“I guess we do.” Her smile faltered as she glanced past him. “Shit.”
She cursed again under her breath and shoved him off the path.
Bryce craned his neck to see who or what had spooked her, but she pushed him into a thick section of vegetation, staying right on his heels. She didn’t stop until they were out of immediate sight of anyone passing by—assuming whoever it was hadn’t seen them ducking off the path.
If Darby hadn’t slipped off her sandals earlier, she likely would have tripped on the uneven ground already. He hadn’t met anyone as cursed as she was to trip on the only obstacle in a room. If someone dropped or spilled something, Darby was destined not to notice until it was too late. And that wasn’t counting the times her own wardrobe sabotaged her.
So it was no real surprise when he turned just as she finally stumbled forward.
She fell into him. “Dante and Riley,” she hissed.
“And you were more worried about them than snakes?” he teased.
Even in the shadows he could make out the look of horror that crossed her face. She launched herself into his arms, wrapping her legs around him, which couldn’t have been as effortless as she made it seem with a wet dress clinging to her skin.
Unprepared for it, he staggered sideways and then forward to compensate, pressing Darby’s back up against two palm trees twined together.
The maneuver actually couldn’t have gone better if he’d planned it. Her arms tightened around him, and he fit snug between her legs.
She made a soft sound, but he didn’t know whether it was from the unexpected impact or the hard length of his cock nestled against her. He sure as hell knew which one had triggered the harsh groan he released.
She pressed her finger to his lips, and he heard Dante and Riley reach the place where they’d left the path. Darby glanced in their direction as if she could see them through the trees, and in the process exposed her throat.
He couldn’t stop himself from running his mouth down the slender column, any more than he could hold back from rocking his hips and rubbing against her.
“Will you stop being such a mother hen,” Riley complained. “She’s fine.”
“We don’t know that.”
The pair stopped as if they’d noticed Bryce and Darby standing there moments ago and couldn’t figure out where they’d gone.
“Yes, we do. Unless she was abducted by modern-day pirates.”
Bryce arched a brow and mouthed, “Pirates?” at Darby.
She rolled her eyes.
“It’s not pirates I’m worried about,” Dante clarified.
“She can handle herself and she can handle Bryce.”
“You didn’t see her this morning. He’s getting to her.”
“She’s a big girl, Dante.”
“That doesn’t mean her heart can’t be crushed a second time, and I’ll be damned if he puts her through that again.” Their voices faded as they finally moved on.
Of course it would be the one time Bryce actually wanted Dante to stick around.
Darby had gone completely still in his arms and avoided looking at him long after Dante and Riley were gone.
“What—”
She didn’t let him get any further than that. “No talking about the past.”
He tried to take it as a positive sign that she was reminding him of their terms, except she looked like she was thinking even harder about what Dante had said than Bryce was.
And that wasn’t good.
Not good for him getting her out of her wet clothes and into his bed. And not if he stood a chance at finding out how he was getting to her, and if what Dante had said about her heart was true.
All of which left him with exactly one move.
With one hand planted on the tree and his arm locked across her lower back, he bent his head and touched his lips to hers. Although he half expected it, she didn’t try to squirm away, but melted into him slowly.
Slow was exactly what he had in mind in the beginning. A lazy kind of seduction fueled by taking her mouth, savoring it, dragging out every pass of their lips until her head fell back in sweet surrender.
Their first kiss had been like that. As horny as he’d been at twenty-one, he’d been both stunned that he hadn’t immediately shoved his tongue down her throat and just plain blown away by how close he came to losing his mind to a kiss. She’d been right there with him, looking at him like he’d just turned her whole world upside down when they’d broken apart.
The second Darby made the same breathless sigh, the whisper of it catching between them, his only thought was… Fuck slow.
He pushed his tongue into her mouth and his aching shaft to the sweet spot he suddenly remembered was no longer covered by underwear. If his body had been rigid with need before, now it strained to the breaking point.
Darby moaned, sinking her fingers into his hair. She tugged at his bottom lip, sucking it into her mouth, and he knew he was done. If he didn’t pull back now he’d never make it out of the trees keeping them in shadow, let alone as far as his bungalow before he’d need to be inside her.
He carefully lowered her to the ground. He didn’t ask if she’d changed her mind or had second thoughts, because the moment she laced their fingers together, he knew all he needed to.
Tonight she was his.
He bent down to grab her shoes before he spent another second thinking about staying exactly where they were, only to feel her hand brush his zipper.
She tugged on his hand. “Leave them. We have all night to spend in a bed, right?” She unbuttoned his pants and slipped her hand inside.
He didn’t try to stop her this time. Not when her thumb teased the tip of his cock, circling slowly. So damn slowly.
He braced one hand on the tree, digging into the rough bark. In the last twenty-four hours alone, this—her hands on him—had crossed his mind more times than he could count. Each time sinking a little deeper into his brain, tugging at memories he’d buried long ago.
And now he was drowning in them. As good as he remembered it being, experiencing it all over again might have dropped him where he stood if not for the exquisite hold she had on him.
His eyes slid shut, every part of him concentrating on the tips of her fingers exploring him, torturing him in the best fucking way possible. With one slow pump of her fist after another he shot closer to the release he could already feel building.
Her hand was gone between one harsh breath and the next, traveling up his abdomen—the exact opposite direction from where he craved her touch.
“You enjoy punishing me, don’t you?”
She laughed, the sound sexy and hypnotic. “Is that your way of telling me you hate what I’m doing to you?” She worked at the buttons on his shirt.
“Despise every—”
She slid her hands up his chest.
“—second,” he finished, shivering at the warmth of her palms on his skin.
He wanted them everywhere, wanted to watch her rediscover him with all the heat and desire in her eyes. Nothing hidden from him. Neither of them had ever shied away from revealing what they were feeling when it came to sex, and he had missed that. The less they had on, the less he had to guess what was going through her mind.
“Cold?”
“Not even close.” He was pretty sure he’d never felt so hot. The more she touched him, the hotter his blood pounded through his veins. The moment she angled her face up and he took fierce possession of her mouth, he knew he was only going to get hotter.
And that was before she curled her fingers around his shaft, slowly sliding them from base to tip and back again. The rough sound of pleasure that rushed from his lips to hers made her grin. Her confidence was sexy as hell to begin with, but moved to a whole new level when she knew the power she held over him.
He sacrificed his grip on the tree in favor of running his hands down her arms, to her waist. From there he gathered her dress in his hands and tugged it up.
He didn�
��t need to look to know Darby still had a first-class ass and he promised himself he’d enjoy a proper eyeful later. There wasn’t anything stopping him from slipping his hand between her legs.
Already she was warm and damp where he circled his palm. She released her hold on him to run her finger along his cock.
He groaned. “Don’t stop.”
“Or?”
Grinning against her lips, he answered, “I actually wasn’t thinking far enough ahead to back that up.”
“Having an off day, Councilor?”
“Yeah, but the rest of my night is looking more promising.” Whatever else he might have said was lost the second he grazed her clit and she instinctively gave the base of his cock a squeeze.
Christ. He wanted her to explore so much more of him but knew it would have to wait until later.
Like when he was done touching her.
“Bryce.”
Damn, he loved the way she said his name. Loved it even more when she said it while he parted her damp folds and slid just a bit lower to her slick opening.
It crossed his mind to tease her the way he had on the beach, but the second he felt how wet she was, he pushed two fingers inside her.
Her moan was caught between their mouths, then swallowed entirely as he deepened the kiss. Deepened the thrust of his fingers. He wanted to watch her come again, watch it play across her face as the pleasure built inside her.
She arched into him, her hips moving in slow rocking thrusts that made it so easy to enjoy every second.
It was like watching a storm move in. A catch of her breath, a shiver that raced across her skin, a slide of her bottom lip between her teeth. And then the intensity went from F1 to F5. Her breath coming in fast pants, broken by words he could barely make out.
“Bryce…please…yes.”
Her body tensed and relaxed with each burst of pleasure that pushed her closer to release, and her mouth found his, bold strokes of her tongue tugging hard at every reinforcement he had in place.
“I need you inside me.” The words slipped out between each drugging sweep of her lips.
Breaking from her mouth, he nudged her up against the tree. There wasn’t a chance he was taking a single step away from her, prompting him to use his magic for a far more selfish reason than he had in a very long time.
“Telum manus.” The glow from his amulet brightened the darkness and he held up the condom he’d teleported from his bungalow.
“Nice trick.” She tugged at his pants, getting them down in under three seconds.
“I’ve got a few more up my sleeve.”
“I’m on the edge of my seat, Houdini.”
He nipped her jaw, making her laugh. The sound was as arousing as rubbing the head of his cock across her opening before tearing open the condom wrapper to sheathe himself.
He lifted her up. “Wrap your legs around me.” He could have asked or pleaded, but the edgy demand emerged first, his restraint crumbling around him.
The head of his cock pressed against her slick entrance, hot and demanding, and with one hard thrust he was inside her—surrounded by her and all the bone-drenched pleasure that slammed into him.
They both stilled for a heartbeat, then three…four. Then she flexed her hips and her sweet inner muscles clenched around him.
Holy fuck.
It wasn’t supposed to be this incredible. This moment, this night wasn’t meant to be anything more than a way for him to move past old feelings that had weighed on him more than he’d realized, and now he couldn’t imagine not being with her every night, every moment.
Carefully, he withdrew and sank back inside even slower. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to go any faster. He was holding it together. Barely. He could face off against defense lawyers with killer instincts as sharp as some of the criminals they represented and not feel the least bit intimidated.
But this woman, her arms locked around him, her lips pressed as tight as the walls of her core around his cock—she intimidated the hell out of him. He couldn’t afford to leave himself open to that kind of hurt a second time, and yet here he was, holding on to Darby, afraid to walk away all over again.
Stunning blue eyes dark with arousal met his and for a second he glimpsed the same fear in her eyes. That this could end much worse than the last time. That any second this little sliver of paradise might vanish beneath their feet and they’d be left with only frustrating and hurtful habits they’d both relied on for far too long.
He didn’t want to lose this Darby when he’d only just found her again. He smoothed the hair back from her face. “Won’t let you go,” he vowed, as though her fears were the same. “Not tonight.”
There was no softness left in him now or in the kiss he claimed hard and fast. Darby made him lose control, made him crave what he couldn’t have, but when he was lost inside her, working deeper and wishing he could have all of her bared for him, he stopped caring about how much it scared him.
“Harder,” she murmured. “Just…harder.”
Bryce cursed under his breath and pumped his hips. Over and over he buried himself inside her. The strain on his muscles and the tree rubbing his arms raw didn’t matter as he felt his release roar closer.
The heat of her skin, the taste of her mouth and the fierce pull between them made it impossible to hold off. Her sex, so hot and tight, clenched each time he drove into her, and her nails raked at the back of his neck, holding him close.
He changed the angle, fit just a little bit tighter, and she cried out against his mouth as she came. Her breath rushed out, the faint whisper of his name on her lips pulling at something deep inside him.
With another rough thrust he pressed his body hard into hers, holding her in place as his own release finally overtook him, leaving him wondering how losing control with her made him feel more alive than he had in months.
* * *
Her brother had been right, Darby realized. Bryce was getting to her, but not until she was pinned to a tree, held there by the strength of his body, both of them breathing hard, did she realize exactly how much.
Time hadn’t changed how easily she responded to him. Maybe it never would. Later she could worry about what that meant. Tonight…tonight was all they had before they had to go back to the real world, and as afraid as she was of falling for him all over again, she was more afraid to call their deal off.
She tried to tell herself that realization didn’t have anything to do with what Bryce had said about not letting her go. The way she clung to him, her hands framing his face, his lips just grazing hers, told a completely different story.
God, she was in so much trouble.
“Don’t think so hard. You’ll give Alex another headache.” Bryce’s expression was far too reflective to deny his thoughts weren’t edging into serious territory.
She laughed. “Like he needs another reason to have women lining up to play nurse.”
“Exactly.”
“He seemed to be milking it with that redhead. The anorexic blonde would have been next in line if she’d been able to take her eyes off you.” She could have slapped her hand over her mouth at how catty that sounded. Instead, she smacked her hand over Bryce’s. “Not a word.”
His hand covered hers and he pressed a kiss to her palm before tugging it down. “You won’t hear me say a thing…” he leaned in, his mouth skimming her cheek until he reached her ear, “…except that you being jealous is a serious turn-on.”
“I was not jealous.”
“Is that your strongest argument?”
“Hey—” Her protest was cut off when Bryce froze.
“Dante,” he mouthed.
Frowning, she tried to look over her shoulder. How could Bryce even see through the trees…
She glanced back at him. A smug grin curved his lips. “My sleeve is full of them.”
Darby rolled her eyes, barely suppressing the smile tugging at her lips.
Once they had straightened themselves to something clos
e to presentable, Bryce picked up her shoes and they slipped back onto the path. He kept a firm grip on her hand, probably to keep her close in case they ran into her brother.
Avoiding Dante was clearly on Bryce’s mind too. Otherwise he would have stuck to the path instead of dodging around the back of the bungalows.
The vegetation that bordered the grounds here wasn’t nearly as manicured and offered more privacy and shadows. If Dante was inclined to come looking for her—and she really hoped he’d given that up—he probably wouldn’t stake out the back.
“I didn’t realize I’d signed up for a race tonight.” She tugged on Bryce’s hand to slow him down. “I’m still trying to catch my breath.”
“Really?” He reeled her in, capturing her mouth in another drugging kiss that ribboned across nerve endings, tying them up in hot, sluggish knots.
Laughing, she finally pushed him back a step. “You’re cheating.”
“How’s that?”
“You know I’ll do just about anything when you kiss me like that.”
“Anything is a pretty strong word.” He slipped the strap of her dress off her shoulder, rubbing softly with his thumb. He bent his head and her eyes slid shut at the warmth of his mouth on her skin.
Hours.
That’s how long she could stand there, taking in each feathery kiss he teased across her shoulder, up her neck. Her jaw came next, then her chin, and finally a whisper-soft brush across her lips.
There was only the distant sound of the waves hitting the beach to mark the passage of time, and when the familiar swell of emotion rose up inside her, she didn’t even try to shut it down.
She didn’t have enough fight left in her for that. She’d agreed to this, welcomed it, and whatever she’d said about not talking about the past, there was no running from it. No pretending their attraction wasn’t built on a nearly decade-old foundation impossible to ignore.
At least not tonight.
She’d deal with everything else tomorrow—the confusion, the misunderstandings, the hurt. Somehow. But for now she just wanted to hold on to this amazing moment that was so much more than just a truce.
She whimpered against his mouth, losing herself to the sensations coursing through her.
Must Be Magic (Spellbound Book 4) Page 10