Chapter 15

Cole

Garden District, New Orleans, Louisiana

C ole finally had his dream woman in his arms, was settled in between her legs where he could feel the heat of her against him. In some dim part of his mind, he was afraid that he would wake up, alone with a hand on his cock, two pumps away from coming at the dream of his desperate, little Angel writhing beneath him and screaming his name. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d woken to that hollow disappointment, only to fuck his fist quickly and angrily because he was too close to coming not to finish but furious that his woman wasn’t actually beneath him.

He wasn’t creative enough to fantasize all of the little details of her, though. The reality of Evie in his bed was so much better than any dream could ever be. She was naked because there was no fucking way his woman was sleeping next to him wearing clothes; he couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty about that caveman impulse in the slightest because the sight of her pale skin and red hair against his black sheets was awe-inspiring. His bedding was a stupidly high thread count—courtesy of the interior designer who decorated the house who had desperately tried to get into the very same sheets—so the soft fabric draped around her curvy hips like silk. “So perfect,” he muttered, grasping her hair and tugging slightly.

She gasped, kicking her head back, exposing her throat to him.

“Such a good fucking girl,” he rasped against her throat. Under his lips, he felt her pulse kick desperately. Did his little witch have a praise kink? I could only be so lucky.

Would he grow less unhinged for her with them? She hadn’t left his eyesight in hours; he had been touching her for most of that time. Even still, Cole couldn’t get enough of her, which was slightly alarming. He slowly moved down her body, kissing and touching every inch of her he could get his mouth and hands on.

Cole came to her breasts—so perfectly sized for his hands—and pulled back to look. Decades of dreaming, years of fantasy, didn’t come close to this perfection, he concluded as he ran his thumb over her nipple. “Tell me what you want, Angel,” he growled at her. “I need to touch you as much as you need me to.”

She whimpered, wrapping her hands in his hair. “Please.”

“Please what?” His smirk easily returned to his face. “Use your words, sweetheart.”

“I need your mouth on my nipples, Cole,” she pleaded. “I need to feel you between my legs. I don’t care how it happens, I just need to come. Please, Cole!”

“God,” he hissed at her filthy words. “You’re such a dirty little witch.” He bit at the underside of her breast, and she practically came unglued, legs scissoring underneath him. Pulling his head back, he looked down at her; she was flushed with desire, gasping for breath while she tried to push his head back to where she wanted it. “I can’t wait to hear you scream my name again.” He tilted down, inches away from taking her pebbled nipple into his mouth, when a loud rattling sound filled the air. What the fuck is that? Lifting his head slightly, Cole narrowed his eyes in confusion.

The noise sounded again, and he finally placed it. His phone was vibrating on the nightstand. Blindly reaching a hand over, he rejected the call and went back to the molten witch lying in his bed. He kissed her desperately, rubbing his thumb over her taut nipple as he took her lips again. She breathed his name, the sound vanishing into his mouth when he slipped his tongue through her lips, teasing at her. Tasting her. Fuck, she’s delicious . All traces of the ill-timed call vanished from his head as her hands ran down his naked back.

That was, they vanished until his phone started vibrating again. He glared at where it was dancing on the nightstand, damning whoever was calling him, his service provider, and the cell phone manufacturer itself into the depths of Tartarus. Fuck no. It was only 9:00 am, and he owned the goddamn firm. He practically lived at the office. He had competent staff for when he couldn’t be there. They could deal with whatever problems came up this one fucking time.

He rejected the call again, but this time he didn’t even get back to Evie before it started buzzing again. A blue haze descended over his eyes as he summoned his magic, torching the phone in an unearthly fire. He chucked it into the corner with a snarl before cold panic raced through him at Evie's gasp. Because his source was death, it was dangerous to touch him while he was using his magic. As a teen, he had once accidentally put a girl in the hospital because he lost control of his power while she was going down on him. Terrified, he pulled back suddenly. What if last night was a fluke? What if he had just endangered the only woman he had ever really wanted?

Beneath him, though, Evie was thriving, her cheeks flushed, goosebumps raising along her skin as she met his eyes.

His jaw dropped, and overwhelming possession burned through him. He knew it. He fucking knew Evie was it for him. She was the only person in the world that could touch him without repercussions when he was channeling death. Fucking mine. He needed to get closer to her. Now.

“I can feel your magic,” she whispered. Almost like she was afraid she would break the spell if she spoke too loudly. He ran his hand down her side, blue flames still flickering between his fingers, reveling in the fact that he could touch her while channeling death. If the guttural moan she let out as the fire flitted over her skin, illuminating but not burning, was any indication, she was enjoying every second of his ghostly touch. “It feels so good!”

Cole lifted himself out of bed, almost cackling at her insane whimper. Her stormy eyes, flickering with her own magic, followed him as he dropped to his knees at the foot of the bed. Reaching forward, he gripped her hips and hauled her ass to the edge. “Fuck, I need to taste you,” he said, lifting her legs over his shoulders before he lowered his head. “You’re gonna taste so fucking good, aren’t you, Angel?” He was inches away from paradise—he could see her pussy, all but had his tongue on her—when a shrill ringing filled the room.

Evie jumped, searching the room for the threat. Cole shook his head, trying to clear the fog of Evie and sex and magic so he could figure out what that goddamn sound was.

It wasn’t the fire alarm. It wasn’t the security system. It wasn’t… awareness filtered in suddenly. Was that a fucking landline ? He snarled and leapt from the bed, crossing the room quickly. Tucked into the corner sat an old-fashioned rotary phone that, if you had asked him minutes before, he would have bet good money didn’t even work. The thing was a leftover from the previous owners, and he knew damn well he had never paid for a phone line. So how in the hell was it ringing?

Cole seized the handset and raised it to his ear. “This better be a fucking emergency,” he barked.

The voice that answered him shook. “I’m sorry, Mr. Aidoneus, but you told me, that is to say, I’m sorry, sir… ”

He cut off the stuttering voice with a harsh tone and zero sympathy. “Who is this, and what the fuck do you want?” Evie sat up, drawing the sheets to her chest. I’m going to kill whoever's on the other end. Inches away from tasting my witch. Fucking inches. He turned towards the wall; maybe if he wasn’t looking directly at Evie, he would be able to think straight.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Aidoneus, this is Nyx. I’m the law clerk at your office.” He tried to visualize the woman but couldn’t put a face to the name. “You—I’m so sorry, sir, for waking you up—but you have to be at court in 5 minutes.”

“Why are you only just now contacting me?” He was aware he was acting like a brute, but he couldn’t stop it. Apparently, his knee-jerk reaction to being inches from everything he had ever dreamed of and having it ripped away was to act like a depraved maniac. “We have protocols in place to ensure this doesn’t happen.”

“Yes, sir,” she responded. “I know, sir, but you didn’t answer any of my calls or texts this morning. I started calling you at 8 but couldn’t get through.”

Cole glanced at his phone, currently a charred brick in the corner of the room. Couldn’t verify whether that was true or not, although he was inclined to think it might be. A small seed of guilt threatened to bud. “Ah.” A hand touched his arm, and he looked down to see Evie, her heart-shaped face tilted towards him, her tangled hair curling around her naked shoulders. She touched me first. His lungs all but stopped working at the feel of her skin against his, knowing that she had sought him out.

“Cole, what’s wrong?”

Without thinking, he wrapped an arm around her lower back, pulling her into his chest just in time to hear the law clerk go, “Mr. Aidoneus? Sir?” like she had been waiting for his response for a while.

“I’ll be there, Nina.” He moved to drop the phone, only just hearing her say in an aggravated tone, “It’s Nyx, you asshole” right before he set the phone in its cradle. If she had said that to his face or held off until after he hung up, he might have been impressed. As it was, it showed poor decision-making and even worse timing. Guess they would be looking for a new law clerk soon. Since he didn't remember hiring the old one, that wasn't a problem.

“Cole?” Evie’s voice carried up to him from where she was nestled against him. “Is everything alright?”

Cole winced, preparing for an unexpected end to his time with Evie. He knew how this usually went when he got pulled away from any woman for work. It typically went badly. Extremely badly. He could only imagine that it would be ten times worse with one he actually cared about. “I'm sorry, Evie, I forgot about a hearing, and I have to leave, like… 30 minutes ago.” With a sharp pang of regret, he set her away and walked into his closet to get ready for an apparently necessary day of work. She trailed behind him into the massive room.

“A hearing?” Her brow crinkled as she worked her way through the context. “Like a courtroom hearing?”

His eyebrows jumped into his hairline. “Yeah, like a courtroom hearing. I’m sorry, I keep forgetting that you may not know the finer points of society and legal careers since you lived in the bayou.” At her scowl and pointed glare, he laughed, trying to swallow the sound before it could sneak out and irritate her more. “Although I promise I have been made extremely aware of the superior education you witches receive in the forest.”

She nodded, seeming to accept his apology as her eyes tracked around his closet. “I’ve never seen so many clothes in my life. Why… when… how could you ever need this many clothes?”

As he shrugged into a white dress shirt, he examined the room carefully, trying to look at the room from her perspective. Many older New Orleans houses didn’t have walk-in closets because they were considered another room under city ordinances at the time; to get around those ridiculous regulations, New Orleanians invested in armoires. So the fact that he had a walk-in closet at all, much less a dressing room like the one attached to his bedroom, was already fairly unique in the city. Its size and storage capacity were what made it truly enviable, though, in the city's cutthroat real estate market. Two walls bore custom cabinetry that spanned the length and height of the entire wall. Many of the deep drawers were empty, but his shirts, slacks, suits, blazers, and ties took up much of the hanging space available.

The room’s ceiling was vaulted with regal arches that met over a wrought iron chandelier with dozens of intertwined arms that cast eerie shadows over the central island housing his watches, shoes, and other accessories. In a corner of the room sat a pink velvet fainting couch, courtesy of an ex-hookup who had tried to slowly move shit in… as if Cole wouldn’t notice that he hadn't asked her to sleep over, much less actually move in. When he pointed those things out to her, she called him a pig, slapped him, and left the couch. What was her name again? Catriona? Catalina? Caroline? He was fairly certain it had started with a C.

He shook his head. The former forgettable hookup with the undetermined C name didn’t have any place in his home while his witchling stood naked in the doorway in front of him. “When you reach a certain level of success, society seems to think you need to have an abundance of everything. Clothes, house, cars, whatever.”

“That seems… wasteful.” She stepped into the room. He strapped a watch to his wrist, barely noticing which one it was or whether it complemented the outfit he had also given exactly zero attention to selecting. “I never really saw clothes as necessary, but I wore them when I was away from the coven, exploring.” Her eyes grew angry. “Creatures who come in to the forest tend to think they can take things that don’t belong to them when a woman is nude.”

His chest tightened with a completely irrational need to hunt down everyone who may have harmed the woman in front of him and offer her their head on a stake in the front yard. He was about to start demanding names or descriptions to accomplish that task when the house phone started shrieking again. Evie jumped a mile. For fuck’s sake. Prior to this morning, he hadn’t even known he had a fucking landline. Now the thing wouldn’t shut up.

He strode past Evie, swinging her into his arms in a bridal carry on his way to the phone. Bracing her against his chest, he freed an arm to snatch up the phone just long enough to snarl, “I’m on my way,” before flinging the phone back into the cradle.

Evie raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you usually shout at people just trying to help you? Or is that a special treat for this morning?”

He had been about to apologize for interrupting their morning, but his brain completely ground to a halt at her sassiness. The apology on the tip of his tongue was forgotten. “Oh, baby, we’re gonna have to find a much better use for that bratty mouth of yours.” The mouth in question dropped open in shock, and he leaned in to her, stopping just inches away. With a chuckle, he nibbled her lower lip. “Yeah, you got the idea, but you’re gonna have to open your mouth a lot wider than that.”

Her eyes glazed at the blatantly sexual comment, and, almost like she didn’t know she was doing it, she slid her hand under his shirt collar as he carried her down the stairs. They had to get out of the bedroom or he was going to lose his mind, blow off work, risk a contempt charge for missing the hearing without notice, and spend the next twelve hours making her come so hard that she wouldn’t even remember what a forest was, much less that she once lived in one.

Her nimble fingers played across the floral snake tattoo that serpentined from underneath his collar to his upper arm—the one that somehow paralleled her own, a truly mind-boggling thought of its own—and he nearly turned right the fuck around and went back up the stairs. Nope , he scolded himself, continuing the trek down the gracefully curved staircase with his arms full of Evie. Have to get out of this house before she gets me to agree to anything and everything.

The scent of coffee wafted out to him before he even entered the kitchen. Thankfully, the machine was already automatically brewing his morning roast. As he walked them into his favorite room of the house, he heaved a happy sigh that at least one part of this morning was going as planned.

The kitchen had been the deciding factor for him when he purchased this place. It blended the antique aspects of the 1800s Greek Revival style with practical, modern elements like the stainless steel equipment. The floor was a reddish stained wood that was original to the house. The cabinets were a rich deep blue, which contrasted with the white quartzite countertops and copper backsplash. All of that was stunning on its own, but it was the full wall of windows and glass doors overlooking the backyard that really made the space. They let in an abundance of natural light and allowed anyone in the kitchen to look out over the elegant terrace surrounded by stately, centuries old live oaks, gorgeous crepe myrtles, and colorful flowers.

Cole set Evie on the countertop gently, turning slightly to see if the coffee was ready. Although he wasn't looking directly at her, he could still pinpoint the exact moment the garden caught her attention and, more importantly, her attention caught the garden. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the crepe myrtles extend a branch toward the windows, waving gently at her. Even his trees loved her. The little voice in his mind chimed in: you don’t stand a fucking chance, buddy. You need to accept this and tell her everything.

“I didn’t expect to see such vibrant trees in a city,” she said suddenly. “And you’ve taken good care of them. They feel like they’re in incredible health.”

“I wish I could take credit for that,” he responded, pulling a mug out of the cupboard and pouring a cup of freshly brewed coffee. With a questioning look, he offered it to her; she accepted it, taking a small sip before shaking her head, wrinkling her nose, and setting the cup down on the counter. A smile broke over his face as he retrieved it, sipping the strong black coffee that would keep him going until his second cup after court. He barely noticed that he took the time to seal his lips right over where she had taken her drink, hoping to get just a small taste of her. Fuck . He was so gone for her. “I have a gardener that comes in every week to make sure that all of the greenery gets taken care of. Good to get confirmation that he’s doing his job, though. I don’t know shit about plants, so I just assume that if they’re alive, they’re healthy.” Technically, he knew more about plant life than that, but the childish part of him wanted to rile her up just a little bit.

His wish was granted when Evie scoffed and gave him a distressed look before pushing her hands against the quartz, looking like she was about to pop off the counter to run to the backyard.

He stopped her with a big hand that spanned the width of one of her legs, keeping her locked in place. His thumb traced lazily against the outside of her thigh.

She shivered at his touch, leaning slightly into him, her eyes still locked on the gently waving crepe myrtle. “Can I go out there?” she asked. “I’m not used to being indoors.”

“Of course you can explore.” His answer was quick. “You’re not a prisoner, ma petite sorcière . I want you to be happy here.” Because there’s no way I can let you go . “But I do have to go to work, so I can’t show you around.” He checked his watch, letting out an irritated groan when he realized just how late he already was. Her movement dragged his attention back upwards where he saw her shrugging in response to his words. He took a quick gulp of burning coffee in an attempt to hide his displeasure that she didn’t want him to stay. He could barely force himself to leave her here alone, and she was all but shoving him out the door? Just made him want to throw her in his car and bring her to court. “I wish I could take you with me.”

At that, she laughed. Christ, her smile did things to him. He would do anything to make sure he kept seeing that stunning smile, no matter if she was mocking him. “What would I even do at your office? I don’t know anything about the… law?” He nodded, confirming her educated guess about his career and choosing not to interrupt her with his lecherous opinions about the options available to her at his office. “Plus your co-workers may have questions about the naked woman that you’re escorting in.”

Oh, they would have questions all right. They would, in fact, remind him that he had lost his damn mind. Especially if they caught wind of the midnight construction abduction. They would never let him live that one down. That was the problem with going into business with your best friends; they had an obnoxious way of keeping you humble. “Be that as it may,” he interrupted, setting down his empty coffee mug and cupping her face in his hands. She swayed towards him, resting one delicate hand on his chest while her big eyes stared up at him. Jesus Christ. He had waited most of his life for this woman to look at him exactly like that. Nobody and nothing else that came before her mattered, and there would be nobody after her. He had to convince her to stay with him. “I don’t like leaving you home alone. Just don’t go anywhere. Please.”

Her brow furrowed, a small frown creasing her features. “You’re holding me hostage.” Not a question if her flat tone was any indication. “I thought you said I wasn’t a prisoner.”

That was definitely displeasure in her voice. Fuck, he hated that note of disappointment. “Not a hostage. And definitely not a long-term solution. Just for the short-term until we can figure out a way to keep you safe. Please, Evie,” he requested, hoping that using her name would get her to listen to him better. “Don’t go anywhere. Please. I need you to agree or I’m going to have to ward you too. I need to be able to trust you to stay, Angel. Please. Just for the next few days. I can’t lose you.” Cole hoped she wouldn’t push back against his desperate need for her. He wasn't sure how to explain it to himself, much less her, how he knew, deep in his gut, that he couldn’t let her go now that he had found her.

She sniffed in irritation, but it looked like she was considering his plea at least. Eventually, she nodded.

His heart lightened, and he pressed his lips to her forehead. “I swear to you, we’ll find a better way. I’m going to ward the outside of the house and the grounds to protect against unauthorized entry and exit. You’ll be able to go out into the garden and wherever you want within the house.” He dropped his hands from her face, collected his car keys, and began his disappointed trek to his car. He wanted to stay, not go pontificate about gambling and bordello law to an officious, corrupt-as-fuck judge.

“If you do go out in the garden, please just… put on one of my shirts.” He smirked at the naked witch still sitting in his kitchen drinking in her perfect curves so that he could get through the never-ending workday before he could see her again. “I would hate to have to threaten to kill my next-door neighbor. Again.”

“Sure, I can—wait, did you just say again?” Evie hopped off the counter. “You’ve threatened your neighbor more than once?”

He crossed the kitchen rapidly, undoing all of his forward progress, and backed her into the fridge door, pinning her in place with a knee between her thighs. Ducking his head to her neck, he breathed her in, feeling the entire world settle into rightness with her scent. She smelled like oranges and cinnamon with a hint of fire. “He interrupted me while I was finger fucking you in the car, mon ange . He heard those little gasps you make when you’re on the edge and saw just how beautiful you are when you're riding my fingers. He knows what my fucking witch looks like when she comes apart for me. He’s lucky that all I did was threaten to cast his soul into the abyss.” His thumb fixed at her chin, tilting her head back so he could crush his lips to hers, slide his tongue into her mouth in a desperate imitation of all the other things he wanted to do to her body. He finally pulled back, breathless, knowing that he was now unforgivably late and not giving a shit about it. “I’m the only one who gets to see you like that for the rest of our immortal fucking lives because you’re mine, Angel, and I will happily destroy anyone who thinks otherwise.”

Reluctantly, he managed to push himself away from her lush body, pushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyes were glazed, and she was panting softly, her hands still resting where they had fallen to his waist when he pressed her against the fridge. Evie was all but melted into him, and, if his cell phone weren’t currently a scorched pile of plastic and glass upstairs, he would have called the court that minute, told the judge to go fuck himself, and taken them both back upstairs.

Willpower, man. Have some fucking willpower. With a groan, Cole leaned in and gave her a bruising kiss. “I’ll see you tonight,” he told her. “Explore the house a little. Spend some time in the garden. Get some sleep. Take a bath. Whatever you want to do.”

“Okay.” Her fingers loosened on his hips. “It’s fine, Cole. I’ll figure out what to do with myself.”

Upstairs, he heard the landline ringing again. Probably the mysterious, soon-to-be-fired Natalie the law clerk. With a low growl, he kissed Evie lightly one last time before he left the house, placing protective wards as he went.