Mistress of Magic (12 page)

And he was going to kiss it.

He did. He covered it with the fullness of his own. Teased her lips with the tip of his tongue. Forced his way past them. Delved deep, drank deep. Felt the warmth of her mouth encompass and sheath the thrust of his tongue.

And felt the lightning fires searing through him again. He was ablaze, a mass of tension and desire, pulsing beats that desperately sought a release. And she was still touching him. Bringing him closer and closer to an explosive brink.

His lips broke from hers. Wet, liquid, slightly puffed and so damp from their kiss, her lips were ever so desirable. But he wanted more. He lifted her hair and touched his lips to her shoulders.

He slipped his hands beneath the shoulders of her robe and pushed the robe to the floor.

And like him, she was naked.

Naked and beautiful. Her breasts, the breasts he had fantasized about for so long, seemed a greater marvel than any picture he could conjure. They were full and firm with generous, dusky rose areolae and nipples. His hand instantly sought the fullness of her right breast. His thumb rolled and teased the nipple.

He bent down to taste the fullness of it.

She cried out softly, arching against him. A searing band seemed to stretch across his loin as he touched her, as he drank so deeply from her. He wanted to give her so much.

And for the moment, to give was to take.

He lifted her into his arms, casting her down on the bed, quickly crawling atop her. Her eyes were on his all the while. He needed her so badly.

His hands moved swiftly over the length of her, caressing, brushing her flesh, bringing warmth, evocative, arousing. He kissed and caressed her breasts, stroked her thighs and ran his palm firmly along her hip and the outer thigh. Pressing into the encompassing softness of the bed, he parted her thighs with the weight of his body. The scent of her was sweet and as tempting as a siren’s song. He buried his face against her throat, kissed her earlobe, teased the pulse with his tongue.

With a massive shift, a sudden movement, he was inside her. A soft gasp noted her surprise at his abrupt invasion. A deep shuddering seized her as he tried to hold still, to take time, but she was warm and wet and sheathed him so sweetly, adding temptation, promising relief to the hunger. He groaned, sinking into her. She was small and tight. He thought fleetingly that it must have been forever since she had made love.

He whispered something to her. Words that made no sense. He kissed and nuzzled her ear and she gasped again, her arms circling him, her long, slender legs doing the same. The welcoming movement on her part sent new sensations blazing through him. A fire that could not be quenched. He abandoned all thoughts of gentleness to the moonlight and the night, and set free the pulse of longing and passion that had seized him from the beginning.

She was accepting the onslaught of his beat, of his hungry rhythm. Then she moved. Fluid, sweet. Her back arching, her hips rotating. Taking him, accepting him. Holding, stroking, with the tight clench of her body. Bringing him higher and higher, racing toward a peak. Fire burned inside him. Climax exploded upon him and he jerked, tightened, thrust hard and harder. A searing seed spilled from him, filling her.

A soft gasp escaped her as she tightened, holding tight to him. He drew away. Her eyes were glazed. He had given her so little. And she had given him so much.

He couldn’t leave it that way. She started to speak but he caught her lips. Kissed her slowly. Gently. Explored. Teased. Demanded with his mouth. Took it away. Drank deeply of her lips once again.

Then he began to shift down her body. Catching her breasts. Taking his time loving them both. So slowly. So tenderly.

She didn’t seem to realize that they had barely begun. And she was whispering awkwardly to him.

He slipped his hand beneath the small of her back, lifting the smooth ivory plane of her stomach to his lips. He brushed the flesh with his tongue. Ran his lips across it. Delved into her navel with his kiss.

“You were really—”

“What?”

She gasped. He was running his tongue, wet, slick, along her upper thigh. Gently forcing her knees apart once again.

“You—”

She broke off, again gasping. He breathed against the very center of feminine desire. Touched so lightly with the tip of his tongue.

Delved so deeply.

She choked out something, digging into the bedding. Protesting. Not protesting. It didn’t matter. He could feel the sudden soaring of the passion within her, and he wouldn’t have released her then, wouldn’t have granted her quarter, had she screamed for mercy. For as it was, each twist and sweet undulation of her body sent the raw edge of desire flaming within him once again. It grew to become an agony. A pulsing that strained and contorted his muscle and loin, near bursting. But he waited. Calmly taking his leisure of her beautiful flesh, waited until she rocked against him. Pleading …

And then he rose above her.

That time, it was she who gasped and sobbed softly, pulsing against him in a whirlwind, tightening, shuddering, straining, then collapsing below him while he held her, taking his own release more slowly, only after she had found hers. Then, drenched, seeking to breathe again at a rational pace, holding her still, he let her lie quietly beside him, her hand upon his belly, her head upon his chest.

“Wes—”

He pressed his fingers against her lips.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“I was horrible—”

“Horrible? I’m not sure that I’ll be able to stand it when you are good!”

“No, no, I mean, coming in here like this, tonight. I don’t even know you. Not really.”

“Correction. I think you know me very well.”

She pressed a kiss against his chest, and he felt her smile. “Parts of you!”

He stroked the ink-black hair that lay damp and tangled over him. “I gave you fair warning,” he told her. “I won’t let you leap away, and I won’t let you pretend that nothing happened here.”

“Everything happened here,” she murmured. Then she pushed against him. Max’s sister was very beautiful and an incredible woman. She made love with the same passion with which she lived.

“I didn’t mean that the way that it sounded. I mean, I don’t expect anything from you. I just don’t—I don’t make a habit of doing things like this. It just seemed right. You were just so—”

“Ungodly sexy?” he suggested.

“Oh, no, it—”

“I’m not ungodly sexy?” he added, disappointed.

It brought a smile to her lips. Those lips that still seemed made for kissing.

“Oh, you are sexy.”

“Ungodly sexy.”

“All right—ungodly sexy!” She laughed, but then her laughter faded and she added softly, “But it was more. Much more. I don’t know if I can make you understand. I don’t know if I can make myself understand.”

He lifted a hand, smoothing some of the hair from her face. “You’re pretty ungodly sexy yourself,” he told her huskily. “And if you hadn’t come down that hall tonight, I might have died of the longing for you.”

“No one dies from longing,” she said.

“Want to bet?”

Yes, hers were lips made for kissing, and he kissed them again, his hand cupping her nape and bringing her face to his.

Then, while he kissed her, he let his hands start to roam again. Even as he kissed her, her eyes widened. Some sound gurgled in her throat. His lips rose above hers and she whispered, “We can’t—”

“Why can’t we?”

“We just—”

“Can,” he assured her. “We can.”

And he began to make love to her in earnest once again.

She was a mistress of fantasy. A creator of magic. And this night, she had most certainly created some fantastic magic for him.

There would be no denials. He was firm about that. Yet he knew that the daylight would come, and that it would mean different things to both of them. He wouldn’t let her walk away.

But still …

He wanted to hold on to the night. To hold on as passionately and fiercely as he could, for as long as he could.

Nights might be frequent.

Sometimes, even love was easy.

But magic …

Magic was always rare.

Chapter 8

“I
t makes no sense!” Max said. They were in the large meeting room above the entry cave. She hadn’t thought to say anything to Max about the intruder.

Wes had.

But he had forgotten to mention to her that he was going to tell Max, and when her brother had summoned her to the room and she had discovered Max and Wes sitting at the table and staring at her, she had felt as guilty as a two-year-old stealing candy. She’d even forgotten why Wes had stayed with her in the first place. Color had filled her face and she stood there staring at the two of them. Then Max had finally spoken. “Damn it, Reggie, you should have called me immediately.”

The intruder. They were talking about the intruder. Wes had said he wouldn’t lie, but at least he hadn’t come running to Max to tell him that she had come to his bedroom the night before.

What would Max’s reaction have been? Anger? Damn it, Wes, I call you for help, and you seduce my sister? Or amusement? Hell, I have been telling Reggie to get a life!

But Wes had done nothing so drastic—he had told Max about the intruder, and she had managed to sit down with the two of them. She hadn’t talked much at first; she hadn’t needed to. Wes explained about coming back from dinner and hearing the back door close. He told about the shots, too, and she was grateful that he omitted the part about her throwing the door open in the midst of the shooting. “It makes no sense!” Max said then, shaking his head and staring at Reggie. “Why would someone break into your house? I can’t seem to make two and two equal four.”

“Maybe two and two don’t equal four,” Reggie said. She looked at her brother. She couldn’t look at Wes without feeling the color rise to her cheeks again. She wasn’t trying to deny things. She just didn’t dare think about them.

“Max, maybe there was just a sneak thief in my house. I told Wiler last night that it was possible someone just decided to rob the place.”

“Right. And a casual robber shot at Wes, and then at you when Wes went after him.”

“Sure. Shooting kept us from coming after him, right?”

Max sighed and stared at her.

Wes spoke up. “They just happened to decide to rob your house after all this time?”

“Coincidences do happen,” Reggie said stubbornly, still looking at her brother. She sighed with exasperation. “Maybe some hood has been watching the place and realized that I live alone, and maybe even realized that I don’t have an alarm—”

“That has to be fixed,” Max said.

“Immediately,” Wes agreed. They were looking at each other and discussing her as if she was a child.

Well, all right, maybe she did need to have an alarm installed.

“Think it can be done today?” Max asked Wes.

“I’m sure Wiler can see that it’s done.”

“But will he?”

“Hey, hey! Both of you, I’m still here, remember?”

They stared at her patiently.

“I can’t have an alarm put in today, Max. First off, I need to be a dinosaur again. And you’re still short a Patricia in the saloon show. Niles just told me that Mrs. O’Halloran from the main costume shop isn’t sure if she’ll return. Max, I’m the only one who can fill in for all these empty bodies. I can’t sit at my house and wait.”

Max tapped his pencil on his desk. “Diana will go wait in your place. She won’t mind.”

Diana was one of Max’s friends. She worked in the art department. They had been dating since a month or so after his divorce. Actually, she had been a friend of Reggie’s first, so it was hard for Reggie to come up with an excuse why Diana couldn’t wait in her place.

“All right, Reggie?” Max asked.

“Yes, it’s fine,” she agreed.

But Max was frowning again. “Actually, I don’t think you should stay out there alone even with an alarm. Not the way things have been happening.”

“Max, I don’t have the energy or the stamina to try to move out now!” she protested. “I’m putting in way too many hours—”

“The hours won’t mean anything to anyone if something happens to you, Reggie.”

“I can’t—”

“I don’t want you alone!”

For the moment, they had both forgotten Wes, having gotten into one of the squabbles they’d always managed to get into. But then Wes spoke up again. Softly. But his words quickly caught their attention.

“I can stay at Reggie’s,” he said. He leaned across the polished table, his bronze hands with their neat, blunt-cut nails stretched out before him. “I stayed out there last night. I can stay until this thing is over.”

“I—I—” Reggie began. She was coloring. Despite a magnificent effort not to blush, she was reddening. She was staring at his hands. She shouldn’t be doing that. Staring at his hands made her remember the way they had felt on her.

The way they could feel again …

She was strangling. “I wouldn’t d-dream of putting you out,” she managed to say. He stared at her. Flatly. Coldly. It did sound as if she was trying to deny things. Damn him! She was pleading with her eyes. She didn’t want to deny things. She just didn’t want to clunk her brother on the head with the truth.

“Oh, I don’t think it would put me out too much,” he replied dryly.

“Can you?” Max said. “I’d be grateful. I’d feel that Reggie was definitely safe with you.”

“Hey.” He lifted his hands idly, staring at Reggie. “Regina’s house, the hotel suite. Doesn’t make much difference.”

“Thanks!” She heard herself murmur. But Max was too worried to notice anything in her tone. “I’ll call Diana—Wes, give Wiler a call and ask him to call whoever he thinks does the best job in the area. Hyer’s Corporation takes care of the park, but I don’t know how they work with private residences, and Reggie’s house is pretty far out of the city.”

Wes stood. He was in jeans that hugged his form very nicely, and his hair was still damp—he must have showered when he came into the office.

He hadn’t showered at her house. They’d woken so late. But they hadn’t gone to sleep until late. She’d been sound asleep when he nudged her, a cup of coffee in his hand. “We’ve got to get moving. Park opens in an hour.” He’d already been dressed, and for a moment, she’d felt ridiculously shy again, naked, tousled, with him dressed, his hair combed, even his socks and shoes on.