's driving me crazy inside trying to figure out what she is. I can feel her hunger, as if something is struggling to get out from under her skin. I can smell her need, raw and unmasked with a desire so fucking hot it makes my cock throb to be buried in her sweetness.
I smell her need, sweet and addictive. She's young, her mind works differently than my own, I need to fuck her—hard. She needs to validate why she should, stupid. Fucking just is, but I don’t think fucking her would be the same as Claire and she was simply food. Syn wouldn't be, she'd be so much more. I can feel the draw, her body calling to mine as animals do in heat. I'd fuck her like an animal, raw, hot and fucking hard.
She made me lose control—again. She shook my hardened exterior and made me want her, impossible feat for someone of my age and hers. It shouldn’t have happened, wasn’t in my plans. She wasn’t in my fucking plans. And yet when I am alone, the only thing I see in my head is her, listening to the hungry noises she made while she dry fucked my cock.
Those red fucking full lips, hard to miss when she speaks, the glorious fucking things they could do—will do. I want to fill her, slow, deliberate, deep, her juices sliding me in further, her spine aching from the fullness of my cock and she succumbs to it until she can take no more, oh but she will, she will take it all, filling her thirsty need to fuck. The electric blue fire that lights in her eyes, I want to watch it as it takes me, feeding my beast, I want to feel her swollen flesh pulsing around mine as she comes for me over and over again, hear those fucking noises as she explodes on my cock.
Maybe I should drain the life from her, watch it recede from her eyes and end this before it goes further. She's an unknown, unpredictable and yet something inside of her is struggling to grow and I find myself wanting to cage her just to watch her fucking struggle and overcome it. She's a puzzle box and I want to take her apart and watch as she puts the pieces back one by one until she is whole again. Why does she draw me in? I've been with thousands of women and wanted to keep none.
None of them drew me like she does. She's quicksand and I am treading into it, quickly. Maybe it's the brand above the worthless one on her neck, maybe it has clues to what she is, or why she attracts. She doesn’t even know it's there. Fucking puzzle box. Addicting.
I want to hold her hands above her head and feed her inch after glorious fucking inch of my cock, watch her eyes as she takes me inside her body hungrily, greedily. Her mouth opening to gasp, as she makes those sweet intoxicating sounds that drive me insane with the need to turn from noises to screaming as I fuck her until she trembles and gives me what I want—her unrefined lust. She'd be magnificent in hunger, wild and unimaginable. She is making me violent with lust, unfed Fae—fuck! I shouldn’t be feeling anything for her, I’m here for one reason and one reason alone. She thinks I’m less than I am. I'm so much fucking more. Deadly is an understatement, when I reveal what I am—this world will never be the same again.
I almost had her, her eyes watching me as I fucked Claire, she wanted to be her, wanted me to use her soft supple body instead to slake my unending hunger on. It took everything I had to keep the beast from going after her as she tore from the room, scared, fucking scent flooding my mind. Claire didn’t even satisfy. She left me cold, unsatisfied, useless flesh that takes any of my men anytime. She'd been convenient before, not anymore.
Syn is scared. She should be fucking terrified. I want her and nothing will stop me now. Not even her newly risen love, if he gets in the way he will really go to his grave, I own him now. Another fucking pawn, on my growing board. His supposed death broke her, I intend to pick up those pieces and use them to get inside her beautiful fucked up mind.
She knows there is something different about me, but she's smart enough to keep it to herself. Smart, because I'd have to snuff her out before she's had a chance to live. Living, she hasn’t even fucking begun to live. She's so locked in her fucking past that she doesn't even see the way everyone watches her. She's as clueless as Arianna, who will never become anything more than a fucking means to an end.
Tomorrow night, mmm she has no fucking clue, but tomorrow she will be mine if only for the night. It won't be enough to sate the hunger I feel inside for her, but it will be enough to brand her skin and mark her as my own. Then no one can question who she belongs to. She's mine. And I will have her in every fucking way possible, until she becomes a problem. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Until then, I plan to take her until she only knows one name—mine.
Twenty Three
I sat in the room listening as Adam and Larissa droned on about the Samhain celebration the Guild would be throwing. I'd be missing it this year, to go with Ryder. He'd been cryptic about what it was that we were going to, but he'd said he'd give me a time frame from when I would be released from his contract.
That alone was worth attending a Fae event for. I could have said no, but something inside of me wanted to see him in his natural surroundings. There was something deeper to him, softer than I'd seen before. He'd almost seemed human while we'd danced together.
If I was smart, I'd play sick and not go, but something darker inside of me wanted to see him around his own kind. Wanted to explore these darker feelings he was pulling to the surface inside of me.
Adrian had left a mark. He'd torn a huge part of my soul out when he'd died. His miraculous return only tore the wound open again and maybe that was why I was pushing Ryder's buttons, while pushing my own boundaries. But this hunger that Ryder was pulling from me was primal, an intense fire that was burning out of control and leaving ashes in its wake. These feelings demanded to be explored even as my mind warned me of the consequences.
I considered the consequences and yes they scared me. He was pushing my boundaries, pushing myself control. I was tempted to allow his seduction, I was fighting it, but it had more to do with fear of what he could do, more than what he would do. His kisses pushed me further, consuming my mind with a desire that scared me and yet exhilarated me at the same time. I wanted to find the passion I felt with him and yet I was attracted to the one thing I'd been scared of my entire life.
He consumed my thoughts. I needed to get away from him and fast. He was quicksand and I was sinking. I should be focused on the murders and who would be next, it had been quiet on that aspect and we were no closer since Vlad had sent us that message or sick and twisted invitation—or whatever you wanted to consider it.
It meant that somewhere out there, someone was dying. Being tortured for vital organs, while we sat around and waited to find a body. I was going stir-crazy inside the house, even though I normally stuck to my bedroom reading in our apartment, being inside this place with Ryder under the same roof was driving me insane.
I almost jumped as a knock sounded from the door disturbing my thoughts and the couple chattering on the other side of the room. Wasn’t sure why they were inside my room prattling on but I was glad they were there. I was just about to yell open, but the person had already walked in before the words left my lips. Adrian stood there with his eyes locked onto me.
I came off my back quickly, placing my bare feet down onto the carpeted floor. I swallowed the lump that swiftly filled my throat as his turquoise eyes swept the room and landed on me. I didn’t know what to say, I wanted to ask him why he was here, why he had lied and hidden from us but I knew I wouldn’t accept the answer no matter what it was. The truth was he'd left us.
"Can I talk to you Syn?" Adrian asked shoving his hands firmly in his pockets.
I looked around the room and nodded, still unable to talk over the growing lump. Adam and Larissa had remained silent, waiting to finally get the explanation from him as I had been. I stood nervously already reading his expression, we'd been that clos
e.
"Alone?" He asked the others.
I turned to ask the others to leave but Adrian stopped me.
"Outside Fancy Face, the walls have ears," he said smoothly as his eyes looked at the walls as if they would object.
"Okay," I said looking down at my still bare feet, "Let me grab something for my feet." I bent down turning the flip flops over and dug my feet into them.
As we moved down the hallway, Adrian commented on their relationship. "Knew they'd end up together," he said with a grin.
"Did you now." I mumbled sarcastically, trying to stop my hands from fisting up as I figured out what to do with them, I settled on crossing them over my chest as I stood awkwardly in my pink sweat pants that said Sassy Girl across my butt. The shirt I was wearing wasn’t much better. It was the White Zombie one I'd gotten at the concert we had gone as a group to a few years ago, that said Living Dead Girl across the breast area.
"They hate me," he said silently.
"What do you expect Adrian? You ditched us, not the other way around," I said through clenched teeth.
"Ryder said we could talk by the pool, but I think I'd rather walk the grounds," he said as we made our way down the stairs. It was awkward to be walking next to someone you had spent years wishing you could have one last conversation with, one last kiss.
I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to say and it all seemed so different now. I was a different person than I'd been before meeting Ryder. If this had happened before I'd met him I would have thrown my arms around Adrian without caring what had happened, or why. Don’t get me wrong, I'd still be pissed, but I missed him and it was a relief to know I hadn't gotten him killed.
We ended up walking a trail that started from the driveway and walked through thick greenery. Neither of us said anything at first as if we were afraid to. I know I was. He wasn’t the same guy he'd been. "What's it like?" I finally asked letting the curiosity get the better of me.