Marked By Magic by Christa Wick

Chapter Twenty

"I can walk,"Michelle protested even as she curled her arms tighter around Tanner's shoulders.

He tucked her harder against his chest, his chin dipping so he could bury his nose in the pale blonde hair.

"This is climbing, not walking. You already stumbled coming up from the cellar."

She replied with a little noise, more like consent than a grumble. Tanner resisted the urge to seek out her mouth. His wolf was tired from the transfusion of blood and magic into Esme's creature. He and Michelle had donated at the same time. Her ability to guide his wolf's energy through his blood and into the thin tube was crucial. Except for Cade and Iris, all of the donations would occur with the same arrangement of a wolf and a latent together.

"Turn the handle," he said, reaching the door to his room on the second floor.

Michelle reached out and twisted the knob as he used his foot to nudge the door open. Crossing the threshold, he sniffed for fresh scents. He had half expected to find the cub hiding up here, but his nose told him no one had entered since the last time he left.

"Will you put me down now?" she asked with a soft murmur.

Tanner growled, the sound all gums and no fang.

"I know," she teased. "You want me sleeping on the finest bed filled with goose down."

He lowered Michelle until her feet touched the ground, then shook his head, just enough moonlight coming through the bare window for her to see his shrug.

"I don't know about that," he answered. "Those space foam ones are kind of nice. Used one in a hotel once. It was the kind with a remote to lift the head and feet how I wanted. Right now, though, I'd take an air mattress and call it Heaven if it meant you weren't sleeping on the floor."

"We'll be back to beds soon enough," Michelle chirped as she settled on the blankets, then held her hand out.

"And furnaces," he grumbled.

She laughed, the sound seemingly aimed at his cock and balls.

At least that's where it hit.

"I promise to keep you warm if you'll stop being so damn chivalrous," she teased him further.

Tanner's cock twitched, but his lips flattened. He didn't think she could see the change in his expression, but she sensed it as a mate would.

Reaching up, she captured his hand and tugged.

"I sensed it as a mate because we are mates," she reminded him. "And, no, I'm not intentionally reading your mind. But after the last half hour cuddling in a chair as I nudged your wolf's energy through you, it's going to take a while to disconnect."

"That whole experience was a big, slippery bag of weird," Tanner said, letting Michelle tug him onto the blankets with her. With his back to the wall, he pulled her onto his lap. He intended to cradle her again, her back against his chest, but she turned sneaky and outmaneuvered him so that they were chest to chest and her legs straddled his, her knees pressed against his hips.

"I hate that Esme is trapped in there with that thing," she said, resting her head on his shoulder. "I feel sorry for it at the same time."

She sniffed and Tanner felt her body tighten with tension. He stroked at her hair, trying to calm her.

"You saw inside that guy's head at the store, a little flash, at least. Even after he was dead, it seemed."

"Yes," she agreed. "When he was reading the list and realized it was the same as what he would regularly put together for delivery here, there was such a sharp shock of recognition in him I could see it. And scientists have discovered that there's brain activity similar to a deep sleep for up to ten minutes after death, so I thought why not touch him and find out."

Pausing, she tightened against him. "Are you asking me if I can read the creature?"

"Yeah." He squeezed her a little closer at the admission, his feelings turning even more protective. The thing on the slab was already taking a terrible toll on the witch. He wouldn't let it begin to infect Michelle.

She eased back, enough that she could see what little the moonlight through the window revealed of his face.

"There's this famous painting you might have seen." She cupped the sides of her face with her hands, then dropped her jaw so that her mouth fell completely open at the same time her eyes widened. "That's what the painting looks like—some hairless but bald creature on a boardwalk, the ocean and sunset with it and a couple scrolling behind."

"The Scream," he said. "Never liked that damn thing."

"Me neither. It's so creepy," Michelle agreed. "And it's what I felt when we were connected to the golem. But she's the one screaming in horror and we were the couple strolling blithely behind her."

Tanner smelled Michelle's tears before he caught light glinting off them. She still hadn't lowered her hands from her head. He eased his fingers beneath them so that he cradled the sides of her face. Pulling her toward him, he kissed one cheek, then the other, his lips erasing the tears.

"Don't let that stay in your head, baby girl."

She responded with a stunted laugh and a long pause before delivering a verbal punch straight to his gut.

"Then help me drive it away."

They fell motionless and silent for a few minutes as she waited him out.

"You're amazing," Tanner said at last.

Michelle huffed, shook her head.

"Here comes the 'but' part, right?"

"No." Tanner squirmed against the blankets and the hard floor beneath them. She really had no idea how much self-control he was exercising at that moment. Exercising and depleting. "We have no idea what's going to happen before the night is through, let alone tomorrow. You could have died today. I should have—"

She stopped him with the slam of her closed hand against his chest.

"Mitch Tanner, that was no one's fault! Quentin has holed up in this place with no electricity, no running water, no damn humanity. No one could have guessed he embedded at least a few people in the closest town. That's the exact opposite of things making sense. Hell, there was a state patrol deputy living here!"

Capturing the hand Michelle had hit him with, he brought it to his lips and kissed it.

She jerked it from his grip.

"We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow or the day after," he argued.

"All the more reason to seize tonight!"

She tried to crawl off his lap in a huff, but he pulled her back to him. Softening against him, Michelle switched arguments.

"Mated pairs make the clan stronger, or is that a lie?"

"I believe it to be true," he answered after first responding with a shrug.

"Emphasis on mated," she pressed. "There's power in the act of sex. Even more if it leads to conception."

Feeling Tanner retreat at the mention of pregnancy, she wound her fingers through his hair and pushed her face against his, her breasts flattening against his hard chest.

"Tell me I'm wrong."

"You're not."

A thrill of impending victory surged through her.

"Tell me you don't want me."

"I do."

She exhaled, the sound sharp, and then she lightly tapped his thick skull against the wall. Releasing him, she stood and peeled her blouse off, then her bra. Her skirt dropped down next to puddle against the blankets, leaving her in panties and a pair of sandals. She kicked the sandals off as she rushed forward, her palms and breasts pressed against the wall, her legs spread, a foot planted on each side of Tanner and her slick pussy, covered only with the thinnest of polyester, nudging his face.

"Show me," Michelle whispered, pelvis tilting until her clit, trapped behind the soaked fabric of her panties, came even with his lips.

Groaning, Tanner tugged at the fabric with his teeth. Hands trembling, he wrapped his fingers around the back of her calves, then pushed hard with his mouth against her pussy. With a trembling moan, Michelle leaned into the pressure.

He hooked the gusset of her panties with his index finger, tugged it aside and swiped just the tip of his tongue from the rim of her warm, wet pussy up to the top of her swollen clit. Bracing herself with her forearms, Michelle leaned harder against the wall. She spread her legs wider, gasping when Tanner used three fingers to penetrate her.

Fuck, she was going to climax all over his face if he kept licking her clit and his fingers thrusting into her clenching pussy.

Her ass bobbed, did a little dance. Tanner kept three of his fingers locked in a tight pyramid, pushing and throttling inside Michelle as he sucked and nibbled the hard pearl of her clit.

"No," she gasped, jerking back. "You're not going to get off easy again, making me come then swaddling me in blankets so I can't touch you."

"Then haul that sweet pussy down here," he groaned.

Her knees buckled. Tanner caught her before she could slam against the hard tile. Supporting her weight, he eased Michelle onto her back, stripped her panties away, then shed his own clothes.

He tried to bury his face between her plump thighs, but she twisted until her lips could first kiss, then suck in the fat head of his cock. She groaned around him, the vibrations curving his spine backward. He sprung forward again, hungry for the chance to keep tasting the slick folds between her thighs.

Working an arm underneath Michelle, Tanner grabbed both ass cheeks, one with each hand, and teased her with ravenous licks that ran along the length of her wet pussy, lashed across her swollen clit, then raced across the perineum to flick at that other tight hole.

She bucked against him, sucked his cock deeper down her throat while gently rolling his testicles with one hand. Her control amazed him. He could do hard or soft, not both. His fingers plunged and probed with the same overwhelming appetite as his tongue. Her moans rattled Tanner's soul as he fought back his own release.

He wanted her to come for him, to go all limp and soft for a few seconds before he spun around and impaled her with his throbbing shaft. When he came, he wanted it to be inside her despite all the arguments that had raged repeatedly inside his head since the first time he saw Michelle.

"Yes," she cried breathlessly, body squirming, fingers trembling. "Yes…"

He didn't know whether it was her climax pushing the word past her swollen lips over and over or if she had seen inside his head again, had felt his desire to come inside her, her tight pussy pulling his seed deeper inside her, up to where an egg waited for it.

"Yes!" she cried again, her mouth and hands abandoning his vulnerable flesh as her climax overwhelmed her.

Tanner kept sucking and thrusting four fingers in, his thumb fighting with his tongue to badger her throbbing clit. She bucked, her release squirting into his growling mouth.

Groaning, he licked his lips, capturing and savoring each drop as Michelle collapsed against the blankets in a trembling heap.

He fell on top of her, his work-rough hands spreading her thighs, his cock spearing inside the sweet, clutching hole his fingers had just savaged. Michelle threw her arms around his shoulders, cinched him tight, her lush frame slamming upward with the same intensity as he slammed into her.

Her wet, weeping pussy sucked at his cock, demanded his climax as another ricocheted inside her. Her arms hugged him tight. Her lips pressed against his, tasting the pleasure he had already ripped from her.

Breaking the kiss, Tanner buried his face against her neck as he came, his release bringing with it the words she had waited so long for him to voice.

"Baby, I love you."