One True Mate: Shifter's Solace (Kindle Worlds Novella)(10)
And that was why, however nice these men seemed…
“The little golden angel,” she asked abruptly. “The one I found just before the shop burned. Is it magic? What does it do?”
“Your shiftsegen,” Rory answered. “It was left for you by your father. We know they’re powerful, but they’re also unpredictable. Did anything…happen when you touched it?”
They’d heard rumors.
“If it had,” Ivy said, playing her cards close to her chest,” should I trust it?”
“Yes,” Rory said at once. “Your father wanted only the best for you, for shiften, and for humankind.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. Because that meant her vision could be trusted. And that meant that Rory could not.
*
Ivy let her head drop back as the warm water ran over her aching muscles. Ben had agreed to run out and fetch a pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts and some underwear in her size. She hadn’t been able to persuade Rory to go with him – “Are you crazy? I’m not leaving you here alone. Fifty-two percent of accidents happen in the home!”
She’d argued that yes, they’d already established that she might be crazy, and anyway this wasn’t her home, but he’d been adamant about staying with her. She’d made it clear, though, that if he insisted on guarding her, he could do it from outside the locker room while she took a shower. She was smeared with stinking ash and sticky with fear-sweat, and she desperately wanted to feel clean.
She sighed as she squirted a pool of liquid soap into her palm. There was no separate shampoo – she guessed firefighters didn’t go in for coconut-scented, salon-perfect curls. She sighed again as she ran her soapy hand over her breast, her nipple perking to life against her fingers. Her mind wandered to Rory; his big, muscular body and his intense blue eyes. She let herself imagine it was his large hands running over her body, one cupping her breast and the other trailing down over her belly to the water-beaded curls between her thighs.
She imagined how it would feel to stand on tiptoe and press her mouth against his, chewing on his plump pink bottom lip. He’d wrap his arm around her waist and yank her against him, and she’d feel the subtly throbbing ridge of his erection against her hip. She’d wriggle against him, and he’d groan at the friction, sweeping his tongue into her mouth, thrusting it against hers to mimic how it would feel when he was inside her, hips pumping, driving a breathless whimper from her with every thrust.
Her fingers wandered to her tingling slit, and she parted her folds, running her finger through the slick moisture. She bit her lip and repressed a tiny whimper as her finger found her clit and she circled it gently, imaging Rory above her, inside her, rocking her to the core with every thrust of his—
Bang!
The door to the locker room slammed back against a locker, jolting her from her erotic daydream, and a hot, furious blush rose to her cheeks.
Did he know what she was doing in here? He said she’d called to him with her mind – could he tell that she was touching herself and thinking about him?
“Ivy, are you okay in there? You’re taking a while.” Just the sound of his voice made another flush of embarrassment wash over her.
She snatched her hand away from her pussy and quickly rinsed off.
“I’m fine! I’m coming out now! It was hard to get the smell of smoke out of my hair.”
She reached for the towel draped over the wall of the shower cubicle and wrapped it around herself, tucking it in above her breasts so it would stay in place.
When she stepped out into the locker room, leaving damp footprints on the tile floor, Rory was standing between the lockers and the long bench that ran the length of the room, looking devastatingly handsome. He was wearing a white T-shirt that fitted snugly around his massive biceps and clung to the muscles of his chest and stomach. Dark jeans fitted closely to his powerful thighs and did nothing to hide the impressive size of his cock.
She snatched her gaze away from where it had wandered to, hoping he hadn’t noticed, but there was an intensity in those bright blue eyes that told her he had.
As she walked through the locker room, aware of his eyes on her every step of the way, he slammed his palm against the lockers, stopping her just as she was about to step past him. His other arm came up too, caging her between the lockers and his body, and she turned to face him, looking up into his eyes, the saturated blue of a summer sky and ringed with dark, dense lashes.
Awareness hummed in the air between them, and he stepped closer, lowering his head until his lips were centimeters away from hers. She wondered if he was going to kiss her. The ache between her thighs intensified, along with a sort of restless energy that made her want to press her body against his and twine her arms around his neck and beg him to fuck her.
“You don’t need to hide your arousal from me,” he murmured against her lips. “I can smell it. You want me just as badly as I want you.”
She gave a shuddering sigh, and he stepped back, fisting his hands at his sides as if holding himself back, then turned and strode from the room.
Chapter Nine
She’d thought it would feel nice to be out of the firehouse, walking around among normal people whose lives weren’t full of weirdness like demons and pyromaniac spiders and were-bears – oops, bearen.
Actually, though, she was just scared. As they passed people on the street, she kept wondering whether she was really surrounded by ordinary people going about their everyday lives, or whether they were part of this weird, fucked-up, magical world she’d found herself in.