Captivating The Witch. Michele Hauf

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      “I know you did. That touch was...” He blew out a breath laden with what she guessed was repressed lust. “Just take it easy, will you? Should you get cut, the thorns on my knuckles are capable of imbuing poison into your bloodstream, resulting in death. As for the horns on my temples...they are...sensitive.”

      “Oh.” She’d take that sensitive as meaning sensually sensitive. Interesting. But she wanted to learn more about the thorns. They were a new bodily enhancement to her. “Poison? So you never take the gloves off?”

      He clasped his hands together. “Only when I’m alone.”

      “Bummer. Must make for some weird—” She almost said “sex.” Tamatha swallowed the last of her wine awkwardly. “So that mark on your lower neck looks like a scythe, actually.”

      “It imprinted after I got my horns. Puberty stuff, like the feather. This here.” He traced his inner wrist, which featured a series of black wavy lines, almost as if a drunken bar code. “Was a fight with a werewolf. I won. And this one is a witch ward.” He tugged up his sleeve to reveal a small, solid black circle on the side of his forearm.

      Tamatha smoothed her fingers over the ward. He didn’t flinch. Nor did she. “For or against witches?”

      “It was supposed to be a sort of warning alarm should a witch come too close. Apparently, this one is bogus since I’m not feeling so much as a tingle from your touch. I’ll have words with Sayne next time I see the guy.”

      “You had an ink witch tattoo you with a ward against witches? Doesn’t that sound a trifle ironic? I mean, did you really expect it to work? It came from a witch.”

      He shrugged and a tiny smile softened his dark features. Compelled by his levity, Tamatha touched the corner of his mouth briefly. “I’m glad it doesn’t repel me,” she said.

      “It has alerted me to other witches previously. I’m sure it’s because you are so strong. Of course, that makes little sense. Unless you’ve a ward to repel my witch ward?”

      “It may be my white light.” Which she’d taken off. Hmm... That was weird, but not so startling she need worry about it. They were sitting here now. And he no longer seemed repelled by her presence.

      And he leaned forward to kiss her, but stopped, their faces but a breath from one another. “I told myself I was going to keep it strictly business this evening.”

      “Me, too.”

      He considered it, frowned, but then nodded. “Right. So...” He tilted his head and nudged her nose with his. He smelled like leather and icy cedar. “I’ve always thought that nothing happens accidentally.”

      “Oh, it doesn’t. There are no coincidences in this realm. I’m very sure our running into one another in the alley was destined. Though for what reason, we’ve yet to learn.”

      “Destiny is a big concept. Serendipity sounds cooler.” He pressed his forehead to hers. A hint of wine on his breath compelled her closer and to close her eyes. “Demons and witches have a brutal history,” he said.

      Tamatha nodded. Witches had often been demon conduits through the centuries, along with their faithful familiars. But she didn’t want to discuss their reasons for hating one another right now. Not when she could feel the pulse of his heart in the air and the cool hardness of his horn nub against her skin.

      “This isn’t history, Ed. It’s right now. We’re writing our own pages.”

      “I can get behind that. There is something I want to ask you,” he said, breaking their connection by a few breathless inches, “but after I do, you’ll not like me so much as you do at this moment. So I’m going to keep that one in my pocket for now.”

      “I can deal. Later will always be there waiting. I’ve asked enough questions for one night. I want to set work aside.”

      “No more business.” He exhaled. “This you-and-I thing is really odd for me—”

      Enough small talk. If he continued on that tangent he’d talk himself out of so much fun. “Kiss me, Ed.”

      She tilted up his chin with her forefinger and took the lead by kissing him. He responded nicely by not uttering another protesting word. Relaxing back against the couch, his hands spreading down her sides, he lured her on top of him. His hands glided down the purple velvet to her hips and she knelt between his legs because the skirt was too narrow for her to straddle him.

      Lemon and cedar mingled as the two of them breathed in one another, tasting wine and anticipation, touching warmth, hair and the pulse beats of desire.

      She spread her palm over his neck and felt a soft flutter. A demon sigil that marked him as corax. Cool. She hadn’t read anything about sigils in her research so far, but knew she’d passed her hands over a book or two that detailed demonic sigils. When she returned to the Archives she’d head straight for those books.

      “Do all demons have markings like this? Or wait, you said it was only certain breeds?”

      He tilted a frown up at her, but it quickly softened to a light wonder. “Witch, do you want to research me or kiss me?”

      “Honestly? Both.” She teased a fingertip at the corner of her mouth. “But first I’d like you to stop calling me witch as if it were a bad thing.”

      “Sorry, Tamatha of the pretty green eyes.” He clasped her hand and pulled it up to look at the side of her smallest finger. “Since we’re asking about skin markings, what’s this tattoo mean? Beatus?”

      “Be-aye-tus.” She pronounced the word properly. “It’s Latin for ‘blessed be.’”

      “Special. A witch offering a blessing to a demon? Wonders never cease.”

      “I suppose I should be more cautious around you, but I can tell a lot about a person from his kiss.”

      “Is that so?”

      “You’re trustworthy.”

      She didn’t miss his wince and then told herself she was being too trusting. She knew nothing about this man. But that was why she was there. To learn. And to learn one must set aside caution and dive in for the experience.

      “So you must kiss a lot of people to have developed such a skill?” he proposed.

      “I never kiss and tell.” She traced a finger down the feather on his neck and delighted when it fluttered under her touch. “I’d like to see them all.”

      He waggled a finger at her. “That would involve removing clothing. And I suspect you’re not that easy.”

      “Oh, I’m not.” She tugged down her skirt and started to sit, but then immediately turned to lean into him. Because she couldn’t not look into his eyes. “But kissing you is something I’d like to do more of.”

      “You perplex me.” Grabbing the wine bottle and their empty goblets, he motioned she move aside so he could stand. “You say you want to ask me questions, do research,” he said and set the bottle and glasses on the vanity, “but your body says something entirely different.”

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