Love Charms (60 page)

"Like me how?"

"I don't want to know what it's
like." I fumbled for words. "I want to be with you like it's my first
time too."

I could see understanding wash over him.
"Really? You want to forget having done that?"

I punched him lightly again. "Unless
you think we can't figure it out without my experience."

He laughed. "No, I think we can
manage."

I drew in a deep breath. "So do
it."

"Okay."

"Do you need a potion?"

"No. This is one of those
enchantment-lites." He smiled. "Except this is sort of a big one.
It's a high-level spell."

"Can you do it?"

"I can. I was sort of a spell-geek
during training."

"Like Hermione."

He laughed. "Without the hair."

"Okay, let's make it all go
away."

He grew somber. "I want you to run
through the experiences in your mind, right now, for practice. Close your
eyes."

I lay with my bare back against the
grass, going slowly through my history. Two in high school, Barrett and James.
Fumbling affairs, just encounters, nothing steady. Then freshman year in
college, a longish stint with Gary. A heartbreaker, as he'd left school when
his mom got sick and never returned. After that, a string of them. I tried to
keep each face in my head a moment. "I think I got them all," I said.

He shook his head. "You just think?
Maybe it's a good thing we're performing an erasure."

"Definitely a good thing."

"You ready to run through them again
while I do the spell?"

"Yes."

"Don't let your mind wander, or you
might lose something else."

"Got it."

He began an incantation, soft round
syllables in no recognizable language. I closed my eyes to the stars and ran
through the moments again. Bedrooms. Backs of cars. A lake. Two bathrooms.
Several sofas. The dorm room. Gordon's apartment. Then, just to see if it might
help, I thought of Rah.

I opened my eyes. Caleb completed the
line and dropped into a low hum. His face swirled in front of me, and suddenly
I worried I had thought of him! My head grew light and airy, like a balloon,
although when I touched my hair, everything seemed normal.

Caleb continued to hum the melody, and I
felt sleepy. I began to drift until even behind my closed eyes, all I pictured
were the stars.

"Jet?"

I realized my eyes were actually open.
"Is it done?"

"Do you want to keep the awareness
that you purposefully forgot your experiences?"

"Should I?"

"Up to you."

I considered this. "Yes, I want to
remember that I did them, just not the details."

"Then that's what you'll get."
He took my hand and pressed his lips against my palm.

I tried to remember Gary, since he'd been
around the longest. I could picture him, a lopsided smile, a mop of sandy
curls. I could remember kisses and falling asleep and waking up tangled in the
blue sheets of his bed. But nothing else. "It's done." I hugged him,
dragging him on top of me. "You did it!"

He continued the roll until I was on top
of him, and I sat high, my knees on either side of his hips. I ground against
him. "I can feel that," I said.

"You're pretty saucy for someone who
can't remember how to do anything." He bumped out my elbows, and I crashed
into his chest.

"I was born saucy."

He rolled us back over, the weight of him
pressing me flat. "I believe that." He lowered his head and met my
lips, and I realized that I didn't have to forget the other kisses to know that
his was the one that fit me best. My blood beat in my ears, my heart thumping
with outrageous speed.

I shivered against the grass, and Caleb
moved his hand through the air, warming the temperature another degree. He
grazed his fingers along my throat, down my collarbone, and settled along the
cup of the bra.

I reached for him, running my hands
beneath his shirt to touch the hot skin of his back. I wondered what it would
feel like for our bodies to connect, belly to belly, and so I tugged the fabric
up and over his head, breaking the kiss.

His chest was firm and smooth, lightly
muscled and lean. I ran my hands along his stomach, and he sucked in a hard
breath when I brushed against his belt. I knew I had touched men there, but I
couldn't remember what it was like. I wasn't ready for that yet, so instead I
wrapped my arms around his back and pulled him close.

My curves and valleys fit against him
perfectly, like a baby against his mother. His fingers lingered on the edges of
the bra, then he rolled me to my side to unclasp it, lifting it away and
tossing it to rest in the grass. "I remember this," he said, cupping
a breast reverently, like a chalice. He leaned in, and I knew where he was
going but not how it would feel, so when his mouth captured that tender spot, I
could not stop myself from arching up and crying out.

His fingers spread across my ribs as he
moved from one side to another. My hips began to move against him, naturally
and without my conscious effort. His lips were hot now, feverish against the
hollow of my belly. He unsnapped my jeans and slid them open.

I lurched into him again, every point of
me on fire, a fierce burn that I had no idea how to quench. He tugged on the
jeans, easing them over my hips, crossing my abdomen with nipping kisses along
the lace of my panties.

I kicked the ground to knock off my
shoes, and the jeans worked their way down across my knees. With a sharp pull,
he got them past my ankles and another article of my clothing lay forgotten in
the grass.

Caleb came back to my mouth, sliding his
body along mine as he made his way up. The jeans scraped against my thighs with
delicious friction, exciting me to yet another height. "I want you to
hurry," I whispered.

"No way," he said, smiling
against my lips.

My hands gripped his sides as he settled
between my legs. My ankles automatically crossed on top of him, locking him
against me. I lifted my hips, seeking contact. He braced himself on his elbows
over me, his mouth in my hair, and gave me what I asked for, hard rocking
thrusts of his jeans against my thin panties.

I wanted to scream with the need for him
to move faster, and I grabbed his hair, bringing his face back to mine. I
kissed him hard, tongue seeking his mouth, and sucked at him, pushing his head
into me.

He growled, low in his throat, and I felt
him shift, matching my need. But he controlled himself, kissing my shoulder and
pulling away to slide his hand across my body to rest against the silk
underwear, fingers kneading the heat between my legs.

"Caleb," I said, more pleading
than passionate, and so he moved forward, slipping his hand inside the panties
and placing a finger where I wanted him to go.

A million stars exploded from the
contact. I clutched at him, needing him to move faster, to finish out something
I couldn't quite grasp. Deeper inside me he reached, adding another finger,
somehow knowing where to touch. I writhed against his hand, holding on to him
like driftwood in a storm. He leaned in, his mouth back on my breast, and
everything shattered, sensation splintering through me like breaking glass. I
could hear my voice, saying his name and other things, but the pulsing pleasure
drowned it all out. I sank back down into the grass as though I had been
floating above it, feeling calmer. I knew about orgasm, but no longer had any
memory of it before now. My breathing slowed, and Caleb withdrew his hand,
leaning in to kiss me lightly on the lips again.

"How was that?" he asked, and I
pushed at him, a little embarrassed. He knew what it had been like for me. He
pushed his jeans down, kicking them off to join mine. I ran my finger along the
edge of the elastic of his boxers, more anxious than I should have been. Maybe
I should have kept at least one memory.

Caleb took my hand and wrapped it around
him, long and hard beneath the cotton. His breathing sped up, and I did as he
had, reaching inside the cloth to touch him, to make him long for it as he'd
done for me.

He closed his eyes as I found his rhythm
and pushed the boxers down with my free hand. I shifted to kneel next to him,
and finally let go to pull them all the way off. The moonlight was dim, casting
only a feeble light across his body. He was perfect, shadows and hollows, lean
muscle and strength. I wrapped my hands around him again, but he clasped my
fingers, stilling them, breathing in and out, regaining his control.

He pulled me down to lie on him, the
panties still a barrier between us. He eased them down, cupping my bare bottom
now, and tossed them aside. The sensation of being fully in contact was so
heady I felt dizzy. I think he felt the same, as he held my face with both
hands, as if trying to focus on me. "You are the most beautiful
thing," he said. "I've thought of nothing else since I saw you in
that portal."

I nodded, unable to speak. He rolled us
together until I lay on my back. "Let me look at you." He sat up,
running his fingers along my body, shoulder to belly to knee, pausing on key
places. "I'll never forget seeing you like this." He bent over me,
letting his lips trace the places his hands had been, then separating my knees
and opening me wide with his tongue.

Shards of pleasure splintered through me
again, and my newfound calm quickly spiraled back into need. I grabbed his head
and brought him back up to me until he lay over my body and I could feel him
hot and urgent, exactly where I wanted him to be.

He reached between us, and then there he
was, slipping inside, and the contact stole my breath. I closed my eyes,
thinking how amazing a first time could be without the pain, the rending of
tissue, and how lucky I was to have been chosen by him.

I was already so close to another peak
that it took only a few strokes to push me over the top again. He was new to
this, and as soon as I tightened around him, I felt everything go warm and
flushed. He clutched my shoulders, groaning with my name. I relaxed beneath him
and let him slow down, pressing his rhythm on his own time until he laid his
forehead on the grass, his cheek pressed against mine.

"You okay?" I asked him.

He nodded against me. After another
moment, he withdrew and rolled to my side, gathering me up against him.
"We've tested this every way we could test it, haven't we?"

"I think so."

"And the potion?"

"I'm not thinking of it now."

He kissed my forehead. "I'm going to
love you all my life."

"Yes, I think we will." I could
feel it running both ways, emotion traveling the circuit like the electric
passion had when we'd first touched each other.

"You think the golden biddies will
let me sneak into your window?"

"My portal will always be open for
you."

"Two years."

"We'll find a way." Two years
with nothing but those golden girls would make me want to tear my hair out.

The sky began to brighten. "Did you
order a sunrise?" I asked.

He glanced up at his conjured night.
"No." Then he smiled. "It's you."

I lifted my head to look at my body
curled against him. "I'm yellow."

"You're golden."

The glow was soft, like a child's
night-light. "This would totally freak out my chemistry profs."

Caleb laughed. "I think you could
probably show them a thing or two."

I tried to order my body to go back to
normal, but the glow persisted. "How do you turn this thing off?"

"Maybe we have to wear out the
batteries." He pressed his hips against me, and I looked at him, aghast.

"Already? Aren't you a resilient
young enchanter?"

"It's all definitely for you."
And this time, he pulled me on top of him.

28:
Melancholy

We snuck back into the house the
old-fashioned way, through the dungeon corridors and up the stairs to the back
wall of the kitchen pantry. We arrived in the overstuffed closet only to bump directly
into Deja, who was reaching for a box of saltines. "I get peckish when I
have to wait around for amorous matches," she said.

My face flushed red as she led us out
into the bright lights of the main room. Ellondra looked back and forth from me
to Caleb. "You're not with child already, are you? Nasty business,
training a Golden, and being pregnant would make it a hardship."

Deja placed her hands on my belly.
"Nope. Still good." She shook her head at us. "Be watchful of
the moon. Your phase is the cheshire. Avoid tempting it during training."

"We'll cast a spell to make them
argue during the cheshire moon," Ellondra said. "We'll set it to last
for twenty cycles."

"Ladies!" Genevieve said.
"Please! Can't we discuss this AFTER their binding ceremony?" She
grabbed Caleb by the collar and dragged him toward his room. "You have
school to finish." She flashed the Goldens a patronizing smile. "I'm
sure you know your way home. Ta-ta!"

"Caleb, I'll see you soon!" I
shouted after him.

He broke free of his mother, rushing back
down the hall. "I'll open my portal for you. Only for your token."

I nodded. "Okay."

He kissed me, and the Goldens sighed,
whether from annoyance or appreciation, I couldn't tell. Caleb pulled away
first. "I'll find you, wherever you are. I will always find you."

I bit back a tear. "I'll look for
you."

"Okay, lovebirds," Deja said.
"It's not like you have to walk in the snow. We'll teach Jet how to make
her own portal as soon as we get to the realm. Let's hit it. These crackers
aren't going to last me half a portal leap."

I waved to Caleb until the Goldens took
each of my hands. Within seconds, we were flying through the kaleidoscope of
the portals, heading toward a white circle I'd never seen.

"Only visible to a Golden,"
Deja's voice said inside my head. I couldn't see them, or myself, but I noticed
when we passed the dark circle to the spirit world. Portals of all colors
zoomed by, and for the first time I realized the colors weren't just random
streaks, but windows to other lairs. We were traveling differently, and I could
see everything, not just focus on the few places I knew.

"There's a lot to explore,"
Ellondra's voice said. "You'll have plenty of time."

I longed to turn back, to see Caleb's
room or my mother's lair. But they were right. There would be time to revisit
the past, figure out where I came from and how I got to this place. For now, I
needed to learn my role, sneak in visits with Caleb, and prepare myself for
whatever would come next.

But then I remembered Dad. I forced
myself to slow down. "I didn't say good-bye to Dad!"

"We'll fetch him. He needs to be
trained as well," Deja said.

"But he isn't a Golden."

"He has the golden bloodline, or
else you wouldn't be a full Golden. Come along."

We passed a portal where a forlorn ferret
watched us with tragic eyes. I slowed again, looking in. "Whose familiar
is this?" I asked.

"That's Melancholy," Deja said.
"Her enchantress was May, one of the eldest of our realm. She passed a few
weeks ago."

I had an idea. I reached for the ferret,
small and brown with white markings. He was soft and warm and lay his weary
head against my chest. I spun around, looking at portals. "How do I find a
specific one?"

"You just have to aim for it,"
Deja said. "But really, you already have Hallow. We'll arrange for him to
come to our realm."

"This one isn't for me." I
closed my eyes and thought of Mavis. Rah might be there, and it could be risky
if I felt matched to her again, but I had to do it. I began to move.

"Jet! We're heading to the white
realm!" Ellondra sounded annoyed.

"I'll be right back!"

Rah had left the portal open. I popped
into the small lair, which was empty. I listened a minute but heard nothing.
Maybe they'd gone after Rah and Dei Lucrii. The drumbeat sounded again in my
head, the need for her, so she was within reach again. I forced myself to push
it aside and set Melancholy on the desk. "Be a good familiar to
Mavis," I told him and stroked his soft head.

He sniffed around a moment and found the
pile of linens like the one she'd used on my face and lay down on it.
"Have a good life," I whispered and began the chant to move into the
portal. I knew the familiar was no trade for her daughter, and that they had a
difficult future ahead because of me. But Rah might be stronger than she first
appeared, and the potion, as long as she stayed near Dei Lucrii, would keep him
bound to her.

Deja and Ellondra waited for me in the
colored corridor. "Time to go, Jet. We can't wait any longer. We have
twenty years of bad habits to unravel in you."

I followed after them, zipping through
the colors toward my temporary new home. Do your worst, ladies, I thought. But
a different kind of Golden had just been born.