Secrets & Dark Magic Page 7

  After dinner, he found himself restless again and couldn’t tell if it had as much to do with his bear or with Penny who, he thought now, had a very pretty neck and a soft looking cheek - especially when it turned pink as it kept doing now nearly whenever she opened her mouth. He cleared their dishes and started to wash them, only to change his mind and tidy up the living room. Penny sat at the table, watching him carefully, which only served to make him more nervous. He was not at all used to being nervous around a woman and that made him more nervous-

  “Do you want to take a walk out to the woods again, Cole?” Penny asked. “You got that edgy thing going again. I think it stopped raining?”

  “Yeah!” Cole said quickly, rubbing the back of his neck. He thought it was sweet of her to be so observant of him. “Yeah, that would be good. I mean you don’t have to come. You can come if you want. Up to you.” He felt he didn’t know where to look when they spoke because he wanted to look at her mouth and if he looked there he thought might lose his mind and try to kiss her.

  “No, I’d like to come!” She said quickly. “I’d like to see the bear again.”

  In the woods, Cole shifted, and they somehow fell into playing hide and seek after she’d followed him around for a while as he trotted through the woods. It was silly and it started with Penny teasing him about his shifter’s sense of smell. She hid in a shrub by the river, thinking that maybe the fallen rain would’ve disguised her scent. He found her, and it only made her giddy for him to chase her again. The next time she hid in the rotted nook of a tree because there was jasmine growing nearby and the smell was so strong. Cole found her again and this time she laughed and the sound made his bear’s heart leap as, for the first time, she sank her fingers into his thick fur and scratched him behind the ears.

  She knelt in front of him, muddying her jeans, and as he assumed she might not be great at reading the facial expressions of bears, he felt free to look at her like he wanted to as she grinned at him and nuzzled his snout and hugged him around his haunches. He’d never thought a human could be this kind and tender with a shifter. But Penny had seemed to understand so quickly. It only made her more appealing.

  “You’re a big, big bear,” Penny mumbled. “But you are so freaking cute.”

  She yawned, and thinking she might be tired, he shifted back and her expression changed again from innocent delight to something else when she found herself with her arms around his human form. She jerked back and this time his own cheeks warmed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to… I thought you might be tired, maybe we should head back.”

  “I’m not tired,” she said, her eyes flitting around. She stood and brushed the dirt from her jeans which only served to make her hands muddy. “But yeah, I guess let’s head back.”

  They fell into step together and Cole was sure he wasn’t trying to walk close to Penny yet she kept leaning in just a little bit as they walked so that their hands brushed. He couldn’t account for the way his heart pounded when he moved his fingers slightly and he felt hers move too. His fingers curved around hers so that, for the briefest moment, they were almost holding hands.

  It was starting to drizzle again when Penny stopped on the road and turned to Cole. He noted that there were tiny raindrops on the tips of her eyelashes. He also noted that she was standing very close to him now and that he had already become used to her scent. He found it as hypnotic as her big hazel eyes and her silky chestnut hair.

  “Hey,” she said softly. “Um, maybe...maybe…”

  He had no idea what she was about to say, he was only sure that they were both staring at each other’s lips. Cole was sure she was about to kiss him when it started pouring with rain.

  It was not a gradually heavy rain but an onslaught; abrupt buckets of cold water pouring over their heads so that Penny shrieked and then laughed, grabbing Cole by the front of his sweater and looking around for some bit of shelter. Cole cursed the gods of weather but he laughed despite himself, low and rumbling. He’d always thought it strange how humans thought of rain as if it wasn’t just water. They acted like they would melt if they got too wet.

  “Get on my back and I’ll run us home,” he said, seconds before shifting again.

  Penny didn’t hesitate and climbed atop Cole’s back, though he had to lower himself a bit; he was still so big even on all fours. She shrieked again, this time from delight rather than surprise and he noted that he was getting to know her shrieks pretty well.

  Cole bounded through the forest toward the main road but stayed hidden from view, running alongside the street and around houses and buildings, jumping ditches and logs, and cognizant always of the person riding on his back in whose safety he was very invested.

  He was just a couple of blocks from the duplex, running through a grassy field as the rain poured down on them, when he miscalculated the slickness of a muddy patch and went sliding, Penny tumbling off his back and into the wet. She ended up a heap of limbs in the mud and he ended up on his big bear butt, head over tail.

  “Are you okay?” Cole called out, still catching his breath as he ran to meet her.

  She seemed plenty okay and was weak-kneed with the giggles as she repeatedly tried and failed to get upright. She managed a nod and grasped his arms as he lifted her to her feet. She did not let go when she was righted, her laughter fading as they stood holding onto each other in the pouring rain. His chest heaved, his shirt soaked through as he looked down at Penny, her long hair drenched and her thin t-shirt clinging to her curvy little body.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” Penny said.

  Dimly, Cole could swear he heard somebody angrily shouting “Kiss!” in the distance but he put it down to his own scrambled mind.

  He cleared his throat and said, “Let’s go.”

  The moment, if there had been one, was dashed now, yet they walked arm in arm back to Cole’s place. He told her it was so she wouldn’t slip and fall again in the slick mud and she didn’t argue. They walked at a leisurely pace even as they continued to get soaked as they were now too wet to get much wetter.

  “I can loan you some clothes,” Cole said when they’d made it back inside and he’d tossed her a towel. “Of course, you’ll swim in them.”

  “Sure.” Penny shivered and Cole went to find her something reasonable to wear.

  When he came back she was examining an oil painting of some stags he had on one wall and when she turned to smile softly at him he felt his heart in his throat. But he only tossed her the flannel pajama pants and t-shirt he’d found.

  “I’m so sorry!” She said suddenly, wrapping her long, wet hair around her wrist. “I’m dripping all over the place.”

  “S’fine,” he murmured.

  She held up the clothes and said, “Thanks,” and their gazes toward each other flickered. He could not comprehend how they were going to get through the night like this but he wasn’t about to make a move again unless she made one first.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, nodding firmly and ignoring the elephantine tension in the room.

  “Thanks,” Penny said again and hugged the clothes to her chest before spinning around and heading to the bathroom.

  Delilah

  Delilah clapped a hand to her head and resisted the urge to thrust a fist through Professor J. Cole Montgomery’s window and then read the two troublesome humans the riot act for failing to make out and get busy.

  She was soaked, she was hungry and worse than that, she still had to change the oil on a Honda Accord.

  Penny and Cole were so close to love, Delilah thought, it was absurd. They seemed almost resolute in ignoring the mounting sexual tension. She was crouched outside the living room window, perched on a sketchy ledge that was not quite wide enough to support her weight for long, though, being an “angelic creature” if not an actual angel, she was not easily hurt and was more annoyed by injuries than anything else. She was capable however of being drenched in cold water and she was shivering f
rom the cold. She decided that as soon as she had Penny and Cole on some firmer footing she’d find herself a nice dive bar and have herself some bourbon. Straight up.

  “You leave me no choice,” Delilah said to herself as she climbed her way down to the ground. “Coupla dumbasses. How hard is it to just act on your stupid human impulses? It’s not hard at all. I acted on my stupid human impulses my entire life when I was a human!”

  The breaker box was not hard to find. Delilah flipped the main circuit and glanced up through the pouring rain, seeing that the lights had indeed gone out at Cole’s.

  Hopefully, she thought, they would assume the power outage was due to the storm and not think to check the breaker box. And hopefully, a little lack of electric light would properly set the mood.

  “If this doesn’t do it,” Delilah muttered. “Nothing will.”

  Penny

  It would have been accurate for Penny to say she had not dated in “a while” but it had not been years, only a matter of months. Yet she couldn’t remember it ever feeling like this in her experience. In fact, she couldn’t remember feeling so strongly attracted to anyone, ever.

  Cole was making her weak and she couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it had begun but she found herself now too nervous to make a move. She kept almost kissing him and then thinking that it wouldn’t be fair since she’d flipped out at the slightest hint of him hitting on her before. She also had an insecure little voice in her head which insisted that Cole could not possibly be interested in somebody like her; a mere restaurant hostess and amateur painter who’d never gone to college and had no immediate prospects for anything better. The guy was an academic and surrounded by smarter, prettier young women all day. Penny thought of herself as logical if not immediately desirable. Logic said that Cole wouldn’t look at her twice and that the only reason he’d hit on her and flirted at all was that she happened to be nearby and was okay looking.

  Penny thought about this but was not sure she would make it to morning without throwing herself into Cole’s arms even at the risk of a mortifying rejection. If nothing else, there was no way he wouldn’t be pissed after the way she’d reacted the first time he’d hit on her.

  She changed into Cole’s clothes and the thought of wearing his pajama pants and his t-shirt that felt worn out and soft and warm on her skin was making her smile to herself. He’d given her a pair of thick socks too and she slipped them on and felt cozier and safer than she had in a long time when she walked out and found Cole with a cup of tea waiting for her.

  Penny was taking a sip of tea when the power went out and she shrieked and then clapped a hand to her mouth, feeling ridiculous.

  Next to her, Cole chuckled, and said, “That’s number five, I think. You really do scream a lot.”

  “I’m easily startled!” She said. It was just dark enough that she could make out the shape of him but could not see his face. “Shit!”

  “Yeah, I’ve got some candles. Hold on a second.”

  Penny heard Cole cross the room and rustle around in a drawer. Not wanting to lose her balance in the dark and knock Cole’s things over, she stood still and noticed, now that she’d lost access to the bulk of one of her senses, that Cole now only smelled like the rain and himself because his cologne had rinsed off. She also noticed that when he breathed, it sounded a bit like a low growl. She smiled to herself and a flicker of light appeared to her right. She slid up to him in her socks and Cole lit a couple tea lights and set them on the table. She hovered near him as he lit more lights and set them on the coffee table, crouching down in front of the big, plush burgundy couch. Penny plopped down on the couch and at the sight of the candlelight making his eyes glimmer in the dark and the gold tones of his hair shimmer as he glanced back at her, smiling softly, she tugged on his shirt so he wouldn’t walk away again.

  “Hmm?” Cole said, turning to look at her. “Do you need anything?”

  “Yeah.” She tugged him gently by the front of his shirt and kissed him, reveling in the fullness of his bottom lip and the way it still tasted like lemon and honey.

  “Penny?” Cole whispered against her mouth. She pulled him forward as she lay back on the couch, and he covered her body with his.

  “Well, maybe I do like sleazy after all,” she said, grinning until he kissed the expression off her face.

  Cole, Penny thought, kissed like he’d invented the idea and was still perfecting it. And he was coming damn close, she thought. He reached up and pressed his thumb to her chin, tipping her mouth open, looking steadily into her eyes. She slid her hands up his back. He’d changed into a flannel shirt and she thought briefly of a lumberjack. He was so big and broad in her arms as she spread her fingers and felt the width of his shoulder blades under her hands. He leaned forward and kissed her top lip, his tongue gently tasting her there and the sensation was such a turn-on, it made Penny dizzy.

  He knew just what he was doing, the bastard. Now he kissed her bottom lip, teasing with that tongue again. Penny chased the kiss and he smiled against her lips. Their tongues met and she hummed, melting into one long, hot kiss that made her feel like jelly underneath him.

  She could not for the life of her understand how somebody with so much on his plate had time to become such a talented lover. But she was grateful for his devotion to the craft.

  He was careful, bracing himself over her much smaller frame even while sliding his hand down her side to her thigh so she would wrap her legs around him.

  “Why’re you still wearing a shirt?” She pulled at it until he sat back, chuckling in that low sexy way that made her raise her hands above her head and press her thighs tight around him as she waited, impatient. “Wow,” Penny whispered and she pushed him back a little so she could get a good look at his body before he settled on top of her again.

  Cole was all abs and pecs, a dark dusting of chest hair forming a gentle T on his chest and she bit her lip, raking her fingers through it.

  She raised her eyes to meet his and whispered, “Rawr.”

  “Easy, tiger,” Cole whispered, and she turned her head as he bent to kiss her neck and suck a kiss on the spot under her ear that made her see stars. She moaned and pulled him closer. She could feel him hard against her as she reached down, scrambling to pull down those pajama pants, just enough so that she could grab Cole’s hand and guide it to her center.

  “Touch me, Cole,” she said and cried out as he wasted no time, palming her through her panties as she arched up into him. “Please…” She sat up a little and took off her shirt and Cole groaned and buried his face in her pale chest before tongue kissing one breast and then another even as his long, thick fingers ever so slowly pulled down the waistband of her panties.

  Her breathy little noises made him hold her tighter and he ran his fingers through the bit of pubic hair he felt, making her press up into his hand. She was so impatient for more and she turned her head and bit his shoulder so that he hissed, gently retaliating by nibbling at one nipple.

  Penny said, “fuck,” and Cole smiled against the breast he was now sucking on in a kind of apology. He was teasing her, pressing his palm against her without penetrating, and she writhed and squirmed underneath him. “Cole…”

  “Do you want me?” He whispered and looked back at her. She noted those heavy-lidded eyes of his now gazing on her, bright and dark.

  “Yes,” Penny said. She wanted to push at his hand but she made herself wait and raised her arms over her head again. He yanked her pajama pants down and she was bare before him. Her cheeks burned but she felt impossibly sexy with the way he looked at her, his tongue between his teeth as he moved his hand to her throat and so slowly slid it down between her breasts and down her belly, following the path with kisses that left a hot trail down her body, until he ended at her entrance again.

  Cole smiled at her, wickedly, and Penny’s mouth dropped open, not having expected what he was now promising as he licked his lips, giving her a wink before ducking his head and plunging his tongue insi
de her. Penny gasped and bucked her hips so hard, she nearly threw him off the couch but when he chuckled against her, that too felt like a delicious tease and she muttered an apology.

  “Don’t be sorry, sweetheart,” Cole said, and gripped her hips in his hands, holding her still as he licked inside her and lavished attention on her clit. She had to bite down hard on her lip not to scream. “You taste so good,” he said, and a finger entered her and then two, slipping easily in out of her. She moved to pleasure herself on his fingers as his tongue kept working her.

  Penny felt herself on the peak of bliss and her breath was short. He brought her closer and closer and she shook from the effort of holding her orgasm back. “Cole, Cole, please,” she babbled, licking her lips.

  Cole scrambled to sit up and shove down his jeans and crawled, and she watched him take his impressing length in hand and guide himself inside her. The sudden sensation of fullness brought her over the edge before he thrust inside her, getting off on her pleasure as she wrapped herself around him and grazed her nails along his back. Her orgasm seemed to go on and on as he rocked in and out of her and kissed her moans aways, licking her tongue as she shook, feeling as if she could take no more until he pulled out abruptly and came on her belly. She stroked his cock, milking him until he whimpered and collapsed on top of her.

  Penny felt delicious and tangled her fingers in Cole’s hair as she lay beneath him. She kissed his neck and nibbled on his ear, eliciting that wonderful chuckle that made her knees weak.

  They were smiling at each other like dopes when the lights abruptly came on.