by Kat Turner
Granted, she hadn’t been practicing magic long, but it hadn’t impacted her body before. She stretched her folded legs, wincing when a sharp pain tweaked a tendon in her knee.
“Not that I know what I’m talking about, but it does concern me that I see it has taken a toll on you. Which is why I think it would help if you took a night off. I don’t see what use you are to anyone if you’re knackered and stretched too thin. Hazarding a guess, but it can’t be good if your concentration is compromised.”
Helen snuggled into Brian, closing the tome in favor of soaking in the scents of his freshly showered skin. Ignoring him wasn’t cool, and relaxing sounded a helluva lot better than driving herself nuts staring at weird shit that made no sense. “I should snark at you for mansplaining witchcraft to me.”
“Consider me corrected. Unless you need to turn me into a frog to set things right.” He completed the banter circuit, like always. The fact that the two of them had become an “always” didn’t even freak her out anymore.
Her temple resting against his chest, she allowed the picture of their two pairs of feet side by side to mellow her with a snapshot of mundane domestic ease.
“I suppose it wouldn’t be a bad thing to take a few hours to recharge. And it’s after eleven in Minneapolis, too late to call Nerissa. I’ll hit this hard in the morning.”
“I meant what I said outside.”
Silence brought her focus to the low hum of their shared breathing, the intimacy of bodies together in bed.
She pushed the magic book off of her lap, Sisyphus shirking her burden onto the floor. “Which part?”
“The important part. All of it.”
“Me too.” And she existed in a maddening sort of stasis, a purgatory where she was both imprisoned and free. Free of the chains of her past, the internalized jailers who stopped her from being able to love.
But at the same time, an unguarded flank quivered. Unknown and unresolved, a threat desecrated the otherwise sanctified bedroom. Helen dropped a baleful glance to the grimoire. The book was her ally, albeit a cursed sort of comrade, and one she could not shake. Magic shackled her heart.
“Clue me in on the brilliant workings of your mind?” His breath heated the shell of her ear, the sensation swirling with the coldness of wet hair licking her flesh.
Sensitive nerves registered every caress, the delightful dampness on her tender skin. A promise of bliss teased her with whispers of a short vacation to heaven through tactile pleasures.
“I’m thinking…” Helen closed her eyes, stress and release fighting for purchase inside of her. “How good it feels to be with you. But that I’m also afraid. And worried, and uncertain about the future. You’re right. I should shut it off for the night, but it’s like I can’t. My mind is racing.”
“I have an idea.” Speech near her ear transitioned into slow kisses, a trail of sensual brushes down her neck.
Troubles melted into the intimacy she hungered for. “I’m sure it’s a good one.”
“Yeah.” The way his word edged toward a growl, gruff and excited, sparked awareness between her legs.
Eager to lose herself, to forget, Helen angled her body so she lay flush with Brian and kissed him. Her hands got busy opening the soft fabric of his robe. His tattoo came into splendid view, the secret badassery of him rendered in body art.
Brian moaned when she stroked his ink, her greedy touch traveling the maze. Too impatient to tease or hold back, she undid his robe’s knot. Pliant fabric flopped open, revealing the delights of his flat stomach and fit chest. The prize between his legs was stiff and at proud alert, plump crown engorged and decorated with that naughty piercing.
She went down with a line of kisses, sloughing off her troubles like the dead leaves that fell to the ground outside. She nibbled his torso, licked his happy trail, dipped a playful tongue in his belly button.
His hands dove in her hair, pants and moans tensing as they grew faster, clipped.
Brian’s firm thighs flexed, widening to accommodate her as she settled between them and curled her hand around his shaft.
He pushed her robe over her shoulders, licking his lips when the covering slid past her breasts. He stared, eyes hooded, while she took him in her mouth. The first flavors of him, salty musk mixed with shower fresh clean, tantalized her taste buds.
She cupped his full, tight balls, playing with the ribbed skin and seam while she bobbed on him. He punched up his hips in rhythmic thrusts, driving his erection into her throat.
Licking and sucking, she attended to him, his pleasure becoming her own. She’d found a steady pace when he urged her off his erection. “Come up here, beautiful.” The sound of his excited voice ignited both her body and heart.
Helen knelt between his spread legs and threw her robe over the side of the bed.
He traced her curves, squeezing her breasts then her hips on a path down the hourglass. “I bought condoms.”
“So you assumed we’d end up like this? How presumptuous.” Their rapport had gotten so easy, so fun. A bond formed through stolen joy. He was hers, and she was his.
“Call it optimism.” He treated her to a full-watt grin, the charm of it made dirty-hot by the spark in his eyes.
She liked Brian so much. He embodied his contradictions with panache, excelled at being himself. And he was weird, like her, yet so different. Yang to her yin.
“Checks out. So suit up.”
Wasting nary a second, he opened a nightstand drawer and pulled out a foil packet. Keeping up the no-nonsense approach, he ripped it open and slid the tan circle down his shaft, stretching the film to the root and pinching off the reservoir tip.
With an attention to detail and meticulous methodology that characterized even the smallest of Brian’s actions, he made the mundane act of safe sex prep hot as sin.
Their eye contact was fierce, unbroken. She climbed him like a tree, planted her hands on his shoulders, and lowered herself onto him.
His gaze slipped to the spot where their bodies joined, and he clamped firm hands below her waist. “You’re gorgeous.”
“I’m up here.” She pointed at her face as she ground back and forth, filled up by the unique, tingling invasion of penetration. Filled by the man she loved, and by love itself.
“I’m looking at your gorgeous pussy right now, love. How you’re swallowing me up. So slick and hot.”
She quickened her pace, gasping when the metal hoop at the tip of his dick rubbed her G-spot at the most perfect angle. Tension gathered inside, building at a startling pace. “Is that thing made to please a woman?”
He winked at her. “My big cock, you mean?”
Okay, a second to unpack por favor. The statement should have registered as obnoxious or insufferable, or at most a charming-ish performance of alpha-cocky cliché begging to be excoriated.
But on Brian, the wackiest experiment in bad good boy-slash-good bad boy ever concocted, it was hilarious in the best way possible. Because he asked the question in a way no one else could.
She busted out laughing. “Yeah. That. At first I thought nature intended it as a means to scare off rival elephants. My bad.”
Her giggles didn’t subside, and he added a chuckle to the mix. Playfulness shone through his eyes, and the corners of them crinkled like they had at the fair. Nostalgia, awareness of of the history of the two of them, sweetened lust and turned sex into making love.
Brian leaned up and wrapped his arms around her, the warm friction of their chests pressed together rich with import. She kissed his cheek, squealing as he flipped her onto her back without disengaging. Talk about skilled maneuvering.
He situated himself on top of her and propped up on his elbows. “You’re a goddess, all spread out before me.” He pumped, gaze roving over her face like he wanted to memorize the sight of her for all eternity.
“You never answered my question.” She squeezed his biceps, widening to provide him optimal access. Her body language gave consent to go harder, deeper,
and the intensity of his eye contact accepted her gift of license.
“About what?” He slipped a hand between sweaty bodies, the pads of his fingers targeting her clit.
His mid-tempo strokes coaxed pleasure from her, bringing her higher with each circular motion. She built to a crescendo inside, too. The delicious feeling against her internal nub evoked her earlier inquiry.
“Your piercing. Did you get it to please women or for you?”
“Both. It’s supposed to feel good for both people during sex. You getting the contact where you need it, love?” Plunges quickened in time with his hand. A sharp grunt left his lips.
“Yeah.” Most mental faculties fled her as the bulk of her awareness gathered between her legs, into ratcheting hunger, heat, and tightness. Pleasure intensified, propelling her to an apex.
“God, you’re hot. And wet. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever had.”
The last part begged for a snarky, self-deprecating comeback, but Helen would be remiss to spoil their moment.
“You feel so good inside of me.” Did he ever. Long and hard as steel, he hammered away, faster and faster as he chased his payoff. Judging by the quickening speed of his fingers, he sought to bring her along for a mutually orgasmic ride.
“Oh, Helen Britney.” Two drops of sweat fell from his brow and struck her shoulder. His motions were relentless, needy, cries and groans quick and desperate.
She faded into him, his eyes and flesh. Sacred oneness with her lover.
“Yeah, that’s it.” Her own craving notched higher, twin tops swiveling on a couple of dense nerve bundles.
Amazing, how two little spots held the capacity for so much feeling.
Amazing, how her wrecked heart held the capacity for so much feeling. For being in synch with a partner like this.
She flung her legs in the air, giving them a few more decadent inches of penetration. The headboard thunked, banging into the wall. Mattress springs squeaked, a fog of sweat and sex making for an earthy intimacy.
“You make my dick so hard.” Wet skin slapping underscored his shameless, perfect words.
She cracked, splintering into shards and spinning off her axis. Helen was gone, no mind or thoughts, just the unbelievable, pulsating relief of climax. She’d never come this hard. She moaned and wailed her way through.
Brian read her body and face, zipping quick fingers over her clit until he’d milked her dry, then caught her legs at the ankles, yanked her feet as far apart as they’d stretch, and pounded.
He locked eye contact with her like the strength of their connection was the only thing that mattered. Everything that needed to be said traveled the passage between their eyes. Yes. That’s good. Don’t stop. Harder, faster, more.
I love you.
A light flickered across his gaze the instant she felt the sentiment.
Brian shoved with a gusto she would not have guessed he had in him, cursing and shouting and crying her name.
A second orgasm barreled in, originating from deep inside and tearing her asunder. Pleasure, but a destructive and rampaging sort, raged.
“Brian, I’m coming again.” Her voice was a pathetic plea, or a confession, chasing the heels of such profound disbelief she couldn’t help but tell him. He needed to know what was happening to her.
He yelled his triumph, uninhibited in his frenzy. Thrusts grew sloppy, lost their steady rhythm. His gaze never wavered, though the humanity behind his eyes gave way to maniac sex ecstasy.
She shuddered, her explosions tapering to fluttery aftershocks though he was ramping up in earnest, racing to his finale. Worked out well, for now she could enjoy him, his broken noises as he came undone and fell apart.
Such a thrill and a treat, to witness a composed man like Brian reduced. An aphrodisiac and a feminine sort of power.
He froze, every muscle in his body locking up. With one more big push, he surged forward, folding her in two and pushing the bottoms of her feet into the board as he buried himself balls-deep and shot. His lips parted, and out poured a series of sharp noises.
The spectacle of her lover’s ruin might have satisfied her more than her own orgasms. Wrecking a man by way of abandon was the best kind of magic.
Sexed-up madness dribbled off, awareness of the present returning to showcase the embodiment of post-coital humanity.
He let go of her ankles, and she collapsed on crumpled sheets, nude and spread eagle, catching choppy breath.
Sweat glued bellies together. The smash of damp bodies separated with suction pops.
He, a riot of akimbo limbs and a robe hanging on for dear life, sighed and kissed her jaw. His heartbeat thumped against her breastbone, her own pulse complementing the percussion.
Brian rolled off of Helen and onto his back, splaying a hand over her tummy in a gesture that sweetened the afterglow with claiming and affection. He was letting her know that he wouldn’t retreat after the deed was done.
She didn’t need the aftercare, but she honored the good place from which his effort came.
Speedy and discreet, he peeled off the loaded condom and lobbed it into a wastebasket. “I knew it would be good with you, but damn. That was…”
Though the vocabulary word escaped him, she got the gist of the sentiment. Some silly cliché like “mind-blowing” would not suffice to describe their passion.
Helen shifted to her side. His face in profile, celebrity at rest in the backlight of the pool, was surreal. “I agree. I’m not sure what goes in that blank, but it’s awesome.”
Brian turned to face her, wearing the disheveled bathrobe and a grin. “Your dirty talk is white hot. I banked up all of the things you said for future solo use. Though I hope that I won’t have to fly solo as much anymore.” He wiggled his eyebrows, tracing the outline of her curves with one lazy finger.
But Helen’s couldn’t participate in the jest. Not when she saw the mark marring Brian’s body. Though his robe must have concealed the bruise during their lovemaking, his repositioning jostled a corner of the cloth behind his hip.
A ghastly shiner rimmed with puncture marks darkened a golf ball-sized area where his leg met his lower belly.
Despair burned dirty tributaries into her vein networks. The splotch showed up in Denver, but she’d thought little of it. She pushed white fabric aside, attaining the closer look she didn’t want.
“What happened?” Her voice shook, but she wasn’t shocked. Nothing shocked her these days, which made her so fucking tired.
“Oh, it’s what I told you about in the car, how the double put marks on me. Ugly, but I hardly notice it anymore.”
But Helen noticed, because the colors changed before her eyes. Broken blood vessels crawled outward from the impact sight, squiggly inchworms dipped in blood. The stain spread like red wine spilled on a carpet. Regret slammed. Pieces clicked.
“We shouldn’t have had sex,” she said.
He sat upright and pulled his garment together, cloaking his injury and nude body. “Did I do something wrong?”
“It’s not you, it’s the curse. I should have known. Fuck. I knew some feeling inside of me generated the hex, but I haven’t understood until now. It wasn’t my desire for money or to save my studio that emboldened it, allowed it to latch. It was my desire for you. In no way was your involvement a random occurrence.” She knocked the back of her head into the wall a couple of times like she could whack their mistake into a harmless torpor.
“We can’t be sure.”
She jumped out of bed and paced, tearing at a nail.
“No, we can. It adds up. You were the target because I wanted you to be. On some subconscious level I pinned this thing on you. I sought you out. You connect to my past, and the idea of you was all knotted up in this messed up savior fantasy I had, so when the curse needed to latch, all it had to do was reach in and root out the trace recollection of someone I desired, but desired in a way mixed up in resentment and desperation and other unhealthy shit. That’s a curse, a hex. That’s all
it is. Toxic mental sludge, bad energy we attach to other people, the ways that we make others responsible for our own garbage and pin our trash on them. So the setup’s in place before I even start screwing with the supernatural, with the Left Hand path. Then I find you at the fair, and bam. It’s too easy. I delivered you right into this thing’s clutches.”
“Hold on.” Brian put a hand in the air. “All of that may have been true the day we met, but you aren’t doing either of us any favors by blaming yourself. And you know what? I have a radical idea.”
She ceased treading a track in his floor and halted the gross practice of mauling her finger. “I’m listening.”
“This whole time, you’ve been casting me as an innocent. Oh, poor Brian, skipping along, minding his own when some senseless hex stabs hooks into him. But what if that’s wrong? What if my own karma brought this about? I’ve lived a blessed life, Helen. I’ve gotten so lucky that it’s kept me up at night wondering when I’ll have to pay the piper. Wondering when it will all come crashing down, when I’ll owe some cosmic debt for enjoying a life that most men could never even dream of. Maybe this is it. My penance.”
She pressed fingertips to her skull, battling a headache born of equal measures denial and the wisdom bomb Brian dropped. “But you’re a good person. You don’t objectify women or abuse drugs or hurt people. You aren’t self-absorbed or greedy. You’re kind and funny and talented—”
“I’m not good, though, not compared to the people we don’t see, the people who fight in obscurity to make the world better. Me? I’m rich and famous, and I’ve made a ridiculous amount of money singing and playing guitar. Success and fame on my scale, we’re talking one in ten-million odds. If that. And I’m not bragging. I think about these existential things. I live in a palace on a hill while people on the other side of the world die of preventable diseases because they don’t have clean water. Do you want to know how my first wife died?”
No, but the doozy of a pivot seemed relevant. “Alright.”
He scooted to the edge of the bed, knuckles pale against his knees. “She was a fashion designer, at the top of her field. Janet was her name, and she got her start working as the wardrobe woman on one of our American tours. That’s where we met and fell in love. She was ambitious and talented. Fast forward to when she’s a powerhouse. An activist journalist reaches out to her, invites her on an investigative trip to Bangladesh. So she can tour one of the factories where her pieces were made. The third night, she calls home sobbing. Just broken. She’s describing girls who were Tilly’s age at the time, six, working the assembly lines from sunup to sundown. Crying for their mothers, wetting their pants because they weren’t allowed bathroom breaks. Some had stumps where their little fingers used to be.”