Ecstatic (Arcane Mage Series Book 5)

by T. S. Snow

  Overachievements in the bedroom were always going to be the goal.

  The air whooshed out of me when Blaze used his grip on my hips to lift me off the ground like I weighed nothing.

  Seriously.

  Just how strong was this guy?

  I quickly grabbed the second wine glass, and he put me back down, but not before he gave me a little nibble on my ass.

  I was too stunned to form words.

  ‘“Thank you,” Blaze said, and then he moved me to my seat on the counter, before sitting across from me.

  Whatever look Blaze saw on my face had him sending me a wicked grin that promised soooo many naughty things, before he told me to dig in.

  Almost on autopilot, I tried the food, and my eyes widened when the first taste of yummy goodness hit my tongue.

  “This is so good!” I complimented, after chewing and swallowing because I wasn’t without manners.

  Blaze gave me a shy smile, but his chest puffed up, proud that I liked his food. “I’m glad you like it, Char.”

  I didn’t respond, I was too busy eating to do much more than just give him a squirrel-like smile, with puffed cheeks, and lips closed over my teeth.

  Spaghetti, cheese, and bacon were all amazing on their own, but put together they were just perfection.

  After that, we ate in silence, just enjoying each other’s company and exchanging heated glances here and there. Okay. We also played footsie, and it warmed my heart.

  “Sooo…” I trailed off, reaching for my wine. Both Blaze and I had mostly finished eating, and were now just sitting there, prolonging the silence. However, we did need to talk. Not only to make sure that he was still okay with the whole me dating him and the guys now that he had some time alone to think, but also because of everything that had happened.

  I supposed, in a way, we also needed to lay down some ground rules of sorts or whatever the adult relationship equivalent was.

  Adulting was hard and should come with an instruction manual.

  I also needed Blair to write me a Reverse Harem for Dummies, so I wouldn’t screw this relationship up.

  These relationships? Did it count as plural when I was in a relationship with multiple men, or was it, like, just the one relationship and it counted as a group thing regardless of the number of participants?

  Something else to ask one of the Tumbas about.

  “Yeah?” Blaze became visibly tense on his seat, bracing himself.

  I frowned. Did he think I had just jumped his bones just so I could dump him? What a weird guy.

  “Erh. I don’t know, actually. I feel like we should talk about stuff, and even you mentioned it before uh…before. But I don’t have the faintest idea where to even start.” I took a sip of my wine for liquid courage. “I mean, obviously there are feelings involved.” I paused, locking eyes with him. “There are feelings involved, right?”

  At Blaze’s nod and smile, I continued.

  “Right. So. Yeah. Like, we should probably talk. I don’t know, check in that you’re really okay with sharing me, now that we kind of got to experience being together like this for a day. I understand if you still feel like you’re on a trial basis, or something, but I need you to know that I’m all in, Blaze. I’m pretty sure I love you, and I’m committing to this thing, one hundred percent. For me, it’s not a trial run. Yeah, I have to figure out the details and we probably will have a lot of missteps, since it’s so new to all of us, but I need you to know I’m not just trying to rope you into this so I can have an excuse to have crazy hot sex with multiple people without feeling guilty. The reason I even agreed to be with you guys, with all of you at the same time, was because I had feelings for all of you. Have feelings for all of you.”

  Blaze let me talk, or rather, let me ramble, which I’d be grateful for, except his silence was making me nervous. Running a hand through my braid, which was now a complete mess, I continued.

  “I guess I just need you to know how I feel and why I’m doing this, and that I’m not like my cousin? I’d never play you the way she did.” I might still be salty about the fact he dated my cousin and kept it a secret from me, but after that psychopath had kidnapped me and planned on watching while her people killed me, not to mention after the way she’d acted with Ricardo Illudere, I more felt bad for Blaze than anything else. He’d been used, hurt, and discarded. He deserved to know I was nothing like her.

  I mean, he should already know that by now, but just in case he needed confirmation.

  Blaze’s hand reached for mine, and he caressed my palm. His eyes were soft and full of love when he spoke. “I know, Little Spitfire. I may have not known when we met, but it was quickly very clear to me that you were different. A breath of fresh air and chaos, all wrapped in a hot, adorable package. I may still struggle with my possessiveness over you, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to participate in any kind of group scene, even for you. However, you were always honest with me. You told me about Bastille, and then Andres, and you made it clear you weren’t going to ditch them for me, but that I could have you too, if I wanted to. You could’ve pretended to be single and just date me, but you were upfront.” He squeezed my hand reassuringly. “I’m all in, too, you know? I’ll probably fuck up a few times, be possessive and overbearing, but I’m giving this my all. You’re it for me, Char. And if the only way I can have you is to share you with them, then so be it.”

  I sniffed, trying to keep my tears from falling. Even I hadn’t known how much I needed Blaze to say all that. I wanted to climb over the counter and kiss him over and over again.

  And I would...as soon as we finished talking.

  “Even if I’m asking you to share me, but refuse to share you? Because I mean it, Blaze. I’m not ever going to be okay with sharing you, any of you. You’re mine. I’ve licked you. Those are them rules.” I felt like I needed to clarify this. Not that he’d ever given me any indication he was interested in someone else but…

  Blaze chuckled. “You don’t have to worry about that, Little Spitfire. You’re more than enough of a handful for me.” He winked to take the weight off his words. “Besides, I don’t really have eyes for anyone else. You’re it for me, Char.”

  Be still, my possum heart.

  Blaze was a keeper.

  I looked down at my hands. There was still one more thing we needed to talk about, and I really didn’t want to.

  But you have to, you wimp. My mental voice was not in the mood to let me play possum and avoid the hard talks today. That bitch.

  The first time I’d talked to him about the whole harem thing, he’d had more concerns than just his ability to share me, and those still hadn’t been addressed.

  I bit my bottom lip, wringing my hands together and bracing myself.

  “What about your family? Your status as heir? If word gets out of our relationship, the press will have a field day, and I’m pretty sure your family will be pissed at the scandal. I don’t want you to be cast out because of me.” I didn’t want any of them to be punished just because my heart was greedy.

  Blaze shrugged. “I’m still trying to work that part out, to be honest. We’ll have to be careful how we approach this, and we should probably be the ones to reveal the news, maybe do a press conference or something, rather than wait for the gossip to spread. I don’t think we should hide. Actually, I don’t want to hide. I want the whole fucking world to know you’re mine.” I loved the growly rumble of his voice, the way he wanted to claim me for all to see.

  He wasn’t ashamed of me, of our relationship.

  I couldn’t remember the last time someone was willing to risk so much for me.

  This time, there was no stopping the tears. The minute Blaze saw I was crying, he jumped from his stool, picked me up, and took me back to the couch, sitting with me on his lap. The whole time, he made soothing noises.

  I loved this side of him. Blaze had become...softer somehow, at least during our time together. He was showing me more of his caring, loving si
de and I freaking loved it.

  “Hey, what’s wrong? It’s okay, Little Spitfire. I got you.”

  I burrowed my face against his chest, nuzzling into him, drowning in his scent and the comfort of his arms.

  “These are happy tears, don’t worry. I’m not sad crying,” I tried to reassure him, but the whole leaking eyes thing kind of ruined the effect.

  Still, my heart was so full, I felt like it would burst. I had no idea what kind of good deed I did in my past life, but damn, I must’ve been the kind of beautiful soul who sacrificed for others or some shit. Maybe I ended world hunger or found the cure to some obscure disease. Ohh, maybe I was a Healer who worked to fix some kind of terrible plague. Whatever the case, I was not gonna complain about the good karma coming my way.

  “Please don’t cry, Char baby. I hate to see you cry, even if they’re happy tears.”

  I nestled against Blaze’s neck until the floodgates closed. And then just stayed that way, enjoying the cuddles.

  “Did you fall asleep?” Blaze asked, after a while.

  “Nuh huh. I was just getting my fill of you.” I couldn’t see his face, but I was pretty sure my admission made him smile.

  “Char…” Blaze trailed off, considering how to phrase whatever he was going to say. “When we take our relationship public, reporters will snoop around…they might find out about Bastille, too.”

  My whole body tensed. I couldn’t even breathe.

  Fuck. I had not thought of that. It hadn’t crossed my mind at all, but Blaze was right.

  It would be a disaster.

  I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out, so I closed it again.

  “We can come up with a way of keeping his involvement a secret, or we can try to find a way to cover up what kind of mage he is. When I met him, I thought he was either an Illusionist because of his close relationship with Andres, or a Divinator because I couldn’t get a read on his magic. We could run with that.”

  I placed a kiss on his neck, tightening my grip on him in a weird hug. “Thank you for thinking about Bast, and trying to come up with a way to spare him and keep his secret. We’ll talk to the guys and come up with a plan. I’m sure between the four of us, we can think of something.”

  Look at Blaze, already being a team player and thinking of how to protect Bast for me.

  Blaze shrugged, then went back to petting my back the way I liked it, using his short, blunt nails on my bare skin and making me melt against him.

  “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Char.”

  I knew he meant it, too, and I loved him even more for it.

  “Do you think your parents will try to force you to step down as heir because of our relationship?” Andres only had Blair as a sibling, and we all knew she wouldn’t challenge him for the title. So unless some random Illusionist tried to—and after he won the duel against Ricardo, I doubted it—he shouldn’t suffer any backlash from our relationship. At least, nothing more than gossip, but Andres was beloved in our society, and it wasn’t just because of his status, but because he was Andres.

  Blaze, however, had an older brother whose competitiveness was no secret. The same brother who had set him up to be used by Cara, and who had lost the title of heir to Blaze when they were both still teenagers.

  Pretty sure Dean Futhark had not relinquished the title willingly, either.

  “My parents won’t give a shit, so long as I give them an heir eventually. Which technically shouldn’t be a problem since my magic is as strong as it is.” He stopped speaking to look at me, as if to make sure I didn’t take offense at his words.

  I hadn’t. Blaze was right, too. Technically, if we ever had children, they’d have Rune Magic, not Elemental.

  Not that I was ready to even think about having kids with either Blaze or any of the other guys. I was waaaay too young for it. I was still too much of a kid to ever even want to think about raising a kid of my own. Maybe in like ten years, I could consider it all again. But until then? No way, Jose.

  I still needed an adultier adult for my decisions. There wasn’t a chance in hell I could be the adultier adult in a room.

  And I was planning on remaining in denial about the number of babies I might have to pop out to ensure all the heirs I was in a relationship with would have an heir of their own.

  Because that was not the kind of math I wanted to do, or even the kind of future I wanted to think too hard about. Future Charisma could figure all that stuff out with her guys, and they could make contingency plans and whatever the fuck else. Present Charisma was already struggling with juggling multiple dicks. Erh. Multiple men.

  I just knew that there was no way in hell I’d be popping out that many babies. Just thinking-not-thinking about it made my uterus hurt and shrivel up.

  “And your brother?”

  Blaze grimaced.

  “My brother is going to be a pain in our asses, and he’s probably going to do all kinds of shit to try to undermine me, however, he won’t touch you. And he won’t be able to do anything definitive because the truth is, even if he tried to challenge me, he could never win.”

  Well, damn.

  His confidence was hot.

  “Do you think your family will try to cause trouble?” he asked me, and I blinked.

  Huh. “I mean, probably? You’ve met them. But luckily, as a Carter I’m all independent and shit, and I don’t really have to even listen to them. I get to be a free agent.” I shrugged. My parents would probably try to corner me somewhere and talk about duty and whatever other crap, and act entitled the whole time they were at it, but at the end of the day, I wasn’t a Silverstorm anymore.

  And as Blaze’s hand moved from my back to cup my butt, I couldn’t have been more glad.

  I moved on his lap so I could better face him, and found his gaze zeroed in on my lips.

  The heat that had been building up this whole time flared again at the desire he had for me, and I closed the distance between us.

  The time for talking was over, at least for now. We’d have our whole lives to talk about whatever else we had to.

  For now, I wanted to just feel.

  27

  Logan

  I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  Ever since we’d gotten out of that damn cell, I’d been kept busy, doing damage control with my family, and trying to catch up on all the work I’d missed out on. Yet, Charisma was constantly in my thoughts, distracting me, making me lose my focus.

  I dreamed of nothing but her, and surprisingly, not all of them were wet dreams, either.

  I was acting like a lovesick fool and nothing I did to keep her out of my head seemed to work for long.

  What I really wanted, what I needed, was to see her again. I’d picked up my phone multiple times to call or text her, to cash in on the date she owed me. Dates, in fact. But in the end, I’d held myself back because I didn’t like the power she had over me, even if she was unaware of it.

  I picked up my phone again, staring at the screen. Maybe I could call her about the new MET…she’d offered to make me a new one to replace the one that got broken by the resistance. That would be easy, businesslike, and practical.

  But I didn’t want our relationship to be businesslike. What I wanted was to have her tied up in my bed while I ordered one of her other men around—controlling how they fucked her. To have her—them—at my mercy. I wanted her begging me to let her come, even if just once.

  Before I could make up my mind, there was a knock on the door, and Marcella let herself in without waiting for me to say otherwise.

  My sister was beautiful and she knew it. She had the same eye and hair color as I did, but her complexion was a little darker, more tanned, courtesy of multiple cruises and trips to different beaches—both in the country and abroad. The tan made her blue eyes pop, almost as if she was wearing colored contacts. The white shorts, paired with heels, made her legs appear endless, and the dark-blue shirt had some sort of weird cut that left her s
houlders mostly bare, but was loose down her arms, and almost long enough to cover the shorts.

  She looked ready to meet friends for lunch, or go on yet another cruise. Yet, here she was.

  I sighed, putting down my glasses and staring at my sister. “What do you want, Marcella?”

  She strutted into my office and made herself comfortable on the chair across from my desk, crossing her legs and tilting her body slightly forward.

  I wanted to rub my head against the oncoming headache. I loved my sister, really, but mostly when she was living her life far, far away from me. On another continent, preferably. I didn’t give a shit what that said about me; what I wanted was the peace of mind that came from not having to bail her out constantly, and not having her trying to mess with my business.

  Maybe it was time for me to introduce her to one of my business acquaintances and hopefully get her to marry rich, so she would become someone else’s problem.

  I almost snorted at the thought.

  Right. As if it would be so easy to get rid of her.

  “I want to talk about my new restaurant. The one you shut down without talking to me before it could even open. What the fuck, Logan?”

  Saying nothing, I opened one of the drawers on my desk, picked up the file on her precious project, and slid it towards her.

  Marcella’s eyebrows furrowed as she stared at it, but she didn’t open the manila folder. “What is it?”

  I stared her down. “Tell me, little sister, did you even bother to check up on the venue before coming here, or are you that careless?”

  It was an asshole dig, but it wasn’t without cause. Marcella’s new pet project had cost us a small fortune, and I was now stuck having to decide whether I was going to actually bite the bullet and keep the place, branching out into the business of owning restaurants, or cut our losses and just sell the place as it was. It was a prime piece of real estate, so if nothing else, at least Marcella had picked the location well, and I could probably resell it at a profit if I found a crew to finish the renovations.