Then she tilted the jar, slipped her hand beneath the edge, and held her fingers still.

The butterfly landed on a fingertip.

She smiled and glanced at Sam, who was smiling too, but whose furrowed brows indicated he didn’t understand the point of what she was doing.

She fluttered her fingers and the butterfly took flight, wings brushing against her wet fingers. Small specks of green dust were left behind. “That should do it,” she said, easing out her hand and lowering the rim to the table again.

Returning to the chalice, she stirred and stirred, imagining Sylvia Reyes as she’d looked, flicking back her hair and smacking her lips before entering the hotel. The horror in her face as she faded against the yellowed walls of the hallway.

When she finished, she poured the liquid into a vial.

“That’s it?” Sam asked, coming behind her and resting a hand on her shoulder. “No words?”

“The words are meant to be written at the time of summoning the spirit.”

“The butterfly?”

She produced a twig with blossoms she’d snapped off at the butterfly farm. “It’ll be fine until you hand it off to a uniform to deliver.”

“Then you’re done.”

She didn’t complete a nod before he swung her up into his arms and marched to the bedroom.

Laughing, she clung to his broad shoulders. “Did I ever tell you I love it when you go all caveman on me?”

His lips twisted into a smug smile. Then he tossed her onto the sheets.

9

“You’ve been a busy boy,” she murmured, noting he’d already pulled back the covers to the end of the bed. Two pillows were stacked in the center beside her hips. “Should I be worried?”

Sam shook his head, then leaned over her, grabbing her wrists and then wrapping her fingers around the wooden spokes of her Mission headboard.

His expression, so tight and dark, sent a thrill through her. She tightened her fingers and stretched out her body, ready to let him arrange her any way he wanted.

Sam knelt on the mattress and grabbed the pillows, sliding them closer to her hips.

Without a word, she lifted them, giving a little helpless moan as he quickly gripped her and centered her just so.

Then his hands glided over the tops of her thighs, stopping at her knees. He spread them and looked down, his smoldering gaze locking on her intimate flesh. His chest rose with a deep inhalation. His eyelids dipped before he speared her with a challenging glance.

Cait swallowed hard, her body tensing, liquid seeping from inside her. She tried to close her thighs to squeeze away the ache, but his hands settled on her knees and pushed them farther apart.

She opened, cool air brushing her warm, wet sex. An exquisite tension caused her belly and thighs to quiver, intensifying when a ripple tensed Sam’s square jaw as he stared down.

Everything slowed. Her breaths. Her heart. Her thoughts. Like the times when she tossed up crushed herbs and waited with an eagerness that burned through her for the murder of crows to explode into the air.

She waited. At his mercy. Her damp fingers slipping on the spokes.

And then his large palms glided from her knees up her inner thighs. His thumbs parted her. His head bent.

Before his mouth touched her, she rolled her hips and let loose a moan. “Oh God, Sam.”

The tip of his hardened tongue dove inside her, swirling in her depths before slicking upward to flick her burgeoning clit.

Her back bowed, and the tips of her breasts tightened. Deciding his silent command to grip the headboard was more of a suggestion not to interfere with what he was doing, she cupped her small mounds, massaging, giving herself comfort as his clever tongue lapped and spanked and his teeth nibbled away.

“Sam… Sam…”

Two thick fingers entered her, and she squeezed her inner muscles to trap them. Fluid gushed and coated them as they began to plunge inside her, and he continued to torture her clitoris.

Her orgasm erupted, an explosion of painful pleasure—so quickly, she arched and screamed. Her eyelids drifted shut.

His body shifted, climbing over her, his knees bumping her thighs in his haste to be inside her. The moment he thrust forward, her eyes shot open and their gazes locked.

Sam tsked and shook his head, pushing up her hands to rest beside her head. “Can’t seem to obey the rules, sweetheart.”

She’d have answered, but her throat was thick, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her heart outpaced her thoughts, thudding strong against her chest. “Just fuck me, please,” she managed to grit out.

His torso lowered, his hands slipped beneath her, cupping her ass, and he ground into her, deep, barreling thrusts that shook the bed and her to the very core.

Lord, how he filled her. In every way a woman could ask. His size dwarfed her, sinking her body deep into the mattress. His cock stretched her walls, his girth enough all by itself to incite another orgasm, which was quickly overtaking her. He understood her. Loved her despite the fact she thwarted him, lied to him, kept secrets. Despite her many weaknesses.

His face burrowing into her neck, Sam grunted, deep masculine gusts as his chest and belly rubbed against her skin, the fine dark hairs abrading her pebbled nipples.

The fingers cupping her, dug into her fleshy bottom, massaging her, nails dragging on her sensitive skin. She’d have bruises, scrapes, but she didn’t care. His passion was earthy, ardent—an extension of his overwhelming masculinity.

Cait lifted her legs and hugged them around his waist, pushing up her hips to grind against his strokes, heat building inside her as he continued to churn and thrust.

Sam withdrew his hands and leaned on one elbow. Without slowing the rocking of his hips, he slipped the other between their sweat-slicked bodies and burrowed one finger into the top of her folds. “Again.”

Not a question as to whether she could, but a command.

She stared upward, her mouth open as she panted. Her eyelids fluttered, and then she was there, writhing beneath him, coming undone. The pleasure overtook her slowly this time, radiating outward from where he rubbed and circled to shiver through her belly and limbs.

When her agonized cry echoed against the walls, he cursed, rising on his hands to power into her, unrelenting, stretching her orgasm into a glorious explosion of light and sizzling nerve endings.

When at last he shouted and slowed, she hugged him close, wrapping herself around him, squeezing to keep him there inside her, to make the moment last and last.

A kiss grazed her cheek. “You okay?” he murmured softly.

Tired, replete, she smiled, letting her head fall back as her hands roamed his sturdy body. “You killed me.”

“Twice, I think.” His grin was boyish. Beautiful against his strong, harshly etched features.

She bracketed his face with her hands and reached up to kiss his mouth, nuzzling his nose afterward. The scent of her arousal filled her nose. “I’ve never had better, you know.” And that fact was true. As luxuriously sensual as lovemaking with Morin had been, the raw intensity Sam brought to her bed made her tremble.

“You are not thinking about him in this bed,” he growled, lifting himself on one stiff arm.

“Jealous?” A thrill shot through her at his tone. “You shouldn’t be. I chose you.”

Sam gave a sharp shake of his head. “Better sleep. You and I both have to hit the ground running in the morning.”

She hadn’t wanted a reminder of the difficulties ahead, and made a face. “You had to kill the moment.”

His grin was roguish. “I could make you forget again…”

The wicked gleam in his eyes made her laugh. And then his cock twitched inside her, and she knew he wasn’t exaggerating one little bit. She blew a breath into his ear, then whispered, “Round two?”