Her Kind of Trouble (27 page)
"And?"
"And because I'll make positive changes with vast repercussions."
"Good. And?"
Even I wasn't sure what I was looking for, until he growled, lower than ever, "
And because I deserve it
."
I shivered at the power of his conviction, the kind of conviction a person would need to do great things. And yet I—or the goddess in me—asked, "Are you sure?"
"Yes. I'm sure."
"And can you do it alone?"
To his credit, his gaze continued to focus on my face, despite both of us being nude. "Nobody can do it alone," he whispered.
Right answer.
I knelt in front of him, one leg tucked under me and the other knee up, like so many statues of Isis herself. We were showing fealty to each other, now. I reached for the glass of oil, dipped my fingers, and smeared its warm richness across his forehead. "Then may the wis-dom of the goddess guide your thoughts, Lex, that you may always know what is right."
He closed his eyes as he shuddered, which gave me the perfect chance to brush an oily fingertip gently across each eyelid. "May the vision of the goddess guide your sight, Lex, that you may always see the proper path."
I'm sure this wasn't just coming out of nowhere—but it didn't feel as if I'd been taken over by anybody, by anything, either. It felt more as if I were accessing a part of myself that had been there, dormant, all along. Like Cleopatra—a reincarnation of the goddess? None of it felt normal—my insides were practically vibrating. But neither was it unwelcome.
"May the voice of the goddess guide your words," I continued, sliding oil across his full lower lip with my thumb…
His tongue darted out and tasted me—and I smiled. We really were still us. That was where the true power of this ritual lay, not just in the otherworldliness of it…but in
us
.
The rightness of us.
"That when you
do
speak, Alexander," I half teased, "you may speak the truth."
His dark-gold eyes pleaded with me. "Let me touch you," he whispered hoarsely.
"Not yet," I warned. I put down the glass to rub a generous puddle of oil between both my palms. "May the power of the goddess strengthen you, that whatever responsibilities you shoulder, you can indeed carry through."
And he had such wide, solid shoulders to anoint. My hands then caressed down to the curve of his chest.
"And may the heart of the goddess encourage you," I whispered. "That your courage and conviction never, never fail. Do you accept this charge?"
His voice broke as he said, "I do."
My gaze darted to the ring on my finger, where my hands spread across his now glistening chest, and I felt a brief flare of panic.
I do
? This was more, so much more than I'd initially meant to take on…
Then again, jumping into a void was hardly about control, was it?
"Good can only come from balance," I intoned, breathing quickly to keep my head amid the sensations that surrounded me. The scents, sandalwood and wax and roses and aroused male. The vision of him, always him, so golden and strong and virile in front of me. The beating of our hearts, and of soft drums, drums and the mingling rasp of our breath. The feel of him, so very alive under my hands. All I was missing was taste…
Soon
. The word came to me as a reassurance.
Soon
.
"As long as male and female struggle against one another, there can be no unity," I continued. "But as we recognize the strength of each other, the gift of each other, as we join, so can we find balance. You are a warrior. Already you embrace that which is hard. Will you also embrace that which is tender?"
Lex nodded, unable to find his voice, even before I then poured oil onto
his
hands—and drew them gladly to my breasts. He spread his fingers to encompass me, to massage and worship the weight and fullness of my femininity. Again, I had to catch my breath.
But where I slid my oily hands next, down and around, had him catching his own breath with a moan. He
was
hard—hard, and hot, and pulsing. And I'll con-fess that my fingers, encircling him, stroking him, were greedy. Almost as eager as my own aching need.
"You have the capacity for violence," I warned, then added, before he could protest, "As do we all. Will you choose, whenever possible, to use that power for joy, for… for love?"
Somehow, his hands caressing my breasts, his hips moving within my intimate hold on him, Lex forced his starving eyes open. "I will," he insisted—
Which is when I ducked my head and tasted his chest, sucked on his shoulder, licked straining cords of his neck. The oil was lightly flavored, not at all unpleasant. The taste of Lex, beneath the taste of the oil, was even sexier.
"Then be one with me," I whispered, my words muffled against his skin. Then, just for him, "Please."
It was all the invitation he needed.
In one smooth movement Lex slid his hands down to my hips, cupped my bottom, and lifted me out of my crouch and onto his hard, hot need of me. Between his powerful thrust and gravity, he was suddenly just
there
, filling me, thick and sure and necessary. I cried out my pleasure.
His arms cinched, iron hard around me, as if to keep me from pulling away, but he managed to murmur, "Did I hurt you?"
Hurt
? "No. Never."
This joining was as we were meant to be, as close as two human beings could get. It was magical. Spiritual. Everything, everything, everything.
I held out my arms, wide like wings, flying on the sensation. I let his embrace hold me up, and I arched my back. The move curved my belly against his, thrust my bosom upward and pulled my weight backward, so that he had little choice but to lay me down onto the rug, following me with his hard, hot body, taking a breast into his open mouth. Now I was wholly spread out beneath him, an offering, a blessing, a banquet. Like the world before him, should his bid for leadership be granted.
"I can't… " gasped Lex. "I can't…not."
But he didn't
have
to
not
. I caught the back of his thighs, urged him on. This was part of the ritual, too.
He thrust powerfully, filling me deeper and harder, pressing me into the rug.
"There… " Somehow I managed to gasp ancient words in the midst of our writhing, between moans of pure satisfaction. "There is no dark…without the light… "
"Maggi," whispered Lex into my ear. Then he took my ear into his mouth, searing it with his questing tongue, and whatever he'd meant to say was lost. His body continued to rock against mine, across mine, into mine, owning me…
I turned my head on the rug and, through sated eyes, saw the distant pyramids. Ancient. Permanent as man-made things could ever, ever be. We were a blink to the pyramids… but maybe we encompassed something older, even so.
"There is no beginning...
ah
... without an ending… "
"Mag… no… "
Did he just say
no
? I had to have imagined it. And yet—"Don't you want this?" I whispered. Gasped.
It probably didn't hurt that I was stroking one hand down to the small of his flexing, hard-muscled back, then lower, my fingers questing behind his thighs, increasingly intimate.
He whispered, "Yes." Not once, but over and over. "Yes, yes, yes, yes… "
His thrusting, faster and faster, matched his words.
Somehow, with the same instinct that knew how to make love, I knew what had to be said before we could end this.
Assuming we could ever, ever fully end this.
"There is—
oh, Lex
!" His force spread my legs farther, pushed me an inch across the rug.
"Yes," he prayed. "Yes, yes… "
"There is… no man—
please, Lex
!" I wanted to fit every bit of him, his whole being, inside me. When he surged into me yet again, I imagined maybe he could. I wasn't seeing straight. I wasn't breathing anything but his breath and roses and sandalwood. I wasn't tasting anything but him, especially when he covered my mouth with his, drank me, possessed me. But I was feeling everything—the sun, the moon, the stars—and mostly Lex, his strong hands cradling my back and head, his hard body heavy on top of me, and his male-ness, rigid and insatiable between my legs, exactly where I wanted him, exactly where I needed him…
"No man without woman!" I insisted, turning my head away from his mouth to do so, desperate to finish—
And at that, with a scream and convulsion of pure rapture, I
did
finish.
Oh heavens, did I finish, sobbing and shuddering and savoring every seismic moment of it.
"And?" grunted Lex, still making love to me, not quite finished himself. Warrior indeed. The man had stamina.
At least now I could speak. My eyes were damp and my heart was racing and the weave of this rug was probably imprinted in my bare bottom. My body felt as if it were floating, like being weightless, like underwater in the
"And there is no woman without man," I agreed with him, getting a little more intimate with my questing fingers—
Now Lex shuddered, groaned, and poured himself, hot and defiant, into me. His weight lowered onto me, heavier than ever, panting and all but helpless.
Which is when I realized why he'd said
no
.
I couldn't fault him for dropping the protest—even as the heir to a powerful bloodline, the bloodline of the grail kings themselves, he was only human. It said a lot that he'd thought of it at all.
I hadn't. Which was unusual, despite the spiritual elements of this particular joining.
Until now, all of our adult lives, we'd used condoms.
The weird thing is, I didn't freak. Not to say that I had any desire to have his baby. Not really. Not just yet.
Did I? Surely not.
But our joining had felt fated, divine. Somehow, I couldn't work up any great reluctance or fear now that it was done. Not from any consequences of me and Lex being together. None at all.
Besides, I felt so damned sated, it would be hard to feel upset about anything. Instead of worrying, I wove my fingers into Lex's thick hair and turned my head to kiss his oil-softened brow.
Mmm
.
With great effort, he wrapped his arms around me and rolled, so that now he was under me, no longer weighing me down. His penis slid, soft and wet, out of me.
Worry about that later.
"Is that… ?" He was still having trouble catching his breath. "Is that all?"
"
All
?" Somehow I found the strength to lever myself up off of him, just high enough to give him the evil eye. "That wasn't enough?"
"I can never get enough of you, Mag."
Sweet talker. "That wasn't just about sex, Lex Stuart. That was a ritual. We were communing with the gods."
"Sex with you is always—"
I kissed him, unsure whether to be amused, flattered…or annoyed. If this meant anything at all—
—well, more than out-of-this-world sex and an end to our current celibacy—
—then he had to take it seriously.
"Don't you dare make fun of this," I warned. And I meant it.
To my immense satisfaction, Lex's eyes widened slightly. "No! Mag, this was more… I never would have asked you if I'd thought…and now… "
Then, clearly lost for, words, he turned
his
head to look out the undraped doors at the rapidly darkening pyramids on the horizon. Folding my arms on his chest, and pillowing my head on my arms, I watched them too.
Warm and comfortable and together and…
right
.
Eventually the pyramids lit up with colored lights. Progress marches on.
"Do you think it worked?" asked Lex, after a while.
I propped my chin on my hands to better look at him, and shrugged. "We didn't follow any ancient script. I'm not an official priestess. You're not an official king. We're not brother and sister—"
His eyes widened. "
Excuse me
?"
"An Egyptian royalty thing," I explained, grinning. "The oil wasn't sacred, and we weren't in a temple."
"So why does it feel like it worked?"
"Maybe because none of those other trappings matter. Maybe because what really counted was our joining, the reminder that we're not just individuals but part of… "
Part of a greater whole
. But now that we weren't in the middle of a Sacred Marriage, I was scared to say that.
To my relief, Lex said, "So was this a one-shot deal, priestess and prospective king? Or… "
"Oh, no," I assured him. "I'm more than just a vessel for the goddess, buddy. We are definitely on again."
