ServingNicole Read online

  “Are you okay so far?” he asked in a low voice as he again palmed her ass.

  “It’s…” His fingers entered the crease and separated her cheeks as he kneaded her rounded flesh. “It’s strange, but I’m fine.”

  “Good. I’m going to take away the block, a little at a time. Focus on my touch. Don’t think of anything else. Give in to your arousal completely and use it to block out everything but the passion we’re sharing.” His hands moved to her hips and held her in place as his body molded against hers.

  He was naked and solid and his stiff cock pressed against her lower back. She wanted to touch it, see if it was as big and thick as she imagined it must be, but he distracted her by moving his hands up her abdomen and capturing her breasts. He pinched and toyed with both nipples at once and a bullet of pleasure shot down to her clitoris as surely as though it were that bud he was pinching. There was no stopping the moan of appreciation escaping her throat. His touch was as exciting as she’d imagined, but it only made her want even more.

  He continued to fondle her breasts as he kissed her neck and her pussy creamed in anticipation of his attention there. This was the most decadent, delicious feeling she’d ever experienced, yet she was anxious to discover how the final moment would play out. How much more powerful would it be than what she could do for herself?

  Abruptly the block disappeared. Not gradually as he had warned. All at once the delicious sensations drowned in the tidal wave of his emotional memories. A heartbeat later his fingers dove down to her cunt and pressed.

  “Focus,” he demanded and rotated his fingers against her clit. “You’re so wet, it wouldn’t take much to make you come. And you will, Nicole, I promise, but if you don’t focus, I’ll have to take my hand away…”

  He lessened the pressure to back up his threat but she covered his hand with hers and held it against herself. “No, please. I can do this. Don’t stop.” Her body vibrated from head to toe but she couldn’t tell if it was from the state of cliff-hanging arousal or the emotional onslaught from him.

  “You have to do it all at the same time, Nicole. Focus on my touch and how it excites you and use that energy to build a wall against all the stuff coming from me that you don’t want to deal with. Focus on my hand massaging your breast, rolling your nipple. Think about my fingers playing with your pussy, sliding your own cream over your clit and dipping back into your crevice for more. There’s nothing more important than the pleasure I’m giving you.”

  He ran his tongue up to her ear and nibbled her lobe. His warm breath tickling her ear made her shiver in his arms. But she did as he had instructed. She concentrated on his hands and mouth, touching, stroking and teasing. Her arousal grew more demanding the harder she focused.

  The length of his cock nestled in the crack of her ass and rubbed up and down, promising her what she needed if she could just do as she was told. She visualized the big, stiff erection ramming into her cunt and in a blink she was able to put a section of his emotions behind a wall and keep them there.

  The fingers slipping in and out of her slit took on a purposeful rhythm and she parted her legs a bit more. She felt him inside and out, playing in a way so arousing she could barely stand. The heel of his palm rubbed her clit, up and down, round and round, and with each second she found it easier to concentrate on his hands and what he was doing to her body while closing off more and more of his irrelevant feelings.

  All she needed was a little more and, just by having the thought, she got her wish. His massage homed in on her clitoris and the pace picked up, making her so weak with desire his other hand abandoned her breast in order to hold her up at her waist.

  She was so close to climaxing, yet she couldn’t get there. Suddenly, she remembered what he had said. She’d focused on the pleasure and blocked out everything else, but she wasn’t supposed to shut out his desire. He had referred to it as their shared desire. She kept a part of her mind on how his hand and fingers moved, keeping her on the edge, and psychically reached out to him. The instant she found his desire, she latched on to it and bound it to hers, doubling the sensation, doubling the need for release.

  She whimpered aloud and clutched his thighs as she shifted her hips back and forth against his hand, knowing she was giving his cock a good rubbing as well. She felt how her movements, as well as her own excitement, aroused him to a desperate state but she was unable to do anything to help him. All her thoughts and energy were focused on the way his fingers expertly worked on her clit.

  You can let go now, Nicole. It’s time for you to come for me.

  As though they were the most magickal words in the universe, her body shuddered with a powerful orgasm that he kept going with stroke after stroke after beautiful, satisfying stroke.

  Nicole felt as if she were floating as he picked her up and gently placed her on the bed. She expected him to remove the blindfold, but apparently the exercise was still in progress. He arranged two pillows under her bottom, causing her back to arch but he immediately made her more comfortable by bending her knees. He spread her thighs and settled on the bed between her legs. He’d positioned her so her mons was now displayed and easily accessible to him.

  And she didn’t feel the least embarrassed about it.

  He leaned over her, kissed her nose, her mouth, her chin. The length of his cock settled between her open nether lips. She would have shifted her hips to give him a slick caress but her position made it nearly impossible. He obviously still wanted to hold the reins. He kissed each shoulder before moving his lips to one of her nipples. Slowly, he sucked it into his mouth and simultaneously slid his erection up and down along her cunt.

  Nicole gasped as pleasure leapt between the two sensitive spots. She was both surprised and delighted to have her arousal heighten in a heartbeat. She was more than ready to have his body join with hers and treat him to a mind-blowing release, but he was intent on giving her other breast equal time before moving lower. When he finally did, she moaned in protest when his penis abandoned its nest. Then she gasped in ecstasy when his mouth descended on her pussy.

  His lips, tongue and teeth sucked, licked and nibbled her sensitized flesh until she was certain she could take no more, yet a climax hung just out of reach. She loved what he was doing with his mouth but she wanted his penis and he was keeping that out of her reach as well.

  Suddenly, she realized she’d been effortlessly holding the block in place against the parts of his mind she didn’t want to feel. But the part she did want to share—his desire—wasn’t there. He was blocking it from her!

  Driven by a need more intense than she’d known possible, she mentally ripped away the block and was instantly overwhelmed by the powerful desire he’d been holding at bay. The moment their needs came together, Brett drove his cock into her cunt and she cried out with relief as he stretched and filled her. When he partially withdrew and plunged forward again and again, she was shocked to discover the increased excitement created by her tilted position. His rigid penis repeatedly poked and stroked the bundle of nerves inside her vagina at the same time as it grazed her clit.

  She felt both his need and restraint as clearly as if it were her own. Every time she flexed her muscles around that instrument of supreme pleasure, he groaned with the effort it took not to immediately climax.

  In the next shared, gasping breath came something more. Their clawing need for orgasmic release began blending and coiling like two snakes of fire, building in intensity with each crossing, and a whisper of fear tiptoed in…until she heard him speak in her mind again.

  Nicole, you need to say these words—I embrace my role as a Daughter of the Elemental Goddesses.

  What she needed, almost more than life itself, was to be allowed to climax. His cock steadily thrust and throbbed deep inside her vagina, and her entire body trembled in response. And yet they hovered there, on the brink of a sexual explosion. She felt his near frantic plea for her to say the words and could not help but respond, “I embrace my role a
s a Daughter of the Elemental Goddesses.”

  I welcome all the abilities that are mine by divine right, including the ability to control those gifts, talents and skills.

  She homed in on the ability to control part and willingly repeated the sentence.

  I wish to become the alchemist I was destined to be.

  She hesitated.

  It’s all or nothing, Nicole Claret. His penis drew back and plunged forward again.

  Hurriedly she repeated, “I wish to become the alchemist I was destined to be.”

  The restrained orgasm broke loose in the next heartbeat. Nicole felt swept up in an electrical storm and hurled into space as her body trembled with shock after shock of sparkling pleasure.

  As the violent tremors of her climax racked through her, a vision appeared in her mind—the coiled snakes of fire she’d sensed during her building arousal rose up out of their bodies, burst into a mighty flame above them and vanished in a puff of smoke, along with the ferocity of the orgasm. For several delicious minutes afterward, her body hummed with sensation.

  When she finally calmed, Brett moved the pillows, stretched out beside her and removed the blindfold.

  “Wow,” was the best description she could manage.

  He gave her a soft kiss. “Wow yourself. And speaking of wow…”

  His gaze shifted to her abdomen where his finger traced a curvy line from beneath her right breast, around her navel to her left hip and back to the top of her pubic mound. Wherever his finger touched her skin tingled. When he petted the spot on her lower tummy, without returning his eyes to hers, she raised her head to see what he was so intrigued with.

  To her utter shock, her abdomen was now decorated with a tattoo of a slender black, red and yellow-ringed serpent.

  Chapter Three

  Nicole leapt from the bed and rushed to the mirror. She had been wanting to get a tattoo for years, but never in her wildest imagination had she thought of doing something like this. It was outrageous and a stunning work of art. The colors and detail were beautiful, but she would have rather had some say in it. “Did you do this?” she asked, trying to sound annoyed but not quite managing it.

  Brett propped up on one elbow and grinned. “Nope. But it looks fantastic. Extremely sexy,” he said, emphasizing the beginning of that word with a hiss. “With just the right amount of warning about how dangerous you are.”

  She twisted from side to side to see the artwork from different angles. The snake’s head rested just above her pubis. At least its eyes and mouth were closed. “But if you didn’t do this, how did it happen? Is it permanent?”

  His grin spread to a smile. “Oh, trust me, it’s permanent. I think I’m a little jealous though. Mine only came in dark gray.”

  She walked back to the bed, sat down and examined the snake tattoo coiling around and down his arm. There was nothing unusual about the way the tinted skin felt to her touch and yet it exuded an aura of strength. Hers, on the other hand, was much more sensual. “I’d like an explanation please.”

  “You and your damn explanations,” Brett teased. He sat up with a pillow propped behind his back and drew her to his side. “Like yours, mine appeared when I accepted my destiny. One of the signs of the alchemist is the caduceus—”

  “The medical staff with the serpent?”

  “Exactly. Which is very appropriate because the other power of an alchemist is healing.”

  “You mean you can help the sick or take away pain?”

  He frowned. “No. I can’t. Transmutation is my ability. But I believe you can, or at least you’ll be able to. As an empath, you could feel someone’s pain but since you couldn’t stand being in physical contact with anyone, you couldn’t very well help them.”

  “So you’ll be able to teach me how to do that? Heal people?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t teach you what I don’t know how to do. My job is more about…preparing you. The Shadowling library has thousands of years of information compiled by other alchemists with the healing gift. You’ll find everything from magick spells and making potions to surgical procedures. And as your ability matures, you’ll write your journal and add it to the library.”

  Nicole’s mind was busy trying to assimilate everything he said, but each sentence seemed to raise ten more questions. Finally, one thought bubbled to the top of the muddle. “The Magician card! In tarot, the first card is the Magician, but it’s sometimes called the Alchemist.”

  He nodded. “Do you read the cards?”

  “No, I just studied a whole lot of different things trying to understand my ability. But I remember one of the symbols on the card is the snake, sometimes wrapped around the Magician’s waist like a belt.”

  “Right. It represents wisdom. The Magician is given the whole gamut of powers and the snake is meant to help him use the powers wisely.”

  “Will I be able to do other things now, besides healing?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know yet. The females of the Sisterhood are generally more powerful than the males who are bound—who are in service to them. We’ll just have to run a few more exercises to find out.” His grin was a message of pure, unadulterated lust.

  She raised her head to kiss his mouth as she trailed her fingertips down his chest. “Well, I am definitely willing and eager to learn and I did agree to do anything you told me…” Her hand continued downward until she found the object she was still quite curious about. Not only had she guessed correctly, she was delighted to learn just how big and thick his cock was, even at rest. She wrapped her hand around it and got a twitch in response. Apparently he wasn’t completely at rest.

  She uncurled her fingers and went on to explore his balls with a feathery touch. His penis swelled a bit more from her attention. She was about to see how quickly he could regain his full glory when a disturbing thought interrupted her seduction.

  “Umm, Brett? I hate to mention this but, umm, I’m afraid, between your sex magick emanations and our mutual chemistry, I didn’t give a thought to protection.”

  “You didn’t have to. I took care of it.”

  She sat up so she could look him in the eye. “How?”

  He fanned his fingers in front of her. “Transmutation comes in handy for all sorts of things.”

  She frowned at him. “Not funny.”

  He sighed. “You’re the human lie detector. Am I telling you the truth? Go ahead, poke around if you’d like.” He stared directly into her eyes and gave her access.

  She was very tempted to poke around but remembered his comment about ethics and stopped when she had her answer about the protection. “Okay. Sorry I doubted you.”

  “It makes sense. You’re still thinking of me as a stranger. But I know how to fix that too.” He got off the bed and pulled her to her feet. “We’re going out.”

  Nicole felt a stab of disappointment over his preference to leave rather than stay in bed with her, but then she realized he was excited over whatever they were about to do. She accepted Brett’s hand and he led her to the balcony doors.

  “Whoa,” she said, digging in her heels. “I’m barely used to being naked in front of you. I’m not ready to parade around—”

  He touched a finger to her lips. “Don’t worry. No one will see you where we’re going. Now relax and close your eyes.”

  She obeyed, though somewhat reluctantly. She heard the doors open and stepped outside with him. She smelled the salty air coming off the ocean but it felt hot and steamy, not at all like when she arrived at the manor a short while ago. Her eyes opened without waiting for permission.

  The ocean was there but it wasn’t the same. The rocky Maine shoreline had been replaced by an expanse of white sand and, instead of oaks and maple trees, there were coconut palms and dense tropical foliage. A rough-hewn wooden deck scraped against her bare feet—not at all what she had seen through the glass panels on the balcony doors.

  Slowly she turned around. Instead of the oak and glass double doors she had just passed
through, there was a narrow doorway with a canvas tarp pushed to one side. Beyond the opening was a minimally furnished room.

  Shadowling Manor was gone and in its place was a weathered, one-room hut with a palm-frond roof and a covered porch. Not knowing what question to ask first, she simply looked up at Brett and waited for him to explain.

  “Care for a swim? The water is perfect.”

  He tugged her onto the sand but she refused to go beyond the tide line without an explanation. “Just slow down there, Mister Wizard. What the hell is going on? Where are we? What happened to the spooky mansion? How did—”

  Again he hushed her with a touch on her lips and smiled down at her. “Do you have to have an explanation for everything? Look around you. We’re in paradise. Can’t you just enjoy that?”

  She made a face at him as she gave his questions serious thought. “Nope. Not possible. Too many years spent on guard to just go with the flow. I promise not to question the explanation but you’ve got to give me one.”

  He slowly inhaled the sea air then smiled at her. “All right. But only a short version for now. We still have work to do.”

  She couldn’t help but hope it was more of the kind of work they’d done already. His wink promised she wouldn’t be disappointed.

  “The balcony doors are a portal. I only had to visualize a deserted island in the Pacific and that’s where we went.”

  Nicole couldn’t prevent the shock from showing on her face. “A portal? To anywhere you imagine? Can it also take us to another time?”

  “You promised no questions then asked three. But the answers are yes, yes and yes. And now I will ask you one. Do I need to carry you into the water or will you dive in on your own?”

  She shelved the rest of her questions and ran into the warm surf until it lapped at her waist. He was barely a moment behind her, and one second after that he had her in his arms again. She rose on tiptoes. He lowered his head. And as his mouth crashed down on hers, she wasn’t even slightly surprised that she was ready for another mind-stealing fuck. When his tongue found hers, he may as well have stroked her clit with a wet finger at the same time. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she leaned into him and felt his cock grow against her stomach. A delightful tickle in her core made her shiver and she rubbed her belly back and forth over his arousal.