She shimmied up onto his lap, her legs hanging over the sides of his heavy thighs. When he sat like this, huge and relaxed and male, Cleo had a hard time keeping herself from launching herself on him. It always surprised her, every time, that she could just… do things like that.
Cleo ground down against him, causing them both to groan. He kissed her, his tongue stroking hers, causing little flares of electricity to shoot to her clit. Ian chuckled, low and dark, when she arched her back into him. The bastard. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Ian pulled back, just slightly, and left a sweet kiss on the corner of her mouth.
“Am I distracting you from your meeting?”
The meeting. Shit, that’s right. Cleo was mad him. He was being loud.
“You’ll be in the cauldron next if you keep that up, buddy,” she warned him. He laughed outright at that, his hands stroking down the curve of her waist.
“But when I annoy you, you reward me by sitting on my lap,” he said, and thrust against her, a slow grind that had her eyes rolling back into her head.
“But when you make me happy, I reward you by putting your cock in my mouth,” she said. . Ian’s hands flexed against her, too tight. Ah, there it was.
Ian cleared his throat. “I do strive to make you happy,” he said. He looked hungry and Cleo shivered.
She reluctantly rose to her feet, keeping the process as slow as she could make it, teasing them both.
“I had an ulterior motive for running the table saw,” Ian admitted. He thrust out a chunk of rock that was on the table. “I meant to give this to you earlier, but you distracted me,” he said, the accusation as clear as his desire for her. Cleo grinned, unrepentant. They’d distracted each other well enough earlier that day.
“This is from Dante.” The smile dropped off of Cleo’s face. “He said you’d need this tonight.”
Not rock then, but fire agate. It was smooth against her hand, the gray and red striations beautiful. She’d spoken with Dante once, since that night in the woods. He said he’d give her something for Siobhan. Cleo hadn’t heard from her sister since their last conversation, and Dante said he didn’t know where she was. Cleo wasn’t an idiot, however, and Dante was a shit liar.
“Tonight?” she asked. She tried to quash the hope that rose with the thought of her sister. Cleo tried to make her question casual. “Does Dante think Siobhan will be around?”
Ian’s smile was gentle and uncertain, and it pissed Cleo off. She didn’t want gentle, she wanted her sister.
“He didn’t say,” was all Ian said. He curled her fingers around the stone.
Cleo brought the words up, and made herself say them. “I am worried about her, Ian.” There. Something to tell Dr. Ross when Cleo saw her next. If Ian was dumb with his words, then Cleo was dumb with her feelings. Dr. Ross was helping her with that. Therapy was embarrassing and awkward, but Cleo had to admit it was making her life better. Apparently there was something to that “emotional honesty” Siobhan was always harping on about. Cleo would tell Siobhan that, next time she saw her. Whenever that was.
Ian pressed a quick kiss to Cleo’s lips. “I’m going to track her,” he said. He’d said this about fifteen different times. Cleo had the same response, and she said it now, too.
“If she wants me, she knows where I am.” Ian drew a breath to respond, and Cleo responded with the coup de grace. “Please, Ian. Please.”
That was the only way to get him to back down, Cleo found. Not arguing, not fighting. But a quiet ‘please,’ dragged out from the depth of her, stopped Ian.
He didn’t look happy. That was fine. She could work with that.
She tucked the fire agate into her jean pocket.
“I’m going to back to the stupid boob mug, and I’m banishing the hell out of it,” Cleo promised. “And then we’re going to game night at Mari’s.”
Ian’s eyes darkened. “And then we’re doing unspeakable things to each other tonight at my house.” Cleo laughed.
“We haven’t done anything in your murder shed yet,” she said. Cleo ran a careful fingertip along the length of his work table. Ian groaned in response, laughter mingling with frustrated desire. Her laughter floated behind her as she moved into the cool night air.
Cleo made her way back to her coven, her woods a silent witness to her happiness. She felt the tug of the green space, and directed her smile towards the song of the woods.
The end.
About the Author
Elizabeth Alcroft reads science fiction, fantasy, and romance when she’s not writing it in lovely Minnesota. She's a fan of walking in dark woods, poisonous plants, and dressing like a camp counselor.
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