Phoenixcry: A Reverse Harem Romance (The Rogue Witch Book 1) Page 8

  “We gonna do an encore?” Finn was wiping his face off with a towel. Cash had his shirt off, and I had to look away. It was too much. My skin was humming, and I felt like my whole body was electricity, fluid and crackling. Their set had left me reeling, and I was still struggling to catch my breath.

  Ace saw me and stopped in his tracks.

  “What happened to your shirt?” he asked, and the rest of the guys looked over at me as they realized I was standing there.

  “I—”

  “Did someone rip your shirt?” Eli was the first to speak, clouds forming on his face. “Did someone hurt you?” He took a step toward me and I shook my head hard, not able to answer. “Darcy?” He’d dropped the Miss Llewellyn thing he’d been sticking to as his voice dipped low and quiet. “Did someone touch you?”

  “N—no,” I said, and managed a brief smile. “You know, it was pretty crazy out there, it just got snagged in the crowd,” I lied. Eli’s eyes half-lidded as he looked at me through ridiculously long lashes (Max would be jealous when she finally met him), and said gruffly,

  “If someone touches you again, tell me. I’ll deal with it.” He looked over his shoulder. “One of you assholes going to give me something for her, or are you just gonna stand there?”

  Charlie passed me a hoodie with a playful wink.

  “Getting crazy in the mosh pit, huh?”

  “There was no mosh pit,” I countered as I shrugged into it and zipped it up over my top. It wasn’t his, I knew right away, the subtle scent of heated rocks and water hitting my senses. My eyes flicked up and I saw Cash staring me down. He was still shirtless. I averted my gaze.

  “Let’s do an encore for them,” Finn said. “C’mon, they’ll love it and Candy might be a bit on the crazy side, but she’s paying us bank.”

  “Acoustic,” I heard Cash say. I didn’t look at him, but sat down on a couch that pressed up against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Ace has that new acoustic bass of his, you guys have your acoustics too. Strip it down. They’ll eat it up.”

  “Sounds good,” Finn said without arguing. “C’mon, idiots.” There was a shuffling of feet, and Ace patted me on the head before the crowd outside cried, greeting the reappearance of four out of five members of Phoenixcry.

  The music started, the lights dimmer backstage than they had been out in front. I sat there, half-listening, and played with the ties on Cash’s hoodie. The couch dipped beside me and he was right there.

  I looked up at him, not sure what he wanted.

  “You okay?” he asked. His eyes were so blue. How had I not seen that before?

  “A little overwhelmed,” I admitted, being more honest than I wanted to be. But something about his presence, and the floating, trembling notes off the acoustic guitars was doing something to me.

  “It does that to people. The music, I mean.” He looked down at his hands and chuckled, shaking his head. “We knew it would happen, cause of what we are, but I was watching you. It hit you harder than anyone.”

  “Huh?” He was going somewhere that I couldn’t follow. “What was hitting me harder?”

  “The music. I always had a hunch, why witches wanted nothing to do with us, why they want us dead—”

  “What?” He wasn’t making any sense. Witches didn’t want werewolves dead. They just didn’t, couldn’t, associate with them or be anywhere near them.

  Cash gave me a slow, sad smile.

  “The music is affecting you. It does to all humans, but... you looked—you looked entranced out there. Like the building could have come down around you and you wouldn’t have noticed. I was watching,” he said again.

  “How? The stage lights—” I felt defensive. He put a finger to my lips, and hushed me. That sparking feeling shivered out along my mouth, down my neck, from where he touched me.

  “You think a wolf can’t see through some stage lights?” he asked. “It hurts to look through them, but that’s not the worst pain I’ve felt. You looked like you were drugged out there, and...” He dropped his hand from my mouth and I lifted my own fingers to touch my lips, to stop the tingling. His eyes followed my movements. “You’re still feeling it?”

  “Feeling what?” I asked, but I knew what he meant. “Yeah,” I admitted. He sighed and reached over beside the couch to an ice-bucket and pulled out a can of soda, popping the top.

  “Drink this,” he said, passing it to me. I took a long sip, the cold, sugary liquid sliding down my throat. As it did, I felt the fog of the music’s power break, like a cracking egg, and peel away from me. I cleared my throat and closed my eyes for a moment before opening them to look at him again.

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling shy and embarrassed. “I had no idea that... that your music would do that to me.”

  “We knew, but didn’t think it would be that strong.” His lips pressed into a thin line. “Makes a lot of sense though. Most werewolves play some sort of instrument, and if we can do that to you with a few songs, it’s pretty clear why witches and wolves have been enemies since the beginning.”

  “Yeah,” I breathed the word out. “That... that weirdly makes sense. I don’t know any witch who’d want to be controlled like that.”

  “You sure you feel better?” he asked abruptly.

  “Yeah, I’m good. Back to myself, fully. I don’t feel foggy anymore. Why?” I looked up at him. I did feel better, surprisingly. Maybe it was the caffeine.

  “I don’t think I could live with myself if you weren’t in full control of yourself when I did this,” he said. His fingers tucked up under my chin and his mouth covered mine. For a moment, I froze, and then melted up into him, my eyes sliding shut.

  Every instinct in me should have been screaming to pull away, to slap him, to run. Instead, his mouth moved over mine, softly, so softly, and a moan rose in my throat. His arm slipped around the small of my back, and he pulled me against him. My hands splayed flat against his chest, and I kissed him back. The breath stopped in my lungs, and the blood was thudding in my ears. He tasted good, the soft scent of him overwhelming me.

  “Oh,” I whispered when he pulled away. He was breathing faster, slightly, his eyes half-closed as he looked down at me like he wanted to consume me entirely.

  “I shouldn’t have done that, but I wanted to from the first moment I saw you,” he said, licking his lower lip. “You... you okay?”

  “Y-yeah,” I stuttered, and he chuckled, cupping my chin in one hand. He gave me one, brief soft kiss that left me more foggy than the music had.

  “C’mon,” he said, standing and pulling me up with him, his arm still wrapped around my back. “Let’s go.”

  Nine

  In the dark of the crowded room, no-one noticed us as we slipped from the backstage area and made our way along the edge of the crowd. Cash kept his head bowed, as he led me from the room. We were in the hallway outside the dressing room. All I could hear was the music, and the rapid flutter of my heart in my ears. What had happened? He’d kissed me. My lips were tingling, and my breath came in soft puffs.

  “Come here,” he whispered as he pulled me in for another kiss, this one hungry. His hands ran over my shoulders and down my back. In return, I stood on my toes, tongue slipping out to slide over his lower lip. That made him growl and his fingers dug into my hips. “Why do I want you so badly?” His eyes searched my face and I didn’t have an answer for him. He kicked the door to the dressing room open and tugged me inside. Before I could take a breath he had me pushed up against the door and he was kissing me again. This time the full press of his body held me firm against the wood, and I grabbed at his shoulders to get some sort of leverage.

  “Cash. Cash, what are we doing?” I peered up at him from beneath my eyelashes, feeling like I should push him away but not wanting to. Was the music still affecting me? My head was more clear that it had been in days.

  “Making mistakes,” he whispered throatily, bending down to kiss me again. This time, his lips travelled to the corner of my mouth, and over
my jaw. He brushed kisses right up to the soft spot beneath my ear, and I was breathing so hard and fast that I felt faint. I’d had a boyfriend, back when I’d lived with my parents. Creston Hailward. Tall, dark, and handsome enough. He’d never sparked a fire in me like Cash was, and he’d even pushed my boundaries, forcing me to tell him to stop more than once.

  Cash was different, his kisses burning on my skin but sweet at the same time. His hips cradled against mine, insistent but not inescapable. I could’ve gotten away if I wanted and I knew, deep down, if I told Cash to stop, he would in an instant.

  The problem was I didn’t want him to.

  “Ace is usually the king of bad ideas,” he muttered between kisses. “They told me not to, to stay away from you, that you were dangerous to us, and you are dangerous to us, Darcy, you’re so... damn... dangerous.” His tongue licked up the shell of my ear and I shuddered, fingers flexing into his back as I wrapped my arms around him.

  “I’m not,” the words came out in a soft squeak and he pulled away to gaze down at me, a smile curling up one corner of his mouth.

  “That noise you made, that was cute.” He chuckled and pulled me away from the door. I followed him, legs wobbly like a baby deer’s. A baby deer being led by a wolf to its doom.

  “Why am I dangerous?” I asked. They were the ones who were violent werewolves, able to rip me to pieces in a heartbeat. A fully powered witch was a match for one werewolf or two, but not a pack of them. And I wasn’t fully powered, not even close, not that he knew that. Cash shook his head and pulled me down on the couch. I went without argument, my body deciding that what was best for me was to follow him, and curl up against him as he wrapped one thick arm around me.

  “C’mere and hush, I can’t—” He kissed me again, silencing any more questions. Even if I wanted to know what he was talking about, it was more important to be on the receiving end of his heated embrace, and I let my apprehensions go. There was an ache in my chest, a loneliness that had been there for years I realized, as it unfolded and melted away in the face of Cash’s open affection. We broke for air after a moment, and his fingers slid down the side of my face as he stared at me, confusion on his face. “I can’t have you, but I don’t give a fuck,” he growled, and he rolled me underneath him.

  A gasp escaped my lips as the full press of his body on mine took me by surprise, and my fingers tightened around his biceps, sparking with power. He jerked back for a moment, shocked, literally, and stared at me.

  “Oh shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t...” My face flushed, and mortification settled under my breast bone, making a home there. I’d lost control of myself, and shocked him. His surprise gave way to amusement as his brow pulled together.

  “You’re a storm witch, huh?” he asked.

  “Uh, yeah,” I didn’t bother correcting him, because it was close enough to lightning, really, and what did it matter when the most I could do was spark people anyway?

  “Knew you were a firecracker,” he said as he bent down.

  “That’s fire, it’s not the same—”

  He cut me off with a kiss, all tongue and heat, his teeth scraping over my lip, pulling a groan out of me.

  “Spark me again and I’ll bite you,” he threatened, but there was no anger in his voice, only blatant arousal.

  “Are you getting off on... it?” My own voice was hushed, a mixture of shame and confusion.

  “If you only knew how good you smell, how good you look, sweetheart, there’s nothing about you that I don’t get off to. I shouldn’t. It’s fucked up and wrong and I should know better, but I gave up caring about the rules a long damn time ago.” He paused for a moment, pushing away to look down my body. “You don’t know any better. You’re too young to know better, so I shouldn’t be doing this, for your sake.”

  “I’m twenty-one,” I protested. He snorted and for a moment I thought he was going to pull away. Please don’t, I begged with my eyes. I needed this, needed him, more than anything I’d ever felt. I was breaking all the rules, both witch and musical, but my heart was aching for the attention, relishing in the way he looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  “God, you’re amazing,” he said. His hands were on my stomach, slipping up under the hoodie I was wearing, his hoodie. “And you’re wearing this, my scent all over you, like you’re mine—

  He fell quiet as he shifted down and I pressed my hand over my mouth when he kissed the bare skin of my belly. When his tongue flicked out to trail over my stomach, good sense and any other reason to tell him to stop vanished. My eyes closed as he kissed and licked up my belly, hands cupping my ribs right under my breasts as he pushed the hoodie up.

  “You smell good, like me, like pack, like power.” He mouthed at the edge of the hoodie and I felt the shift of my bra as it moved over my skin. My nipples were pebbling hard underneath the lacy fabric. One of his hands slid down over my hip, along my thigh, to wrap around my knee. Fire traced after his touch, and I moaned, letting my hand fall away. I wanted him to know how good it felt. I didn’t want to hide it.

  “Mine,” the word was guttural, in the back of his throat, and when I glanced down at him, his blue eyes were almost glowing in the dim light of the dressing room.

  “Yours,” I agreed, because there was no other choice for me. His hand lifted up and he dragged the edge of his hoodie, and my sweater, up, up over my breasts. My breath was just barely moving in my lungs, my whole body still. A small shiver shook me when his hands held the sides of my breasts almost reverently.

  Cash’s fingers curled into the edge of each cup, and pulled them down. I let out a long breath as his head bent and his mouth wrapped around the peak of one breast. A cry ripped from my throat; electric fire raced along my skin, and his tongue lashed against the sensitive nipple.

  “I’ve got you,” he murmured when he moved to the other breast, his hand slipping under my arched back. He held me up for him, supporting me as he mouthed at my other breast. “I’ve got you,” he whispered into my skin. Each breath that raced out of my lips was a soft gasp. Nothing had ever felt this good, and I was half convinced that nothing would ever feel this good again but each second that passed Cash proved me wrong.

  There was a soft rumbling sound in the distance and, after a few moments, I realized that it was him. The low noise was emanating from what seemed like his breast-bone, and it was soothing and arousing at the same time.

  He let me down gently, easing me onto the couch, his hands resting on my hips. His thumbs traced across my hip-bones, and I watched them stroke back and forth. My whole body was aching, and I wanted to ask him why he was hesitating.

  His head jerked up and he reached up, yanking the hoodie down my body.

  The door burst open, and Ace tumbled in, followed closely by the rest of the band.

  “Hey, there you—oh shit.” Ace stopped still, and Charlie bumped into him from behind. I sat up, arm crossing across my body despite the fact I was fully dressed. Eli and Finn bracketed the other two men, wearing murderous glares.

  Except their glares weren’t aimed at me. The twins were looking at Cash. He glared back, leaning forward to half-hide me from their view.

  Eli was the first to speak.

  “Thanks for coming out tonight, Miss Llewellyn. Charlie, would you drive her home?”

  My lips parted to protest but Eli slashed his hand through the air to silence me. Cash growled and Eli’s head snapped to look at him. Cash fell quiet, although his shoulders were tense and I could feel how angry he was without him even saying anything.

  “Excuse me? Don’t I get a say in this? I don’t need a ride, Charlie, but thanks,” I said after a moment as I gathered my courage. I stood up. Cash stood up in tandem with me, his hand out, as if he wanted to push me behind him. Finn was oddly quiet, no hint of his normal smiling self.

  “We’ve got band business to talk about. Non-label related band business,” Eli bit out each word like they were hurting him, as if he knew what I
would say before I said it. “And it’s late. Take the ride from Charlie. Please,” he growled the last word. Cash’s hand twitched and he turned to me.

  “You should go with Charlie,” he said, eyes searching my face. He was seriously backing down? We hadn’t been doing anything wrong—

  Making out with a band member that you’re managing, at their first show, and he’s your sworn enemy, Darcy, and you think you weren’t doing anything wrong? I could practically hear what Max would say to me when I told her. Maybe I just wouldn’t tell her.

  “Cash, please,” I whispered. I didn’t want to be by myself. Something had happened between us, something special, and I felt it slipping away, sliding through my fingers with each passing second. I needed to grab it tight, hold it close, or it was going to vanish forever.

  “This doesn’t concern you,” Cash answered, a coolness shuttering in his eyes, shutting me out. I stepped back, hurt exploding in my chest.

  “Fine,” I snapped, and I was across the room before I knew it. The guys parted for me as one, and Charlie held the door open for me. I stormed through it, leaving him to catch up with me. There was a DJ on the stage, and beats were thudding through the room, but the music was empty and dull compared to what Phoenixcry had played. That bit at me harder, feeling betrayal, hurt, and loss swirling in my stomach.

  I shouldn’t have been so attached so quickly, it didn’t make sense. I always kept people at arm’s length, and this was exactly why. Charlie caught up to me, and touched me on the shoulder as I waited for the elevator.

  “Hey,” he said, although the words were half-lost under the shaking noise of the DJ.

  “I can’t hear you,” I shouted at him. His mouth snapped shut and we waited, not speaking, for the elevator car to arrive.