Until her mouth closed over him with ferocious hunger, and he damn near levitated off the bed. Gasping, he wrestled his unruly body back under control and went to work with his tongue again.
He thought she growled.
TWENTY
Eva shivered as David sucked and tongued her sex, his fingers pumping hard inside her, on the verge of blasting her into a blaze of orgasm like a rocket climbing into orbit.
She fought to ignore the twitching build of climax as she concentrated on the taste of his cock, on its nubby width and silken length and raw male heat. Closing her lips over the plum head, Eva sucked hard, swirling her tongue over the delicate flesh. His hips rolled upward, but not as if he’d intended it. She rumbled in satisfaction and worked another inch of cock into her mouth. He was deep now, but she wanted him deeper, wanted to make him feel the maddening delight she felt. Wanted to make him come.
He palmed a breast in one long-fingered hand, squeezing gently, thumbing her nipple back and forth. Pleasure zinged her with every teasing stroke, and she felt the muscles in her thighs begin to twitch. David caught her clit in his mouth and suckled in steady, gentle pulls that made her roll her hips against his face. Maddened, craving the heated steel of him, she pulled away, turned to face him, and swung a leg astride his hips.
“Eva ...” he began, and grabbed for her. “I wanted ...”
“I don’t care,” she growled, and aimed his length at her cunt. She came down hard, so hard he seemed to spear to her ribs. Gasping, Eva went still, letting her body adjust to being so very, very full.
His eyes were wide and intensely blue. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who felt a little stunned.
Slowly, carefully, she lifted off him until only the broad head remained inside her, then slid down again, bracing her hands on his shoulders as she rode.
The sun was sinking into the ocean, flinging veils of scarlet across the darkening sky. Its light painted his handsome face and powerful body in reddening gold. His hair spilled across his pillow like a black silk. She reached down and pushed an inky strand out of his face so she could look into those amazing eyes of his. They burned with a blue light of their own, glowing softly with magic and masculinity. “Beautiful man,” she whispered. “You are such a beautiful man.”
“Not as beautiful as you.” David watched her riding him in those slow, careful strokes, loving the way she felt gripping him, loving the way her eyes had gone so dark and dazed. Her sex felt slick, tight as wet silk knotted around his shaft. Her thighs stroked his ribs as her breasts bounced gently in his palms, impossibly soft as he squeezed her hard little nipples.
But her mouth was too damned far away.
He sat up so he could reach her lips. She tasted of his body tinged with that sweet, feral femininity that was solely hers. Eva stopped thrusting as if to concentrate on the kiss, and he lifted one hand to rake a fistful of her silken mane. Her delicate fingertips found the line of his jaw, slid up to trace the points of his ears, then the thick arch of his brows. Her tongue circled his, slipped into his mouth only to retreat again with his in pursuit. Licking and suckling, they nibbled each other and began a slow, hypnotized rolling of hip against hip. Pleasure heated and flowed like a warm, creamy spring.
Sweet, sweet. Gods, so sweet.
He felt her fine inner muscles begin to clench and release. He opened his eyes—he hadn’t even known he’d closed them—because he wanted to watch her come.
Eva cried out, her head rolling back, the last light of the sun pouring red gold across her face, gilding delicate bones and the long black fans of her lashes. She opened her dark eyes, and the intoxicated joy in them tripped him right into orgasm.
The first hot pulse hit him like a spur digging into a stallion’s ribs, and he arched, driving his cock deep, grinding in a hard, rolling circle that made her gasp.
He watched her tumble into another climax—or maybe the first one hadn’t ended—and she threw back her head and screamed, a raw cry of passion as the sun drowned itself in the sea. His hoarse shout rose like an echo, and his arms wrapped hard around her back and pulled her down with him.
Eva floated in the honeyed aftermath, listening to the surf and the wind, feeling his chest rise and fall in deep gasps under her cheek. The sea tugged at the lace curtains, and they belled from the wind as the tide crept up to swirl around the bed’s brass legs. A chill rose over her, and she cuddled deeper into David’s warmth.
“It feels so good to be here with you,” she told him sleepily. “It feels so ... right. So perfect.” In fact, it had never been this perfect with any man, ever. It was almost frightening, but she felt too damn good to worry about it.
He kissed her forehead. “Good. It feels wonderful to me, too.”
She shivered as the wind blew over her bare back. “Maybe it’s time to go in. It’s getting a little late.” Which probably made it dawn at the Pendragon house. “Mom and Dad are going to wonder where we are.”
He gave her an amused look. “Can’t have that.”
She glowered. “Don’t smirk. No, I don’t have a curfew. Daddy just worries.”
“I don’t blame him.” She felt his magic rise, and a moment later they were both dressed in jeans and longsleeved shirts. The fabric felt warm, as though fresh from the dryer. More of David’s thoughtful magic.
“Need a coat, too?” he asked her, giving her an appraising look.
“Nope, this is good.” Eva rolled off the bed, splashing into the seawater that swirled around it. As her running shoes were instantly soaked, she grimaced and bounded up onto the beach. David loped after her, and she looked back to watch him just as the bed faded away like a dream.
A very sweet dream.
He caught her hand as they started up the beach. Her shoes squelched, and she wrinkled her nose. “I hate wet sneakers.”
He looked down at her and smiled, and just like that her shoes were dry again.
Eva laughed. “Damn, I could get used to that.”
“That’s the idea. I want you addicted to me.” He twined his warm fingers with hers. “Because I’m definitely addicted to you.”
“Silver-tongued devil.” The sand seemed to glow in the moonlight as whitecaps rolled toward the shore. “That was really beautiful,” she told him softly. “Thank you.”
He shot her a glance and a wry smile. “There can be advantages to having a lover with certain magical abilities.”
“Yeah, you definitely have magical abilities.”
“But I’m still your David.” There was a trace of a question in the words. “Aren’t I?”
Eva stopped in her tracks to stare up at him.
That’s when it hit her just how much she’d been hurting him. Her refusal to accept Cat, her unconscious tendency to call him “David” even after his three personalities recombined—all of it had communicated a very ugly message.
“What have I done to you?” She asked the question in a low, shaking voice.
He frowned. “What do you mean? You haven’t done anything.”
“Except hurt you worse than Warlock. At least that bastard valued your magic. I’ve rejected you over and over.”
His brows drew down. “No, you haven’t. You just ...”
“Told Cat I didn’t want to make love to him. Refused to call you anything but David. Acted like I only loved one third of you. Which is utter bullshit.”
“No, that’s not the way I took it.” But his blue eyes flickered ever so slightly.
“Now you’re lying to me, love.” She stepped up against him and took both his hands. “I love you. All of you. Period. The Cat part of you, who made diced asshole for me and then gave me David again because he realized that was what I wanted. The elemental with his beautiful eyes and ancient power, who greeted me with such joyful surprise because he didn’t think I cared enough to rescue him. And the Sidhe warrior who turned himself into a giant werecat to save my life.” Her lower lip trembled as her eyes stung. “How could I not love all that?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “But I’m not human.”
“Which is a damned good thing,” Eva said tartly, “because a human would have died a dozen times over this past week. A human couldn’t have helped me save my parents. And in case it’s escaped your notice, I’m not human either.”
He shook his head. “You’re trying to be logical about this. As Cat says, there’s no logic in the heart. If you don’t love the other parts of me, there’s nothing either of us can do about it.”
“Then answer one question.” She called her magic, let it spill over her in a breathtaking explosion of pain. The hands that held his acquired claws as she grew until she towered over him with sable fur covering her body. “Can you love me like this?”
He looked up at her, and his lips quirked. “Of course. You’re beautiful.”
Eva snorted. “Baby, every other man I know—with the possible exception of my dad and a couple of vampires—would be running like hell right now. Even Daddy freaked the first time I showed him what I am. Yet you never even batted an eye. You just hugged me and implied something kinky about my furry breasts. Do you have any idea how much that meant to me?”
He shrugged. “Your werewolf form is as beautiful in its own way as your human body.”
“And when you look at me like that, I believe you.” She lifted his hand. “Let me ask you something I should have asked a hell of a long time ago. What’s your Sidhe name?”
He blinked. “What do you mean?”
“What’s the real name of that part of you that’s a Sidhe warrior? Because it’s sure as hell not David. David is a statue in Italy.”
He frowned at her, his expression uneasy. “I like David.”
“But it’s not your name. What’s your Sidhe name?”
“Urúvion. It means ‘fiery.’” He shook his head. “I doubt you can pronounce it.”
She concentrated fiercely, working to reproduce his pronounciation. “Oo-roo-vee-on. How do you spell that? O-r-v ...”
He laughed. “I have no idea. My people didn’t have a written language. Even if we had, I haven’t gone by that name in millennia. Not since I began hosting Smoke and Cat. Everyone else simply calls me Smoke.”
“So.” Eva blew out a breath. “Smoke.” She met his bright blue gaze, her own steady, level with perfect honesty. “I love you, Smoke.”
He blew out a breath. For a moment she wondered if he was going to insist on being called David. Instead he said, “And I love you, Eva.”
The joy she felt surprised even her with its leaping incandescence.
Eva changed back to her human form, and took his hand again as they started up a winding sand path. The surrounding hillside was covered in long stalks of rustling beach grass and the tiny violet-blue flowers. She swung their joined hands like a child. “You know, I can’t think of the last time I felt this good.”
Smoke laughed. “You made me feel pretty damned good, too.”
“I’m not talking about that.” When he threw her a look of mock hurt, she grinned. “Well, not just about that.”
“Ah.” He sent her a small, warm smile. “So what’s the other reason?”
“Coming clean with my parents after five years of lies. Knowing they’re safe from Warlock.”
His smile faded, and worry darkened his eyes as he looked off into the distance. “Unfortunately, they can’t stay in the Mageverse indefinitely. We’re going to have to find out where he is.”
“You don’t know?” She studied his face, frowning at the unease there. “But Smoke—you—were in his head for days.”
“Yes, but he had me walled up so I wouldn’t overwhelm him. As I tried very hard to do. I got flashes of things, but nothing useable.”
“What was it like?” She asked the question softly, sensing whatever memories he had troubled him. “What’s he like?”
“He’s insane,” Smoke said bluntly. “He sees himself as some kind of infallible messiah for his people solely because Merlin chose him.”
“Which begs the question—what the hell was Merlin thinking?”
“He wasn’t like that in the beginning. The problem is that Merlin ordered him to keep an eye on the Magekind in case they ever began abusing humanity. He’s been at that job for a very, very long time, and he eventually grew paranoid. He has a pathological jealousy of Arthur, who has been saving humanity for a millennium and a half, while Merlin ordered Warlock to hide and do nothing. But he wanted to be a hero, too.”
“So instead he decided to become a villain?”
Smoke shook his head. “He doesn’t see himself as a villain. He wants to destroy the Magekind so his people can become humanity’s guardians—and the heroes he thinks they should be.”
“Why do I have the distinct feeling that wouldn’t be a good thing?”
“Because you’re perceptive. Given the chance, Warlock would become exactly the kind of tyrant Merlin feared.”
“Irony sucks.”
Smoke laughed. “With enthusiasm.”
They crested the hill to see the moon rising in pale splendor above a landscape of enormous stone blocks that stretched for miles in the dark. Eva stopped in her tracks and stared.
Some were square, some tall rectangles, a few looked like squashed donuts, and still others had been piled together as if by a giant child. The blocks looked too big and new to be ruins, yet their arrangement seemed utterly random. “What the hell is that?”
“One of the Magekind’s practice sites,” Smoke explained. “The new recruits can run around those blocks shooting magic at one another to their heart’s content. If they tried that in Avalon, they might blow up something important. Also, sorcery makes one hell of a lot of noise, which pisses off tired witches who’ve just spent weeks in the field. I gather fighting terrorists makes them all a little twitchy.”
Eva snorted. “Yeah, I can see how all those magical booms would trigger a nasty case of PTSD. I ...”
Malevolence seemed to explode in her senses, a sense of sheer evil that made the hair rise on the back of her neck. She sucked in a breath to yell a warning, but Smoke had already thrown up a hand in a sweeping gesture.
Blinding light shot out of the darkness to rage around them as boiling blue energy. Eva instinctively threw her arms up to shield her face. Smoke grunted as if catching something massively heavy.
It took her a moment of stark terror to realize nothing hurt. Eva peered around her arms to find the attack had been blocked by a shimmering hemisphere of golden force.
Smoke’s face contorted with effort, his teeth clenched, his blue eyes glowing. A second flaming ball slammed into the shield he’d cast, then another, then a whole pounding salvo of them, coming fast and hard.
Eva instinctively huddled into the shelter of his strength. He swept out an arm to push her behind him as if to give her the additional shield of his body.
“What the hell is going on?” But even as she yelled the question, she knew the answer.
“Warlock,” Smoke snarled. “How did the bastard find us? Must have tapped into the elemental’s—my—memories. He knows I love this bloody island.”
“Can you cast a gate?” Eva shouted over the noise.
“I’ve already tried. He’s got some kind of barrier blocking me. From the feel of it, he must have walked a spell circle around the whole island and keyed it to tell him when we arrived.”
It felt as if ice replaced the blood in her veins. “It was a trap.”
“And we walked right into it.”
Eva slipped one arm around his waist as she looked past his brawny shoulder. She still couldn’t see where the blasts were coming from.
Smoke swore. “I can’t fire back at him because I’d have to drop the shield. And I can’t do that because it would leave you vulnerable.”
“But Gwen said werewolves are immune to magic!” She had to yell it over the sizzle and crack of the blasts.
“Yes, but you’re not immune to lightning. Just because he uses magic to
call down bolts, that doesn’t mean the electricity won’t fry you.”
“And thanks for that mental image.”
“I’m a little too busy for tact, Eva.” Smoke grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her after him as he broke into a sprint. She pounded behind him, heart in her throat. Holding his free hand lifted, he sent power pouring from his palm to feed the shield.
Finally they reached the shelter of one of the massive rocks. Warlock’s blasts splashed harmlessly against it. As if realizing that, he stopped firing.
“I think the bastard may have just outsmarted himself this time,” Smoke whispered into the sudden quiet. “Between that barrier and these attacks, he’s using a lot of power. If you can keep these rocks between you and him, I can take the fight to him. If I wear him down enough, he’s dead.”
“Those stones,” Eva realized. “You said they’re resistant to magic.”
“Otherwise the baby witches would blow them to gravel,” he agreed. “When you get the chance, I want you to shift to wolf form and run like hell. You’ll be faster and more agile on four legs.”
“Four—?” She stared at him. Even as a human, Eva could see pretty well in the dark. “You want me to turn into a regular wolf? But I’ve never done that!”
“You’re a Dire Wolf, Eva, it’s one of your transformations. Just imagine being a wolf instead of a werewolf. The magic’ll do the rest.”
“Then what?”
“Lay low—don’t try to help me. In fact, stay as far away as possible. I’m going to cut loose with everything I’ve got, and I don’t want you hurt in the process. Besides, we don’t know if he’s brought any of his thugs along, so you need to stay hidden.”
Eva opened her mouth to argue, but another blast hit the block so hard, it rocked against their backs. She gasped.
“I’m going to run left,” Smoke told her, then pointed out across the field. “You go straight. Put as much rock between you and that furry bastard as possible.”
“Are you sure I can’t help?”
“This fight is going to be too far out of your league.” He popped his head around the block, then jerked back as something sizzled. “Go.” When she hesitated, he barked, “I said go!”
Master of Smoke Page 26