Heart's Magic

by Gail Dayton

  All the way through her to where she sat inside Nigel Cranshaw's blood. Harry's lips rested, motionless again, the lightest of touches on hers, and it wasn't right. Wasn't enough.

  She'd been kissed. Rather expertly, and by Harry himself. Those kisses hadn't been anything like this one. This didn't deserve the name of "kiss." She wanted one of those other kisses. The ones where she thought he might consume her whole.

  She struggled. If she could feel his lips and her lips, if she could feel him pressed tight against her, she ought to be able to kiss him back. She moved them before. She knew she did. They were her lips. Hers to command. Hers to kiss him with. And finally, she got them to move. She pursed her lips, just a little, and parted them.

  "Elinor?" Harry pulled away to look at her.

  She could see him looking, but it felt distant and seemed to get more distant as seconds passed. No. She wanted to be there with Harry, not here where she didn't belong. She strained to coordinate lips and tongue and larynx. "Kiss me."

  The words were soft, almost nonexistent, but she knew he heard her because he obeyed her plea. He kissed her, lips, teeth, and tongue, hauling her up against him with a hand planted firmly on her bottom. The sensations came to her, floating across the distance between her mind and her body. She wallowed in them. Concentrated on them.

  The heat of his mouth and his hand on her bottom scorched her, but not through layers of petticoats. She could feel each individual finger through the unruffled portion of her pantalettes and it felt good. So did the strong arm around her back, offering support. She liked the feel of him against her. That place between her legs where he'd touched her before, where he'd waked those incredible sensations, began to clamor.

  She moved her arm. Just one and rather like a puppet master pulling at distant strings, but she moved it. She put it around his waist and she liked that even more. She liked the broad, solid feel of him. So she put her other arm around him and he filled her arms with his strength, his sturdy, physical reality. She held on tight and she kissed him.

  And when she could sense every part of her own physical self from the top of her dizzied head to the tips of her tingling toes, when the feel of Harry in her arms tightened her nipples into hard points and flooded her loins with wanting, she reached across the infinite distance and stepped back into her own body.

  She knew she had succeeded, because the sensations immediately intensified to the point where thought was nearly obliterated. She wanted. She needed, and what she needed was Harry.

  He wasn't kissing her mouth any longer. He had moved down to her neck, one hand cupping her head instead of her bottom to keep it from lolling so bonelessly as his mouth traced damp patterns toward her collarbone. Oh, she liked that. She wanted more of those kisses, lower. He'd kissed her breasts before and she wanted him to do it again, and if that was wicked and wanton of her, so be it.

  She raised her hand, thrust it into Harry's silky caramel-colored hair, and urged him lower. Instead of doing what she wanted, he lifted his head, dragging a growl from her.

  "Elinor?" The cell was dark, but she could sense his eyes trying to search her face. "Are you back with me?"

  "Stop talking, Harry, and kiss me," she growled.

  "Are you sure?" He touched her face, patted it, never relinquishing his hold around her back.

  "Of course I'm sure." She stiffened her knees--difficult, given the passions racing through her--and stood on her own. "Look. I'm standing. I have control of my own limbs--" She began with his cravat, untying it, then attacked his shirt buttons, opening them with flying fingers. "Right down to my fingertips. I am of sound body and mind--at least reasonably so, given the situation."

  She had reached his waistcoat where she began unbuttoning both layers at once, first waistcoat, then shirt beneath, as fast as she could make her trembling fingers go. "Harry, I want this. I want you."

  "Then you should 'ave wot you want." Both his big hands planted themselves on her bottom and lifted. With a squeak, Elinor threw her arms around his neck and held on, but he didn't go far. Not even a whole step, before he was lowering her to a narrow bed, coming down beside her half a second later, naked from the waist up.

  The expanse of bare skin for her to explore threw all remaining thoughts from her mind, especially since her chemise and pantalettes had somehow dissolved and her own bare skin was the territory under exploration by Harry's hands. His lips followed shortly behind, leaving her absolutely mindless with delight. So many delights, she couldn't focus on any one of them long enough to analyze what made it so delightful.

  He kissed her breasts, licking and suckling her nipples, while his hands roved everywhere at once. She tried to do the same, but couldn't figure the trick of it. She had to touch one place at a time--his broad shoulders, the valley of his spine between the heavy muscle down his back, the delicious contrast between his delicate collarbone and powerful chest. She found the flat, crinkle-edged disks of his nipples and pressed her fingers over them until the tiny points beaded up, then she pinched them, lightly, with her nails.

  "Gawd, Elinor--" His heated breath gusted over her own wet, distended nipples.

  The sudden coolness sent an erotic rush through her body to coil tighter in her most private of places. "Harry."

  Her hips lifted without her volition, begging for his attention, and finally he gave it, his fingers slipping into the damp curls. One pressed between her folds, skated along that sweetest of spots he'd introduced to her, and she convulsed, shattering with pleasure, shouting his name.

  She clutched at him, pulling and clinging while her body shook. It was wonderful madness, whirling upside-down with pleasure and delight--and it wasn't enough. It wasn't finished. She wanted more. She didn't know exactly what more she wanted, but she wanted it with a desperation that frightened her.

  "Harry," she moaned again, dragging him up over her, rubbing her bare breasts against his naked chest.

  He was moving, hands busy with something, returning her half-crazed kisses with distracted kisses of his own, and then he was lowering himself over her, making a place between her legs. She pushed her hips up. His trousers were gone, she realized. His skin felt just as good there as everywhere else.

  "Are you sure, Elinor?" He caught her thrashing head between his hands and held her still, though it was too dark to see his face with any clarity. "There's no goin' back once we do this. Do you want me? Be sure."

  "I'm sure, I'm sure." She writhed beneath him. "Harry." She drew his name out, not quite begging, not quite demanding, but a deal of both.

  "All right, then. Easy, love. Don't be in such a hurry."

  She could hear the smile in his voice as he lifted one of her legs up over his hip. He'd braced his own leg on the floor, she realized, as he held her leg in place and reached between them with his other hand. She gasped, sensation rattling her again as the blunt, silk-smooth head of his male organ stroked over her sensitized flesh, setting it to tingling and throbbing once more. Then he was pushing inside her.

  The pain was sharp but quickly over, and he was there, with her, seated deep, holding her close, kissing her temple, murmuring soft, sweet words she could scarcely understand. She shifted position, adjusting to the feel of him there, and he groaned. He shifted position in turn, no more than that, but the tiny outward drag, followed by a longer push felt...right. Exactly what she wanted.

  Elinor tried her own little down-and-up motion and was rewarded with another groan from Harry before he drew almost all the way out of her only to plunge in again, fast, hard, and deep. He set up a steady rhythm then, easy to catch and follow. It felt good, and right, and better and better with every pistoning stroke.

  The pleasure rose more slowly this time but more intensely, drawing every bit of her into the tight focus of the concentrated sensation Harry created inside her. She felt herself squeezed tighter, pushed higher, stretched wider, until she broke apart screaming as Harry shouted his own release.

  The first thing she bec
ame aware of when her mind began to assemble itself again from the smithereens Harry had blown it into, was the bright bloom of magic burbling joyously around the room. This time, when it bumped up against her, she opened her magic senses and let it in.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The sorcery magic felt nice. Not alien or odd at all. It was warm and happy and felt rather like Harry in a way. Not any way she could define, but it did. She let the magic settle where it wanted inside her. In her blood mostly, she thought.

  There was magic left over. Quite a bit of it. She could send it out, the way she had last time, but she wondered what else she could do with it. Harry had contributed to the making of it, but she couldn't actually give him any of the magic, she didn't think. Since he wasn't her familiar. But maybe she could use some of it for healing that injury.

  Moving her lips, Elinor silently invoked the blood still inside Harry centered around his wound. She pushed as much of the sex magic as she could into the area. It seemed to be healing nicely, just not as quickly as she would have liked.

  "Elinor?" Harry called her back into herself.

  She hadn't exactly stepped out, just looked, and guided magic. Or maybe she was getting the trick of blood riding. "Yes, Harry?"

  Harry rolled to his side and sat up to shove his trousers off. He'd only managed to get them to his knees, given her urgency, which had most definitely and most rapidly communicated itself to him. He just didn't know yet whether she'd been in her right mind. "You all right?"

  She'd gone limp again, after. But since he'd collapsed himself for a while there, he figured--hoped--she hadn't gone wandering again. And then there was the whole losing-her-virginity bit.

  "Quite," she said in her usual crisp tones. "Where are we? Nigel's cell?" She didn't sound like someone weeping for her lost innocence.

  He wanted to ask if she was sure, but didn't quite dare. He answered her question instead. "Yeah. He locked us in when he escaped."

  He dug for a blanket to cover Elinor. A man took care of his woman and she was most definitely his now. He wished he could see her, though. "Biggs got hit with something. The door maybe, when Cranshaw rushed out. I don't know 'ow bad he's hurt, but he's not conscious, because he's not answering.

  "Door's locked. I can't open it. The warding's that good, an' I ain't got the keys. So I reckon we're stuck 'ere till the guard changes. Not sure when exactly that is, but since it's too dark to see my watch, I don't guess it matters."

  He dragged the rough wool blanket from beneath her and covered her with it. "I 'ate puttin' this scratchy stuff up against your skin," he muttered. "Wait--"

  He leaned out from the cot, groping for one of the discarded petticoats. He had to leave the bunk before he found one. He lifted the blanket and spread the petticoat, netting side up, over her, inserting it between soft, delicate skin and scratchy wool blanket. Then he squeezed in beside her in the narrow confines of the cot.

  Elinor hadn't said anything since she'd asked where they were. She wasn't an excessively chatty woman but the extended silence worried him. Who knew what was going on inside that head of hers? Especially since--

  Massive doses of guilt rose up again from where he'd swallowed them down in the need to care for her. He thought she'd been back in possession of herself when they made love but he didn't know. He was almost positive she hadn't been when he kissed her and began undressing her.

  He wasn't sorry for anything he'd done. In the same circumstances, he'd do it again. But a woman didn't always see things the same as a man did, and he still wasn't sure he hadn't hurt her some way. He hated that worry. So was it better to take his punishment now or later?

  Now, he decided. Later would only give her time to dwell on it.

  "Are you sure you're all right?" He turned them until he was tucked in behind her, the only way they could both fit in the limited space.

  "Yes, I am sure." Elinor pulled his arm down beneath her head for a pillow.

  That was a good sign, wasn't it? Harry allowed himself a tiny smile. "Wot about--well, you an' me? Any regrets?"

  She took a deep breath, held it a moment, then let it all out at once, before she wriggled around to face him. All her wriggling nearly had him standing to attention again. Would have, if he wasn't nearer to forty years old than thirty. He pulled her flush against him to keep her from toppling off the bunk.

  "No." She leaned back against his hold in a futile attempt to see his face. Unless she had the vision of a cat. "Not really."

  "Not really," he repeated. "That sounds like you do."

  "But they're not real regrets." Elinor snuggled into him, rubbing her nose against his neck. "Just--well, it was stupid of me to get myself into that position to begin with. Except, I think I did some good, so I'm not truly sorry I rode Nigel's blood. But I shouldn't have come here alone."

  "No, you shouldn't have." Harry managed, just, to keep his mind on what Elinor was saying and not let it shut down due to the softness pressed all along his naked self. The stockings tied just above her knees felt incredibly erotic, stroking his legs. "Why did you?"

  "Foolishness?" Elinor shrugged. "I don't know. I thought you might stop me."

  "Might've." He brushed his lips across her forehead. So smooth. "Might not have. Dunno. Might've come along."

  "I'm glad you did. I'm glad you knew how to bring me back." She lifted her face. He thought she might be hunting his mouth, so he let her find it. Kissing meant she wasn't sorry, didn't it?

  "I didn't know," he said, when she ended the kiss and tucked her face into his neck again. "I was just guessing. You've been a wizard all your life and 'aven't had to pay much mind to your body before this sorcery stuff popped up. I knew I could surprise you that way. I 'oped, is all."

  "You did exactly the right thing." She paused, apparently thinking. "I suppose you could have brought me back by slapping my face and such."

  "I could never," Harry swore.

  "Of course not." Elinor gave a quick kiss to his jaw. "Besides, your kisses made me want to return."

  "Did they, then?" Harry smiled, sure of her now. "I don't suppose you've changed your mind about marrying me..." He let his words trail off hopefully.

  "Harry."

  He knew that tone of voice, even if he couldn't see her face, and sighed. "No 'arm in askin', is there? So it's to be a secret affair, is it?"

  She took her turn to sigh. "I shouldn't. I should say, this once only and no more."

  "But you won't." Harry didn't at all feel the confidence he put into his voice.

  "I daresay I can't." She gave his collarbone a rather absent-minded kiss, as if it was there near her lips, and she could do nothing else. "I have the awfullest feeling that if I try to stop myself--even if I move out of that flat and locate a new stillroom and avoid being in your presence except during official meetings of the magisters--I think it's likely that during one of those droning meetings, you would only have to smile at me with that perfect mouth of yours and I would crawl across the table to kiss it."

  Harry's head felt stuffed with air so hot it had inflated to three or four times its normal size. Elinor truly thought--? "Perfect? You think my mouth is--" He couldn't say the word again. It was too ridiculous.

  "Of course it is." She traced its outlines with a fingertip. "The rest of you is quite nice as well, but this--" She favored him with a kiss. "Perfection itself."

  "You sure you won't marry me?" He couldn't stop himself asking, though it would likely set her back up against him. He wanted her claimed, bound, and clearly labeled as his. "I got a conservatory and stillroom to offer, besides your use of my mouth any time you want it."

  "Harry." But she laughed as she poked him and kissed him after, so that was all right. "I daresay I can have your mouth whenever I like anyway."

  "True." He tucked her a little closer, relishing the feel of her there.

  Elinor lay still the briefest of moments. "I am worried about Mr. Biggs. Don't you think he's been unconscious far too long?"
>
  "I don't know 'ow long it's been, but yeah, it worries me too." He hadn't actually thought they'd get to sleep together, but he'd enjoyed their cuddle. They should be working on escape.

  "Do you think--?" Elinor stroked a finger along his upper arm. "Is it possible he--that Mr. Biggs is dead?"

  "I don't know." Harry hadn't wanted to be the one to mention the possibility. Elinor seemed to take death a mite personally. "You're the one with sorcery powers. Think you can use 'em to find out, even with us on this side of the door and 'im on that?"

  "I can try." Elinor sat up, concentrating.

  Harry sighed. Time to get dressed again and he had no idea where he'd tossed his socks. The rest of his clothes, though, should be-- He found his smallclothes and trousers, and tucked the petticoat blanket closer round Elinor before he got up to put them on. Undershirt and shirt next. The cell was--not cold, but chill, and the chill was increasing as the night aged.

  "I can't tell anything from here," Elinor said. "Maybe if I was closer." She got out of the bed and Harry swung her up in his arms.

  "Floor's cold." He arranged her covering to properly protect her backside and carried her to the door, petticoat netting rustling under the blanket.

  He could sense magic moving but kept quiet so he wouldn't distract her. He'd never been able to sense other magics much. He could some--wizardry more than the others. Plants grew in earth, didn't they? And now he'd been around sorcery enough that he knew what it was, he could tell most times when it was being used. He thought his insensitivity to other magic was mostly because alchemy was so bright and loud to his senses that it was hard to pick out the other stuff.

  With the wardings in place here in the tower, though, his alchemy sensitivity was muffled. He could easily recognize the magic Elinor was manipulating as sorcery, with a touch of wizard's fresh green added. He watched, fascinated, for once almost able to see her work clearly.