Resting her chin on his stomach for a moment, she looked up at him with an open, tender expression that stole what little breath he still had. “You’re going to be okay, baby. It’s going to feel like a lot, like you’re going to come apart, but you can trust me. It will be good. If not, we never have to do this again, okay? I’m right here with you.”
His fist tightened in her hair. “Do you promise?”
Moisture glittered in those pretty hazel eyes. Her smile softened. “Yes, Cal. I promise.”
Only when he nodded did she finally dip her head back down. He let out something close to a shout when her lips closed over him again. Her left hand drew comforting patterns on his stomach and side as she sucked, gently at first, then harder and faster, her right hand working in tandem with her mouth with a pulling, twisting motion.
His blood rushed with a pulsing beat. It was a roar in his ears, overpowering his own involuntary moans and the slick, erotic sound of her mouth on him. That pressure returned with a vengeance. It pulled and pulled and pulled, curling his toes in his boots and forcing a raw, terrifying noise from his throat.
And then the tension snapped.
Cal cried out, hips bucking hard, and grasped the sides of her head to still her movements as bursts of pure pleasure rocked him to the core.
When there was nothing left of him, he felt his muscles unlock, his shoulders sagging and his eyelids falling shut as he finally, finally got some air back in his lungs.
The feeling of soft, warm fingers gently tucking him back into his briefs and then rubbing soothing circles over his hips and thighs brought him back to the present.
Cal blinked hard, dispelling the little white lights that danced across his vision, to see Elise grinning up at him. As he watched, dumbstruck, her tongue snaked out to catch a drop of come from escaping the corner of her mouth. She winked up at him.
“Gods, I love blowjobs,” she murmured, “but that has got to be the single best sexual experience of my fucking life.” Her eyes glittered. “And next time it will be even better.”
He dropped to his knees. There was nothing else he could do. His legs certainly wouldn’t support him anymore. He wasn’t even sure they were fully corporeal. Not that he cared. If she asked it of him, he would have even crawled.
Cupping her cheeks, Cal leaned forward to breathe against her swollen mouth, “You’re going to kill me, witch.”
She bumped her nose against his, playful and sweet and too good for him. Too bad he was past worrying about that. He was a murderer and a monster and he’d rot in the mud of Grim’s riverbank, but he was fucking hers.
Elise pressed a soft kiss to his lips. He felt her smile against them when she said, “Well, death’s not really what I’m after—”
A powerful, percussive wave knocked them both to the ground. Cal threw himself over Elise as trinkets and baubles began to rain down from the shelves around the room. His ears rang with a single, high note as he curled his arms around her, blocking any shards of glass from reaching her fragile skin.
A series of smaller explosions rent the air, one after another; several distant booms that shook the annex’s thin walls. In total, it only lasted a minute or two, but with the fear for Elise coursing through his veins like ice water, it might as well have been a lifetime.
Only when he was sure that it was over did Cal cautiously lift his head to examine the room. Elise pushed at him, wiggling to be let up, but he needed to know that the roof wasn’t about to fall on her before he allowed her out from under him.
When a cursory scan found only minimal damage to things not bolted to the walls, he reluctantly let her crawl out from under him. “Watch the glass. You’ll cut your hands,” he warned.
“My hands! Screw my hands!” Elise shook her head and surged to her feet. Two strides took her to the door. “Was that an explosion or some insanely massive bolt gun shots? Gods, I have to go check on my parents!”
Cal followed her mad dash back through the garden and into the house. The afterglow of their time in the annex was wiped away by the sight of a living room full of glass — all from the broken windows, which had apparently blown inward — and Rachel attempting to help Bob up from where he knelt on the floor by the couch.
Elise rushed over to help. Putting a shoulder under her father’s arm, she asked, “Are you guys okay? What happened?”
Frowning, Cal gently extracted her from under her father and took her place. Using his greater strength, he managed to get Bob onto the couch with minimal jostling.
Rachel stood by the armrest and shook her head. She looked shaken, but unharmed. Bob didn’t look much worse, save for a small cut to the side of his head and a muttered complaint about his bum knee. “I don’t know!” Elise’s mother answered. “We were just turning on an entertainment feed when the windows shattered.”
Elise grabbed a fistful of the back of Cal’s shirt and leaned around him to peer out the window. The flush in her cheeks died away. “Oh, fuck me,” she breathed, “there’s a fire! Gods, I told the association that those old gas lines needed to be removed.”
Cal straightened, his mouth settling into a grim line. They shared a look.
Elise sucked in a deep breath and nodded once, firmly, toward the door. She gave him a gentle shove. “Go.”
* * *
FROM THE DESK OF ELISE SASINI, A TRANSCRIPT OF AN AUDIO RECORDING DATED FEBRUARY 8th 2045:
ELISE: Can— can we circle back to… back around to what you said before. About your vigil.