My Forbidden Desire (12 page)

She tipped her head back, and his hands brushed down her arms, urging her closer. No problem whatsoever. The closer she was to him the better. She ran her palms down his torso from his breastbone to the top of his sweats, while he helped her keep her balance with his hands spread over her back. Somehow he ended up with his hands cupping her ass. She trailed a finger down. All the way down. “You have a fantastic body,” she whispered.

His eyes flickered, and a sizzle of energy went up her arms. She leaned in and kissed the side of his mouth. They connected again. Mentally. Without the disorienting trading places. Her breath stopped. Xia threw back his head and groaned, hands clutching her. His arms shook and he stopped. Everything. All of it. He set her back. Too far away for her to touch him.

“Alexandrine…”

She didn’t feel any steadier than he looked. Leaning back, she looked at him. “What?” she said. “That felt good. You know it did. So what’s the matter?”

He drew up his knees in line with his shoulders and tipped his head back. His expression went blank, and then Alexandrine watched while the emotions that came from him—lust and hunger, and then anticipation and desire—appeared on his face. He kept his gaze on the ceiling. “That got out of hand. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. Well, I am right now, but I wasn’t before.”

He lowered his chin and looked at her from under a veil of dead-black lashes. A direct look. “You know what I want right now,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

After a bit, he said, “I know what you think you want.”

“It was fantastic, Xia. Why wouldn’t I want that?” She was still getting flashes of his feelings, and she supposed that meant he was getting hers. Their eyes met. Collided. Connected.

“So,” he said in a low voice, “what the fuck are we going to do about that, Alexandrine?”

She scooted closer, a finger sliding along the bare inside of his forearm.

He lifted his panther-marked hand and set his palm on top of her shoulder, pushing aside the fabric of her shirt in order to put bare skin to bare skin. For a minute there, she had the eerie sensation that the mark on his palm was moving, tickling her skin.

“I need you to tell me you’re going to let this happen,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m going to let this happen.”

He brought her toward him, and she instinctively exposed the side of her throat to him again. His breath warmed her skin. He touched his finger to her, drawing a line that burst with cold and then heat. Somehow he’d managed to open a cut. It stung but she didn’t care. Blood trickled down her skin. His mouth opened over her skin, and he tasted again. More this time. Deeper. Harder.

Colors whirled behind her closed eyes. Amethyst, violet, emerald, streaks of ruby across endless black. She fell into him, joining with the pulse of his power, a reservoir of magic so dark and deep and wide she’d never find the end. He lifted his mouth. Alexandrine was aware now that she was in his embrace, that one of his hands cupped the back of her head and that his forearm pressed against her upper back, keeping her close to him.

He took a long breath, and her body flooded with a sensuous anticipation that burned with an edge of hunger. The warmth of his lips on her skin startled her, and then she felt his tongue, moving along the cut he’d made. He felt so good. So right. Lord, but she wanted to touch him.

Xia released her and, making a fist, stretched for his knife with the other and used the blade to nick her wrist. She flinched and then watched, fascinated, at the welling line of red. Her blood was so very red. Blood scent rose to her, the tang in her mouth already. The sense that he was in her head doubled. Or maybe that was her in his head. She couldn’t tell. Did the desire to taste belong to her or to him? His eyes flashed through several shades of blue.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked.

He brought her wrist to his lips and gently, slowly, touched his tongue to the drop. The taste exploded in her mouth, transmitted from him to her. Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this shivering of connection through her, pulling her deeper into Xia’s mind, into the center of his magic. When she lifted her head, she had trouble getting her bearings. She sat on her haunches, trying to make the room stop spinning. Xia steadied her.

“I fucking hate witches,” he said. His hand, big and warm and more than capable of killing, followed the upward indentation of her spine. He brought her head to his and kissed her, hard, and Alexandrine returned his kiss with unrestrained passion. With one quick motion, he grabbed the top of her shirt and pulled at the buttons until they either came free or popped off.

The minute his finger brushed the curve of her breast, she leaned in and kissed him; she’d been dying to kiss him since forever. He let her. He even kissed her back. His hand slid around, unfastened her bra, and covered her breast. He pulled back to take a look.

“You’ve made it clear what you think of me,” she said. “You sure you want to see where this leads?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Oh, yeah.” She grabbed his wrist and spread her fingers up and over the back of his hand, pressing his hand over her breast. “I want you to touch me.”

He spread his thighs and pulled her forward. Off balance, she tipped toward him. She got a hand up just in time. Her palm hit the wall beside his head and kept her upright. The scent of lavender soap came to her, faint but rising from his skin, like the clean smell of his hair. Her amulet swung forward, dangling between their bodies. She watched it move.

He said he hated her, but that wasn’t what he was feeling. Not by a mile. She didn’t move. He raised his eyes, too. His hand on her back tightened. And his other hand, his panther-marked hand, touched her belly. She sucked in a breath. She kissed him again, and yes, yes, he kissed her back, and damn, he was good. His mouth was soft, and he was a monumentally good kisser, with an edge that promised she could make him lose control without much more effort. His tongue slipped into her mouth, and Alexandrine flat-out melted for him. Wherever he was taking this, she was right there with him.

She wanted to touch him. Had to. She drew back, pressing kisses on his mouth. “Shirt off,” she said, tugging upward on the hem of his T-shirt.

He stopped her. “Alexandrine.”

“What?”

“No.” His hand gripped her wrist. “Not that I don’t want you—you’re effing beautiful—but…” His eyes flashed white, which startled her. “I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I can’t do this. We can’t.”

“Why?”

He let go of her and rolled onto his back, one arm over his eyes. He had an impressive erection going, so there wasn’t anything wrong in that department. Fully functional. God, but she wanted him. “I can’t.”

“Because I’m a witch? We’ve been over that.” She sat beside him with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around her shins. “You knew that when this started. Why chicken out now?”

One neon blue eye appeared when he moved his forearm. “Because I didn’t think you’d make me this hot.” He moved his arm off his face and stared at the ceiling. “I haven’t done this in a really long time.”

“That’s hard to believe. You must have women lining up at your door.”

“I get plenty now,” he said. “All the vanilla I want. I meant doing it with a witch.”

“And?” She was dying to touch him. Dying for contact with him. She wanted to feel his arms around her and feel her naked skin against his. She wanted to touch his body everywhere and find out what made him fall apart.

“When I was mageheld,” he said softly, “Rasmus didn’t let me have sex. Not often, anyway.” His eyes stayed focused on the ceiling, where she’d stenciled a stylized golden sun on the black portion over the bed. “When he sent me after a witch, he usually explicitly forbade me from doing her.”

She reached for his near hand, which happened to be the panther-marked one. For whatever reason, he let her twine his fingers with hers. Her palm tingled. Maybe he didn’t notice the contact; he was pretty far into his memories right now. “Like that would have been the same as sex I wanted to have. It’s different when you want to hurt everything and everyone. And it’s different when you’re compelled.” He raised his knee and glanced at her. “Rasmus Kessler is one of the magekind, and that means he’s a vindictive bastard. A couple of times he told me to do it. Some witch he wanted dead. So I had to. Not that I minded. Killing mages and witches like you was my favorite thing to do. He liked to be in my head during those times so he could feel everything I did to them. You understand what I’m saying? He knew I was mean and a fucking nasty bastard.”

“Xia, I know,” she whispered. She wished she didn’t, though. “It’s all right.”

“Killing one of the magekind was the closest I ever got to feeling like I was free. I lived for those orders.”

Alexandrine squeezed his hand. “It’s all right. I understand.” And too bad she did. No wonder he didn’t want her.

“It’s not like I never got laid.” His lashes hid most of his eyes at the moment. “A mageheld is always looking for loopholes, always looking for ways to rebel. But it didn’t happen often. Most of the time, if I had sex, it was because Rasmus wanted it, too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I got taken because of a witch.” He sat up, sitting cross-legged. Their hands stayed clasped. “Betrayed by a witch. She didn’t have any impressive power—enough to make a living, but she couldn’t pull like Rasmus or Christophe. She was with Rasmus, too, only I didn’t know that until it was too late.”

“And I’m a witch.” Not the one who betrayed him, but Xia understood that. He just didn’t like witches. With good reason, unfortunately.

He let out a breath and brought their interlinked hands to rest on his thigh. “You’re a witch with no control over your magic. And that makes you dangerous. There’s no way”—he looked straight into her eyes—“no way, I’m putting myself into a situation where I could get taken again. No matter how bad I want my dick inside you.”

The thought of that took her breath away for a moment. “I couldn’t, Xia. You know that. Not even if I knew how.”

His eyes narrowed, but they remained neon blue. “You don’t have any idea what would happen to you if you did it with someone like me—and I don’t, either.” He draped a hand over his raised knee. His fingers were long and slender. “You think that talisman came back to you because the laws of physics just decided to take a vacation? You pulled, Alexandrine. Magic. And it worked for you. Considering that when I come, I won’t be thinking of protecting myself from you… Well, there’s only one way I’m doing a witch.”

“Oh.” She studied his face. He was serious. And what’s more, she realized, he wasn’t saying no, was he? He was setting out parameters that worked for him. “What way is that?”

“If I’m in complete control.”

She tried to make sense of that. Some fun images popped into her head, which meant that couldn’t be what he was talking about. “I assume you don’t mean tying me up.”

Xia released her hand. “What the hell have we been talking about all this time? Fuck, Alexandrine, you’re not an idiot. I mean
in control
.” He tapped his index finger on her forehead. The contact zinged through her. “Totally and completely in control of you and your magic.”

“You can do that?” She’d read about it, of course. Talked about it with others like her who were trying to learn on their own and sift out the lies from the truth in what they’d heard or read. But she’d never believed it could be done. Hell, she hadn’t believed magehelds existed, let alone that there were free beings like him.

He rocked forward, pressing his fists into the mattress until she ended up on her back with him stretched over her. Her reaction to him went from zero to completely turned on in the time it took her to inhale. He slid a hand under her chin and pressed a finger just under the edge of her jaw. “Baby,” he said in a low voice, “you’d be amazed what I can do.” His gaze burned into her, gorgeous neon blue. And his mouth. Wow. So incredibly kissable. “Want a sample?”

She put her arms around his shoulders. Lord have mercy. The man was nothing but muscle and warm skin. “Maybe.”

“Yes or no?” He settled his pelvis against hers, and his voice was all low and spicy dark, and that was just so unfair. “I need permission for this.”

“Fine, then.” She arched up, feeling his erection. All of her—mind and body—longed for that. “Yes.”

He touched her forehead again, and this time the tap became a hum and then a sense of pressure on her skull, and then he was in her head. Really and truly there, and it wasn’t what she’d anticipated. This was different from before. She was suffocating, panicking, because she existed in one tiny corner of her mind and no more.

Xia had the opposite reaction. “Alexandrine,” he whispered. His eyes cycled through a million shades of blue, ending with white irises with the faintest of blue streaks in them. “That’s good. You feel so good.”

He lowered his pelvis to hers again, and though she knew her body was aroused, Xia had control of her reactions. As he eased up, she was more at home in herself. Yet not alone. If she could act on what she was feeling, it was only because he allowed it. The thing was, he liked it; that was obvious. He liked being in control, and she wasn’t comfortable knowing he could make her do anything at all without her deciding to go along. Anything. He withdrew his psychic presence from her, and she fell back, shuddering with the aftereffect.