Page 23 of Try As I Smite
If he let her keep that up, he’d come faster than he ever had as a callow youth. “Slower,” he begged.
“Like this?”
Drawing back, they watched each other as she pumped her hand down his length in long, endless strokes. In retaliation, he played with her over those wet panties, brushing at the bundle of nerves hidden underneath until she was thrusting into his touch.
Inching back the elastic edge, he slid a finger into her, her inner walls gripping him, slick and soft. In a second, he’d replace that finger with his cock, but right now, he couldn’t look away from the play of emotions over her expressive face.
How could I ever have thought her cold?
Lust reflected back at him, the same haze of need that held him captive, but more was there. Trust. The glitter of excitement. And a wariness that wrapped around his heart like barbed wire, cutting deep. Compelling him to make this so fucking good for her, she’d never look at him like that again.
“Delilah.”
That was his voice. Turning his head, he found the ghosts of both of them standing in the hallway.
Delilah’s previous self turned to face him. “Yes?” she asked.
Only now, instead of frost in her eyes, he caught the flash of something else. Something hotter. There, then gone, hidden away. Holy shit. How had he missed that last time?
The woman in his arms stirred restlessly, and he pumped his finger in her, deliberately adding the push of his thumb against her clit, grinning like a fool at the audible hitch in her breathing. “Don’t look away,” he said.
“Your manipulations worked out,” the memory of himself said.
She raised her eyebrows coolly and said nothing.
“That is the only reason I’m allowing you to walk out of here unchallenged and unscathed.”
Her head came up in challenge, and damned if, like that day, his gut response was a combination of respect and a deeper throb of need.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.
She turned to go, only to be stopped by his hand on her arm, his touch insistent. He remembered suddenly how he hadn’t wanted her to go. Not because he was angry or irritated or threatened, even though he was, but because of her. He’d been…fascinated.
And resentful of that fact.
“I don’t make this warning lightly,” he murmured. He’d needed something to say.
“I believe you.”
“Stay away from my people.”
Now she cocked her head. “I’ll stay away from them if they stay away from me and my clients.”
There. That moment was when he’d decided to keep a close eye on Delilah. Personally. A decision that had led him…here.
Previous Alasdair’s lips thinned.
“You didn’t like that,” Delilah in his arms said, rolling her hips in time to his fingers, which he kept pressing in and out of her.
“I was pissed at myself because I admired your response, and—”
Previous him kept talking. “I understand you have quite a varied clientele. That could prove…difficult.”
She shrugged, attitude plain. His problem. Not hers.
He considered her in silence, and she refused to look away from his stare. After a moment, his lips hitched in a shadow of a smile. “Will you at least contact me if witches are involved?”
Delilah pursed her lips and he could remember thinking only of how he wanted to suck on her lower lip until she melted. “I can’t make guarantees,” she said, “because it may depend on my client and the privacy privileges they hold with me. But I will when I can. That’s the best I can do.”
