Authors: Ann Macela
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Romance, #Suspense
Wild Magic (24 page)
So, he kissed her again. This one was not quick.
The idea of their actually mating blew most other thoughts totally out of Irenee’s head. His kiss obliterated any left over. Somewhere in the middle of it, she realized there was no possibility in the world she could have anticipated the impact he had on her with a simple touch of his lips.
Simple? No way!
His scent enveloped her, his tongue and lips were fire and satin on her mouth, and he tasted like tiramisu, only better. Her center heated, a warmth that simultaneously comforted and excited. Magic energy skittered along her nerve endings exactly like she was about to cast a big spell, and her blood began to race through her veins.
He deepened the kiss, and she did some deepening of her own, tangling her tongue with his, running hers along his bottom lip. He seemed to like it because he groaned and pulled her closer.
Not close enough. She wanted, needed more, and she managed to get her lower arm around his neck and her top arm around his back so they were chest to chest.
Better.
Worse.
When he pressed his top leg between hers and lifted hers over his hip, the ache started, first in her breasts and then lower. Her cotton shirt and jeans seemed too tight, too constricting, too rough. She could feel how much he wanted her, and she pressed herself to the bulge in his pants.
He grunted, rubbed his hand up and down her back, cupped her backside, and kneaded. Even through the thick denim, he seemed to be touching her bare skin, and she wished she could purr.
Maybe she didn’t have to. She could feel his center vibrating, and hers began to oscillate in unison, in harmony. Blissful, absolutely blissful.
He moved his hand from her back to her side, up her rib cage, and to her front, where he halted, just under the curve of her breast. She could feel her breasts swell, her nipples tighten.
Why did he stop? She needed his touch higher, right where she was aching.
He lifted his head, broke the kiss. “Irenee.”
She opened her eyes to look into those golden-green eyes, so hot with desire they almost melted her heart.
“Say the word, and we’ll take this to its logical conclusion,” he said in a low, gruff, slightly breathless tone.
The question wrenched her mind out of the glorious lethargy into which it had sunk.
She wanted to say yes. Oh, how she wanted to say yes.
Except ... a feeling, a notion, a voice, a premonition, maybe even a hunch in her was saying it was sooooo soon. Tooooo soon.
She took a deep breath to tell him no.
At the top of her breath before she could say the word, he loosened his arms, separated them a few inches. “Yeah, I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I’m somehow not ready either.”
She exhaled, let go of him, and flopped back on the carpet. He did the same. Her body was tingling and not happy to stop. She managed, however, to exert some control over her mind. He was right. It was a gigantic step, and she wasn’t ready. Not really, not truly.
He still had his bottom arm under her head, and he pulled her to him until she was curled in his arm with her head on his shoulder.
“This is all going so fast,” he said. “I’m used to drug deals going wrong in a flash. I know where I stand then—and I can shoot back. There’s so much to come to grips with here. My body’s saying, ‘Go,’ but my mind, and maybe my hunch, is saying, ‘Slow down.’”
“Yes. It’s too fast—even for me, and I have an idea what’s coming. We’re out of control. And it’s like we haven’t done something yet that needs doing
first.”
first.”
“Exactly. I hate that feeling. Hunch or no hunch, I won’t be bullied by a phenomenon or an imperative, no matter what other practitioners have put up with. We’ll decide when we do whatever we do.”
“I agree.” She sighed. Why did everything have to be so hard and complicated? “You haven’t heard all of it either. There are a couple more things I need to tell you—if I can just remember what they are after your kiss.”
He chuckled, a low rumble she felt rather than heard. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”
She sat up, smoothed her hair back, and rubbed her face with both hands. He reached up to massage her back, and it felt so good, she could have let him do it for hours.
Be strong, Irenee.
Be strong, Irenee.
Propping herself up on one hand, she turned to him. She was about to put her other hand on his chest, before she caught herself. Who knew what reaction touching him anywhere near his center would cause?
He didn’t seem to care, because he captured the hand and held it to his chest right over the spot.
“Are you still hurting?” she asked.
He gave her a crooked smile. “Yes, but not where you mean. My center? No, your kiss seems to have made it all better.” He wiggled their joined hands. “So does this.”
He sat up also, pushed himself back so he could lean against the easy chair. He kept her hand in his. “Okay, what else? Does it have anything to do with what Whipple was saying—something about my understanding and full power?”
He was certainly a quick study and remembered details despite the confusion going on around him, and she supposed it’s what cops needed to do. Or ... “Another hunch?”
“Not really. I noticed how Whipple emphasized the words and you didn’t seem to like them.”
She scooted around more to face him. “It’s part of the pressure to settle the soul-mate issue quickly, and it doesn’t come from the imperative. Fergus wasn’t talking only about your training in the basics or my trying spells at my new, higher level. Besides bonding mates for life, the first mating carries the probability of enhancing magic abilities, increasing energy, potential, and level. With some matings, only one mate may have an enhancement, or nothing may happen with either. There’s no recorded instance of a mate losing power in the process, thank goodness.”
“So, with more power, we’d be better equipped to fight the Stone?” He looked both intrigued and skeptical at the same time.
“Yes, theoretically” She shrugged and rubbed her forehead. “The problem under these time constraints is—and I know from my own experience—it still takes a while to get used to your higher level, to learn what it can do, to practice the spells you know. Nothing is easy here, especially the more complicated spells and the precise modulation of energy. When you train with Johanna tomorrow, you’ll see that even more than you did today”
“Whipple wants us to mate so we’ll have greater power for fighting. He doesn’t give a flip about you and me and what our mating might mean to us, does he? He wants us to jump into bed tonight, doesn’t he?”
“No, that’s not quite right,” she answered. “He does care. He also knows what being soul mates means, how it feels, and how wonderful it is. He’s trying to speed up the process, that’s all. So we’re ready for whatever gets thrown at us.”
“I’m not trying to reject you, but personally, I’d like a little more time to get used to the idea—to all of the ideas. Where do you think our not taking the big step immediately would leave us?”
“Somewhere in the middle. Not totally prepared, but not helpless, either. We’re thinking alike—like soul mates—in wanting more time.” She had to smile at that thought. What a similarity to have.
He seemed to process the information for a moment before saying, “Okay, then let’s proceed at our pace, not someone else’s. What’s next?”
She felt her face grow warm simply at the thought of the last requirement for mating, and she bent her head in the hopes he hadn’t noticed.
Fat chance. Mr. Never-Miss-a-Trick used a forefinger to tilt her head back up and grinned at her. “Oh, man, I bet this is a good one.”
She made a face at him and launched into the explanation. Best to get it out of the way. “According to the rules for a first mating, to be sure the bond takes, we can’t use artificial barriers. No condoms. No pills.”
“Nothing? What about birth control?”
“We witches have our own, in the form of spells. We learn them and start casting in our teens. My personal spell is current.”
“I’ve never had sex without a condom,” he said. “You don’t have to worry, I’m healthy”
“I’m healthy, too.” She wouldn’t mention why.
He grinned again. “Honey, if you’re going to try to avoid subjects with me, you really need to learn a spell that stops you from blushing. Come on, what else?”
She sighed, looked down, and mumbled, “I’m a virgin.”
When he didn’t say a word, she glanced up. He was staring at her, an utterly blank look on his face like he’d been hit with a stun spell.
Finally he said, “A virgin? You’re what, twenty-five? How can you still be a virgin in this day and age?”
“Well, it’s not my fault!” She snatched her hand from his and crossed her arms, tucking her hands under them. “Remember what I said about the test for a soul mate being to try to make love, and if you couldn’t do it, you weren’t soul mates? The phenomenon or the imperative or a combination won’t let female practitioners make love until it’s with their soul mates. We feel no attraction or arousal whatsoever. Men can do it all and have sex, too. It’s very unfair.”
“In that case, why the birth control spells?”
“Because in this day and age, there’s a chance of being raped. Besides, the spells help keep a woman regular, if it’s any of your business.”
As she watched, his expression went from incredulous to blank to possessive. He put his hands on her shoulders and, leaning close, kissed her. She tried to resist him and not move, but he was so persuasive. Her semicooled blood reheated, and she melted again. By the time the kiss ended, she was in his lap and they were both breathless.
“Good,” he whispered in her ear, “then you’re all mine.”
“Remember, the bond works both ways.”
“Damn right.” He made it a flat declaration, and she knew in her bones he was as much hers as she was his.
They sat there for a few minutes, simply holding each other.
Finally he stirred and looked at his watch. “It’s getting late, and we have a big day ahead. You’re so damn tempting, if I don’t leave now, I never will. What do we do about breakfast tomorrow?”
“Why don’t we eat here? One thing I’ve learned ever since my levels started rising—eat for fuel early. Training usually starts at eight. Come at seven?”
“Fine.”
They got up from the carpet. He gave her another searing kiss that left her knees weak, grabbed his bag, and left for his room on the other side of the center.
When she shut the door behind him, a small wave of loneliness swept over her. “Stop it!” she said to the imperative. “We’re doing the best we can.”
Her center warmed, gave what seemed to her a happy flutter, and subsided.
“Thank you.” She wobbled off to bed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“You let them get away? You stupid bastard! I give you a simple assignment—bring me Irenee Sabel, and you botch it!” Bruce Ubell struggled to get control of himself before he tried out one of the gifts from his Stone and melted the idiot on the spot.
No, that was not a good idea. The imbecile would be impossible to get out of the carpet. It was bad enough he was still soggy from his trip into the swamp.
“I’m telling you, Mr. Ubell,” his highly recommended enforcer whined, “they had some sort of secret weapon. The woman stuck her hand out of the car, and she must have had something in it—a ray gun maybe—and the car just blew up! We couldn’t do nothing except get outta there. Good thing we did, because some white Hummers—the big, original kind—came after us.”
“You didn’t lead them back here, did you?” The last thing he needed—the Swords on his doorstep in the next minute.
“Nah,” the man answered. “We lost them, and we’ll ditch the SUV we came back in. We stole both of them, so nobody will be able to trace them to us.”
“She had a man with her, you said? Who?”
“Never saw him before. He was a big guy, handled himself well.” The thug rubbed his jaw as if in memory. “Probably six-feet-plus, brown hair. I did get his license plate when we followed them to the restaurant”
“Give it to me.”
The man dug a limp, still wet piece of paper from a pocket. He unfolded it and handed it over.
Bruce carefully spread the paper out on the yellow pad he’d been writing on. The number was still visible—fortunately for the man standing on the other side of the desk. At least he’d done one thing right.
“What do you want us to do now, Mr. Ubell? Try again?”
“No, they won’t come out of the Center without looking for you first, and there’s no place to hide where you won’t be seen. Go on and get out of here. Tell your boss I won’t need you again for a while.” As if they’d be allowed a second chance. He wouldn’t have used these incompetents in the first place, even if they were “associates” of his primary drug distributor, but they were all he could get his hands on in a hurry.
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