Phoenixflare: A Reverse Harem Romance (The Rogue Witch Book 6) Read online

  “Please fuck me,” I said, “the fact I even have to ask—”

  His hand came up, covering my mouth.

  “You never have to ask,” he said. I blushed hard, my whole body warming as he settled between the seats on the floor of the limo and beckoned me. “Come here.”

  I wriggled my underwear down my hips, the ruined remains of my nylons going with them. My shoes hit the side of the seat as I slipped over him. He watched me, his fingers flicking open his suit pants and freeing his hard cock as I descended over his thighs.

  He reached for me, catching my bare hips in his hands. In his grip, I felt small, even though all my insecurities told me I wasn’t. His fingers spanned my skin, and he bore my weight like it was nothing. Inside, I was desperate for him, desperate to be taken by him. It was hard to imagine my old self, months earlier, avoiding even being with one guy something at every drunk dorm party.

  And now? I was fucking one of my five boyfriends on the floor of a limo he’d rented to remind me how special I was to him.

  “I’m such a slut,” I whispered as he guided me over him, his cock rubbing between my folds. His eyes fluttered.

  “What?” he growled. I let out a nervous giggle.

  “Like, it’s a good thing,” I said, moaning and rocking down to get more contact with him. “Canonize me. Saint Darcy, patron of werewolf mates everywhere.”

  His eyes shut briefly.

  “If you’re talking, I’m not doing this right.” He lifted me up, and I felt his fingers under me teasing my entrance until I was gasping, on the edge of begging him again to fuck me. Just as I was about to start clawing at him, I felt the full press of his cock into me.

  “God yes.” With a reckless moan, I let myself sink down onto him, feeling him shift under me. His thighs tensed, and my hands braced on his stomach, his skin flexing under my fingers.

  He let out a strangled growl, and I cracked my eyelids to look at him. His head was thrown back, throat tight as he swallowed hard. All the muscles in his arm were tense, and his hand disappeared between my thighs and teased me with slow, trembling strokes. The thrill of power I had over him made my skin prickle, and I held my breath as I slowly, so slowly, took him inside me completely.

  My thighs pressed down over his hips, and we stayed there for a moment. He dragged his hand down his face, before inhaling one shaky, long breath.

  “Fuck,” he whispered. His hips jerked, and I lifted myself up. “Fuck!” His eyes flicked open, and he wrapped both of his hands around my waist. I couldn’t do anything as he held me up off of him, his hips pistoning hard as he slammed up into me. It was almost too much. I couldn’t catch my breath as I braced myself on the limo seats on either side of us. He growled, taking me so hard and fast.

  I was over the edge before I even felt it creep up on me, my muscles clamping down and pleasure shuddering through my whole body. I cried out, unable to stop myself.

  With a low growl, Eli pulled me down and pushed me underneath him, grabbing my thigh and entering me again, fucking me right through my orgasm until he came with a groan, dragging his mouth over my neck.

  For a moment, I felt teeth.

  He froze.

  His lips kissed me, once, on the side of my throat, and he pulled away, kissing over my exposed stomach where my dress was pushed up, and then my hip. I let a caught breath go, and tried not to think about what had almost just happened, not wanting wreck how good I was feeling.

  We were quiet, blood still pumping hard through our veins. The limo rocked as we took a corner, slowly. God, the driver had probably heard us. I pushed that thought from my mind.

  I stared up at the sky, watching the city lights pass by. My fingers tangled in Eli’s hair, as his head rested on my thigh. His slow, even breathing was calming my frantic heartbeat.

  “I love you,” I whispered. He went still, and then kissed the top of my thigh, his hands sliding my underwear back up my legs with such tenderness it made my heart ache.

  “You keep saying sex doesn’t fix things, but I’m of the opinion it surely does,” his voice was warm with amusement. He helped me adjust my dress, pulling it down my hips until I was dressed and comfortable. A little wet and raw between the thighs, but, y’know, comfortable. I curled into his chest, tucking my knees against him as he held me tight. His was so big and warm, I could have fallen asleep against him.

  “Do werewolf mates ever have insomnia?” I asked, that muzzy, dreamy sensation hovering in the back of my mind. “Cause I have this feeling like they never do. Who could stay up when you’ve got five guys to make you feel good and wrap you up in their arms after? Like, of all the things I’ve got to complain about, sleeping badly is not one of them.”

  Eli’s chest moved under my ear as he laughed.

  “I wish you had seen our whole pack, Darcy. They would have loved you.”

  “Even though I’m a mortal enemy?”

  “You haven’t tried to electrocute any of us on purpose for a while,” he said, “so I think you’d be fine.”

  “That brings me a lot of comfort,” I grumbled at him, earning myself another soft laugh.

  "Your phone is going to be exploding with notifications tonight," Eli said after a few minutes passed. The buildings were looking familiar. We’d be home soon.

  "Blowing up," I said.

  "What?"

  "The phrase is blowing up," I corrected him. He cocked an eyebrow at me. I smirked at him.

  "Oh is it now?"

  "Uh huh. Sometimes you really show your best-before date."

  His eyes went dark, a sure sign I was in trouble. But in the best way.

  “You’re lucky we’re almost home,” he said, his words a heated promise. “Maybe you can plead your case with the others to make me have mercy on you.”

  Thirty-One

  Darcy

  We came home to a fight that Max was doing her best to contain. She stood firmly between Finn and Cash, who were both equally red in the face. Finn had a black eye forming under his eye, and Cash’s hair was sticking up like he’d been grabbed. They were both yelling at the top of their lungs, with Charlie snarling at them to knock it off. Ace was missing, and Daria was nowhere to be seen.

  “What the fuck is this?” Eli demanded as soon as the elevator doors opened and we heard the noise. The warm bubble that had surrounded me since I’d left on our date popped.

  Max shot Eli a panicked look over her shoulder, and he left my side, stalking across the room.

  Finn turned on him, arm pulling back. Max jerked, tackling him with her arms around his waist. They went crashing to the ground together.

  “No,” she cried out. “Stop it. Stop fighting, everyone, just because you’re the one who fucked up!”

  I pushed past Eli, knowing I had to do something but not sure what would help. Finn’s head jerked to the side, his eyes frantic as he met my gaze. His lip, I realized, was swollen. Cash didn’t look much better, his shirt torn at the neck, a fist-shaped bruise shadowing his cheek.

  “Explain, now,” Eli barked.

  “That asshole,” Cash seethed, but I held up my hand.

  “Without insulting each other,” I added, my heart fluttering uncomfortably in my chest. This wasn’t the time for them to get into some petty back-and-forth. Things had already escalated between them enough.

  Finn growled and Max sat back on his stomach, glaring down at him.

  “No,” she said. “You need to calm the fuck down. Like, right now.”

  “Get off me,” he said. “I’m not playin’ Max,” his words slipped into a well-worn drawl that only surfaced when he was really tired or pissed off. The older wolves all had it, something we joked was from their time in the war. There was no joking now, though.

  He and Max exchanged vicious glares before she rose to her feet, stepping away. She crossed her arms and stared at the ground. Finn pushed himself up on his elbows, the hard lines of his jaw tense.

  “Maybe some people need to watch when they run the
ir mouths,” Cash said. “Maybe if someone had exercised a little damn self restraint, they wouldn’t be the odd man out, lying on the ground and pissed off at their brother for taking our mate out to dinner.”

  The warning noise Finn made tore out of his throat, followed by him moving before I could blink. He hit Cash like a truck, and my breath caught in my throat. Red flared across my vision as Max lit up, flames spurting into the air as she lunged for Finn, trying to get between the two wolves.

  With a panicked sound, Finn wrenched back, slamming into the kitchen island, his eyes widening. Max skidded in front of Cash as he grabbed her upper arm, and the flames went out.

  We all breathed heavily for a moment before Finn spun on his heels and made fast tracks out of the room and down the hall. My gaze bounced between Cash and Max, and I bit my lip. Charlie cleared his throat, his hands hanging uselessly at his sides.

  “What the hell happened while we were gone?” I asked.

  “The whole damn fool internet exploded,” Cash muttered, dropping his grip on Max. “Or at least it seemed like that.”

  “Let’s just say that the Phoenixcry fanbase has an appetite for drama that’s proved Gemma right.” Charlie crossed his arms over his chest. “We were trending locally. Or rather, you were. There’s even a hashtag with your ship name.”

  “Ship name?” I shot Charlie a confused look.

  “Some of the fans like you with Eli better than with Finn, so they made up a ship name, like, a combination of your names, as a hashtag to show they support you as a couple,” Max said gently. The patience in her voice was one that I was used to after four years of being her roommate and having the real world explained to me.

  “What is it?” Eli spoke for the first time in a few minutes, an amused, almost curious, look on his face.

  “Delias. Better than Deli, I guess, or worse, Elarcy. I saw that a few times but it didn’t catch on. My favorites are the people who are all like, hashtag “why choose,” because they think you should be the meat in a twin sandwich which is closer to the truth than they’ll ever know,” Max chirped and then blushed when I stared at her, my mouth open in shock.

  “So Gem is happy, Finn’s pissed, and Daria just had the shit scared out of her,” Ace said as he walked into the room. I glanced at him. He shrugged. “She’s fine. She’s in her and Max’s room. I just wanted her away from the fighting. Kid doesn’t need that kind of thing happening, especially if we ever want her to believe that werewolves aren’t monsters.” I was touched that he cared about my old friend enough to want her good opinion.

  “I didn’t mean to clock him,” Cash sounded defensive. Max put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Yeah you did. And he deserved it too. From day one he made it clear on the band’s social media that he and Darcy were a thing. He staked a claim on her, publicly, and made it so the rest of you couldn’t share. He made all that private business public,” she said and then sighed. “I’m not judging him. I’m just stating facts.”

  “My brother never thought he’d have someone to love,” Eli’s voice was reserved when he spoke. “I don’t appreciate you flashing fire in his face though.”

  Max’s expression darkened

  “I had to get him to stop fighting—”

  “Don’t do it again,” Eli interrupted her. “He doesn’t exactly have a good relationship with pyrotechnics.”

  Guilt bit at me. Shit. After what Finn went through at Creston’s hands?

  “I’m going to go check on him,” I said.

  “Don’t go easy on him, Darcy.” Cash held my gaze with his. “He deserved to be knocked down on his ass. If this were old times, he’d have never gotten away with doing that to you, especially not at the very beginning when you weren’t ours and we had no right to you. Maybe he deserved to have the shit scared out of him by Max’s little torch trick there.”

  The bedroom was dark as I haunted the doorway. Finn’s back was to me, his arms over his head were pressed into the glass of the window as he looked out on the city below.

  “I never meant to treat you like you were property,” Finn’s voice nearly made me jump. “I never meant to act like I owned you when I didn’t, like I was the only one who had a right to you over the other guys.” He sounded broken, hollowed out, and like he’d been crying. When he stood up, straightened his shoulders, and turned toward me, his eyes were red-rimmed. He had been crying, although his cheeks were dry.

  “Finn—”

  “Please let me talk,” he said. “Please.”

  I swallowed.

  “You’ve been doing the talking for me, for a long time,” I said.

  Hurt flickered on his face. Cash was right. It wasn’t as bad as he’d made it sound, but he was right. I’d never forget that first day on tour when Finn grabbed me and took a selfie with me, plastering my identity all over social media and implying things about me for the whole world to see. Had he meant any harm by it? Probably not. Not at all, really.

  “I’m not angry at you for the decisions you’ve made in the past,” I said. “They’re done. They’ve been made. I don’t want to see you and Eli falling out because of me, or what people are saying about me, on the internet. That’s… no. That’s just stupid.” I stepped into the room, holding my hands out toward him. “I love you. If someone had told me five years ago that the best thing in the world would happen to me later, that I’d get the career of my dreams, and the relationship of them as well… I would never have believed it. But here I am. Here we are. Standing on the edge of something greater than I could ever have imagined.”

  He approached me slowly, lacing his fingers through mine. I studied the lines of his face. Up close there were streaks of salt on his skin from his tears. I wanted to kiss them away, but Cash was right. I couldn’t let him off the hook that easy. Finn had made mistakes, been presumptive, and could have cost me my career. If Willa weren’t more understanding, she wouldn’t have put up with me being romantically involved with the band’s lead singer. As it was, we’d all gotten lucky. My mouth went dry at the thought of me losing my internship over a few Instagram photos. If I’d left early on in their tour, I never would have been given the time to fall in love with the pack. I would have lost my career, and the men I’d come to love more than life.

  Finn’s eyes swept down, and he ducked his head.

  “I’m still listening,” he said, before meeting my gaze, an odd sort of submissiveness in the way he looked at me. “You’re right. I’ve been the one telling our story, doing all the talking. So I’m listening.”

  I squeezed his hands in mine and pressed forward, letting my head rest against his broad chest. His heartbeat was steady under my ear. This was home. I felt safe, even if we were inches from fighting with each other. That feeling like I had to run, to get away, had melted into the background somewhere a long time ago, like an unused muscle. I couldn’t see myself ever doing it again.

  “Can we just be, without the fighting? I’ll talk to Cash, tell him to back off, and you stop throwing dagger-eyes at Eli whenever Gem suggests he take me out somewhere? He’s your brother.”

  Cash let out a long slow breath at my words, and let go of my hands to wrap his arms around me. Safe, in the circle of his embrace, I could almost hear him thinking.

  “Sometimes you want a thing so bad, that you fuck up your chance at it with your fumbling, grabbing at it so hard that you almost drop it,” he said, his pulse ticking against my cheek.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I promised, and lifted my head to look up at him. His normally light eyes were dark and shadowed.

  “You so sure about that?” The doubt and fear in his voice made me feel weak. “Things aren’t what they were two months ago, two weeks ago, even. You’ve seen the worst of us, that werewolves can be monsters too—”

  I shut him up, my fingers pressed to his lips.

  “You are not like Dragonpack,” I said, “anyone with eyes and half a brain could see that.”

  “I nearly took awa
y the one thing you made for yourself,” he mumbled against my fingers, his lips tickling my skin until I pulled my hand away. “Your work means everything to you.”

  I weighed that, in my heart. He was partly right. I loved working in music, but being with the band had sort of transformed what I was doing. Somewhere along the way I hadn’t so much fallen in love with working in the music industry so much that I loved working with Phoenixcry. I couldn’t see myself going all-in with another band like I had with them. What did that say about me and my reasons for being in music to begin with? Did that make me some sort of failure?

  Footsteps and a shadow at the door, derailed my line of thinking, and made Finn squeeze me tighter.

  “Darcy?” Max stood there, a cell phone clutched to her chest. “It’s Willa. She called saying it was urgent, and she needs you to call her right back.”

  Thirty-Two

  Darcy

  “Look, I know this is really outside of your scope,” Willa’s voice was breathless at the other end of the line, like she had been running. “But I wanted to know if you’d feel comfortable checking in on Jake Tupper.”

  I froze, Finn a step behind me, and I didn’t need to turn to know that he’d overheard Willa’s request, and he didn’t like it. He let out a soft growl at Jake’s name. In front of me, Max stared at me with wide eyes.

  “Um,” I said.

  “It’s stupid, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called, it’s just… he’s in a bad place.”

  “Well maybe he deserves to be there,” I grumbled under my breath. Willa paused and sighed.

  “That’s not unfair, I know, but everyone deserves redemption…”

  “Willa, just tell me what’s wrong,” I said, wanting her to cut the crap. I turned to look at Finn. His arms were crossed and he looked on the edge of murderous. Well, Jake Tupper made us all feel a little murderous.

  “He’s not answering his phone. He’d been texting me saying he made a huge mistake with you, and that all he wanted was a chance to apologize to you in person, and I said that wasn’t likely or even possible because I knew—”