“Not a single one,” Seth said, so steady my worries washed away. He leaned against the stone railing of the bridge and collected me against him again. “You know how I feel? Like this is where I was always meant to be.”
“It feels that way to me too,” I murmured.
“And part of that is protecting you any way I can. If there’s anything else I can do to make things easier for you…”
It meant so much just to hear him offer. The Spark only knew what he and the other guys were making of this crazy witching world I’d only just started to introduce them to. The world even I hadn’t realized was quite so crazy. Maybe he was still okay now, but soon they’d all be wishing they’d never agreed to tangle themselves up in my life.
My throat constricted at that thought. “What you’re already doing is more than I’d ever want to ask. Most of this—it’s my world. I’m the one who has to navigate it.”
“As long as you know we’ll be right there with you,” Seth said.
His hand came to my cheek again. He caressed my skin from cheekbone to jaw, and then he tipped up my chin to kiss me. I kissed him back, softly and then with growing hunger. Gabriel’s interruption had also put a stop to any more intimate activities my consorts and I might have gotten up to today.
I turned in his arms to kiss him more deeply, clasping my hands behind his neck. Seth’s fingers slid into my hair. Giddy tingles ran through my body as his mouth moved sure and hot against mine.
Even when we stopped for a moment, I kept my head tucked close to his. “There is something else, actually,” I murmured. “I really don’t think you got to have enough of the fun last night. It would mean a lot to me to make that up to you.”
Seth chuckled roughly. “Believe me, I enjoyed every minute of last night. You don’t owe me anything.”
I looked at him with an arch of my eyebrows. “Are you trying to say youdon’twant to have sex?”
His expression was normally so cool and collected, but the heat that flared in his eyes then was enough to melt me. We hadn’t yet. Hadn’t done more than make out, even though it had felt as if I’d opened myself up to all the guys last night.
“I definitely didn’t mean that,” he said. Then he glanced through the trees. “Are we far enough from the house that you’re not worried about someone wandering out this way?”
We were a lot closer than we’d been last night. And being interrupted would definitely ruin the mood.
I took a step back, raising my hands. “I can make sure even if they do, they won’t even know we’re here,” I said with sly smile.
Now Seth’s eyebrows jumped up. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Witch, magic…”
He still sounded a little wary. Seth had always been the most careful of our group, the most worried about what could go wrong. But this time, I was taking care of us.
“Just watch,” I said.
I stepped away with him, swiveling on my feet and swaying with arms extended, drawing magic through the air with the movements of my body. Calling up a barrier all through the forest to repel anyone who might take a midnight stroll out this way. Hiding our presence and shutting us off from outside sight and hearing.
As I moved through the form, Seth’s gaze followed me, full of nothing but awe and desire now. My own desire flooded me. The moment I’d completed the shell of privacy around us, I caught his hand and pulled him to me.
Seth was no witch. He couldn’t see or feel the barrier I’d drawn. But he didn’t hesitate now. He believed in me, in supernatural powers he’d known barely anything about a month ago, unwaveringly.
His mouth collided with mine, taut with wanting. I hummed eagerly as I kissed him back. He stripped off my jacket with a careful but insistent jerk. Then he was palming my breast, rolling the heel of his hand against my nipple, making me whimper. And I could. I could do whatever I wanted here, just a short distance from my own home. Anyone who’d ever tried to keep this man away from me could be damned.
I slid my hands up under his shirt, reveling in the solid muscle beneath that hot skin. Seth’s tongue parted my lips to tangle with mine. He gripped my waist and hefted me up onto the top of the stone railing with one smooth movement.
My legs splayed around his waist. As I hooked them tighter, kissing him harder, his hand traveled down to cup my sex. I whimpered into his mouth. My panties were already damp with need. Seth groaned.
“Next time,” he muttered in a voice so desperate it turned me on even more. “Next time we can take things slow.”
“I’m not complaining about this time,” I said, and lost my voice to a moan as he stroked me between my legs. Every particle in my body was calling out to take my consort in every way I hadn’t yet. I needed this man inside me.
I fumbled with the zipper of his jeans and grasped the hard length of his cock through his boxers. Damn, he was big. Bigger than either of the guys I’d been with this way before. A tremor of mingled apprehension and excitement shot through me. I stroked him, familiarizing myself with the feel and size of him, and Seth groaned again.
He yanked at my panties, easing away just far enough to send them slipping down my legs. As I tugged his jeans and boxers down, he hitched up my dress. Then he was catching me by the thighs, bracing me against him as I balanced on the stones, the head of his cock teasing over my core.
“Rose,” he said, like a prayer. His body tensed for a second. “I don’t have—”
“We don’t need anything, remember?” I said, rocking toward him. “My spark keeps me safe unless I tell it I’m ready.”