Spellbound Desire

by Angelia Sparrow

  I didn’t have to be told twice. Between the scotch whisky and the still-damp Scot wrapped in a towel, I was ready. I stripped out of the shirt and jeans faster than I ever remember doing it before.

  “Easy, lass, be easy. You’re flushed.” He ran a finger over my chest above my breasts. “Looks like a field of poppies. I’m flattered, but we’re working first. When someone just has a dab of mana, they often find it easier to work if they’re naked and it’s nighttime. Why do you think the witches of old went naked and met at night?”

  I sat down on the bed, a little disappointed, but only a little. The same mana that was making me simmer for him all the time was about to be used, and it knew it. He joined me, leaving the towel in the chair.

  We sat cross-legged and facing each other. He took my hands in his and said, “Shut your eyes, love. Now imagine a wall. A wall around you, around your mind, build it between us. I’m on the other side.”

  I imagined a big, solid brick wall, seeing it as clearly as I could. I put it up between us, building it brick by brick until I couldn’t see his face anymore. Even his voice sounded distant.

  “I’m going to push, love. Just a little. Imagine the wall keeping me out.” I didn’t like that idea and apparently it showed. He sounded more amused as he added, “Imagine I’m sweaty and smelly and covered in ichor and you are all clean and you want to keep me out until I’ve had a shower. You don’t want me all nasty, love, you want me clean and sweet smelling and you need to keep me out until then.”

  I grinned and imagined him all gross from killing things on the other side of my wall. I felt him lay hands on the bricks and then he hit them like a battering ram. I kept the wall up, but felt it cracking.

  “Oh Admire,” he sighed. “I barely shoved ye. Build it again, stronger and thicker.”

  I imagined it twice as thick and covered in a steel plate. I felt his hands on the other side. This time the battering ram was less, more like I’d been hit by an oncoming pedestrian.

  I whoofed out a breath and he laughed. “Sweet Elvis, Bran, what are you hitting me with?”

  “Just a tap. About like this.” He tapped one finger against my palm, not very hard. “Your shields are weak and new. Of course it feels like I’m driving a fewking Brinks into them. You’ll get stronger with practice.”

  It sure didn’t feel like I was getting stronger. He slammed into my shields over and over. Each time I shored them up a little more. And finally, he hit them and it felt like a knock on a door instead of a tank.

  “That’s about right,” he said. “Hold that for as long as you can. Eventually, you’ll learn to sleep with it.”

  “I’m buried alive in my own skull,” I complained. “The wall is forty feet thick and made of iron and stone.”

  “In time, you’ll see it as a transparent shield. Your imagined tomb looks like a soap bubble from where I sit and were I to truly hit it, it would crumble.” He leaned forward and kissed me. “Again.”

  So he pounded at my shield for about another hour. I felt like I’d been trampled by a horde of zombies. Big zombies, carrying boxes as they loaded the trucks on President’s Island. Just call me the human lift gate.

  He smiled. “Let it down, love. Practice is done for tonight. We’ll work more tomorrow.” He poured himself a mouthful of scotch and me half a coffee cup of the rum. “You need this.”

  “With you pounding me into the wall, yeah.” I drained the cup at a breath and poured another.

  He closed the space between us. “With you sitting there naked, ‘twasn’t just your shields I wanted to pound.” His hand ran a slow trail from my cheek to my breast and stopped there, his big thumb running over my nipple and waking it up.

  I set the half-finished drink aside and pounced, kissing him hard as I knocked him to the bed. He kissed me back, but I made it hard and fierce, wanting to punish him for the roughness of the lesson. I shoved my tongue into his mouth and nipped at his lips.

  He caught my hair and yanked it back. “Rough tonight, is it?”

  “A little.” He tugged my hair again and I ground down on him. Why the hell was that making me so hot? “Hard and hot and a little rough, sounds just about right for us rough sorts.”

  He flipped us over. I liked looking up at him. Without a bit of warning or by your leave, he shoved my thighs apart with his knee. He kissed the amulet Planned Parenthood had given me.

  “Hope this bitch is working.”

  With no more than that, he stabbed in. I arched up to meet him, welcoming the roughness. It hurt only a little, but that was all part of this.

  I got my thighs around him and twisted my hips. Now I was on top and he was still inside. I grinned down.

  “Hope so too, because this bitch definitely is.”

  He smiled back and grasped my hips with one hand and a tit with the other. He guided me to move on his cock, and I gasped at the thickness of it. “Mmm, yes she is. Definitely working for me.”

  I rode him some, grinding my clit against his hipbone. He got both hands on my hips and guided me until I came hard. I watched the eerie play of ink under skin as the necklace closed on his throat.

  “Gotta get that back under your control,” I said.

  He grunted, his air mostly closed off.

  I leaned down and kissed him, feeling the coolness of his lips. “Come for me. Come for me and then flip me over and have me again.” I rubbed some more and came again.

  He did, shooting into me with a hoarse shout. The tat eased up and I kissed the triskelion. He rolled me off him, still hard. The other tat moved too, looking like it was tightening around his cock.

  “Turn over,” he said.

  I went onto my stomach for him. “Whatcha gonna do, spank me?”

  “Not done fucking you yet.” He swatted me, not hard, and then got a hand under my belly and pulled me up onto my hands and knees.

  “Think you can manage more than a half-minute,” I taunted, deliberately mouthy. The swat had set off something in me, making me want more. I wanted his hand on my ass, even harder, or yanking on my hair. For a moment, I wanted him up my ass, and the thought frightened me. “I want a long, hard one with your long, hard one.” I shot a look over my shoulder in time to see him stroke the tattoo at the base of his cock.

  “How long, darling? I can go all night if I need to.”

  I nodded. “All night sounds just about right for what I want.”

  He reached forward and pulled my hair again. “Sure your eyes aren’t getting bigger than your stomach?” He shoved back in, deep and hard.

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done this.” The way I got wet from that pull didn’t bother him in the least.

  “Then tell me when.” He wrapped my short ponytail around his fist and started thrusting.

  It felt good, almost perfect. Almost, but not quite. I didn’t know what would make it perfect. I rocked back to meet him. Bran slammed a little deeper and I gasped. That was almost it. But I still needed something.

  He seemed to know this, because I felt a hard tweak at my left nipple, although his hands were on my hips and hair.

  “Yes, please!” I gasped.

  The sensation in my nipple grew and spread to the other. Now it felt like he was squeezing both breasts and rolling the nipples between his fingers. Still not quite perfect, although amazing. There were definite benefits to seeing a mage. I came from the magic and his pounding.

  “You’re not quite there yet, are you, love?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry.” I rode him, letting him thrust as hard as he liked. I went to my elbows and something in me made me cover my head with my forearms, like I was under fire. “Help the stupid virgin out. I don’t know what I want.”

  He bent forward and kissed my neck, and then yanked my hair back hard. “I think I might. You do project, love.” He laid a hard swat on my butt. “Not what I’d do, given a choice, but what you need.”

  The next swat was hard enough to knock me forward into the mattress, clean off
his cock. He spanked me again and again until I tried to crawl away. His left hand, still in my hair, stopped that. I could feel my butt burning, turning a hot red.

  “Back here with you.” he yanked me back and fucked me hard for a few strokes before he hit me again. “Pink is your color, love.”

  The swats rocketed through me, drawing little yelps out. I wasn’t going to cry. There was no reason to cry. I tried to dodge the next one and he whacked me harder for that.

  “Pink, maybe, but not red,” I protested. My ass had to be turning the color of a bad sunburn. It felt that hot.

  This time he pulled back hard enough to make me kneel upright, still skewered on his cock. One of his big hands circled loosely around my throat and I pressed into it before I pulled back.

  “And what does a No-Talent bitch like you know? You can’t see your own arse. You got just enough mana to drive you right into the bottle, but not enough to let you see outside your head.”

  The harsh, horrid words, my own words thrown back at me from the lips of my chew toy, did what the spanking could not. I gasped from the pain in my ass from his hand, and the pain in my chest that had no physical cause. The hand that had been threatening my throat slid down to twist my nipples.

  No more magical manipulation, but his own hard fingers, pinching and twisting until I cried out again and came around him from it.

  “Aye, that’s the sound I wanted.” He bit down on my neck again. “Cream all over my cock, you drunk whore. I’m going to fuck you sober and shoot you so full of my come, you’ll absorb all the mana you can handle.” The words were horrible, bad-porn dialogue, abusive relationship stuff, but his accent made them sound incredibly hot. Whore, which came out “hoo-arr”, made me clench up and get even wetter, although I’d punched every other man who called me that. He was right, it was what I needed. I could take it because I knew he didn’t mean any of it.

  He shoved me forward and I felt his hand down at his cock. Surely he wasn’t going to add fingers. I was already stretched too wide. His cock seemed to swell just a little, filling me almost to the point of pain, but I wanted it just like that.

  Four more hard swats pounded through my body. The invisible fingers seized my nipples again, this time in a vise grip that brought tears to my eyes.

  He thrust deeper than he ever had, and I could feel his hips hard against my spanked ass. “Come for me, on three.”

  “One!” He spanked me hard and shoved deep. The vises twisted. I came, screaming.

  “Two!” The next spank landed, followed by two hard thrusts. I screamed again, wetting us both. I could feel my own juice running down my thighs.

  “Three!” he roared and gave three hard shoves. The vises felt like they would take my nipples off and he sent power coursing through the handprints on my ass until it felt like they were afire. I came twice as he stayed deep. I could feel him pulsating in me. Then he pushed me down on my face and left me in the bed.

  I lay quiet, sobbing for air. Everything hurt, but I felt absolutely perfect. It was just right. He was right on every particular. I wanted him to come back to bed and hold me. I wanted him to slap me, tell me I was useless and walk out of my life. I wanted… For the first time in my adult life, I didn’t know what I wanted.

  He came back with a cool cloth and sat on the edge of the bed. “Thank you, love.” He washed my face and then laid the cool cloth over my well-spanked ass. “You’ve some seriously rotten shite rattling around in that skull. And you project too loudly for me to not hear it.”

  I smiled up at him and raised one arm, beckoning him down. “Perfect. You were perfect.”

  He stretched out beside me and pulled me in close. “You were amazing.”

  “Thank you.” I lay in his arms, sweaty and shaky. Very softly, I asked, “Did you mean it? Do you think you can do it?”

  “Do what, precious?”

  “Fuck me sober, make the power work for me instead of against me?” I felt silly just asking. Of course he couldn’t.

  He kissed my forehead. “Willing to try. Probably can’t give you mana by injection though.”

  “Too bad. But we can have fun trying.” I kissed him and reached for the sheet as the air conditioner kicked on.

  I thought about reaching for my nightcap, but I was too comfortable there in his arms. For the first time in years, I fell asleep without a drink.

  Chapter Nine

  D.J.

  The two days since the seminar had been rougher than an Arkansas highway and twice as long. We ate, we slept, we practiced. For Bran, this meant hours spent meditating, and more in an abandoned warehouse slinging fireballs and knives in equal quantities. And most of all, it meant a lot of time working on a pair of special silver knives, carving runes and Ogham letters into the hilts, pouring mana into them.

  I watched, admiring and scared as he did. If he wasn’t on my side, I’d have been terrified. Combat mages, man, they’re crazy.

  Warehouse or bed, he took each day, knowing he wasn’t guaranteed a tomorrow. After his practice sessions came mine. And the attitude held there. My head ached all the time from the work. He wanted me to have as much as I could get in the few days we had, but it was like teaching an infant to lift weights.

  His power could blow the doors off buildings. Mine let me have two to five seconds of foresight at random intervals. I had to admit, when we worked, my head cleared. I was more myself after a training session, now that I could control the mana a little and it didn’t swarm all over me, turning me into Horny Hormonal Hattie.

  We got on better in those times. We’d have a drink, but never more than one. We talked. He liked me to tell him about previous cases, all sensitive information omitted. He’d point out where I’d been using power without even realizing it.

  We screwed a lot. I’d been right about it cutting into the drinking time. Here it was Saturday and I still had three full bottles.

  He had gone down to the warehouse alone and I was working on some boring stuff for the state. I sat quietly, staring at the paperwork that I was not getting done. The last few days played through my mind and anger followed them.

  “You are a prize idiot, Admire.” I poured out a cup of the rum. “A leather kilt walks into your office and you can’t think because he carbonates you.” I slammed my fists into the desk. “What in the name of Pinkerton are you thinking, you stupid bitch? Your legs are chafed because you can’t stop fucking him. You aren’t thinking and you aren’t drinking enough.” I made myself gulp half the rum just to remind myself of the burn. “Drink more, think more and screw less. Especially with the dead man walking.”

  I finished the drink and paced. My office is a whole eight strides each way and today I was mad enough, not at him, oh never at him, that it was only seven. I stalked, trying to work off the nervous energy, cursing loudly and foully enough that I didn’t hear Bran come in.

  “Bad time, love? Or bad news?”

  I whirled on him. “Is there ever a good time with you and your kind? You blow into town, bringing trouble with you, break a few hearts and get yourselves killed. And the rest of us have to pick up your pieces, repair our lives and our towns.”

  He didn’t move. He just stood there, thinking and looking like it was hard work. “That’s fair, I suppose,” he said, softly. I could see pain in his face and hated myself for hurting him. But I had to, or he would hurt me a lot more by dying on me.

  I lost my momentum. I could feel the mana coming right on top of my anger, soothing it down, making it all fuzzy and schmoopy. “Back off. Get out of my office,” I said, holding tight to the last of my control. Another minute and I’d be all over him. “I can’t think when you’re in the same room. Call me and we’ll have this talk.”

  “Mind to mind, love, you need the practice.” He stepped obligingly into the hall and I could almost feel him walking down the steps.

  It wasn’t possible for the presence of a mage to make my own dab of power stronger. I’d visited dozens over the years, talkin
g and working. None had affected me like this.

  Are you ready? he asked. The voice was clear in my head.

  I am. Are you someplace safe and comfortable? I asked.

  Found a beat-up sofa on the alleyway behind your building. Thinking I might bring you down for an out-of-doors shag tonight after dark.

  Keep dreaming. I sat down in a huff. Bran, I like you. I’m grateful for the lessons, and this is from the most ungrateful bitch in four states. I even like sex with you. But when we’re together, I’m not myself.

  No, I disagree with that. I think you’re who you always wanted to be. I know I am when I’m near you. He was getting soppy and serious. I couldn’t handle that. I hated when people got serious about me.

  You make me soft. You make me sentimental. You make me horny. None of that is me. That shit’ll get me killed. I don’t want it. I’ve watched women ruin their lives over men, and I’m not that stupid.

  You’d rather ruin it with your rum and danger, then? Living hand to mouth until you get too old to fight anymore and then letting some demon eat you rather than live out your life in a nursing home, your brain too sodden to think?

  Now that was just mean. Right, but mean. He had put into words everything I was afraid of, everything I saw coming, but could think of no way to stop.

  Soothing sensations came over the connection. I fought them, not wanting to give this up yet. We were ending this, right here and now. We had to, or both of us were going to die. He laughed a little. Mental laughter feels kind of like getting soda pop bubbles up your nose, only less painful.

  Still fighting it, love. The only lover you think you want in your life is that pirate on the rum bottle. He sighed, a mental relaxing that ran all over my body. Goddess knows I love the bottle myself, but Nancy Whisky is worthless in the sack, terrible at conversation and she’ll never, ever love me back.

  And she’ll never grieve when you die, either. She’ll never weep when you leave, wondering if she’ll ever be herself again. Bran, I can’t let you get closer, because you’re going to be gone in a week, one way or another. And if I live through the Oeilett business, I’m going to be alone, whether with the memory of a dead lover or just left behind because the fucking Witan shipped him off to die somewhere else.