by Judi Fennell
He followed her down, that glorious chest mere millimeters above hers, his lips a hairsbreadth away, his gorgeous blue, blue eyes now the deep indigo of the sky just before night claimed the day.
“Be sure this is what you want, Vana, because if I kiss you now, I’m not going to stop.”
“Thank the gods.” Every single one of them.
Zane smiled. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” He slid infinitesimally closer. How was it possible that he still wasn’t touching her?
She arched off the bed. There. Her breasts came in contact with that warm, naked expanse of skin, and she breathed a sigh of relief that, in the next second, turned into a gasp as desire shot through her, as heady and quicksilver as magic.
Zane had to have felt it, too, because he dropped those last few inches onto her and kissed her senseless.
He dragged her hands above her head and intertwined their fingers, nipping at her jaw and her neck and just beneath her ear where his warm breath caused shivers that undulated out like a wave on the shore, everything in its path caught up and swirling and tumbling along the tide of desire.
Gods, she wanted this. Wanted him. Yes, she knew it was dangerous, but that danger only heightened what she was feeling.
And, oh stars, what she was feeling. It transcended the physical. This was love, a joining of two hearts and souls in an act so profoundly beautiful that it surely had to be magical.
See? Mortals still had their magic, if only they knew how to find it. Zane had found his and was wielding it so utterly perfectly that Vana willingly gave herself up to the enchantment, as exhilarating as a magic-carpet ride over storm-tossed clouds and as beautiful as the rainbow that followed.
She shifted when Zane’s lips slipped from her earlobe to the curve of her neck, needing the pressure of his thigh against her, needing that ultimate contact that she knew would be all the sweeter for the wait, but wanting it now.
She wanted to touch him, to give him the same pleasure he was giving her, and she moved her hands. But Zane tightened his hold and nipped along the cord of her neck, then down to her collarbone, nuzzling the hollow above it, his tongue soothing the sharp little bites, each and every one heightening her pleasure.
She squeezed her eyes against the emotion he drew from her with the utter perfection of his touch and the pleasure he wanted to give her, and she wondered… dear gods, she wondered how she’d ever live without this. Without him.
He licked his way down to her T-shirt’s scooped neckline and paused there, looking up at her with hooded, sexy bedroom eyes that seemed to glow, warming every cell in her body while the rasp of his stubble invoked shivers down to her toes.
“Shall I continue?” He smiled wickedly.
She could only nod.
Zane grabbed the shirt’s fabric with his teeth and scraped it down, catching it briefly on her tight nipple before releasing it beneath her breast. He then took the aching, swelling flesh into his mouth and worked his own brand of magic.
Vana shifted beneath him, the contact not enough. She needed to be naked against him. Needed to feel his skin against hers, that roughened hair bristling against each of her nerve endings.
She turned her head to kiss the closest part of him so she could summon her magic. That body part turned out to be his forearm, an area she’d never consider sexy on anyone but him, and she put every thought and hope and wish behind that kiss to magic their clothes away.
Thank the stars, it worked. Skin on skin, hearts beating together, they were finally, thankfully, as the gods had intended. Not genie and mortal, but man and woman. As elemental as Time itself.
Zane smiled against her. “Leave it to you to come up with just what I was wishing for.”
Her wish was that she could tell him how she felt. That she didn’t have to choose between her magic, the thing that made her who and what she was, and loving Zane, the man who’d showed her who she could be.
But who could she be? She’d been trying for eight hundred years to find out and hadn’t had any luck so far. Well, other than bad, that is. But here, now, with him… He gave her the ability to make her magic work. Among so many other things…
It wasn’t fair, this choice she had to make. How could she make it? Why did she have to?
Vana swallowed, choking back the tears welling up inside her. She didn’t want to ruin tonight.
Zane slid his lips up her neck and over her jaw and kissed the tears he found there. “Are you crying?” he murmured against her skin.
“No.” Yes. “I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“Gods, no.”
He smiled at her vehemence and kissed each tear away. “There. No more tears. This is supposed to make you smile.”
She smiled.
“And moan.” He flicked his tongue over her nipple.
She moaned.
“And shatter you into a thousand pieces.”
He released her hands and skimmed his tongue down her body to swirl and tease and taste and torture that one part of her that had been denied his attention, and she shut everything out of her mind but this. This wonderful, exciting, perfectly devastating assault on her body and her mind and her heart and her senses, and she let herself ride each sensation.
He stroked her and kissed her; he teased her and gave in to her pleadings, only to stop at the last possible second, driving her wild with each half-finished touch, each too-light caress, playing her body and her heart like a virtuoso.
“Zane,” she gasped time and time again—because it was the one word she didn’t have to search for in the swirling beauty of color that burst behind her eyelids when his tongue found the one spot that was barely holding her together. If he just kept doing that a little longer, nothing in the universe would matter but him and here and this one moment of perfection.
Over and over, he brought her to the pinnacle only to leave her there, each new onslaught taking her higher until she was writhing on the bed, clutching his head, sliding her fingers into his hair, gasping, wanting, reaching for the final release…
And then he gave it to her. One long final stroke that had her shattering just as he’d wished. Into a thousand and one pieces.
And it was that last one that finally fit into the puzzle that was her life.
***
It was as if the stars had fallen from the sky to swirl around the room when Zane slid into her wet, tight heat. Shudders wracked her body around him, the slick sheen of arousal on her skin mingling with the taste of honey still on his tongue and the scent of rose petals that seemed to follow her around like a sensuous cloud of temptation.
She moved, the tiniest of movements, sending his blood thundering through his veins, and Zane had to grit his teeth to hold back when she clenched him.
He was so damn close just from watching her. And she’d tasted so amazing. And the sounds she made—God, the sounds. He knew each one as if he’d heard it before, as if it were etched into his mind and heart and soul for all time. As if they were a part of him. Each one had reached through his skin and wound around his heart, tugging and tugging until he’d found it impossible to breathe, yet somehow he’d found a way to push on, to take her higher and give her more pleasure, more of himself.
And now she was giving back. The demanding strokes over the skin of his back, her nails marking him as she locked her ankles around his hips.
“Gods, Zane, yes,” she panted, and it spurred him on and drew out his pleasure like no other woman ever had.
Vana was unlike any other woman he’d ever been with. And he didn’t mean her magic. It was as if their bodies had been designed for each other. As if their souls had found the lost half of themselves. He knew what she’d like. Knew what she’d want. And she knew him. Sometimes before he even knew what he wanted from her.
But Vana was always there. Giving, accommodating… her passion as greedy and needy as his, and Zane reveled in it.
There was a connection between them beyond t
he physical. As if he could read her mind, and she, his. When he needed her to move one way, she did. When he needed her to unclench, she released him. When he needed her to say his name in that soft, breathless way she said it, she did. And when he needed her, period, she embraced him and opened herself to him.
Home. Vana was home to him.
He didn’t know how it was possible in so short a time, but if there was one thing life had taught him, it was to grab that one perfect moment before it disappeared.
And so he did, surging into Vana at her gasped urging, nipping her shoulder when she nipped his.
“Yes, Zane, that’s it. Oh, there…” Her directives only turned him on more. He would have sworn it wasn’t possible, yet it was, and he shouldn’t be surprised, really. She had magic inside her. A magic that made him want to believe in everything. Believe in the possibility of hearth and home in a place he would have least expected it.
With a woman he would have least expected.
He reached for her hands, intertwining their fingers and tangling them in that glorious hair that was softer than any satin sheet could be.
Her eyes flared open, desire, want, need, all of it swirling with the starlight in their depths.
“Zane, I…” She closed her eyes and arched back, her throat offered, begging for his tongue.
So he obliged. And was rewarded with a tight hot grip on his cock that almost had him coming that instant.
God, the sensations were driving him crazy, and when she dug her nails into his backside and shifted just the tiniest bit, Zane sucked in a ragged breath and pulled out, resting his forehead on hers, trying to get his body under control.
“Zane? What are you—”
He kissed her. “Shhh. Give me a minute. Or I won’t last even that long.”
She smiled against his lips. “Do you need to?”
He needed so much… “I want to. Vana, I want to make love to you all night. And all day tomorrow. And tomorrow night. And the next.” Maybe at some point—next month—he might think about stopping, but he doubted it.
Oh, God… On a groan, he surged back in, unable to deny himself even one more second of her heat, let alone sixty of them. She felt so good around him, skin to skin, every ripple of her inner muscles caressing him, and he felt his orgasm churning at the base of his balls. It seared through him, rocking him into her over and over, taking everything she had to give and then wanting more.
He arched back, the final moment of heaven, and images poured through his mind: Vana licking and kissing him while she rode him, the feel of her beneath him, the way her body convulsed and shuddered around him as she came, the beauty of her hair as it trailed down over his abdomen, the warmth of her mouth when she took him inside…
The last was so erotic he couldn’t hold off, and he poured himself into her, every last sensation being wrung by her contractions as she came, drawing every last breath from his body, and oh, God, he could do this forever.
He fell forward with a ragged, shuddering breath, catching his weight before he crushed her. He kissed the curve of her neck, inhaling that incredible, indelible scent of her skin, roses, and their passion.
They lay there, their breaths in time with each others’, and still the images rolled like a movie reel through his mind as if it were déjà vu.
She mumbled something. He didn’t know what, figured she didn’t either; it was a mumbling sort of moment, this warm, sleepy, perfect aftermath.
He slid his weight from her, regretting that he had to pull out of her, but he slid his arm beneath her shoulders and tucked her against him while she mumbled something else. He nudged her nose with his. “What?”
“You didn’t ask,” she whispered, sleepily.
“Ask what?” He wasn’t capable of forming anything more coherent than a two-word sentence at the moment.
“Protection.”
His ego was gratified to know he wasn’t the only one incapable of forming compound sentences. “You explained already.”
Vana stiffened beside him.
Oh, no, she hadn’t explained.
At least, not this time.
Chapter 35
“Vana?” Zane asked, shifting slightly, and she could feel his gaze boring into her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Everything.
She hadn’t mentioned protection. Not tonight. She’d been too caught up in the moment, and besides, she’d already explained it to him once, and if it hadn’t been her first thought then, it definitely wouldn’t have been now.
Oh, gods, did he remember?
“If nothing’s wrong, why are you shrinking from me?”
“I’m not. You’re imagining it.”
Oh, no, he wasn’t. Vana squeezed her eyes shut. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for him to remember. They’d ended up here together anyway. And he’d wanted to, so he couldn’t accuse her of taking advantage of him—
Except that’s exactly what she’d done by manipulating Time for her own benefit, and Merlin was right. Mortals didn’t like people playing with their minds, figuratively or literally.
“I’m not imagining it, Vana.” He tugged her close. “Why is talking about protection freaking you out now? You were fine when you told me about it. Practically purred when… I…”
Had brushed a rose petal over her lips.
There were no rose petals on this bed. Not this time.
“There were rose petals.”
Oh, gods, he was remembering.
“Where are the rose petals, Vana?”
She squeezed her eyes shut even more.
“We were on pink satin sheets.”
Oh, gods.
“In your…”
She knew the minute he remembered all of it. His body turned to stone, and his arm fell lax against her waist.
“Vana, why am I remembering rose petals and pink satin sheets in your bottle?”
She opened her eyes, then blinked away the tears. There would be no more kissing them away. Not once he found out.
“Because…” She cleared her throat. “Because we did this before.”
To his credit, he didn’t yell at her.
To hers, she’d rendered him speechless.
“Holy shit.”
Well, for all of about two seconds.
“What did you do?” He dragged his arm out from under her and propped himself on it.
Vana looked at the ceiling, unable to face him. “I… We… did this, and then… while you were sleeping, I…” She swiped a tear from her cheek and took a deep breath. Best to get this out in one long rush. “I took us back to earlier in the evening so it was as if it had never happened.”
“But it did.”
She nodded, not sure if he was asking a question or making a statement, but either way, the answer was the same.
“But why?”
Because she’d been so close to falling in love with him then and had been terrified of ruining everything she’d been working toward all these years by blurting it out.
And yet here she was, definitely in love with him and incapable of blurting anything out.
“Vana.” It wasn’t a question, but it—he—deserved an answer.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t give him one. Because if she did, it would negate the reason she’d done it in the first place and she’d lose him twice. “I… I can’t tell you.”
“You play with my mind, yet you can’t tell me why you did it? I remember every moment, each gasp, groan, and scent there was that night. Why now? Why let me in on the big secret now?” He got off the bed and grabbed his pants from the floor. “Is this some genie way of getting your kicks? Mess with the mortals’ minds and bodies? Use me?”
She struggled up onto her elbows. “I didn’t use you, Zane. You wanted me as much as I wanted you. Both times.” He wasn’t going to deny that.
He stormed across the room and grabbed his shirt off the floor lamp where it’d landed. “So… what? You always sweep your regrets
under the magical rug?”
“I didn’t regret it. I… made a mistake.” She pulled the sheet around her, feeling exposed in so many ways.
“A mistake.” He shoved his legs into his pants. “I made the mistake. Tonight was a mistake. From start to finish. Hell, these past few days have been a mistake. What was I thinking? I should have put you back in that bottle the minute you made the vacuum cleaner dance. I should never have let you talk me into bringing Fatima and Henry and everyone else downstairs.
“I should have just left you there for the next owner to deal with and grabbed a few things, signed the listing papers, and gotten the hell out of this town and gone back to my life. But no, you gave me a glimpse of something I thought I’d missed out on. Something I thought I might want. But it was all concocted by your magic. Is this how you treat all your masters? Or just the ones you sleep with?”
She sat up, still clutching the sheet. “That’s not fair—”
“You’re talking to me about fair?” He raked a hand through his hair and started pacing. “Do not talk to me about fair, Vana. I know all about what’s fair and what’s not. My life being decided for me by others isn’t fair. Peter, Gary, the coaching staff, my fucking knee. Then I come here, trying to forget what’s going on, only to have you make decisions for me about what I can and can’t remember. How many times, Vana? How many times did you do this?”
He stopped and stared at her.
“Just… just the one night.”
“That’s one too many.” He started pacing again. “Isn’t there some rule in that book about doing this to your master? What about all the wish-granting—that I didn’t take advantage of, by the way. I was considerate enough not to use you. You could have afforded me the same generosity. Or is it okay to treat your masters like shit just because we’re mortal?”
“It wasn’t… I had a good reason.”
“What on earth could possibly be a good enough reason for you to tamper with my life and my memory? I want answers, Vana.”
Oh gods, this was the moment of truth she’d been dreading. It’d seemed like such a small matter when she’d done it. He wouldn’t remember and no one would be the wiser. Just a few hours that meant the world to her but could mean nothing to him.
