Magic at Work: a Love or Magic novel

by Sotia Lazu

  Lexi is fascinated. She watches herself engage in anal play—something she’s never done in her real life—and it turns her on more than she considered possible. Plus, she feels the wicked tongue against her own ass, and the sensation is surprisingly not unpleasant.

  Rex licks his thumb and inches the tip around Xandra’s uncharted territory. At the same time, he shoves two fingers in her pussy, and Lexi can’t stifle a moan of desire. More. She wants more. She wants those fingers in her ass while Ric—

  Rex. This is Rex.

  She doesn’t care. She wants Ric

  —pistons inside her pussy.

  As if reading her thoughts, Rex withdraws slick fingers from Xandra’s pussy and circles her virgin hole with them. He graces Lexi with a leer and presses them to Xandra’s asshole. Lexi watches Xandra’s flesh—her own flesh—whiten with resistance before it yields. His fingers push inside her up to the second knuckle.

  Xandra groans. Lexi’s body is torn between pulling away and pushing back into the burning sensation. Rex solves the dilemma for her with plug that appears in his free hand. He pumps it inside Xandra’s pussy, and then pulls it out to run it along her slit and closer to her second hole. He withdraws his fingers, and using them to keep her spread, slowly pushes in the plug. She’s not stretched enough, and the burning is intense, but he doesn’t relent until all of it is inside her.

  The pressure is near-intolerable. So is the pleasure of being so completely filled.

  Lexi feels like she’s dying. It hurts in such a delicious way, she’ll come if he touches Xandra’s clit.

  Why won’t he touch Xandra’s clit?

  Placing the heel of his hand on the plug to keep it in place, he slides two fingers from the other hand inside her pussy again. Moves them in and out of her. The way his hand is positioned moves the plug in sync to his fingers. He fucks both Xandra’s holes, and Lexi pants.

  “Please. Please. Please.” Her own voice reaches her ears, but Xandra still makes no sound. She remains silent, biting the pillow beneath her head, while her body thrashes to the limits of the chains.

  Rex’s hand doesn’t provide the friction she needs to reach her climax, and he knows it—the same way he knows she’ll reach the breaking point and beg for him to bring her off. He thrusts inside her with his fingers and the toy, adding to the fire building in her belly but not letting it erupt.

  Lexi lets out a frustrated sob, and Xandra echoes her.

  The self-satisfied smirk on Rex’s sensual lips grows wider. He turns his wrist so his fingers rub the bundle of nerves inside her, and then takes hold of the plug’s end with his other hand. He twirls and pushes it from side to side, stretching her more. Another finger is shoved inside her pussy, and each thrust in her ass is harder than the last.

  Now Lexi’s glad she’s incorporeal. Her legs couldn’t hold her otherwise. She is ready to burst and not above pleading for her orgasm.

  “Tell me you’re mine, pet. Beg me to fuck you.”

  “Tell him, for God’s sake,” Lexi yells, aware of the futility of talking to her dream self. “You belong together. Don’t you see?”

  A blinding light fills Lexi’s vision, and she shuts her eyes. When she opens them again, there aren’t two of her anymore. She is the girl on the bed—and just in time.

  Rex slides the toy out of her ass and replaces it with the tip of his cock, still fucking her with his fingers. She wants to cry out that she isn’t prepared enough, but her body welcomes every inch of him that pushes inside with the rocking of his hips. The burning is there, but it adds to the pleasure of having him fill her.

  Once he’s seated inside her, he stops, and she can’t keep from whimpering. “Why did you stop?” She tries to catch her breath.

  “Still didn’t say you’re mine, Shifter. Are you?”

  “Yes.” She knows it’s true the moment she says it. “I’m yours. I love you.”

  He freezes over her, and she realizes the impact her words have on him after all the rejection he’s received.

  “I mean it,” she says.

  That brings him back to his senses. He starts moving inside her in deep, long strokes, kissing her neck. “Well, that works out swimmingly”—he chuckles, but his voice is heavy with emotion—“because I love you too.”

  In that magical way dreams have of twisting things around, Lexi’s on her back, with him still buried inside her.

  He massages her clit with his thumb, his gaze locked with hers. “Say it again.”

  “I love you.”

  His expression serious, as if this is the most serious piece of information he’s ever been given, he nods and swoops down for a kiss that leaves her breathless. “Don’t change your tune when you wake up,” he says. A sway of his hips and a pinch on her clit send her spiraling into an all-consuming burst of absolute pleasure. A wave of sensation and bliss carries her to heaven and then brings her swirling back down to bed and Rex’s arms.

  The air feels alive against her skin. A caress. Her heart pounds in her ears. Her blood rushes through her veins, and her head is light with unprecedented euphoria. She clenches around him, and he drops his head to the hollow of her shoulder, to bite the base of her neck. His movements turn jerky. A tattoo of short, hard thrusts. It’s not long before he roars his release, following her over the edge.

  They stay locked together until Lexi once again feels in control of her limbs. Rex gives her another languid kiss and unlocks the manacles from her wrists. “You’re free, love.”

  It’s true. She’s never felt as free before in her life. She stretches and closes her eyes. Rubbing her wrists to get the blood flow back into them, she relishes the feel of him softening inside her.

  Then his cock is gone, as is his weight on top of her. She lifts drowsy eyelids and focuses on the bowl of peanuts in front of her. She’s on a barstool, in a sparsely lit joint.

  “Gimme something sweet, Willy,” she tells the short guy behind the bar. She’s never seen him before in her life.

  “Rough night?”

  “Just had a kinky sex dream. The bondage kind.” She’s still in the dream. No way she’d share something like that and not die of embarrassment in real life. And her mouth keeps working without consulting her brain. “Think my subconscious is telling me I need more sex, or that I need to spice it up a bit?”

  “It’s not about sex. It’s about control. When you’re in love, you give it up.”

  His reply makes no sense to her and yet she doesn’t find that weird. “And how do you know you’re in love?” she asks.

  “You’re willing to give up control.”

  Lexi didn’t drift out of the dream, as much as snap out of it, her mind instantly alert.

  Why did she always want to be in control of everything?

  Because she was afraid of being hurt again.

  But she never sought control when she and Ric had sex, though she called the shots with all other lovers since Andrew. She always gave Ric the upper hand, and believed she maintained the power by guarding her heart. Wrong. Her heart wasn’t guarded. He was already in it, and she’d hurt both him and herself by refusing to embrace her feelings for him.

  She had to push her ego aside and let herself fall into the arms of the man she loved and who loved her back.

  The alarm clock sounded, and Lexi turned it off. She smoothed the wrinkles off her clothes with her hands, and grabbed a cup of coffee. She wouldn’t go home to change. She’d read more, and when Edmund got to work, she’d talk to him.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lexi was on the last sentence of Exotic Beast, when Edmund came in.

  Ric followed closely, and the two locked themselves in Edmund’s office.

  As Lexi pondered whether or not she should knock and interrupt them, she heard her stepfather’s door slam shut. Soon after, Ric stomped into view. He was mumbling to himself and making wild gestures with his hands, a deep frown etched into his forehead.

  She didn’t spare a moment’s thought on ho
w they last parted, before springing from her seat and all but running to him. “Ric? What happened? Did Edmund—”

  “He didn’t. That’s the bloody problem.” He all but growled the words at her without breaking his stride.

  This was so the wrong time and place to make a scene. Lexi resisted the urge to press on the subject, and instead just headed to Edmund’s office more determined than ever.

  “I have to talk to you.” She closed the door, not waiting for an answer.

  Edmund showed no surprise that she’d just barged in. If anything, his next words surprised her. “Ah, there you are. I’ve been expecting you. Please make it brief. I have a headache.”

  Damn. She didn’t call home to let them know she wouldn’t be back for the night. “I’m sorry, I fell asleep and—”

  “No more apologies. What have you done to the boy, to make him want to move to any other branch of the company?”

  “Okay… Huh?” So it wasn’t her disappearance all night that caused his headache. Ric wanted to leave? And Edmund obviously thought she spent the night with him. Heat crept up her cheeks at how wrong that must have seemed, after the video of her extracurricular activities.

  “You didn’t know?” He left her no time to reply. “He came by the house this morning and practically stalked me here, giving me perfectly bad reasons to relocate him.”

  The blood drained from Lexi’s head, and her body froze at the thought of losing Ric just when she realized she needed him. That should teach her not to be so stupid. “What did you tell him? You didn’t—” She couldn’t voice the possibility. “Please tell me you didn’t. Please.”

  “Of course I didn’t. He is my most valued employee, for goodness’s sake. Besides,” he said, with a cheeky grin, “I can’t let the man your mother wants you to date go away if I hope to maintain a happy marriage for myself.”

  “Oh, thank God. But you may have to let me go.”

  “I was hoping Ric would change his mind once he got the chance to calm down. Don’t tell me the two of you had such a fight that you cannot stand each other’s presence.”

  Lexi avoided looking him in the eye.

  “If that is the case, you’ll have to work things out. You are both adults, and this is a place of business, Alexandra, not—”

  Lexi didn’t let him finish his sentence. “No. I mean yes, we had a fight, but no, I don’t want to not see him.” She paused and went over her last sentence. “I’m making no sense, huh?”

  Her stepfather stared at her as though she were a peculiar species of a parrot that just did a cartwheel in high heels. He shook his head.

  “From the top, then,” she said. “I want to see him. Want to be seeing him. For a long time, if possible.” She wondered if she should tell Edmund she was in love, but decided against it. Ric should be the first to know.

  “Then why, pray tell, would I have to let you go?”

  “’Cause I’m about to go out there and do some not work-safe stuff, to make me and Ric happen.”

  Edmund sputtered, and Lexi had to try not to giggle. He removed his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose and put them back in place. With visible effort, he collected himself. When he spoke, his voice was defeated. “Please tell me not work-safe isn’t on grounds of nudity.”

  Lexi laughed. “No, but I may need to make a spectacle of myself. Ric put himself out there, and I was an idiot and turned him down. Now I have to convince him I mean it. Public ridicule is a possibility.”

  “Makes sense. You should follow your heart.”

  “If I go overboard… I’ll leave the company, if I have to.”

  He stood and gave her a hug, before nudging her toward the door. “Leave damage control to me. Until then, the stage is yours.”

  And she’d have to give the performance of a lifetime.

  ****

  She exited the office with a spring in her step and walked straight to Ric.

  He scowled and whispered, “Now what do you want?”

  “You.”

  “Next option, blondie. Already told you—I’m not interested.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said. He didn’t pursue her for this long, only to decide he didn’t want her.

  “Why? Why am I? Why should I be? Because it’s written in the stars?” He hissed the last sentence. “I don’t give a bloody fuck about them. I wanted you. You weren’t available. End of story.”

  “But I was. I am. Available.” When he turned to his computer screen, Lexi grasped his chin and forced him to face her. “Will you look at me? I want you. I want you.” She didn’t bother keeping her voice low. The single person on the floor she cared about, other than Ric, had given her carte blanche to do what she felt like.

  “Well boo-fucking-hoo. It’s too late.”

  “I finished the book.” Her voice didn’t waver. This wasn’t going to be easy, but she’d be damned if she gave up on her plan. Or on him.

  *

  Ric was thrown by the randomness of her last statement. “What are you on about? Are you off your rocker?”

  “Exotic Beast. I read it all. Xandra and Rex end up together.”

  “Talking about fantasy land again, are we? Get a grip, little girl. Better yet, get a life. This is reality, and you and I have to live in it, make our choices, and deal with the consequences.” Why wouldn’t she just give up? All this time she acted as if they had nothing, yet he’d believed she felt something for him, despite being vocal about the opposite. Now she admitted she wanted him, and all he heard was a plea for someone to save her from her loneliness.

  “But Xandra and Rex are all about consequences,” she said. “They loved each other and were torn apart out of fear of consequences. Their story shows a way of fixing things, because things are fixable.”

  Just his luck that he was in love with a crazy woman. “What does that have to do with—?”

  “Rex and Xandra are star-crossed lovers. They don’t exist, but the setting of their relationship does. They’re an improbable couple in an impossible situation. They both had their issues, and reality—their reality—tore them apart. Then the writer, or a god with a silly name, found the millions of things they had working for them. He threw hurdles their way but wrote them a path that ultimately brought them together, despite everything, because being a vampire and a shifter wasn’t reason enough for them not to work.” She paused and looked at him expectantly.

  “Do you have a point in there somewhere?” Ric cocked his head to the side and arched an eyebrow. He was intrigued by the analysis but refused to show it.

  “Just shut up and hear me out, will you?”

  He faked a yawn and stretched, taking in the rest of the room. Everybody was looking at them. No matter how pissed he was at Lexi, he didn’t want her getting in trouble with her stepfather. “Pet, leave it be,” he said in a hushed voice. “You won’t change my mind, and we have onlookers.”

  “I don’t care. Like, at all. As I was saying—”

  “You don’t care?”

  “Not about changing your mind—I care about that. The onlookers? Not so much. Will you stop interrupting me? As I was saying…” Her gaze challenged him to cut in again. When he didn’t, she said, “Think about it. A story about love conquering all.” He could help the widening of his eyes at the l-word, and Lexi blushed. “Their love, I mean.”

  Of course.

  *

  “Rex and Xandra despised each other at first, but they were drawn together anyway.” She stopped talking, to make sure he was still with her. He was. His arms were folded, and he tapped his foot impatiently. He wanted to see what her rant was leading to.

  Lexi took a deep breath and went on. “Xandra has every reason to hate him, and he should resent her, but they fall in love. You know? Against the odds, against reason, they end up together.”

  “And…?”

  That was all he had to say? If she didn’t know she deserved this treatment, she’d be fuming. “And we’re the real Rex and Xandra. The obstacles
their natures posed, the way Xandra and Rex found love, were there to show me that. Regardless of who wrote the book and made sure I’d find it, or how they did so, it accomplished its goal.” Her turn to fold her arms over her chest and wait.

  Ric said nothing. He pushed back his chair and stood. Without even a glance her way, he circled the other side of his desk and started down the corridor in long strides.

  Lexi rushed after him as soon as she snapped out of the stupor his abrupt departure caused. Right before he entered the men’s room, she grabbed him by the arm. “Where are you going?”

  He looked at her like she was a moron. “To take a leak,” he said slowly, freeing his arm from her grasp.

  She followed him inside.

  “And where are you going?” he asked.

  “We’re not done yet.”

  “Yes, Lexi, we are. Have been since the beginning, really.”

  Nope. Not an acceptable answer.

  He entered a stall and bolted the door, while she contemplated what to do. What was it Willy said in her dream?

  And who the fuck was Willy?

  Give up control. Lose it.

  “Give me a chance,” she called out to him from outside the lavatory.

  “For fuck’s sake, I’m taking a piss. Sod off.”

  “No. I want a chance.”

  The stall door slammed against the wall behind it, and Ric stormed out and headed out of the room.

  Lexi ran after him. “Aren’t you going to wash your hands?”

  “Didn’t get to do my business, did I?” He took his seat at his desk again, a tortured look on his face.

  When she perched on the corner of his desk, he stood and went to the kitchen.

  She followed him there, but had to back down when his cell phone rang.

  He waved the phone at her. “Client,” he said and accepted the call.