15. Savvy

15

Savvy

S avvy sucked in a huge breath of air to steady herself. She was terrified that he was going to tell her that since Eva was back he wouldn’t need her anymore.

Her heart thundering and her breath caught in her throat, she followed him into the library. She sat on one of the chairs while he sat across from her.

“Do you have something to tell me?” he asked.

“I’m so sorry that she got close to the kids. We were playing hide and go seek and she popped out of the trees. I had my eyes on them the entire time so I always know where they are -- I just pretend that I don’t. As soon I saw her, I ran over and made sure that she couldn’t hurt them,” Savvy said.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” he said.

Savvy grinned at the shocked look on his face when Cassia landed on her shoulder and said, “I think that he knows you are a witch.”

He nodded.

“Oh, well, yes, I’m a witch. I have been my whole life. I was born that way,” she said nervously.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

“I didn’t think it was important. I don’t use my gifts very often and didn’t figure that I would need to use them as a nanny,” Savvy said. “Really, the only witchy magic I use is my familiar and best friend, Cassia”

Cassia bowed her head and said, “Nice to meet you.”

The surprised look on his face made Savvy laugh. “You are a wolf shifter. Can’t you talk to animals and insects?”

“I’ve never tried talking to an insect, but when I do communicate with animals, it’s telepathically. I’ve never heard one actually talk out loud.”

“Cassia talks a lot. You’ll get used to it,” Savvy said, laughing.

“Hey,” Cassia replied, flicking Savvy’s ear with her foot.

“That tickles.” Savvy grinned.

“Dragonflies only live twenty-four to forty-eight hours. How is it that she is a familiar? Aren’t they immortal?”

“Yes. Cassia is no exception.”

“An eternity of eating all the mosquitos I want,” she said sarcastically. “Yay me.”

“I give you fruit and other tasty treats. And you love mosquitos,” Savvy said.

Rory laughed at their exchange.

“I know that Beth and Taryn are healer witches, and Taryn also has a way with animals. What is your specialty?”

“Spells and conjuring. I used a sleep spell on Eva. I have not ever hurt anyone with my spells, although I would do what I had to if Cat and Drake were in danger.”

“What could you do?” he asked.

“She could disintegrate people, which is what I told her she should have done to those men who attacked her in the woods. She could have turned them into cockroaches or anything else that she wanted to,” Cassia said. “But no. She said that they were running away so she was going to let them.”

Rory looked at her for a minute and nodded. He looked at Cassia and said, “It’s a good thing that she didn’t. I don’t believe in violence unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

Savvy stuck out her tongue at Cassia and said, “See.”

“What about conjuring?” he asked.

Savvy snapped her fingers and a mosquito appeared right in front of Cassia, who quickly ate it.

“She deserved a snack.” Savvy grinned, clearly more relaxed since she knew that Rory wasn’t going to fire her immediately and send her packing out the door.

“You can conjure live things?” he asked, clearly astonished.

“And inanimate objects,” she told him.

“I deserve a snack, too. It’s been a stressful day.”

She snapped her fingers and a plate of cookies and a glass of milk appeared in front of him. A pillow appeared behind his head and his lap was covered with a soft blanket.

“Can you make things disappear?”

“Isn’t that your job?” she asked, pointing to the snacks.

She snapped her fingers again and the blanket and pillow disappeared.

He skeptically picked up a cookie and sniffed it. “It smells real.”

“I’m not a 3-D printer and churn things out in plastic. It is a real cookie.”

She grabbed one and ate it, then drank half the glass of milk, wiping away the little white mustache that was left on her upper lip.

Rory tentatively bit into one of the cookies and then smiled. “This is really good.”

“Thanks,” she said.

He got serious again and said, “I had Sebastian research you.”

“I would have guessed that since I’m taking care of your kids.”

“He said that while you, Beth, and Taryn are good people, your mother and Beth’s mother are not.”

“Sebastian is correct,” Savvy said, clenching her fingers together. “Matilda, Beth’s mom, is about as evil as you can get. She tried to kill Conner a couple of times just because she hoped that would give her more control over Beth. Beth isn’t just a healer. She can do the reverse, too. While she can make a person’s heart start beating again, if it stopped relatively recently, she can also make it stop beating. She can heal your organs or cause them to rupture. That is a powerful gift. Taryn can calm the animals, but she could also force them to kill, even if it’s against their nature.”

“Wow,” he said.

“Beth made it perfectly clear to her mother that if the dark ever came near her or anyone Beth cared about, then she would end her mother’s life without a second thought.”

“What about your mother?” he asked.

Savvy rubbed her forehead and then her face. “She isn’t very powerful. However, she enjoys the prestige she thinks that she gets from hanging around with Matilda. She knows better than to come near me. I don’t think that we’ve spoken since I was sixteen. I have no idea what happened to my father or the rest of my family.”

“That must be hard,” Rory said. “I can’t imagine not having any family.”

“I have Cassia and Beth. I have Taryn, and now I have the kids, Colby, Amy, and Rosa. There is the old saying that blood is thicker than water, but I disagree. I think that love and loyalty are better than blood.”

Rory said, “I’m here, too.”

“Yes, you are,” Savvy said. “So, you aren’t going to fire me, since Eva is back and I didn’t tell you that I was a witch?”

He frowned. “Of course not. Eva isn’t back. She wants to be a part of the kids’ lives. We’ll see. I do wish you had trusted me with your secret, but it’s not a fireable offense. Now I know why you were so adamant about the fact that you could protect the kids against anyone. I thought that maybe you had some self-defense training and had a black belt in karate or Krav Maga.”

“No. Just a way with words.”

“And you could drop a boulder on someone’s head just like the Wile E. Coyote kept trying to do to the Roadrunner?”

“Something along those lines.”

There was a slight whimper that came through Drake’s monitor, so Savvy rushed up to his room. He seemed to be having a bad dream, so Savvy gently shook him awake.

“You’re okay, baby boy,” Savvy said.

He wrapped his arms around Savvy’s neck and said, “I had a bad dream.”

“I know, but you’re okay,” she said.

Rory handed him a water bottle, and Drake took a couple of sips.

“Will you stay with me?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said.

Drake fell back asleep almost instantly. Rory and Savvy stepped into the hallway.

“Poor little guy. I think this has been a lot for him.”

“It seems so,” Rory said.

“You are so good with them. They love you. It’s obvious that you love them.”

Savvy smiled at him. An undefinable look passed over his face, and he leaned down and moved his lips against hers. He pushed her against the wall and pressed his body tightly to Savvy’s as he consumed her mouth in a blazing kiss.

His tongue pressed into her mouth and stroked her tongue. Rory’s hardness was evident as it pushed against her stomach. Smoldering embers instantly burst into flame and overtook her body. Rory’s hands moved up and down her sides. He broke off the kiss and pulled her into his bedroom.

Their clothes seemed to disappear, and they melted together into the bed. He reached between her legs to see if she was ready for him. She moaned as he rubbed his hand against her hot, wet womanhood.

This time she was ready for him as he positioned himself at the entrance of her tunnel and drove in hard and fast, burying himself deep inside of her.

Her fingers dug into his hard back muscles, and she cried out his name.

Rory squeezed her breasts and rubbed her nipples with his thumbs as he continued to pump, pulling almost all the way out and then ramming back inside.

He leaned over her and she raised her hips to meet his, as their bodies moved together in a rhythm.

“You are so incredible,” he said. “You feel so good.”

Savvy looked into his beautiful brown eyes and bit her bottom lip. She ran her hands up and down his arms and spread her legs just a little bit wider as her hips moved up to meet his.

“Yes, Baby. That’s it,” he moaned.

Bolts of electricity flashed above her, and she almost forgot to breathe as the raging inferno inside of her completely consumed her. She began to shake and her silken walls clenched his hard, thick shaft. A tsunami exploded and wave after wave of hot, creamy liquid poured over him.

He moaned and tossed back his head. He started to throb, and then he sent a huge fountain of his seed into her inner core.

After a couple of minutes, he fell to the bed next to her and pulled her close to him. They were quiet for a while as they just lay together, cuddling.

Then Savvy said, “At least you don’t have to rub dirt into anything to keep Amy from figuring out that we had sex.”

He laughed and said, “This is true.”

They relaxed together in silence for a while. She loved the feeling of his body pressed close to hers and his arms around her. Savvy would have loved to fall asleep this way.

Rory broke the silence. “Um, was Cassia in here?”

Savvy laughed. “No. She’s not a voyeur. She would have gone back to the suite. She’s probably eating bugs in my bed.”

“Bed bugs?” he asked.

“Well, not the way you’re thinking.” Savvy laughed. “I guess I need to go back to my room.”

She half hoped that he would ask her to stay and was a little disappointed when he didn’t. Savvy dressed and went to her suite. She hopped into the shower. Cassia was hovering in the bathroom when she got out.

“You’re playing with fire,” Cassia said. “You’re going to get your heart broken.”

“I know,” Savvy said. “But like a moth, I just don’t know how to stop going toward him.”

“You can start by staying out of his bed,” Cassia said.

Good advice. However, Savvy was well aware that if the opportunity came again, she would be right back into his arms.