Chapter 22

Kate

One of the gates opens and there’s a naked Brooks, snatching my wrist and dragging me into the fence with him. I slam into his body as he drags the gate shut behind me. The moon is stark and white behind the heavy redwood tree boughs. The wind blows through them, bringing down the scent of pine.

He pushes me against the wall, hands on my shoulders. Leans down to stare at me.

“Did you have fun with that?” he asks, but like he’s amused by the idea of me running away.

“I couldn’t find the emergency exit,” I admit. Embarrassing. “Are you guys comfortable in here?” I look past Brooks to see that Marlowe is already naked and in the water, staring at me.

“We knew you’d pass by eventually. You weren’t going anywhere.” Marlowe closes his eyes and leans his head back, basking in the steam. It smells like rosemary and lemon in here.

The sunken tub sits above a handful of steps on a platform that wraps around the large trunk of a tree, a tray of drinks on the ground beside the water. Fluffy white towels are slung over a wooden rack off to one side. With Edison bulbs overhead, and the winking of the moon through the trees, it’s beautiful out here.

“Why? Because you knew that in the end there, I was actually looking for you guys on purpose?” It’s supposed to be a joke, but Marlowe beats me to the punchline.

“No. Because I have the keys to the truck as well as your wallet.” He opens his eyes so that he can stare at me while he smirks.

I’m curious where Tanner is, since I can sense him but not see him. I almost ask, but he beats me to it, hopping over the side of the ten-foot fence that surrounds our tub. He lands hard in the dirt beside me, blue eyes fixed and intent.

He did say that he was always watching, that it was an urge more frequent than breathing.

“You were stalking me?” I tease, but Tanner only shrugs, scraping his teeth over his lip as he stares me down. He takes his hat off, grabs a handful of his T-shirt, and drags it over his head. The opposite of what happened earlier in the day. Shirt off, not on.

Not that the shirt stopped us. We still had sex.

“Is it still stalking if you like it?” he retorts, shoving his pants down without shame and joining Marlowe in the tub. On goes the hat. “Nice try though. Didn’t I tell ya I was worried about the Hag Wytch?”

He seems substantially less amused than the other two. Crap. I keep screwing up with him.

I refocus on Brooks, nude and smug beside me.

“You were looking for us, huh? Good to know. Get naked and get in the tub.” Brooks pushes up off the gate and moves to get back in the water, skin steaming and slightly pink from the heat. He looks back at me. “Haven’t we been through this enough times? When I tell you to take off your clothes, you should just do it.”

Stupid asshole. My mouth twitches.

“Why should I? We’re just here to collect water for the spell. Let’s scoop it up and get going.”

Brooks sighs at me, like I’m frustrating to no end.

“No. We also need to feel the emotion that we’re harvesting. You were absolutely brimming with awe at the canyon, and we were brimming with awe looking at you.”

I almost trip on the stairs, but I manage to catch the edge of the platform. Brooks slides down into the water, turning and folding his arms on the edge. He’s eye-level with me, sunk deep in the tub while I stand on the second step up.

“Here, we need lust.” He says that like it doesn’t mean anything, but his expression is hard to look away from. “Though I suppose if you want to keep your clothes on, we can just rip them off. Would you like that better?”

“Such a dick,” I grumble, climbing the steps and then undressing while they all stare up at me. I choose a spot in the tub that’s equal distance apart from the three of them.

The water feels so good that I groan, wrapping my arms over my breasts and sinking to my chin. I pretend like we’re here for a soak. That’s it. Just for a minute.

“Sorry that I left you with Nathan. I figured you could handle him though.”

“We handled him. Turned his ice-cold drink to a rolling boil and burned his lips and tongue.” Marlowe picks up one of the cups from the tray. I think it’s just ice water. He’s the one driving. The others have cloudy pink liquid, like maybe sake or something?

“Wait, is this witch liquor?” I ask, because I know the guys brought a little bit of their own stuff from the woods.

“Yeah. One of the few things Brooks made in the woods that didn’t taste like shit.” Marlowe points at me with his cup. “Enjoy it because you don’t have to drive.”

“I can drive if you want,” I tell him, curious to see all three of them relax while I stay sober. I feel like I could learn a lot. “Seriously. I’m not in the mood for alcohol tonight.”

They exchange looks.

“She thinks she might be pregnant,” Marlowe tells them, and I gape at him.

“Pregnant?” Tanner’s voice is strange, and if it weren’t for my hat, I’d have no way of knowing why. The tongue whips out to taste the air, unfurling from the seam between the brim and the cone. Tender. Frustrated. A little bit angry, too. Angry with who though? Me, himself, the other guys?

“Kate.” Brooks is somehow annoyed with me, the eyes on his hat sliding around the cone so that he can literally look at me with eyes on the back of his head. Wow. He’s going to be a super shitty dad one day. No child would ever get away with anything.

“I never said that,” I breathe, wanting to choke Marlowe. “What is your problem?”

“That’s what you told me in the bathroom,” he retorts, but I don’t believe for a second that he misinterpreted me. He’s trying to get a rise out of me.

“I told you that I didn’t want to be pregnant. And that I wanted a contraceptive spell. Tanner said that he’d make one for me. We just didn’t get around to it last night.” Now I see where this is going and sigh. “We should probably use protection until—”

Tanner is chuckling.

“No fucking way. We’re not going to do that. I’ve had your bare pussy, and I’m not going backward.” He pulls a vial from his discarded pants pocket, passing it over to me. “Drink. I did get around to it last night. It’s an easy one.”

I down the vial, and then take a drink of the liquor that he passes to me. It’s sweet, mild, very much like sake but with a strong honey-and-floral aftertaste. My head spins, and my hat convulses on my head in a way that gives me the chills.

“Surely we can take the hats off while we’re in the tub?” I ask them, reaching up to pull mine off and nicking myself on one of its teeth. Brooks turns, his hat’s eyes sliding back into place as he faces me. I lift a brow. He pinches all six red eyes in response.

“I appreciate you asking first.” With a sigh, Brooks waves his hand. “Fine, but just while we’re in the water.”

“Thank you,” I say primly, pulling the hat off against its will. It suctions to my head, like the mouth is once again on the inside of the cone. Stupid, stubborn witch hat. I peel it away from my scalp and toss it onto the platform. The men do the same, and then it’s like our night is almost normal for a few seconds.

“We can wear them less when we’re not trying to close an interdimensional gate or bind an owl god into another world.” Brooks has very dry humor, I’ve just now realized. But he’s also serious about it.

I pick up the empty glass vial that Tanner gave me, toying around with it like a fidget. Some of the liquid gets on my fingers, and I suck it off without thinking too much about it. Then my neck prickles with heat, and I get that inner sense that comes with being stared at.

My head lifts up to find the three of them looking at me.

“Do you want to know what that liquid is made out of?” Tanner teases, arms casually resting on the wooden platform that surrounds the tub. He’s leaning back, nice and relaxed. His expression is the only thing that’s sharp. “Cum. Specifically, our cum. Collectively.”

I squeeze my fingers around the glass, and I don’t break it against the side of the hot tub and stab him with it. If they had to jerk-off to get my birth control situation handled, then great. Fine.

“Suck those fingers nice and clean,” Marlowe adds, and he’s got a nasty look on his face, too. He freezes the water in his glass for fun, unfreezes it. Freezes it again. He’s even sitting next to Tanner, like he’s forgotten briefly how much he hates him. Brooks is on the other side, arms folded.

Our shadows frolic together in a circle, like the hot tub is the cauldron and they’re the witches casting.

I pour a bit of my sake into the empty vial, place my thumb over the end, and shake it. Then I down the whole thing in a single swallow and Marlowe lets out a sharp hiss. He liked that. I liked it more than I should.

“Honestly can’t even believe I just did that,” I admit, and I’m pleased to see that I’ve gotten a reaction from all three of them. A surprised huff from Marlowe. A smirk from Tanner. A twitch of Brooks’ angry mouth.

The tree limbs overhead rustle in the breeze, reminding me of the drone.

A sex tape would be really bad, I think again, forcing myself past the thought. There’s literally nothing I can do about that right now. If the drone grabbed footage of me and Tanner in the front yard, it’s already too late.

I should’ve asked to track down the owner of the drone; I bet there’s a spell for that.

I decide that it doesn’t hurt to ask.

“Could we have done a spell to track down the owner of that … remote control airplane with the camera?”

Brooks’ lids lower, giving him this exasperated look that’s a lot hotter than it should be.

“Sure. To get it done quick, we’d need to tear off one fingernail each. That’s the sacrifice part of a spell like that. Still want to do it?” He holds up his right hand, showing off the much shorter nails on two of his fingers.

On the two correct fingers. As in, the ones that he might slip inside of me if … I scoot back against the wall and he drops his hand into the water. Overhead, a flock of brightly colored bats swoop, catching mosquitoes. They’re trailing silver glitter as they move, and they’re one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

But … fingernails? The Witchwoods is equal parts beautiful and grotesque. I drop my gaze back down again, unsurprised to catch a look of challenge on Tanner’s face.

“How many dicks do you think you can take at once?” he asks me, and my eyes go wide.

“Uh. I feel like I’ve more than proven myself on that front.” I’m almost offended by the question.

Tanner shakes his head as Marlowe sweeps a hand over his mouth. Brooks raises his eyebrows, like he didn’t expect the question or my response.

“Not one after the other, but at the same time. This taking turns shit needs to be supplemented with something else.”

I splash Tanner in the face, but he just grins at me.

“What? Come on. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. There are perks to this arrangement for you, kitten. I’m trapped with two dicks, but you’re blessed with three.” Tanner moves forward quickly enough that I don’t expect it, putting his arms on either side of me. I can feel his legs tangling with me underwater. He puts one knee on the seat, right between my knees. “Might as well get your best use out of it.”

“If you three fucked each other, that would solve a lot of our problems.” I shrug my shoulders, like I’m unaffected by his wet body rubbing up against mine. I squeeze my thighs around his knee, so that I don’t end up opening them instead.

Not yet.

I’m going to make them work a little bit.

“Never going to happen. Just enjoy this. We have to do it for the spell anyway, so you may as well relax.” Tanner leans in like he might kiss me, gold and black hair dripping wet and sexy over his forehead, covering his bi-colored brow and the piercing glinting in it. I stop him with a hand on his chest, and he runs his tongue over his lip in a way that’s clearly engineered to grab my attention.

“The spell requires an orgy ?” I clarify, but it’s Brooks who answers from behind him.

“It requires three athames inside of one chalice.”

“I would love to know where those books and all of these stupid spells came from,” I grumble, and I don’t expect an answer to that either.

“My mentor came into the woods with some of them. Wherever she was from, a few thousand years ago, they believed in this shit. That’s all I know. She taught me everything, and I’m trying to teach Tanner and Marlowe. If you want, I’ll teach you, too.” Brooks appears on my right side, reaching out to … stroke my hair back?

“Yes, please.”

Brooks releases me, staring down from those poison-green eyes of his. They’re not normal human-green, but a gift from the Witchwoods. The bright color contrasts so perfectly with the red and black of his hair, brings out the pink of his lips.

“Did that little bitch Nathan ever fuck you in the ass?” Brooks asks, shocking the hell out of me. I blink back at him, my hands on Tanner’s shoulders. The pair of them exchange a long, searching look.

In the front yard, we almost … Tanner was going to … This feels like a power play.

“Ah, Southwoods. I see. Trying to assert some authority, eh?” Tanner doesn’t sound pleased.

“Only paying you back for the charms you wasted.” Brooks isn’t smiling. “All I need to know is if Kate’s done this before.”

The water stirs on my left, and there’s Marlowe, propping one foot on the bench, arm thrown across his knee.

“Not that it’d matter,” Lo says. “Be honest with us: pencil dick?” His lips twitch like he finds this funny.

“Nathan had a huge cock,” I lie, staring up at Brooks. I don’t need to look at Tanner: I can feel the tension in his body, the carefully curbed rage. He really is trying, Kate. “Massive. But no, he never …”

A slow smile breaks over Brooks’ face.

“Good. I’ll be the first to take that ass then.”

I scoff at him. Ridiculous.

“You think I’ve never pleasured myself there?” I retort, but the reality is that I haven’t done that either. And while Nathan didn’t have a small dick, it was painfully average. These three are painfully above average.

“You were never that kinky before us, and neither was I.” Marlowe climbs out of the water, standing up beside the tub and fisting his already stiff cock with long, wet fingers covered in black ink. He gives it one of those merciless, corkscrew tugs as he stares down at me. “Now. Tell me the truth about Nathan’s dick or I’m going to kill him. Right now. Tonight. How difficult would it be to believe he drowned in one of these hot tubs?”

“He was average,” I retort, feeling both annoyed and turned on at the same time.

Tanner stands up out of the water, his arms on either side of me, hot water sliding down his glistening skin. He hooks an arm around my waist, lifting me off the seat and taking me with him as he turns and perches his bare ass on the edge of the tub. His feet rest on the bench seat in the water, and he puts me right there over his thighs, facing him.

Hi. I want to say it, but the word gets stuck. His mouth twists up on one side, like he can sense it.

“You said you liked assholes,” he whispers in my ear, but only loud enough for me to hear. My skin is gooseflesh and my stomach is a swarm of butterflies. “Looks like your wish is going to be granted.”

“Average?” Marlowe’s fist is in my hair, forcing me to look at him as he holds his dick with the other hand. His eyes are even blacker than the night sky behind his head. “Yeah, that motherfucker is dead—tonight.”

“Compared to you, he was nothing. Does that make you feel better?” I ask, putting one hand on Marlowe’s hip as he steps forward. His wet feet are on the wooden decking beside Tanner’s left thigh, water droplets falling from his hair as he looks down at me.

And then … they just stop. Droplets stay suspended in the air. Marlowe waves his hand through them, knocking them out of the way and letting them spatter. He releases his hold, and everything begins to move normally again.

“Better. I might still kill him though.” He inches forward, turns my head, and guides his salty crown to my lips. I part for him easily, taking him in as deep as I can before reaching up a hand to stop him. Tanner snags my wrists and pins them behind my back. “Don’t worry, Kate. I won’t give you more than you can take.” Marlowe keeps his fist gripped around the base of his cock to start, pushing in until my lips hit his knuckles. Holding himself there. Drawing back out.

I suck in a huge breath when his shaft pops out of my mouth, wiggling my hips and rubbing Tanner’s rigid cock against my pussy. Everything is warm and hot and wet, scalding between us, a little cool on our shoulders from the breeze. I feel big hands circling my waist from behind, Brooks lips gliding against the side of my neck.

Tanner drags me even closer, trapping his dick between my body and his. Marlowe keeps a firm grip on my hair, entering my mouth again and slamming my lips against his knuckles. He moves in and out as I feel Brooks’ finger slicking across my rear opening, teasing me with some sort of viscous lubricant. Probably witch lubricant. Probably spelled to help me take his entire shaft up the ass with little effort.

No wonder he was concerned about a€?anal in the front yard’. He’s an ass man.

“I’m going to make you want to belong to me, Kate.” Brooks sucks very gently on the side of my neck, but he pushes a huge finger inside of me at the same time. I startle a little, rising up on my knees as he chuckles against my skin. Marlowe is fucking my mouth, Brooks’ free hand is on my hip, and Tanner’s trapped my wrists. I’m not going anywhere.

I don’t want to go anywhere.

Tanner keeps one hand on my wrists and uses the other to reach between us, slotting our bodies together. He then takes the hip that Brooks isn’t holding with his free hand, and the pair of them push me down, impaling me on his desire and his greed.

I can feel how greedy Tanner is for me in the way he slips that arm around my waist, tugging me against him as best he can with my head turned to one side. I’m pressed close to him, my wet pussy wrapped around his body and contracting with excitement. He owns me there, between my legs. But my mouth is owned by Marlowe, and my ass …

Brooks moves the finger inside of me, teasing this narrow wall of flesh between my ass and my pussy. Tanner must be able to feel it, too, but he doesn’t react, kissing along the side of my neck, digging his fingers into my hip. I’m the one who makes the first move, rocking between them both and drawing a heavy, husky breath from Tanner.

“You’re such a good girl for me, kitten,” he murmurs in my ear, sucking on it as Marlowe draws out and traces my mouth with his slick tip. I flick my tongue out, catching pearly pre-cum and swallowing it down. He makes this face at me that says I’ve surprised him—again. That he likes it. That he wants me.

Marlowe releases his fist from his shaft and grabs the back of my head, working himself into the hilt and then drawing out quickly. I gasp and swallow, licking my lips repeatedly and waiting for the next thrust. He does it again. Again. Works his shaft against my tongue.

My hands are suddenly free, and I’m wrapping them around the back of Tanner’s strong neck, holding onto sweat-slicked muscle and fire. His skin is rough in places, scarred and raised and wild. His hands are the worst, rough and possessive as they roam over me. They’re all-consuming, those hands. I want them in my hair. Spreading my thighs. Holding my knees open. Palming my breasts.

A moan escapes me, slipping around Marlowe’s shaft in a husky tenor that causes a reaction in all three men at the same time.

“You feel so damn good, and you smell even better. I can fucking smell from you here, Kate.” Tanner bites down on my shoulder, spreading my cheeks wide for Brooks the way he did in the living room that day. A second finger presses against my ass, but when I try to wriggle away, the three of them hold me in place. Brooks penetrates that tight ring, and I whine at the taut feeling in my belly. I’m stuffed full. I don’t know if I’ll be able to take his dick tonight, not in that hole.

I try to pull back from Marlowe, so that I can talk, but he doesn’t let me go. I draw away, and he steps forward, keeping my lips open wide. Making my jaw burn. But damn, I love the taste of him and the feel of his fingers tangling in my hair.

We’re all glowing again, our creepy shadows twining on the walls in a bacchanalian affair that makes what we’re doing here seem tame. But what even are those reflections? I’m starting to think that they’re just our inner selves, all our devious, secret wants, given true form.

Tanner keeps me spread wide and thrusts up, burying himself deep inside my cunt. Brooks takes my ass with those two massive fingers, fucking me while I suck another man’s dick and entertain a third in my pulsing channel. My thighs are quivering, and my clit feels needy. She wants to be touched so badly, but when I try to drop my hand down, Brooks stops me.

“Not yet.” He puts my hand back on Tanner’s shoulder, and then slips out of my ass, scooting closer to me so that my cheeks are pressed to his hips. I can feel his moist head, just above the frothing bubbles of the tub. He nudges me, circles me, works the tip in and then pulls out. “I’ve been wanting this ass for a while now, Kate. You couldn’t keep me away.”

Brooks pushes in with a grunt, bottoming-out and filling me so completely that it’s hard to take a breath. My stomach muscles contract, and I stop breathing entirely. Marlowe pulls out halfway, yanking on my hair to tilt my face up to him. I can’t even close my lips, mouth parted, expression desperate.

I have never felt anything like this in my entire life.

Their cocks are pinning this strip of sensitive flesh between my two channels, and yet, nothing hurts. Not at all. I knew it. Witch lube. I bet he used magic lube on me. But there’s no way to know if that’s what Brooks did, or if he just warmed me up so good that it feels that way.

Brooks puts a hand on the side of my neck, his lips brushing up against my left ear. I can’t talk, because of Marlowe. Can’t stop moaning because of Tanner.

“Would you just look at that, Kate?” Brooks murmurs, seemingly thrilled by the prospect. He squeezes the plump shape of my cheek with his right hand, smearing extra lube over my skin. “I already own this ass.” He draws back and puts a palm on my spine, pushing me forward and into Tanner so that he has leverage to fuck into me, nice and hard.

The move has the unintended effect of sliding me down Marlowe’s cock, until my lips meet his pelvis. It’s a lot, almost too much, but Marlowe is looking for fast friction so he slides out quick. Pushes back in. Draws nearly all the way out.

“Shit, Kate,” he groans, squeezing the fist that’s wrapped around my hair. “Where the fuck did you learn to deepthroat like that?” The water in the tub rises around us, a wave in slow-motion curling out of the tub. The ferns tucked into the mossy landscape have sprouted strange flowers and are straining toward us.

The decorative flaming torches around the edges? The ones used to repel mosquitoes? They each have the bloodred center of a molten star, pulsing and roaring ten times higher than their flames should ever reach. And the wind? There’s a beautiful song on the wind, one that whispers over my skin and makes me moan so fiercely and so deeply that all three men moan right along with me.

My hand cups Marlowe’s balls while the other remains threaded into Tanner’s beautiful hair. He kisses my cheek, my jaw, as if there isn’t another man’s cock in my mouth. He’s right. This is the bonus I get out of our unfated meeting.

Three domineering but very attentive witch husbands.

Fuck yes.

Marlowe comes hard, moaning and cursing and gripping my head as I swallow convulsively, trying to take him all down. He doesn’t pull out until I start panting for breath, letting his dick bob in the air between us. Marlowe takes it in his hand and gives it a squeeze, working more white liquid from the tip. When he rocks his hips forward again, I open my lips and suck on him until he’s clean.

“Goddamn. I felt that in my fucking pelvis.” He slaps at his taut lower abs, just below his belly button, just above his freshly sucked cock. Our eyes are on one another as I lick my lips. Lo squats down suddenly, surprising me.

He takes my chin and then kisses all of that sweet salt and musk from my lips. Cleaning my tongue with his own. My teeth.

“My happy accident,” he murmurs with a thread of affection buried in his prickly thorn personality. “You’re such a good girl.” He caresses my cheek and then slips into the water, leaving me sandwiched between Tanner and Brooks.

That slow wave of water, it sloshes quickly forward, washing across the deck and soaking into the mossy flowerbed. Tanner’s song though, I can still feel it in the wind, like he’s humming to me, calling across the Witchwoods.

There’s a brief sliver of my brain that wonders what it would be like to live with them there, in a place with no rules. A quiet place with great slumbering magic. It shouldn’t be tempting, but it is somehow. I could be happy there … if they were with me.

Um. What the hell Kate?

It’s the sex talking. A person should never make big decisions during or after mind-blowing sex. It scrambles the brain. I had no idea I’d ever be into something like this. It’s … I love it. Am I going to be embarrassed tomorrow? I’m not sure.

Tanner’s lips are on mine now, claiming me from Marlowe, luring me back down and into him. He makes Brooks blur a little at the edges, but I have a feeling that it’s something that’s allowed to happen. Brooks could resist, but he isn’t going to—a choice.

Makes me like him more until I realize that maybe he’s going to want to go all night like we did the other day.

Tanner swirls the air around us, drawing my hair and his up in a warm breeze. The effect is impressive, and I run my fingers through his hair, noticing how the wind isn’t affecting anything but us. Not the ferns. Not the trees.

The sigil on his chest is glowing, his ink flowing across his skin. My hands wind around his neck, and his eyes narrow in challenge when I squeeze just a little.

“You really want to play around with me, kitten?” he asks, and I nod, leaning down to lick the side of his jaw. He grits his teeth as I do it, like he doesn’t know what to do with the sudden affection. I kiss him, lips moving from his ear to his mouth. Covering it. Taking him.

I only bite him once, just to leave my mark.

Tanner tilts his head back as I lift up on my knees, rubbing my thumbs along the length of his jaw. Brooks is still behind me, his hands on my hips, letting me be the one who moves for a second.

“I want to play,” I tell Tanner, and I cannot even fucking believe I just said that. My cheeks flush, but I’m committed to this. Yes, I am going to be embarrassed in the morning. “You tricked me into a magic contract. I do deserve this.”

“Sure.” He’s smiling at me, a little more relaxed. “Didn’t I tell you? So fuck us then. Go on, Kate.” That makes me laugh, especially when he wraps an arm around my waist and buries his face in the side of my neck. “You weren’t intimidated by us from moment one. It’s easy to like you.”

That’s what Tanner says to me. That. Right before he steals me away from Brooks, rolls me onto my back, and takes me so hard that my head spins. I see him above me, framed by redwood tree boughs and glowing bats. Limned by the moon.

And it feels good, too. So good. I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop.

He kisses me, and I kiss back, and he takes his time with me there on the wood deck. I’m the first to come, and he helps me through it. Tanner watches me come on him, biting his lower lip, fighting my tight muscles with his hips.

“Shit,” he whispers after, and then it’s easy for him to find an explosive orgasm, holding onto me tight and then collapsing onto his forearms with another curse. “Fucking goddamn, Kate. Goddamn.” Tanner kisses me several times on the mouth, and then he sits up, slumping down to sit beside me.

Brooks takes hold of my ankles and quickly drags me across the platform, tugging me into his arms.

I can see by his expression that I was right.

He allowed himself to be last because then he could justify being the longest.

“Do they know how terrible you are?” I ask him, and he smiles at me, like he’s really a good boy with old-fashioned morals. Should I tell him that good boys don’t spit cum into their wife’s mouth? Good boys don’t cast dark spells while covered in blood.

Marlowe was definitely the best choice among these three men to find me in the woods. I have a feeling that he was far nicer than Tanner or Brooks would ever be.

“Tanner guessed when I broke his leg to keep him in the Witchwoods.” Brooks doesn’t smile when he says that, like he knows it’s a big deal but would do it all over again anyway. “But you don’t have to worry about that now.” His mouth quirks, and he turns me around again, putting the head of his cock at my ass. I want him in my pussy, but I have a feeling that if I tell him that, he’ll do the opposite. I hold my breath. “Sorry, Kate. But I want this.” He presses a kiss to the side of my neck. “I need to be the first man to dirty this hole.”

He pushes inside of me, bottoms-out again. I moan and wiggle against the side of the tub, seeking friction for my clit. My pussy feels empty, and I wish I still had something to hold onto. It’s like torture.

Brooks loves that. He can tell how much I want to get off, and he’s having a very good time denying me.

“I’ll make you come again, Kate. Relax. You’re just going to have to wait.” Brooks puts his hand on my lower back to brace himself, and then he goes hard, slamming me against the side of the tub. My fingers are braced on the wood deck, pushing against the pressure from Brook’s palm.

It’s a silent war, him pushing down and me pushing up.

The only leverage I have is the leverage he’s giving me, and we both know it. I’m going to get so good at magic that I could strangle him with a fern frond. I swear it.

“You didn’t want me,” I gasp out, looking over my shoulder, my braid coiled on the deck beside me. Taunting him. Wanting him to tell me he likes me again because I’m as greedy as these men. Just as greedy.

“Don’t you fucking tell me what I do or don’t want.” Brooks spanks my ass, and I groan, turning away and letting my head hang. My breasts sway back and forth with every thrust.

I catch sight of a plant near the fence, twining up a small trellis. I imagine it unfurling and winding around Brooks’ neck.

It does.

But it’s slow at first, green vines slithering over the wooden deck, up his right arm, around his throat in glittering emerald strands. I grin, but it doesn’t last.

Brooks reaches down to his neck with his right hand, tears through the vines with his finger and then lifts the nest of green as it falls. He puts it on his head and it looks like a crown of thorns, shadow antlers sprouting above.

He reaches out and turns my head, making me face away from him.

“Don’t hurt your neck,” he murmurs, but I’m not fooled. We both know why he did it.

He grabs my hair and gives it a tug. It’s an effort not to moan the way I want to. The only thing that separates us from a bunch of other people is a single wood wall with no roof. Doesn’t stop him from groaning. He does it as he wants, shamelessly.

“Brooks, don’t make … sounds,” I murmur, but it’s too late. He comes hard, and he has no shame in letting me know how good that feels with the noises he makes.

I’m equal parts embarrassed and turned-on by it all.

I love his moans, but I don’t want anyone else to hear them.

They’re mine.

“Come here, North,” he grumbles, tucking me closer but leaving his cock in my ass. Brooks slides his hand down the front of me, plunging two fingers inside my wet pussy. I gasp and grind rapidly against his hand, seeking friction. Seeking climax. “There you go. Yes, Kate. Just like that.”

The sensation sweeps over me for a second time that night as Brooks finishes me and then pulls out, leaving me embarrassed almost immediately. He’s going to leak out of me differently from back there, isn’t he? I can feel it as I turn and sit on the edge of the tub, still blushing.

I can’t get back in the water now … can I?

“Come here.” Marlowe snags me by the wrist and tugs me into the water, passing me the rest of my drink. I take it and down the sweet liquid, sighing as I hand it back.

That … was an awesome fucking experience.

I’ll get plenty of chances to repeat today, won’t I?

I look at the men in the tub with me, all watching me before they turn to each other and start signing. I’m not even mad about it. I’m sure they’re signing about me, but in a good way. It couldn’t be bad after that, could it?

“Next time, let’s do that when there’s no spell,” I tell them, and then I’m yawning and struggling to keep it back. I had the best time, but my body wants to go to sleep. What did we need to get from this place again? Some jars of water? “I’m so tired,” I murmur, sinking deeper into the tub and planting my elbows on the deck beside it. With my head resting on them, I could very well pass out right now.

“That spell we gave you? It’s a sleep spell, too. Remember.” Tanner puts his arms on the tub next to me, mirroring my position. He stares at me from silver-blue eyes, scraping his teeth across his swollen lower lip. I can see the marks I left in his tender flesh. “If you sleep in too late, I might have to wake you up with a fuck.”

“Please do.” My eyes are sliding closed when a question occurs to me. I’m groggy and loose-limbed and apparently also loose-lipped. I know these guys will hunt me down, follow me to the ends of the earth. But would they also let me go? I think of that analogy, the one about loving something and setting it free. What’s the rule? If it comes back, you keep it? The idea of setting something free makes me think about birds. “If I flew away, would you let me go?” My words are so soft, I’m not sure that any of the men will hear them.

“Kitten, I’m really good with birds.” Tanner’s words are the last thing to hit me before the sleeping spell does.