Silver candelabra of varying heights stood around the pile, shedding a mellow yellow glow over the white silk. Thin tapers and thick column candles wafted the scent of beeswax and sandalwood into the air. Among the candles stood great urns of red roses perfuming the air with their sensual scent. A fireplace, complete with crackling blaze, dominated the exterior wall.
“I don’t remember that being there,” Olivia said, tilting her chin at it.
He grinned. “It wasn’t.” Kneeling, Rhys lowered her to the pillows.
She smiled up at him as she nestled back into the silk. “You’re getting good at this magic thing.”
“Gotta admit, it’s fun.” He grimaced. “In between being weird and terrifying.”
“Let’s stick to fun tonight.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Rocking back on his heels, he grinned, appreciating the lush picture she made. After a moment’s contemplation, he sent another swirl of magic across the silk cushions. When it passed, they were a vivid red.
Olivia braced herself up on her elbows, contemplating the change in the decor. “What brought that on?”
“I decided the red made a better contrast with your lovely skin.”
“Are you saying the white made me look sallow?”
“Do I look suicidal to you?”
She threw back her head and laughed. All that beautiful iridescent hair spilled across the cushions, gleaming seductively in the candlelight.
Smiling at her pleasure, Rhys rose to his feet and moved over to the silver bucket standing on the table conjured for the purpose. Plucking out the champagne bottle, he sent the cork flying, then poured them each a glass. When he turned back, he looked down at her in hungry anticipation. “Now,” he purred, “I’m in the mood to celebrate.”
* * *
Olivia admired the lithe roll of his broad shoulders as he walked across the pile of cushions to her side, bottle in one hand, two champagne flutes cradled between the fingers of the other. He handed her one, then knelt and stretched out long, muscled legs, before leaning back on one elbow. Lifting the glass, he murmured, “To survival.”
“By the skin of our teeth.” She swallowed a mouthful of something deliciously crisp and fizzy. It tasted expensive. “Dom Perignon?”
“Magic hath its privileges.”
“That’s for damn sure.” She sipped again and swallowed, eyes shuttered in appreciation. “I always wondered . . . When we do that, do bottles of real champagne disappear from somewhere else?”
He blinked. “I have no idea.” Appearing to consider it, he said, “And neither does Kiate.”
She took another sip, then let her head fall back with a sigh of delight. “Either way, I approve.”
“You know what’s the only thing that would make this better?”
She opened one eye. “What?”
“Strawberries.” He leaned forward and held something red and tipped in brown to her lips.
Olivia laughed and took a bite. The fruit was sweet and tart and perfect beneath its dark chocolate coating. “Delicious.”
“Glad you approve.” He conjured one for himself and sunk his white teeth into it. “You’re right,” he said when he’d swallowed. “That’s not bad.”
They sipped and nibbled conjured strawberries as Olivia felt the tension drain away.
“Your eyes are golden,” she told him over the rim of the champagne glass. She smiled slightly. “I can almost see the feathers.”
“Feathers?” At that, a wicked gleam lit Rhys’s eyes. He leaned toward her as a white plume appeared in one hand, drooping with the weight of its long, delicate strands. He sent it dancing over the curve of her breast, sketching ticklish pleasure over her skin that made her catch her breath.
“That didn’t come from a griffin,” she managed to gasp.
Rhys shook his head. “Ostrich.” He swirled it around her left nipple, which pulled into a delighted peak. “Though in retrospect, I wish I could’ve plucked Votos. He’d have made a lovely hat. I’d love to see you dressed in feathers and nothing else.”
“Kinky.” She wrinkled her nose. “Also a little morbid.”
“Maybe, but you can’t deny it would have a certain poetic justice.” He leaned down, all that glorious muscle rippling in his shoulders as he bent his head. Olivia sighed as he gave her nipple a slow, teasing lick. His gaze flicked up at her, and he smiled lazily. “That’s tastier than the strawberry.”
“Flatterer.”
Those griffin-gold eyes locked on her face, he swirled his tongue lazily back and forth over the nipple, then paused to give it a delicate little bite. The pure, sweet pleasure of it made her shiver. With a low moan, she sank back onto the pillows and let herself float in the sheer sensuality of his ministrations.
Rhys went on suckling her, first in deep, drawing pulls, then with a teasing application of teeth. Even as he caressed and nibbled her, he sent the feather dancing over her skin in luscious sweeps—breasts, belly, thighs.
Olivia purred.
At the throaty sound, Rhys looked up at her. She was vaguely aware of his gaze going suddenly intent, focused. Breathing hard with arousal, he looked down the length of his body at her.
With a growling murmur, Rhys sat up, leaning over her on one elbow to cup her face in one warm, rough palm. His gaze searched hers, very gold suddenly. She blinked up at him, startled by the shift in mood from lighthearted carnality to this sudden fierce need.
“Olivia. . . .” There was a deep rumble to his voice that didn’t sound entirely human. “Olivia, will you marry me?”
She blinked at him, startled. As if taking her surprise for hesitation, he began to talk. Fast. “I realize you haven’t known me long, but it was more than long enough for me.” His lips curved under those intense gold eyes. “I’ve never had any trouble recognizing how I feel.” His gaze seemed to bore into hers, the gold brightening into a hot glow. “So you can believe me when I say I love you.”
Olivia swallowed, hope and fear warring in her heart. “Are you sure?”
“Utterly.” His fingers traced the line of her brows, then down to the curve of her upper lip. “I’ve never known a woman with such courage. You fought for me. I would never have survived Kiate’s test if you hadn’t risked your life to show me the way.”
Her heart had started pounding as her mouth went dry. A crazy combination of terror and joy clenched at her heart. She opened her mouth, but he didn’t give her time to say anything. “I swear to you, I will be a good husband. I know . . .” He swallowed. “I know you’ve had tragedy in your life. I know how it hurt when you lost Coln and Ivor, but I swear to you, your life will be a happy one with me. I will give you all I am, all I have. I will . . .”
The answer burst out of her the moment he stopped for breath. “Yes!”
He broke off, blinking. “Yes?”
She cupped his stubborn jaw. “Do I look like a dumbass to you? You’re right—I did fight for you. I deserve you, dammit.” Her lips curled into a hot smile. “You and your big cock and your . . . feathers.”
His mouth covered hers in a kiss so hot and fierce, she groaned in helpless hunger. They kissed for long, hungry minutes, giddy with joy.
Against her mouth, her murmured, “I’d planned to propose so much smoother than that. I’d intended this whole romantic thing involving rainbows . . .”
She grinned. “Rainbows?”
“Yeah. I’d considered conjuring a ring, something with amber and diamonds and emeralds—symbolizing the colors of our magic—but then I decided I’d rather spend actual money on you. A lot of actual money. I’d meant to wait until I was able to find the ring, but the next thing I knew, the proposal was coming out of my mouth. So we’ll have to go ring shopping tomorrow.”
Olivia looped an arm around his muscled neck, teasing his nape with brushes of her thumb. “When did you have ti
me to come up with all that? We weren’t even sure we were going to live until three hours ago.”
“This evening during Nirar’s victory celebration.” He bent and pressed a long, delicious kiss to her lips.
When he finally lifted his head, she grinned. “I have to admit, I would like to have seen what you planned to do with the rainbow thing.”
He spread his palm. “Something like this . . .” A rainbow sprang into being, stretching out from his palm, arching down the length of her body. . . .
Olivia’s eyebrows sprang upward as it ended in her pussy. “Really?”
“My pot of gold.” And he pounced, diving between her thighs and knocking her back on the cushions. She collapsed in helpless giggles as he spread her legs and started dancing his tongue over her clit, swirling intricate little patterns of sensuality and pleasure.
The giggles became a gasp when he closed his lips around her clit and began to suck hard, drawing her spine up into a bow of feral delight. As he licked and teased, he slid two fingers into her pussy, thrusting deep. Olivia moaned, grabbing for his powerful shoulders, digging in her nails. It felt so incredibly good.
But even sharper than the pleasure was the joy.
* * *
Rhys ate her, slowly, glorying in the taste of her sex, the hot musk of her juices.
Her gasp sounded more than a little ragged. “I want to touch you!”
He lifted his head just enough to growl, “Later,” and went back to eating her, suckling with every bit of skill he’d ever learned. Finally, after all these years, he’d found the woman he’d always dreamed of.
And he had every intention of celebrating his good fortune as long as he possibly could.
Olivia had other ideas. Magic brushed over his skin in a swirling dance of golden sparks. At first it was just a tickle of sensation, but it quickly morphed into the tickle of an ostrich feather floating over his ribs. Though he lay on his belly, the feather traced a teasing trail down the front of his body, spiraling around the length of his trapped, rigid shaft to tickle his balls. Teasing, caressing the corona of his erection, finding every sensitive bundle of nerves. His cock pulsed hungrily as lust tightened his balls.
He was never quite sure when the feather became fingers wrapped firmly around his aching shaft. Olivia’s magic hand started stroking him, slowly at first, easing up and down. Handling him with the perfect pressure.
Too perfect. He was more than a little afraid he’d go off too soon. And when a hot, illusionary mouth closed around his balls and sucked them in one by one, he realized that was a virtual certainty.
He lifted his head and gasped, “Dammit, Olivia!”
She smiled down her body at him, smug as a cat, her mouth nowhere near his balls. She was entirely too good at glamour. “Is there a problem?”
“There will be if you don’t cut it out.” He gave serious thought to swatting her on the ass before he remembered her comment about turning Christian Grey into a frog. Better not.
And then suddenly, an illusionary tongue found a part of his body that had never felt a tongue before, and he stiffened with a gasp. It felt way too intriguing. “Olivia!”
She only laughed, low and wicked.
“Okay, that’s it, wench.” He rolled off the bed, grabbed her by the thighs, and dragged her to the edge of the mattress. Seizing her ankles, he spread her legs wide, then took his cock in hand and positioned it at the juicy opening of her cunt.
He entered her in one hard, delicious stroke that had both of them sucking in simultaneous breaths of delight.
Grabbing both ankles, he held her spread and started stroking, grinding in and out. Digging deep. Every luscious entry and exit drew lines of fire on his cock. The heat in his balls begin to pulse, gathering and heating.
Too hot. Too close to coming.
With a desperate gesture, he cast a quick spell and had the satisfaction of watching Olivia’s eyes fly wide as his own glamour wrapped illusionary lips around her clit. His magic began to suckle and pull as he shafted her, digging harder, faster. Driving.
Rhys fought to hold on, determined to savor every second. Looking down into Olivia’s impossibly lovely face, amethyst eyes dazed with arousal and delight. He picked up the pace, fucking, faster, harder, listening in wicked joy as she began to cry out with every thrust.
Those cries came faster, pitching higher as he shafted her, his magic milking her clit as his cock delved deep.
“Rhhhhhyyyyyyssssss!” She arched off the bed with one final desperate scream of orgasm.
Fire rolled up behind his eyes, and he lost himself.
* * *
When his balls were empty and his thighs were shaking, Rhys collapsed on the bed next to her, then hauled her into his arms, draping a possessive thigh across her legs. “There,” he murmured. “I’ve got you, and I’m not letting go.”
“Good,” she murmured, sounding sated. “Don’t.”
“I love you.”
Her hand combed through his blond hair. “And I love you, bird boy.”
He lifted his head to blink at her in mock outrage. “Bird boy?”
She smirked. “Feather duster?”
“You’re living dangerously, wench.” He swooped to go after her ribs, intent on giving her a ruthless tickle.
“Don’t you dare!” she yelped. “Swear to God, I’ll turn you into a frog. Want to spend your honeymoon on a lily pad?”
He laughed and pulled her close. “That would be a waste.”
“Exactly.” She looped her arms around his neck. “So don’t push it.”
They lay there a moment, listening to each other breathe.
Olivia’s smile held catlike contentment. “As they say in fairy tales, ‘And they all lived happily ever after.’”
He grinned and swatted her backside. “And you know how I love a good fairy’s tail.”
“Keep it up, froggy. I see a lily pad in your future.”
“Only if you’re on it with me, baby.”
Olivia snuggled close, smiling lazily. “I’d live anywhere, as long as it’s with you.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Angela Knight is a New York Times bestselling author and former newspaper journalist. She lives with her family in South Carolina.
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Master of Magic Page 19