Evanescent Ink (Copperline #4) Read online

  Because she was. She always was, with her facade… and without it.

  I lightly touched my lips to hers. Something had happened last night. Something that bound her to me in a way I’d never imagined. With a faint gasp, she kissed me back. Tentative and almost shy. So incredibly vulnerable that I’d have never believed it was her if I wasn’t living that moment.

  She tasted of creamy coffee and felt like pure honesty in my arms. Her kiss was full of warmth and sincerity as her fingertips skated up my chest to rest at my neck. Every breath we shared drew us closer together until I couldn’t fathom letting her go.

  I really didn’t mean to go out there and jump on her, but her response to my kiss enraptured me. The tenderness pulled at my heart, building and growing until I lifted her against me. Her legs wrapped around my hips while I carried her back down the hall to the bed. The world around us seemed surreal. Magical. Meant to be.

  As slivers of light filtered through the dark curtains, I freed her from her top and shorts. I worshipped the delicate curves of her body, the lines of ink along her hip and stomach. I caressed and tasted her hardened nipples, tugging gently at the rings, and trailed my lips down between her legs where I licked and stroked her deep within. Her body practically became fluid beneath me, languid and boneless while I reveled her sweetness. In the tight grasp of her fingers pulling at my hair. In the burst of flavor on my tongue when she came.

  Rising back up to cover her body with my own, a tenderness unlike anything I’d ever experienced swelled in my chest. I cradled her beneath me, resting the weight of my body on my elbows. Gently, I lowered my lips to ghost against hers and felt a rush of her breath as I slowly explored her kiss with a faint swipe of my tongue. In between long, dreamlike kisses, our fingers tangled to unbutton my shirt and to rid me of my jeans.

  I braced her hips with my hand and began to push inside her with an agonizing slowness. Filling her just the tiniest bit at a time, torturing both her and myself with every pull of my apa in her tight, wet heat. My lips grazed hers, not quite a kiss, but to share the air that escaped our lungs in stilted puffs. To taste every tremble of her lips and to feel every moan.

  When I was finally fully inside her, I felt like I had come home.

  I made love to her. I needed her and wanted her. My sweet Raven. Somewhere in all this, she had become everything to me. I tried to tell her that with every brush of my fingertips on her cheek, with every stroke of my body inside her. Slow and sweet and together. Nothing else mattered but her in my arms. Her in my heart.

  I caught her gaze as the sensation once again began to build inside her. I watched her eyes become liquid with emotion and realized I’d done it. Finally. I’d touched her very soul. It was what I’d been reaching for almost since that first time, but she’d fought that connection. She’d not let that shield go.

  She felt it now. I saw it in her eyes. I heard it in her breath. That last shred of her resistance had fallen away leaving her unguarded and open. This thing between us had become so real and strong that it made my chest ache.

  She convulsed beneath me, jerking with a tightening of her body as she came so incredibly. With a kiss and a groan, I let go and spilled inside her.

  With one thought in my mind.

  Mine.

  Raven was truly mine.

  “Why is it so fucking cold in your apartment?” I asked, pulling Raven’s thick, plushy quilt over our naked bodies. Now that we’d emerged from the cloud of passion, I realized how frigid the air around us actually was. Aside from where Raven had been pressed up against me, my skin felt cold as ice.

  She giggled into my chest. “I haven’t started a fire yet, but it’s not that bad. The thermostat will kick on if it goes below fifty.”

  “Fifty? Fucking hell, that’s freezing,” I replied, and buried my face into her neck and hair. Her fingers skated up my bare back, and her foot stroked along my calf. In spite of the chill, her sensual movements stirred that longing for her that never completely abated, even after I’d just had her. I lifted my head and cocked an eyebrow at her. “Ah, wait… I get it. You’re trying to keep me in bed.”

  She chuckled, her eyes sparkling hazel in the dimly lit room. I was so used to seeing them purple that their actual color mesmerized me.

  “I do kinda like you here,” she whispered sincerely before placing a tender kiss on my chest and snuggling closer.

  “Kinda?” I asked.

  “Okay, I definitely like you here.”

  I tightened my arms around her, tangling the fingers of my free hand in her hair. “That’s good,” I murmured. “There’s kinda no place in the world I’d rather be right now.”

  “Kinda?” she echoed back to me.

  “Okay… definitely.”

  The air in the world outside felt so far away. So remote. We were in our own little cocoon of warmth and privacy, and we dozed a little. We kissed and touched a little more.

  In all the times we’d come together, we’d never had this. This lazy connection after sex. Most sex with us had practically been public, but even in my bed at the Mofo house, we’d always been on guard during. She’d always left soon after. It had been all about the release of pain and frustration and need. We’d never allowed ourselves to relax until our muscles, stiff and sore from the intense use, could go languid.

  I never wanted to get up as long as I lived. This was what had been missing with us.

  If I was really honest with myself, this had been missing with any girl I’d ever had.

  Raven seemed in no hurry to let me go either. She stayed nestled in my arms, trailing her fingers along the lines of my tats. She started with my arms, moving across my abs and up to my chest where she grazed my nipple piercings, causing me to clench my hand on her hip. That involuntary movement elicited an abstract nudge of her pelvis against mine, making me groan in her ear.

  “How do I already want you again?” I murmured as I nipped at delicate skin just beneath her hairline, relishing in the breathy gasp she let out. “I can’t seem to stop it. It just simmers under the surface.”

  Rolling from my side, I nestled my hips between her silky thighs and rose up to my elbows, caging her beneath me. Her hand trailed from my chest up to my neck and around the back of my head. As she studied me closely, the look in her eyes shifted from mellow and languid to melancholy and forlorn. Her brows narrowed when she spoke.

  “I don’t want it to be tomorrow,” she whispered. She shivered against me, nestling deeper into my arms. Her voice shook, making it sound fragile and raw. “I don’t want to go back out there. I like this little world we’re in right now.”

  “I know,” I replied, grazing her trembling lips with my own before lowering my forehead to touch it to hers. “I do, too.”

  I gathered her closer, trying to infuse her with strength. Trying to build up my own. Trying to find peace for both of us in the sudden choking hopelessness.

  Neither of us wanted to pull away and disrupt the quiet contentment that enveloped us, so we lay there a great deal longer. I lovingly caressed her skin and her hair. I pressed tender kisses to her eyelids and the tip of her nose. With every move I made, I did whatever I could to soothe her wounded heart.

  It was already dark by the time we finally got up.

  I sat watching the crackling flames in the wood stove, feeling the heat radiate out to warm the skin of my bare torso. I’d started the fire while Raven talked to her uncle, listening quietly to her responses as he told her about the arrangements he’d made.

  As soon as it wasn’t freezing in the apartment, I slipped into her bathroom for a quick shower. Raven stuck my clothes, aside from the jacket and tie, in the washing machine. For lack of anything else to wear, I tucked a towel around my hips. Now, stoking the embers, I let the contentment of the moment seep in.

  The sounds of cooking came from the little kitchenette, and the aroma of garlic and tomato sauce began to permeate through the scent of burning pine. I glanced back to see Raven drop some spa
ghetti into a pot of boiling water. She bent at the waist to place a pan of garlic bread in the oven, then straightened to stir the sauce that simmered away on the stove.

  She had pulled back on her camisole and shorts which showcased some of her tats and that delectable little body. The sight brought me to rise and go to her, to stand behind her and slide my arms around her waist. As I pressed a tender kiss on the ink at her shoulder, her skin pebbled faintly with goosebumps. Even as she melted into me, she berated me a little.

  “You’re distracting me,” she murmured. “You’re going to make me burn dinner.”

  “It’s all your fault,” I replied with a little squeeze.

  “My fault?”

  “You’re too fucking tempting. I can’t not touch you.”

  She twisted in my arms to press a quick kiss to my lips. “You need to go sit on the couch and look at something else then. I’m not that good of a cook, so I need to concentrate or I'll burn the bread.”

  “Oh no,” I whispered, grazing her lips with another kiss. “Anything but that.”

  I kissed her harder, turning her in my arms and pressing her up against the counter. Raven moaned softly, but arched into my touch with a soft moan. A minute later, the scent of roasted garlic began to smell a touch scorched.

  I lifted my head and grinned. “Rave, I think you’re burning the bread.”

  “Dammit,” she gasped, pushing me back and pointing to the couch. “You go sit down until this is ready.”

  I stepped over to the woodstove to chuck another piece of split pine in the fire and did as she told me to. I tried focusing on her apartment. On the few pictures she’d placed here and there. Pictures of her and Lacey. Her uncle. One of her, Lloyd, and a bunch of others decked out for a steampunk event.

  Raven’s table was pretty much covered with a sewing machine and piles of clothing in various stages of becoming steampunk gear. Corsets and ruffled skirts. Jackets that laced up at the back. Boots and shoes that had been embellished with bits of lace and rustic jewelry. Goggles and watches and cogs.

  The faint memory of violins and accordions echoed through my head, and I remembered her smiling as we danced. Laughing at my expression when I’d tasted that strange absinth drink. Kneeling before me in the master bedroom of the Copper King Mansion as she savored my dick.

  Fuck. I really needed to try and get through dinner without jumping her bones again. Especially with all that had happened in the last day or so. Even with all of the emotional upheaval, though, she had me feeling like I was sex-starved when I should be well-sated.

  Yet, watching her move around the small kitchen in her scanty clothing was a bit like torture. I was so hungry that it felt like my stomach was going to rumble right out of me, but it was all I could do to stay hands off long enough for her to finish cooking.

  I soon found out Raven had lied, too. She was a great cook.

  We ate on the couch since the table was covered. I was reclined with my feet up on the coffee table. Raven sat beside me, sideways on the couch. Cross-legged and facing me with her plate in her lap. She was so close. I needed to focus on something else. I needed conversation. Something to pull my mind away from how bad I wanted her… at least long enough to refuel.

  I glanced over to the costumes piled high on her table.

  “So, do you make your own outfits? For the steampunk stuff?”

  She nodded, twirling spaghetti around on her fork. “I make a lot of what I wear every day, too. I had a teacher in high school who taught me how to sew.”

  “What, you were in home ec or something?” I teased.

  She shook her head. “Drama. When I moved to Montana, I got into theater. It tends to attract the different sort of kids. The weird ones, like me.”

  “You were in plays and shit?” I asked, trying to picture her on stage, more than a little surprised. She wasn’t the home ec type, but she didn’t seem like she wanted to be front and center like that either.

  “God, no,” she laughed. “I was into costumes, makeup, lighting… behind the scenes. We had a limited budget, so our teacher showed a few of us how to sew. How to find things at thrift shops and turn them into other things. I loved it and started doing it all the time.”

  “That’s why you had that old tweed coat in your Jeep.”

  She set her plate on the coffee table and scooted a little closer, dabbing her mouth with a napkin that she tossed on top of the plate. She took a sip of wine, taking just a second before answering.

  “I had a bunch of stuff in there from a second-hand store in Butte. Lucky me, I had found just the right things for you.”

  “I had no idea what the fuck you were doing to me,” I grinned at the memory. “I was pretty sure I was going to get my ass kicked the minute we walked through the door.”

  “Why did you let me do it, then?”

  I reached out to set my plate on top of hers and took her wine glass. I wasn’t a wine-drinker, usually. Beer or hard liquor was my drink choice, but whatever this was tasted kind of awesome after the robust Italian dinner.

  Then I set the glass beside our plates, and reached for her, pulling her on my lap and facing me.

  “You’re fascinating. All the time. It’s like I just can’t wait to see what you’ll do next. I’m always waiting with bated breath to see what you’re going to say. To wear. To do. Everything.”

  My voice had practically dropped to a whisper. Her fingers trailed down my chest and over the ridges of my abs to the edge of the towel where they tantalized the contours of my muscles.

  “I can’t imagine I’m that interesting,” she softly said.

  I caught her jaw in my hand and tilted her face up to me. “You are.” She swallowed hard and started to look away, but I didn’t let her. “This is so much more than sex, Rave. You know that, right?”

  A little flicker of apprehension crossed over her features. Something unsure. She lifted her arms to my shoulders and leaned forward to rest against me with her face buried in my neck. She didn’t talk, but she didn't deny it either. She felt it, too. She had to.

  My arms came around her, sheltering her sudden vulnerability. Holding her close to my heart.

  “It’s so much more,” I whispered again.

  Late in the night, we lay curled up on the couch flipping through the channels. Having slept away much of the day, neither of us was overly tired. At the same time, though, neither of us had any desire to leave our haven, especially with the cold winter wind blowing around outside.

  Raven needed some distraction, though. Something to pull her mind away from the upcoming funeral. I wanted her to feel at peace, even if only for a little while.

  And I wanted to know her—not just her body, but more about her—while she felt like sharing. Raven wasn’t exactly an open book when it came to the things that made her tick. She had opened up to me more in the past few days than I had ever expected. I wanted to build on that. I wanted more from her.

  She suddenly stopped flipping through the cable guide on the TV and sighed wistfully.

  “I love this movie.”

  “What is it?” I asked, unfamiliar with the gothic scene before me.

  “You’ve never seen Dracula?” She looked completely shocked.

  “Ummm…” I hedged.

  “Bram Stocker’s Dracula… with Gary Oldman? Winona Ryder?”

  “I was just a little kid when that movie came out.”

  Raven laughed. “So was I. It’s timeless, though. I loved it.”

  “I can’t believe your parents let you watch it.”

  “They didn’t,” she giggled. “I had a babysitter who watched it once when I was supposed to be in bed.”

  “Supposed to?”

  “I was always a bit of a night owl, and I used to sneak downstairs whenever she babysat to see what she was watching.”

  “Didn’t it scare the shit out of you?”

  Raven’s jaw dropped. “It’s intensely romantic. It’s a beautiful love story.”

&n
bsp; “It’s an old creeper who wants to suck her blood.”

  “No, see, you just think that because you’ve never seen it. It’s incredible. The Count and Mina were married centuries ago, and she died. He cursed God, and God cursed him back by turning him into a vampire, but then he meets up with Mina’s soul again, and that connection is still there.”

  I slanted a skeptical look at her.

  “I always wanted to be Mina with her sad, dark eyes. To feel the love they shared.” Her own sad eyes suddenly looked far away, distant as she stared at the opening credits.

  She suddenly embodied that lonely little girl she once was. Someone who only just wanted love for who she was, not who she was supposed to be. It spurred that nagging ache in my chest.

  She started flipping through the menu again, but I put my hand over hers on the remote.

  “Go back,” I said when she looked up at me. “Let’s watch it.”

  “We don’t have to.”

  “I want to, really,” I promised, then grinned. “And I’m not just saying that to get in your pants.”

  This wrought a chuckle from her, and she even flushed just a tiny bit in the low light.

  But she went back to the movie, and I got a little more insight into this girl I was starting to think of as mine. I watched her more than the movie, though. Her reactions were enthralling, and tears sparkled in her eyes at the pinnacle of the story.

  Before it ended, though, her phone rang. This ringtone was different. The music was a bit foreboding.

  Raven’s reaction to it set me on edge.

  She pulled away to grab her phone and looked at the display, swallowing hard with a deep-knit frown.

  “Rave?” I asked cautiously as I paused the movie.

  “It's my dad,” she whispered.

  The ominous ringtone continued, cut off abruptly, only to start again seconds later.

  “I don't want to talk to him.” Her voice sounded hollow.

  I reach forward and brushed my thumb along her cheek. “Maybe it will be good to talk to him. He might be trying to make amends.”