At the thought, his body tightened and a growl rose up from somewhere deep inside him, sounding greedy and feral, and not at all like the man he wanted to be with her, for her. Worse, he was suddenly looming over her, leaning too close, his mouth only a breath away from hers. “Sorry,” he said, easing back. “I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t be sorry.” She followed him up, one hand suddenly wrapped in the collar of his shirt, anchoring them together. Her breasts brushed his chest with her every breath, and the contact flared through his body like a perfect sunrise over the ocean—brilliant and blinding, and making him feel like he could do anything. Against his lips, she said, “We’re the only ones who will ever know what happened inside this cave. Which means we can do whatever we want. And right now, I want you.”
“Cara, this isn’t real. It’s—”
“Sex magic,” she interrupted softly. “I know. I can feel it. Whatever you did to bring me back, I can feel you inside me, connected to me. I want to feel the rest of you that way too.”
“Gods.” He was dying to be inside her. Fucking dying. He pressed his hand atop hers, trapping her palm over his heart. He told himself to ask if she was sure, give her another out, or, hell, walk the fuck away. But somehow he knew it’d been too late for walking away the moment he saw her wristband in the mud and everything else had ceased to exist. He had found her, saved her. And maybe right now she could save him a little too. So he leaned back in, pausing only to say, “Last chance.”
As she drew breath to say something, he closed the gap and kissed her. Madly, wetly, deeply he kissed her, holding nothing back and asking for everything in return.
Want me, his kiss said. Need me. And hers in return said, I do. Which was a damn good thing, given that he wanted her like he wanted his next heartbeat, his next breath, his next sunrise. So, beneath an endless ring of coyotes, he kissed her and let the rest of the world fall away. And if somewhere deep inside him warning bells were going off, he ignored the hell out of them, because he was so fucking tired of holding himself back when it came to her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Cara gave herself up to the kiss and the moment, not stopping to care what would happen next. She had been lost in the fog, would have stayed there forever if he hadn’t come for her. And there, in that endless gray world, she’d had a moment of sudden clarity: She didn’t want to die with regrets.
If that had been the end of it, she would have hated leaving the earth plane without getting back at Zane and Lora and wresting them from the winikin before they did any more damage. She would have wished she had done things differently with her father. And she would have deeply regretted giving up her chance at fireworks. Now, though, it seemed that she was being given a second chance. There was magic in the air and a man—the man—was holding her, kissing her. And he wasn’t pulling back this time. Instead, he slanted kisses across her mouth, along her jaw, and up to the sensitive lobe of her ear. He urged her closer in the soft, shifting sand, and when their bodies pressed together, she felt his arousal, his need.
No regrets, she thought. Free to touch him, finally, she was bold with her lips, and with hands that no longer stung from the cuts on her palms, which had healed to scars already. Magic, she thought as the heat raced through her, making every sensation ten times more acute. More, it was sex magic and she, a winikin, could feel it, which should have been impossible. Right then, though, she didn’t care what it meant; she only gloried in the burn of desire.
He shuddered and pulled away a few inches, so his eyes were very close as they searched hers. Then he surprised her by skimming his fingertips along her jaw and up to her temple, then to touch the place where her hair went from dark to light. Growing up, he had teased her about it so fiercely she had tried to dye it dark, but had succeeded only in staining the bathroom wallpaper and earning a month of double chores. Now, though, he rubbed a few of the white strands—coarse and heavy in comparison—between his fingers in a move that said that he knew who she was—not a vision or a casual hookup, but her.
“Cara,” he began on a sigh.
“Shut it.” She pressed a silencing finger to his lips. “Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be. We want each other. More, we know this won’t work in the long run, but that hasn’t stopped us from wondering. Who knows? Maybe this is the gods’ gift the nahwal mentioned. Maybe they’re giving us this one time together to get it out of our systems, so we can move on.” That could explain why she felt the magic too, and why the cave hadn’t opened back up even though the water had drained away.
His breath feathered across her hand; his eyes bored into hers. From behind her restraining fingers, he said, “There’s only one thing I want more than this, and that’s to not hurt you ever again.”
A small sliver of pain jabbed below her heart, because while she knew he meant it utterly, she also knew that was impossible. No regrets, she reminded herself, and said, “Sorry, I can’t promise that.” Nerves buzzed through her, but beneath them was a heady stir of courage. She almost never told the full truth, instead editing to keep the peace and bottling up the rest inside. Not this time, though. “It hurts to see you around Skywatch and not be able to touch you or even talk to you. It hurts to know that you and Mac are going to take off at some point, or that if you don’t and we make it through the war, I’m going to be the one leaving. But the thing is, none of those things will hurt extra if we do this. If anything, it’ll hurt worse if I miss this chance, because then I’ll have regrets. That much I really can promise.” She dropped her hand and replaced her silencing touch with a kiss that started soft but quickly turned hot and needy. When it ended, she pulled away and whispered between heavy breaths, “When it’s all over, let’s not have regrets. At least not about this.”
He stared at her for a heartbeat, his face etched with intensity as he weighed her promise. “Be sure,” he rasped. “Be really fucking sure.”
“I am.”
His eyes changed, kindling with a new and potent fire. She could almost hear his noble intentions shatter, but he said only, “Thank Christ.” Then, groaning a dark and delicious curse, he rolled suddenly, pressing his big, hard body fully atop hers as he kissed her, tasted her, touched her, rose over her, and took.
And, yes, thank Christ, because this was what she wanted. More, it was what she needed in this moment and this place, with this man. She was finally—oh, gods, yes, finally—telling the world to go screw itself, at least for an hour or two. Gods, did that feel good.
Her heart thundered as she grappled to touch him, taste him, then bowed back on a hiss as his fingers brushed the edges of her breasts, the lines of her waist and hips. He cupped her ass and then slid his touch inward to brush the sensitized flesh. Heat gripped her, ground at her, and she sagged against him with a low cry. She was hot, wet, and needy, her clothing a barrier that had to go.
She tugged at his stretchy, formfitting shirt, got it up and off, and purred when she was able to play her fingers along the muscles beneath. The purr turned to a gasp, though, when he slid a hand under her shirt, cupped a breast, and then dragged a thumb across one nipple in a move that sent sparks shooting through her system.
“Oh, gods.” She bowed against him, curled around him, her mouth an “O” of pleasure.
“Off,” he growled. “All of it.”
Their clothing made a nest in the soft, yielding sand at the edge of the pool, and his magic heated the air as they twined together, kissing, licking, sucking—it was all fair game when sex magic burned in the blood.
Murmuring something low and reverent against her lips, he slid a finger along the crease between her legs, easing forward, forward, and then finding her. His low groan echoed her pleasure and she let her breath hiss out as he teased the opening, his touch an erotic shock to her system.
His erection was sandwiched between their bodies, pressing hard and insistent against her mound. As her blood burned higher and hotter, driven by the rhythm he set with his finge
rs, she slid a hand between their bodies and rubbed her palm across his testicles and up along the heavy, distended vein that lined the bottom of his hard, upthrust cock. He groaned, then shuddered when she closed her fingers around him.
There was no hesitation in her, no second thoughts. She wanted this, wanted him, and had for years and years.
His cock was thick and long, with a bullet head that pearled moisture when she ran her thumb across the engorged slit. He groaned and intensified the rhythm.
An early orgasm slapped through her without warning, bright, brittle, and glittering with the pleasure that vised her muscles and left her shaking. She cried out and clutched at him, wordless and needy as her body pulsed around his fingers.
“Fuck, that’s hot,” he rasped against her lips. Then, his voice going commanding, he said, “Do it again.”
“I…” she began, but then trailed off when he eased away to scatter kisses down her throat. Then he moved lower, bending and kneeling in front of her.
He stroked his hands down her legs, first the outsides and then the insides, urging them apart and angling her body so her spine pressed against the smooth curve of the cave wall. With a smooth and unexpected move, he hooked one of her legs over his shoulder, opening her, laying her vulnerable.
“Wait.” She tried to pull away. “Let me…” The protest died on her lips as he turned his head and pressed his lips to her inner thigh.
“No, let me,” he said against her skin. “Just let me.” And he kissed her again, brushing his lips up her inner thigh and then inward to draw his tongue along the center of her in a long, heated lick that had a moan rolling from her, had her head falling back against the stone and her body going limp in sudden, unfamiliar submission.
Oh, gods, yes, she thought as he bent his head. He kissed her more deeply, more intimately, and slipped his hands around her once more, questing until his fingers found her, entered her again.
There was pressure and pleasure, a fullness that seemed somehow so much more intense than it did when she was alone. Helpless to do otherwise, driven by her body’s needs now, she arched into his mouth, rocked against his fingers, and cried out. As he drove her up toward the next peak, she started shaking. Not just because of arousal, though that was part of it, but because she didn’t know what was coming next, or what any of it meant. She was lost in the moment, unable to care about anything other than the orgasm that gathered within her and the lover who was bowed down before her.
She held his head against her, worked herself against his mouth, totally taken within the maelstrom of sensations. And as the inner knots tightened around his fingers and tongue, all she could think was, Thank the gods.
Then he moved away, leaving her to cry out in frustration, then hiss in approval as he moved back up her body, heavy and solid, letting her feel every inch of him. He rose over her and she gloried in the heavy press of his body into hers, and the glide of his hard cock along her slick folds. Excitement built; she wanted him inside her, wanted to be pounded into, hollowed out. She wanted to sink her teeth into him and mark him as her own. Instead, she turned her face into his throat and whispered, “Now. Please, oh, please, now.”
“Hell, yeah, now,” he growled in return.
There was no fumbling with protection or questions, no need with a mage. He just poised himself and nudged within, the press of his cock head so intense she bowed against him, her eyes falling shut once more.
A moment of pressure was followed by a twinge as her body stretched to accept his girth. Then he slid deep in one sure thrust that parted her flesh, filling her, and setting off red-gold sparks wherever he touched.
Magic, she thought, and dragged her nails across his shoulders and down along his sides, fingers flexing as he withdrew and thrust again, impossibly deep. She made a low noise at the back of her throat, part purr, part growl, and he groaned in response and thrust again. Her body matched his as they found their tempo, and she was gripped by the sensations, acutely aware of the contrast between his skin and her own, the delicious friction, the heat, and the push-pull of their bodies.
Then he shifted to align their palms and twine their fingers together, and everything got sharper, deeper, more real. She bit her lip to will back the sudden swell of tenderness, and the tears that prickled behind her closed eyelids, not sure whether the move was an automatic one, impelled by the sex magic seeking more of itself, or whether he had formed the link on purpose, seeking that connection with her.
The bond was there, though, stringing her muscles tight and making her arch beneath him and suck in a hot-feeling breath that contained their mingled scents. Her body moved faster beneath his, urging him on, and he growled low in his chest and answered her, setting a tempo that made her feel like they were racing together across the desert.
“Yes. Oh, yes. Gods.” She broke the connection, letting it be about the moment and the sex as she gripped his tense forearms where he was braced above her. Her senses turned inward, concentrating on the place where they joined. Her body tightened around his driving hardness, pulsing, not under her control anymore. Pleasure shifted, coiled, and kindled a warm, tingling fire in her belly. “Please!”
He groaned and dropped down to gather her against him, wrapping his arms around her and pressing them together in an embrace that was suddenly far too intimate. He wasn’t just inside her anymore; he was holding her, surrounding her, whispering her name in a ragged gasp that brought a surge of tenderness, a sense that yes, this was it. This was what she had been waiting to find.
Panic lit up inside her. Even without the blood-link, it was too much, too huge, too—
“Gods, Cara!” He surged against her, shuddering, and the friction of his full-body press brought an ecstasy that swept away her doubts and fears and left her helpless to do anything but join him in the rise and plunge of bodies, the wild abandon of racing together toward the crest.
She tried to keep up with him, but her muscles tensed as her body locked itself in a breathless, tingling moment. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but cry out in a chain of, “Yes, yes, oh, gods, yes!”
And then he slipped a hand between them, touched her where their bodies joined, and her body ignited. Sparks flared and fireworks detonated as he hammered home a few more times. Then he seated himself to the hilt and locked his arms around her in a shuddering, bucking release that set off a series of implosions within her.
The orgasm left her gasping beneath him, her arms and legs wrapped around him, locked there tightly. And then, as it faded, she stayed right there, wanting the moment to last and last. She loved the feeling of him against her—his heavy weight, the heave of his hot breathing, the knowledge that he was just as wiped out as she was.
They had had each other thoroughly, wonderfully. And she wouldn’t change a second of it. Not here, not now.
No regrets.
“Gods. That was… Hm.” He shifted against her, stretching and easing off to one side. “Sorry. Crushing you.”
She nuzzled the side of his sweat-slicked neck. “Yeah, but in a good way.” But even as she said it, her instincts stirred. That was the kind of thing lovers said to each other, and therein lay danger. This was a onetime thing, a necessary release. Though if that was what it felt like to share sex magic as a mismatched pair, she could see why the magi were all about their destined mates. More, she could see why humans could get hooked on the fireworks and forget about the rest—at least for a while. Not her, though. She had gone into this with her eyes wide-open and full knowledge of what she was doing, and who with, and now it was time to pull back… even if part of her was humming an awestruck note.
Yes, she’d had sex with Sven, fulfilling more than a few of her pent-up, overwrought fantasies from long ago. And yes, it had been amazing, more so than even those fantasies—or anything else she’d experienced since then—had led her to hope. Fireworks, hell. That had been nuclear. But it didn’t change anything.
And if she told
herself that enough times, she might even start believing it.
Easing away from him and playing it as cool as she could manage, she tipped her head toward the sealed-shut cave entrance. “Guess that wasn’t what the gods were waiting for, after all.”
A flicker of recognition said he’d made the connection too, knowing that the other sacred chamber had required not just a near-death experience but also the sexual consummation that completed the Godkeeper spell. But he shook his head. “That wasn’t what this was about, Cara. At all.”
Something shifted in her chest, but she didn’t let herself acknowledge the part of her that wanted to say, Then what was it about? She knew the answer, after all. It was just that silly, eternally seventeen-year-old part of herself that wanted it to be something more. “I know,” she said softly, “and believe me, I’m not trying to make a joke out of this. But we don’t need to dissect it either. It was… I can’t… Hell.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “Let’s just get dressed and find a way out of here.” Not meeting his eyes anymore, she reached for her shirt. “We’ve got bigger problems than—”
She froze at the sight of a stark black glyph on her inner right forearm.
And. Her. Heart. Stopped.
Oh, gods. Oh, no. Oh, gods, no. The litany beat in her blood as horror hammered through her, chased by pain. She must’ve made some noise, because Sven whipped around and got big, as if ready to defend her from a dozen hellhounds. But there was nothing to fight except the reality of a coyote’s-head glyph enclosed in a round-edged square, with the double dot representing “2” above it, to indicate that the wearer was a coyote with a familiar. Or, in this case, the servant to one.
“Fuck.” He lifted shocked eyes to hers. “I didn’t mean…” He trailed off, no doubt because there wasn’t anything to say.
“It wasn’t you. It was the nahwal.” Because although it was certainly possible that the blood-link or the sex could have reawakened the servant-master bond between them, her gut said it was the nahwal’s doing. Sven hadn’t wanted her—or anyone—as his servant. His ancestors, though, would want things lined up according to tradition. Bastards, she thought, her arm starting to ache.
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