Trace of Magic (10 page)

“Are you all right?”

What kind of question is that? I’ve been shot and apparently healed up. How did he manage that, by the way? A question I’d be asking soon, once I was clean. Maybe after I’d had a sandwich.

“What happened to my blood?” I asked.

Let me explain something. Blood can be used to find people, plus do magic against them. ’Course they have to be decently strong, and the blood has to be super fresh. The longer it sits, the more powerful the person’s magical ability has to be. I’ve done some testing of my own limits. About two hours max is what I’ve got. Josh’s blood was too old by the time we found it for me to find him with it.

“I burned it,” he said.

I nodded, and I wondered if he really had. Not that he had any real use for it. He didn’t seem to have any magic talent. If he did, he was hiding it well.

“Hey.” Price snapped his fingers in front of my face.

I blinked and focused on him. “What?”

“How about I get you something to eat first? Then you can shower. You’ll be stronger. You won’t fall down while washing.”

He continued to stare at me. I shifted and swayed, leaning back against the wall. He was right. Plus I was very, very hungry.

“Okay.”

He helped me back to the bed and sat me down. “Stay here.”

With that he vanished. I pulled a soft throw over my bare legs and snuggled into his pillows. His smell was a delicious drug.

I was asleep by the time he returned with a sandwich. He woke me with a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“Come on. Let’s get some food into you.”

Price helped me sit up against the pillows. The sandwich was ham and pepper jack cheese with lettuce and tomato on sourdough. I devoured it and guzzled the milk that came with it. He sat on the foot of the bed and watched me.

I set my glass down. “That was good. Thank you.” Already I felt a lot better. Still weak and tired, but not as shaky, and I thought I could stand. “It’s time for my shower.”

Price looked doubtful. “You’ll collapse. You can’t even stand without help.”

“I’ll be fine. Besides, if necessary, I’ll sit. I need to get clean.”

He considered and then gave a little nod. “Then I’ll stay and help.”

He had that bulldog look, the same one he’d gotten when he first hired me. I wasn’t going to win this argument. Neither was I going to forgo the shower. It wasn’t just the blood. I felt dirty and I smelled ripe, like I’d run a marathon. Maybe shock does that to a person. I sighed. What the hell? He’d already seen me naked. What was one more time?

Crazy how I could have a barely healed bullet wound and be dizzy as hell, and yet the idea of having Price helping me shower made fireworks go off in my stomach. I sucked in a sharp breath.

“What’s wrong? Are you in pain?” He put a hand under my elbow.

“Can we just get on with this, please?” I tried not to sound eager.

HE KICKED ASIDE my abandoned sweats and closed the toilet before sitting me down on it. I still had the throw wrapped around my lower half. From the closet behind the door he pulled out a big basket of froufrou-looking stuff. He set it on the counter and started pulling out bottles.

“That doesn’t exactly look like your style.” I sat slumped over with my elbows on my thighs and my chin on my hands. “I thought you’d go in for something more masculine than—” I lifted my head to get a look at one of the labels. “What’s a plumeria, anyhow?”

“A flower from Hawaii.”

“You don’t strike me as a flowery shampoo sort of guy.” More like woodsmoke and leather.

“I like to keep it around just in case.” He took a couple of towels out of the cupboard, along with a washcloth.

Just in case he had feminine company. Why did that bother me? I have to admit it did. I really didn’t want to think about other women taking showers in his bathroom. Or doing other naked things in his house.

Oh crap. Please,
please
do not let me even think about being stupid enough to fall for Price.
No, no, no, no, no!

I looked down at the floor while he started the water and adjusted it. A minute later, a pair of bare feet showed up in my vision and then a hand. I straightened and put my hand in his before I realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
Oh my
. Price’s body was lovely. Sculpted muscles with a line of dark silky hair arrowing down his chest to vanish into the waistband of his jeans. I averted my gaze and bit the inside of my lip. I tensed myself against the urge to touch him, to feel the hot satin of his skin.

He let me go and reached for the shirt I was wearing. “Raise your arms.”

I drew in a breath and held it and lifted my arms. He pulled the shirt over my head and dropped it on the floor. I am proud to say I didn’t blush. I’m pretty certain I couldn’t, what with all my blood loss. Never thought I’d be grateful to get shot.

The shower was big enough to hold a half-dozen people. Glass tiles shimmered on the walls and floor. There were sprayers in the walls and several on the ceiling. It was like stepping into a carwash. A steamy one. There was a seat in each of the three corners and a glass door, which Price closed behind us.

Us.

He’d kept his jeans on, which only made me imagine peeling them down his legs and licking my way back up.

I groaned and twisted away to face the wall.

“What is it? Are you hurting?”

As nice as this shower was, I just wanted to hurry up and get out before I humiliated myself. “Hand me some shampoo.”

I grabbed the bottle out of his hand, squirted some into my palm, and scrubbed it into my hair. I may have scraped off some skin. I was a little vigorous. Because he didn’t need to see my boobs jiggling, I kept my back to him. I rinsed out my hair and reached blindly behind me. “Conditioner?”

He put it in my hand. I closed my fingers on it, but I had a bad grip. I dropped it. Without thinking I bent to retrieve it, and was swept with a gray wave of dizziness. I keeled sideways against the wall, hitting it hard with my shoulder and the side of my head. My ears rang and spots kaleidoscoped across my brain.

Strong hands caught me. Price pulled me upright against his chest. My nipples rubbed his skin and hardened. My stomach went molten, and my knees turned wobbly again. I stared straight at his throat, unwilling to meet his eyes.

“Riley? Are you okay? You hit your head.”

His fingers ran slightly over my head, looking for a concussion, I suppose. Or maybe another blood fountain. The way I was reacting to his touch, I felt like I had a concussion. My hands were pressed against the flat planes of his pecs. Steel and velvet.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, and I sounded like I’d eaten a handful of gravel. “Let’s just get this over with.”

I made myself lower my hands, but his hand remained on my hip while the other trailed down the side of my face. I was still pressed up hard against him, and I could feel his hard length inside his wet jeans.

That was when I made the mistake of looking up into those sapphire eyes. He looked down at me with smoldering intensity. His jaw knotted and then he slowly slid his hand around the back of my head and pulled me into the hottest kiss I’ve ever experienced in my life.

Chapter 9

HIS LIPS SLANTED over mine. From the ferocity of his look, I was expecting something rough, but he was gentle. Worshipful even. He took his time, sliding the tip of his tongue along my lips. He pulled away and so our lips barely touched, and our breathing mingled, then came back like a starving man, deepening the kiss.

Heat ribboned through me, sending sparks dancing along my nerves and turning my stomach to hot gold. I skimmed my hands up his arms to his shoulders. I bit his lip gently. He groaned and his hands contracted on me.

That did me in. I leaned into him and pushed up on my tiptoes. His left arm slid around my back to hold me like an iron bar. His tongue danced with mine, clever and wet. The taste of him was indescribably delicious. I couldn’t get enough. My arms locked around his neck. I was barely standing on my own.

I can’t tell you how long that moment went on. Neither one of us wanted to be the one to stop. The shower kept pouring on the hot water. We weren’t going to be saved by a cold dousing.

In the end it was me that put a stop to the best kiss of my life. Or rather, blood loss and maybe shock catching up to me. I felt myself starting to shake. I thought at first it was reaction to Price. But it increased until I was shivering enough for him to notice. He pulled away.

“Riley?”

I tried to say something, but I couldn’t even make words. Everything was starting to go blurry.

“Shit.”

He swung me up into his arms and carried me out of the shower, standing me on the rug. He grabbed a towel with one hand and rubbed me down. He had to hold me up. I couldn’t stand. A couple seconds later he carried me back to the bed and laid me in it. He pulled the blankets up to my chin. If anything, I was shivering harder. Weirdly, I didn’t feel cold. I felt more numb.

Price vanished and then the covers were pulled away and he slid in beside me. He’d dried off and changed his wet jeans for a pair of dry sweats. He pulled me into his arms and rubbed his hands over my back and arms. He was murmuring something. I couldn’t make out a single word over my chattering teeth.

After a while, you’d probably think I’d start getting warm. But I didn’t. All of a sudden Price jumped out of bed. I made a protesting sound, but he totally ignored me. I curled up into the fetal position, wrapping my arms around my knees, and I say this without any pride at all, whimpered in self-pity because my knight in shiny armor had abandoned me. Knight or Detective-Asshole Clay Price. The same guy who’d tabbed me and forced me to work for him. Oh, how low I’d fallen. Disgusting really.

At some point, to my ridiculous delight, Price came back. Of course. I mean, he couldn’t leave a wreck like me in his bed. Plus the kiss said he kind of liked me.

He pulled the covers back and tried to make me sit up. I gripped my knees tighter and wriggled further down into the covers.

“Come on, Riley. You can’t stay this way. Just sit up for me. I promise you’ll feel better. Come on, baby.”

Baby? Did he really call me
baby
? Some women would be insulted by that. Normally I would. But with it coming from Price, I felt my chest go all gooey. At that moment I’d probably have done just about anything for him.

I let go of my knees and let him pull me up to a sitting position.

“That’s my girl,” he said and put his arm around me. He put a glass to my lips. “Drink now.”

I obediently drank. It was whiskey with lemon and it was warm. Yuck. I tried to pull away, but he held me firm.

“Drink it all, Riley.”

I didn’t really have a choice, and I sure as hell didn’t have the wherewithal to fight him. So I drank. Probably six ounces or so of straight whiskey. Fire hit the pit of my stomach and exploded. I swear I was drunk in less than ten seconds. I was more than ready to go back to the fetal position, but Price wasn’t done with me. He held another cup to my lips. I twisted away. No more whiskey. He persisted, and in my weakness, I gave in.

This time the cup was full of warm chocolate milk. After the first sip, I put my hands over his and gulped it down. Chocolate milk and whiskey don’t really mix, but at this moment, I didn’t really care.

He set the cup down on the nightstand and pulled me back down under the covers with him. He rubbed my back again and his warmth seeped into me as the whiskey and chocolate milk did their magic. After a few minutes, I went from shivering hard enough to crack my teeth to cozy comfortable. Sometime after that, I’m not sure how long he held me, I began to feel like myself again.

“What happened to me?” I murmured against Price’s chest. Bare chest. I wanted to lick it.

“You got shot, you got healed, and you got kissed. You don’t seem to have liked one or three of them.”

“Definitely didn’t like getting shot.” I realized my arm was around his waist and I was rubbing the velvet skin along his ribs. I probably should have stopped. I didn’t. “The healing was good—I never like to bleed to death.”

Price chuckled and his arms tightened a fraction. “And getting kissed?”

“I don’t remember that.”

He lifted his head and looked down at me. Flames flickered in his eyes, and I remembered that a) I was naked, b) we were lying in bed, and c) I wanted him worse than I had ever wanted another man. I’m not really good with self-denial, either.

“I could remind you.”

I licked my lips, and his gaze fastened on them. “It’s probably not a good idea.”

“It’s a fucking lousy idea,” he said, and then rolled me onto my back and slid on top of me.

He straddled my hips, his weight braced on his elbows on either side of me. He looked down at me, gaze running over my wet hair, down my face to my neck and then to my bare breasts. His breath caught. I smiled in wonder. It was difficult to wrap my brain around the fact that I could have that effect on this diamond-hard man.

He saw me smile, and his mouth quirked wickedly in response before he lowered himself down. Once against he kissed me.

I nearly went up in smoke.

He took his time, tasting and nibbling. My breasts ached for his touch, and the rest of me throbbed with an equal desire for attention. I swear, he could have licked my toes, and I’d have orgasmed.

He moved to my ears, biting delicately, then kissed his way down my neck. I couldn’t stay still. I started to wriggle, and I reached up to pull him down on top of me.

“No, no,” he said and grabbed my wrists, holding them down on either side of my head.

“Bastard.”

“Trust me. I won’t hurt you.” He grinned tauntingly, and returned to his slow exploration. First he licked the pulses in both wrists, then returned to my neck. He kissed across the hollows of my collarbone and back up to my other ear. I started making sounds that didn’t quite sound human. My hips shifted, and I ground them up against his. He gasped. He gave me a searing kiss. If that was supposed to be punishment, it wasn’t working.

I lifted my head, needing more of him. He wrenched back. He was panting. Before I could argue or beg, he bent down and licked my right nipple. Lightning flashed through me. I bucked. He chuckled and did it again, then moved to the left and tortured me there. Exquisite torture. He did it over and over, blowing lightly on the tight, hard nipples until I wanted to scream in frustration and pleasure.

Finally, he sucked one between his lips, his tongue licking as he drew on me. I swear I went blind for a minute. Sounds came out of me that made no sense at all. He gave my other breast the same treatment. By this time, I was alternating between lifting my hips to grind against him and beating my heels against the mattress. I tried to wiggle out from between his thighs so I could wrap my legs around him, but he wasn’t about to let me.

He kissed and licked over my ribs and down to my belly button. I waited, agonizing need pooling lower. But he moved back up to my breasts. Over and over he teased me, kissing my breasts, my belly, my lips, my neck. I was thrashing and first begging then swearing at him. I fought to free my hands, but he wouldn’t let go.

Finally he took pity on me and eased down lower and lower still. Right past the heart of my need to my knees. He kissed me along the inside of one thigh and then the other, moving back and forth and higher. He blew on my clit and I moaned. Finally, finally! He let go of my wrists to slip his hands under my hips. I grabbed handfuls of the sheets as he gently licked me. I couldn’t make a sound. They were bottled up in my chest. Sensations crashed into me, and my mind evaporated. All I knew was I had never, ever, felt this good.

I tipped my hips, letting my thighs fall open as he licked me. He gently scraped his teeth over my clit, and my brain exploded, along with the rest of me. I shuddered and bucked, my orgasm sweeping from my head to my feet and back again. Price didn’t stop his ministrations, but kept sucking and licking until the last tremor left me.

He pushed himself up, and I pulled him back on top of me and kissed him. Hard. I ran my hands over his back, delighting in the curves and planes of his muscles. It wasn’t enough. I wanted more. I wanted him. Inside me. Thrusting against me.

I pushed at the waistband of his pants. He lifted his head.

“Are you sure? You’ve been shot and then . . .”

“Take your pants off,” I ordered. “Now.”

He still hesitated. I slid my hands under his sweats and gripped his ass. At the same time, I wrapped my legs around him and rocked up against his cock. “Now.”

His face contorted, and he groaned. “You make it hard to do the right thing.”

“What’s wrong with feeling this good?” I thrust again, and he didn’t need any more convincing.

He kicked off his sweats along with most of the covers. He was long and hard. I stroked his velvet length and cupped his balls and massaged them. He moaned and bent down and licked my breasts in return.

I couldn’t wait long. He might have just given me a mind-blowing orgasm, but it had barely taken the edge off my need. I guided him to me. He didn’t take the hint. He propped himself on his elbows above me.

“You’re sure?”

“You have to ask?”

“I should get a condom.”

“I’m in no danger of getting pregnant and there are always tinkers for diseases. Now please, don’t make me wait anymore to have you inside me.”

He wasn’t gentle. I didn’t want gentle. He thrust in deep, and I met him with equal fervor. He stayed buried in me for a long minute without moving.

“You feel damned good,” he whispered, his forehead resting against mine. “I could stay like this forever.”

I jerked my hips against his. He gasped.

“It can feel better,” I whispered.

After that, he took over. He pulled out so slow I thought I would scream. He slid back in with equal slowness. Over and over and over. I felt the tension in my stomach tightening. My nerves were screaming with anticipation of the pleasure to come.

He sucked one of my breasts, his mouth hot and demanding. As he pulled away, he bit down.

I went nova.

I twisted and convulsed. He was right there with me. His hips pistoned against me. His muscles corded under my fingers. He grabbed my hands and tangled his fingers in mine, pulling my arms above my head. He licked and bit my breasts, and the explosions kept coming. All I could do was feel.

“Come on, baby. Feel good. Feel as good as I do. Give in to me, Riley.” He whispered against my ear. I felt his cock twitch, and he thrust deep into me and came, his face a tortured mask of absolute ecstasy.

I did that. I made him feel like that. I made him lose his control.

I practically purred.

He melted down over me, his breath rasping against my ear. A second later, he rolled off onto his back. Instantly I missed his heat. He pulled me against him, stroking the hair off my forehead. “Are you okay? You’re not hurt?”

“I’m wonderful.” My stomach growled, despite the earlier sandwich and the chocolate milk. I made a face. “Maybe a little hungry.”

He just about leaped out of the bed, grabbing up his sweats and taking a shirt out of the dresser. “I’ll fix something. Wait here. I’ll bring it to you.”

He left, pretty much at a dead run. I scowled at the door for a long minute. What the fuck? I really didn’t expect cuddle time, but neither did I expect a vanishing act. Had he run for the hills because he didn’t want to face me? Or because he had a crazy, desperate urge to make me another ham sandwich? Either way, mind-blowing sex like that deserved better closure.

Even if he thought it was a mistake.

Even if it
was
a terrible, terrible mistake.

I didn’t regret it, whatever it was. I had never felt like that before, and I didn’t imagine I ever would again.

His departure was enough to put me in a seriously bad mood. I decided I wasn’t going to wait for him to come back. I didn’t want to be in Price’s bed anymore.

I found another shirt in the same drawer he’d taken his out of. The sweats I’d been wearing were soaked, having been dripped on after my shower, so after cleaning myself up, I put on a robe I found in his closet. It was made of dark blue fleece. I wondered if he’d bought it for himself or if someone had given it to him. A girlfriend maybe.