She was so tight around him he started thinking he was going to come way too soon. She arched her neck and let out a low, soft sigh that ended in a moan, and he lost it. The only thing on his mind was physical in nature—the way she was tight around him, so wet and hot; the way she swiveled her pelvis on his, getting what she needed from him. He lay back and let her take the lead. Already he was wound up tight, feeling his climax coming on.
He didn’t think he’d ever been with a woman, human or otherwise, who took such complete control of the physical act with him. Usually he was the aggressive one, because usually he was doing what Rasmus told him to. Not this time. He was doing a witch, and nobody was telling him how to touch, where to touch, what magic to use, or how much to hurt her before he killed her.
He loved this. He loved her body, he loved the way her copa-darkened eyes went all soft and wild at the same time, and most of all he loved the way he was rapidly approaching a mind-blowing orgasm. She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned down. He pushed up.
“I need you to do me,” she said. She looked into his eyes. And, damn, but she was moving her hips the whole time, bringing him deep inside her. “Hard. Please, Xia. Do it hard.”
As if he’d say no to a request like that. He rolled them over, and, jaysus, the minute he was on top with his dick harder than granite, he found himself on a whole new level of sensation. Her legs went up and around his hips, and he did what she asked. He pushed himself into her hard and kept going until sweat ran down his temples. She needed hard. He gave her hard. His specialty, in fact. Hard sweaty sex that crossed some lines was just what he liked. He held back his climax somehow, because she wasn’t there yet, and he was determined to watch her come.
In the back of his head, he was aware his magic was mingling with hers, not a little, which sometimes happened when the sex was really good, but a lot. A way lot. Not just his magic, but the talisman’s, too, wild and out of control. He shouldn’t let that happen, but damn, the touch of his magic with hers sent his brain straight toward nirvana. He just didn’t give a damn.
“How hard do you need it?” he asked.
She threw back her head, exposing her neck to him. “Oh, God, Xia.”
His gaze focused on her pulse. She had no idea that made him even hotter for her than ever. He might as well offer himself up right now. He could see the place where he’d nicked her earlier and could smell the smear of blood left behind. He slid a little closer toward climax. He leaned down and bit her, and hell if he didn’t change. Not completely but enough that his teeth easily cut her skin. A growl rumbled from deep in his chest. He wasn’t sure if she was aware of him being different, but so what if she was?
He went the rest of the way. All the way. He welcomed the ripple down his back, the flash that meant he was something new for her. Bigger and harder, and wasn’t that just what they needed? Hard. Fast. Hot. She arched into him, but her head stayed back, her throat remaining exposed to him. He licked at the cut. The taste of her blood filled his mouth. Sweet, coppery salt. Out of control.
Their eyes met and they connected through the gaze. He had her magic, all of it. He was in her head, feeling her high from the copa, sharing her rocketing trajectory toward orgasm. She pushed toward him, looking for more, her breath coming in deep gasps. He reached down and slid his taloned hand around her thigh to draw her leg toward him. Her hands gripped his body. No way could she not know, but even seeing what he was, knowing what he was, she was totally hot for him. For this. For what he was.
His magic went deep into hers, and he just flashed out of control at the exact same time that she convulsed around him. His balls went tight, and he hit a wall of pleasure that took him away from everything but this. He came a second later, and he just knew—oh, shit, there was a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach the size of the Pacific Ocean—he’d done something to her magic he shouldn’t have.
Chapter 17
The best sex ever was apparently a life-changing event. Alexandrine kept her eyes closed and took stock. The postcoital glow was definitely on. Besides that, though, she felt different. Very different. No surprise there, since Xia had done the talisman-ectomy. She felt the lack of it, a kind of ache, but it wasn’t as bad as she’d been dreading.
Xia withdrew from her physically but maintained the psychic connection. He wasn’t human just now, and she decided she liked it. He was gorgeous like this. They shifted their bodies, but she held on to him for moment, reluctant to give up the closeness. He was a lot bigger than her, but she wasn’t worried he’d hurt her. He wouldn’t. There were blue highlights in the shadows of his body, and she stroked him along the line of his flank.
He didn’t move away even though she half expected him to. Instead he stayed near, moving a taloned hand from her shoulder, down her midline, around to her hip, and along her thigh. His palm was hot and didn’t feel human.
“Alexandrine,” he whispered, and the low, rumbling sound sent a shiver through her.
“Mmm,” she said. She let go of him, sorry to give up his warmth and let the lingering sensual heat fade away. Xia rolled onto his back but kept a hand on her belly. He groaned once, and then the air around him shimmered and he was human again. Interesting. She felt his magic in a way she hadn’t before. Awareness of him tingled in the back of her head and made her awake and alert. In an odd way, the talisman wasn’t gone. A part of Xia now drew her the way the talisman had. Wasn’t that strange? She wanted to have him near because he reminded her of her amulet? Crazy. She sat up and spotted her T-shirt an arm’s length away. She grabbed it and put it on.
Xia bent his knees and groaned. The magic in him whirled, surprisingly chaotic. She didn’t expect that of him. He sat up, too—all those delicious muscles flexed—and there they were, looking at each other. Pure killer-boy. Her belly got tight and hot. He leaned toward her and kissed her sweetly. Tenderly. As if he’d stopped thinking up new and painful ways for there to be one less witch in the world. She was such a sucker for tender. With the contact, the heat in him flared in her. She was touched by his kissing her when he didn’t have to.
“You all right?” she asked.
His hand rested on her shoulder, gripping gently. “No.”
“I didn’t know you could change like that.” She looked over at the wooden box that held the copa. Ebony wood with a white pine inlay of zebra stripes. No difficulty recognizing that again. Already her edge was fading. She wanted it back. She wanted to stay in that perfect place where she had magic that would make her father take notice, where she had the power to do anything. Where Xia wanted her because of what she was.
He reached around her to close the lid on the box and fiddle with the catch until it clicked. “You didn’t freak out,” he said. “When I changed.”
“No,” she said. Even though his changing to something else had been freaky, she’d been in the mood for freaky just then.
He locked gazes with her. His eyes were neon at the moment, no flickering through shades of blue. “You didn’t mind?”
“No,” she said. “You were…” She struggled for the right words. “Bigger. Dangerous.” She touched her neck, sliding a finger along the breaks in her skin. Teeth marks. His image was burned into her head. Lapis skin. Talons. Sharp teeth. His eyes were white streaked with blue. She’d taken him hard, and that dark scary edge when he was like something from a book on medieval demons was, well, hell. She liked it. She better than liked it. “It was good, Xia. Way more than good.”
Xia got to his feet slowly and looked around until he found his clothes. They weren’t far away, yet he swayed when he walked to get them. Near the fireplace, the brazier sputtered. “It’s the copa that made you feel like that, Alexandrine. Maybe you don’t know for sure what you saw.” The muscles in his back and ass flexed as he put on his boxers and then his jeans.
“Like hell. I know what you were like, Xia. Don’t try to tell me I don’t.” She stood up and found she was remarkably steady. Unlike Xia. His magic was
going all unbalanced again. He turned around. And this time his irises flickered through shades of blue. “You were beautiful,” she said. “The most terrifyingly beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.” He grabbed his hair with one hand, and she stiffened. “Checking to see if it’s still there?” she asked.
He glared at her. “I’m trying to get my head around what we just did; that’s all.”
“We had sex.”
Xia’s mouth tightened. “Let’s go get your clothes, all right?”
“Sure.” They went to the dryer, where he retrieved her clothes and tossed them at her. She got dressed. “So, Xia,” she said while she was buttoning her shirt. Her fingers were shaking. “How come I feel like I’m being punished?”
“I lost control with you.”
“I liked it,” she whispered. He was withdrawing from her, and she didn’t want that to happen. Stupid, needy Alexandrine.
“You don’t get it.” He threw out a hand and caught his weight on the wall. “Fuck.”
“Maybe you should explain it to me.”
“I’m fertile when I’m like that.” He grabbed his hair again. “I should have known better, Alexandrine. I did know better. And I did it anyway, because I have never been that hot for a woman in my life.”
“That’s what got you so worked up?” She let out a sigh of relief. “Relax. I’m on the pill.”
He turned his head to look at her. “Like that matters.”
“I’m not going to get pregnant,” she said. Xia closed his eyes as if he was going to barf. “Hey, maybe you should sit down.”
“I’m fine.” His hand on the wall fisted as he opened his eyes. “The kin don’t reproduce with each other,” he said. “We have our offspring with humans. Or the magekind. Not only am I fertile in that form, Alexandrine, but it’s damn likely I made you fertile, too. It’s how our bodies and our magic work. Whether you’re on the pill or not.”
Alexandrine got a chill down her spine. “Okay.” Now she was thinking she was the one who needed to sit down. She got cold right down to her heart, and this time magic had nothing to do with it. “Right. So, I’m going to end up a single parent. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Hell, no.” Xia swayed on his feet. His eyes unfocused and his legs wobbled. “The kin don’t abandon their children like the magekind. They are loved no matter what. And if it happens, you will be taken care of.”
She went to him, afraid he was going to fall if she didn’t hold him up. “Maybe you better lie down. Jesus, Xia, you’re burning hot.”
“It’ll pass.”
“When?”
He laughed. His eyes were unfocused, and she was getting dizzy from the way his magic was going all freaky on him. He threw out a hand, and she caught him, bracing him against her. “Hopefully before I die.”
No way. She was not going to let him die. “In the meantime, Xia, where’s your room? How about we get you flat on your back?”
“With you on top again?” His eyes flicked to white with streaks of ice blue. And stayed that way.
“You are so bad,” she said. But she was thinking, Hell yes. “Bedroom?”
“Upstairs. Second door on the right.” He wiped his forehead on his arm.
“Let’s go, then.” She put her shoulder under his, and he draped his arm over her back. His entire body quivered while they walked. She got an echo of his pain in her own body. “Maybe you need to see a doctor.”
“No doctors.” His fingers gripped her hard. “You understand me? No doctors ever. It’s not done.”
“Fine,” she said. A bit sensitive about that, wasn’t he? “No doctors.”
The upstairs room was standard enough. Pretty normal, actually. Bed. Dresser. A smallish walk-in closet. A bedside table with a lamp and a stack of books on it. The view of the water was even more spectacular than the view from downstairs. She got Xia over to the bed. His knees crumpled and they landed on the mattress, with her partially underneath him and his elbow digging into her side. He rolled off her and lay back with his eyes closed. Magic surged from him, just about frying her eyebrows off. This connection between them was just freaky.
She perched on the edge of the mattress and stroked his face. His skin was dry and hot, and she didn’t know what to do for him. Heck, she didn’t even know if it was safe to give him aspirin. While she was touching him, trying to figure out what to do, he changed. Instead of gorgeous Xia the bad boy, she was looking at a creature of lapis-lazuli blue, with fingers that ended in deadly talons and cheekbones that slanted too sharply to be even remotely human. Her gut clenched with an instinctive, primordial fear. With his eyes closed, his lips drew back as he let out a low growl. His teeth were sharp. All of them. Especially his canines and incisors. She didn’t run. She wanted to, but she didn’t because he wasn’t well. Xia wasn’t well at all. His skin was soft under her fingers. Not skin, really. His hide was soft and burning hot.
He lifted a hand and circled his taloned fingers around her wrist. His magic flared hot again, chaotic and completely and utterly compelling. A rainbow of fire arced over the bed and vanished with a sizzle and pop that seared her ears. Xia changed back, and his eyes flickered open. Pure white irises streaked with ice blue. “It’ll be all right,” he said. He threw his arm over his face and shuddered. “I’m good now.”
She slid off the bed, sick to her bones. She didn’t want Xia to die. He couldn’t die. But a tiny voice in her head whispered that if he did, she wouldn’t betray him by turning herself into the kind of copa-addicted magekind he hated so passionately. Alexandrine had no doubt whatsoever that if she gave in to the compulsion to drug herself in order to have real magic, she and Xia would be done. “You sure about not seeing a doctor?”
“The only doctor I’d trust near me right now is your brother.” He lifted his arm off his eyes enough to glare at her. “And he’s in Paris with Nikodemus. Why are you crying?”
“I’m not.” She brushed at her cheeks. Crap. “Fine. Go ahead and die on me, then.” Her voice edged up the register. “See if I care.”
“Downstairs.” He shivered, and her skin goose-pimpled from head to toe. What on earth was the deal with that? “In the fridge. There should be a plastic jug. Get me a big glass of what’s in it.”
“Ja, mein commandante.”
“Just do it,” he whispered.
On the way out, she kept getting bizarre flashes of what he was feeling. No fun. At all. For either of them. A headache throbbed behind her eyes, and she didn’t know if it was a headache of her own pounding away at her cranium or if it was coming from Xia. A quarter of the way down the stairs, her heart sped up. At first, she thought the reaction was due to her being about thirty yards from a box full of copa. Because, yeah, she was completely aware of that. A full-body shiver of apprehension went through her. The problem with that theory was that the refrain stuck in her head wasn’t More magic! but more like What if something happens to Xia while I’m downstairs? What if he goes away? What if somebody takes him away from me?
She slowed, a hand pressed to her upper chest, which vibrated with an achy hollowness. True, she didn’t know the house, and she figured some level of anxiety about the unknown was to be expected. And she sure as hell wasn’t forgetting about the copa and the way touching her magic was getting harder and harder. But the panic rising in her about Xia wasn’t normal. In fact, the feeling was reminiscent of how she felt when she tried to take off the amulet. Anxious. Resistant. Paranoid. Wigged out and Golemy.
She forced herself to continue down the stairs, and everything got worse. Her stomach hurt, and her pulse drummed in her ears. At least the pain distracted her from that zebra-striped box in the living room that held the best dream of her adult life to date. Inside that box was her ability to use real magic. By the time she found the kitchen, she was trembling, with sweat beading along her forehead. It couldn’t be withdrawal. From what Xia had said, a mage had to be using for a while before he was addicted. But geez, coming down from the magic wa
s going to be a hard landing. Nothing to do about that but suck it up like a big girl.
In the kitchen, she rummaged around and found the plastic jug Xia had told her about and a selection of cups made of black glass. Her hands shook hard enough that she had to worry about spilling while she filled the glass with the contents of the jug. The stuff smelled like crap. There wasn’t much food in the house—now, wasn’t that ironic?—a six-pack of beer with a guillotine on the label and a half-empty bag of tortilla chips. Nothing here but stuff to get cranked on. Beer. Copa. Chips. And Xia. She looked around and didn’t see a phone anywhere. No land line. Just great. Her mobile was in her backpack. In San Francisco.
Unless Xia had his phone with him, there was no way she could call for help; by now, she was thinking one or both of them was in serious need of an intervention. She didn’t have anything against drinking; it was just she didn’t like not being in control. A beer would taste good about now. Maybe a beer would help her forget about copa and tiny little Xias running around at her feet. But what she needed more than anything was to be upstairs with Xia.
Cup in hand, she headed back to the stairs. At the bottom step, she stopped. The brazier was still burning in the living room, giving off a smoky scent. The oil was going to catch fire and burn the house down. With them in it. She put the cup on the bottom stairs and walked in, feeling the trembling start up worse than before.
The zebra-striped box was there. Filled with copa. She had the shakes, but she couldn’t help feeling they didn’t have anything to do with copa or her magic. The metal bowl holding the oil was scorching hot. She felt the heat even before she knelt to figure out how to douse the source. The problem was immediately apparent. She was going to need magic, and she was on magical low tide. “Great,” she muttered. “Just great.”
She pulled and got next to nothing. The zebra-striped box taunted her. A little more copa would take care of her problem. A quarter of a pill was all she needed. Maybe half of one. He’d never notice one missing pill even if he bothered to look. She picked up the box with trembling fingers. Panic bubbled up. She pulled again, and this time she caught the upswing of the ebb and flow of her magic. The oil stopped smoking.
My Forbidden Desire Page 17
