by Judi Fennell
***
She was beautiful, standing there in the clearing, the soft blue light from the pool sending shimmers across the iridescent threads in her outfit, hinting at the shadows and hollows he’d explored—was it only last night? Gods, he felt as if he’d known Samantha forever. Yet, as with the scene in the clearing, when she’d come up with that perfect solution to the problem of Albert and the amulet, he felt as if there was still so much more about her to discover.
He didn’t want to rush any of it. He wanted to peel back the layers to Samantha as if he were unwrapping a precious gift, because, really, that’s what she was.
He tugged her fingers and she stepped closer. The heat of her body reached out to him, her scent wrapped around him, and it was all Kal could do not to take her then.
He needed to cool down. “Sam, how about a swim?”
“A swim?”
“Yeah, you know, float in water? Have it lap at our skin?” Their naked skin. “I promise you’ll enjoy it.”
He’d make sure of it. Gods knew, he would.
In one movement, Kal whipped the sash from his hips and shucked his pants. Naked, he held out his hand. “Care to join me?”
He had to smile when she tried to speak but couldn’t. He liked that she wanted him and wasn’t afraid to say so, but she was no match for him; he had a over a hundred and sixty years of pent-up desire to unload on her—
No, make that over four thousand years because that’s how long he’d been waiting for her to come into his life.
Dropping his hand to his side, Kal smiled wider when her gaze followed; he knew what she’d see. He wanted her to see—and to know—how she affected him. He couldn’t tell her, but he could definitely show her.
He turned away, giving her another view. “If you don’t want to join me,” he said over his shoulder, enjoying the way she was staring at him, “I’ll be back in a few minutes. After I cool down.”
Like that’d happen.
He heard a splash when he surfaced in the middle of the pool and shook his head to clear the water from his eyes.
Two seconds later, Samantha surfaced in front of him. A second after that, she was in his arms. A half second later, she was in his heart for good.
The water was the perfect temperature—but on this island, that was to be expected. It was also the perfect buoyancy so he didn’t have to work to keep them afloat and could put his hands to better use; the perfect taste when it slid down her cheeks into the sweet groove of her lips; the perfect silkiness when he slid his palms down her back. Around her waist. Up to cup perfect breasts, his lantern resting between them.
It was all perfect. She was perfect. For him.
And then Samantha wrapped her perfect legs around his waist, fitting herself above him perfectly. Fitting herself on him perfectly. Ah, gods… Talk about paradise.
She moved then, and it was all Kal could do not to let go. She took him so high in the space of one little gasp. The sound at the back of her throat when she settled herself down on him, the wiggle in her hips… it all but undid him.
He gripped her hips, holding her there. Needing to feel her all around him before she slid off. Needed to know what it felt like to be cocooned in her warmth, to have her around him, enveloping him, to have this memory to sustain him when she was eventually gone.
Sure, he might have fifty or sixty years with her, but the reality of facing eternity without her stung. Flipped him upside down and inside out. A life without Samantha…
“Sam, I l—”
He kissed her.
He kissed her because he wanted to. Because he had to.
Because she was right there, looking so damn good—and because he’d almost done it. He’d almost given in and said the three words a genie should never say. The ones that’d take away his power, his life.
Kal closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around her, and inhaled, letting Samantha’s lilac scent wrap itself around him. Around his heart. It was all he could do to not tell her everything he was feeling.
But he couldn’t. The only way he’d ever be able to tell her how he felt was if he gave up who he was, and that wasn’t what love was. Love wasn’t subjugating yourself for someone else. Becoming less of a person to fit into someone else’s life. Giving up who you were to be who they wanted you to be.
Love was about two people coming together. Joining who you were with who your partner was. Making a commitment. Except he couldn’t make that commitment. He couldn’t say those words.
And that was more of a prison sentence than the one the High Master imposed had ever been.
37
Kal shifted beneath her, and it was as if something shifted inside her. And she didn’t mean him, though yeah, he did. And he thrust. And he moved. Bearing down on her hips with his fingertips, lifting her up, then burying himself inside her. Samantha didn’t know how he was keeping them afloat since their hands were busy creating pleasure on each other’s bodies, their legs grasping as tremors wracked them, and she didn’t care.
His hands slid to her shoulders. “Sam… Trust me.”
She did. That was the thing; she did trust him. She had no reason not to.
With a gentle nudge, Kal laid her in the water. “Open your eyes, sweetheart. Watch what I do to you.”
Overhead, the soft white tree lights reflected off banana leaves blocking the starlit sky, but that was okay because, with the first stroke of his palm from her collarbone to her hip, Samantha saw her own stars. Flashes of light as if they were attached to every nerve ending she had.
He cupped her and his fingers played in her curls. “You are so beautiful, Sam.”
He made her feel beautiful. Made her feel cherished and desired and wanted. His eyes were that warm, meltiness that was her undoing. She touched his cheek, drew his face to hers, and kissed him. Softly. Stroked the stubble on his cheek.
“I like this,” she whispered when they came up for air—but not too far apart. Their breath mingled as their bodies soon would.
Kal smiled and kissed her shoulder. Then he moved across her skin to just above her breasts, the sexy scruffiness along his jaw firing even more responses from her nerve endings, and Samantha couldn’t hold back a moan.
“That’s it, Sam. Go with it. Let the sensation take you.”
Oh she was.
His fingers delved inside her, his thumb stroking that sensitive part of her, and Samantha widened her legs, the feeling of the water lapping against her swollen flesh as erotic as what he was doing to her. She’d never made love like this. Never in water.
And she’d only ever made love with him.
“Kal, I…”
Kal’s lips found her breast and she lost the ability to speak. All she could do was arch into him and trail her hand down his body to find him beneath the water. His cock jerked when she closed her hand around it.
He panted against her breast. “Careful, Sam. It’s not going to take much.”
She looked down at him, her nipple pebbled beneath his tongue, the chains of her necklaces encircling that one breast, a sight so erotic she almost came just from the sheer imagery. “Tell me about it.”
And he did. He told her everything he was going to do to her. Told her when he was going to spread her wide. When he was going to feather soft, butterfly strokes over her. When he was going to press a little harder. Then a little softer. A little faster. A little slower. He told her when his fingers would go inside her. When they’d withdraw.
The anticipation was incredible, but his actual touch… Samantha was so on fire she could have lit up the clearing.
And then he floated her in front of him. How she remained above water, Samantha didn’t know. Didn’t care. All she cared about was where he was going to stop her.
He spread her legs and drew her toward him.
Tremors wracked her body.
“Cold?” His palms closed over her breasts.
Samantha shook her head, her wet curls clinging to her neck. “No,” she m
anaged to croak out between dry lips. It didn’t make sense that she had absolutely no moisture in her mouth, but elsewhere… She was drenched.
Kal lowered his head, groaning when his lips made contact, and Samantha groaned, too.
Then she moaned when his teeth gently stroked the sensitive nub, his chin gently rasping across the rest of her swollen flesh.
She spread her legs wider.
His hands cupped her backside, his thumbs working more magic by spreading her even more for his tongue, and oh God, the sensations…
She arched, she twisted, she pressed toward him, trying to get closer. Trying to stem that rising tide or invite it, she didn’t know which.
Kal stroked her fast, then slow, then almost not at all, and she thought she’d go crazy at the last. “Please, Kal.”
“Please, what? Say it, Sam. I’ve got to hear you say it. Tell me what you wish.”
She wanted; she didn’t wish. A world of difference in meaning—there were those semantics again—but she could barely say, “Lick me, Kal. Make me come,” let alone anything else.
And then she didn’t have to.
He sucked her between his lips, his tongue working her, and Samantha could feel the sensation rise within her. Felt it coiling there, churning, waiting to rush over her.
She grabbed his head and pulled him into her, not having a clue how he was breathing and not worrying about it. He was a genie; he’d figure something out.
He brought her to the edge; she was panting his name. Chanting it, desire wringing it from the depths of her soul. Then he stopped, blowing gently over her instead, and Samantha raised her head. “Kal?”
He smiled a wicked, wicked smile. “Like that?”
Her “yes” was one long hiss, cut off at the end when he tongued her again. And this time he didn’t stop.
No matter how much her body writhed or her legs wanted to close against the overpowering sensations, Kal didn’t stop. He built the tide, working it, feeding it, until finally, with strokes so fast and strong and hard, she shattered against him, her cry rippling through the oasis.
And she didn’t care.
Her body trembled as the waves rolled over her, her fists protesting when she gripped water that slipped away.
Kal slid his hands to hers, never releasing that one point of pleasure, but then he created more when he intertwined their fingers, and, palm to palm, he pulled her toward his mouth again, wringing every last sensation from her, every last pulse of pleasure.
Finally, Samantha’s body went slack, floating on the water’s ripples in the aftermath of what he’d done to her, those ripples perfectly in tune with the ones inside her.
***
The sand was soft beneath her back and didn’t cling to her skin. That was Samantha’s first coherent thought after Kal had taken her to paradise—he’d been right about that.
Her body hadn’t been hers to command afterward, and, thankfully, it hadn’t mattered. Kal floated her to the beach beside the pool and managed to get her onto it while all she felt was the touch of his skin against hers, the rise and fall of his chest, the scent of him and their lovemaking.
And she wanted him all over again.
Kal rested on his elbow beside her and ran his fingertips along her collarbone and down her breast, her nipple pebbling when he brushed over it lightly. Her stomach quivered when his fingers passed over it, her legs falling open when he circled on her hipbone.
When he went lower, she felt herself swell again. Felt the moisture form. “God, what you do to me,” she whispered when his finger found her again.
“What do I do to you, Sam? Tell me.”
His lips followed the same path his finger had taken, and all the while, that diligent finger kept up the teasing. The sweet and utterly divine torture.
“You drive me crazy,” she whispered, feeling her breath catch again. “You make me want to do everything with you. To never stop doing this. To give myself to you again and again, and take everything you have to give, Kal.”
“Go with that, Samantha. Your instincts are right on.”
And then he was right on. And in.
And Samantha could only grip the muscles in his backside and hold on as he took on her on a ride better than any magic carpet could.
38
Samantha woke to the sweet smell of morning glory, a perfect scent to wake up to on a perfect morning after a perfect night.
With the perfect man asleep beside her.
She stretched, smiling at the twinging muscles, the memories flooding her. She picked up the two pendants where they’d fallen beside her ear and brought them to her lips. Kal’s lantern and his gemstone; he was hers now and no one was going to take him from her.
Sunlight winked through the large, overlapping banana tree fronds, catching the flicker of his lashes and the morning shadow of a beard.
She could get used to waking up next to him.
The thought crept in, soft and sweet and full of promise. He felt something for her; whether or not it was what she felt for him, she’d have to find out. But he did feel something; she wasn’t just a one-night stand for him. Or two-night, as the case may be.
No, he was here with her for the long haul. And she was going to make the most of that opportunity. Not only was Kal sexy, but he wanted her. He respected her. He liked her.
And best of all, he was a genie with enough magic that he didn’t need anything from her. She liked that.
As she lay there watching the hummingbirds flit by with their jeweled feathers, Samantha let her imagination take flight with them. Of a future with Kal in it. He’d have to stay, right? He was, after all, her genie, bound by his Code to fulfill her every wish.
He’d fulfilled quite a lot of them last night.
Smiling, Samantha slid away from him and gathered her clothes and the amulet from his pants pocket. The future might look wonderful and full of possibilities, but the present was demanding food. Last night had worked up quite the appetite.
Several of them.
She took one last look at Kal sleeping there, blew him a kiss, then slapped the amulet to her chest and whisked herself off to Paris for croissants.
39
“So did ye get the lantern, lad? From the looks o’ this place, ye certainly had yer chance.” O’Malley stood on the beach with another leprechaun Samantha had never seen before.
“Jesus J., O’Malley!” Kal shot up to a sitting position on the carpet that hovered a few inches off the ground—sort of an air mattress in the real sense of the word—and yanked the corner of the rug over his nudity. “O’Malley, what are you doing here? And where’s Samantha?”
Samantha didn’t know why the modesty; Kal should be naked for the entire world to enjoy. Which she certainly was.
Samantha ducked behind the hut she and Kal had decided not to use last night. Good thing she was up and dressed before these two decided to show up. That would have been embarrassing. But what were they doing here?
O’Malley thumped his shillelagh on the sand. “Me an’ Paddy here, we’re tryin’ t’ get some inside information. Seamus wants t’ win back everra’thin’ he took from us on the last bet, and we want to stick it up his big ol’ porker of a nose. Thinks he knows everra’thin’, he does. So, come on, Kal, give us a hint.”
The other leprechaun, Paddy, piped up, “Ye know, it’s no’ a good thin’ t’ be losin’ yer masters, Kal. Kinda makes it hard t’ keep to The Code and Serve them.”
“Oh, he doesn’t care about that. Isn’t that right, Kal?”
Kal rolled over in all his naked glory—that she’d had her hands and lips and tongue all over last night—and stood. The cuffs at his wrist twinkled in the sunlight.
Gold. They’d changed to gold.
Something to ask him about. Did he get new cuffs with each new master? She hadn’t paid any attention to them last night, nor had she noticed what metal they’d been during the short time Albert had been his master, but then, it’d been dark and she’d
had other things on her mind.
She had other things on her mind now.
Sadly, Kal waved his hand and a new pair of pants showed up. Probably for the best; O’Malley and his buddy didn’t show any signs of leaving.
She could always wish them gone…
Samantha fiddled with the lantern chain. He’d said he didn’t want his freedom, that being a genie was an honor. But she should give it to him just in case he changed his mind.
Although she could lose him that way.
Samantha’s heart stuttered for a few seconds. She’d only known him a short time, but it felt like forever. They fit together. Did she really want to risk him taking off?
Do you really want him to stay because he has no choice?
Love was a gamble, no matter if the guy was a genie or a prince or a regular Joe. Making him stay with her because of the lantern was no way to build a relationship. Relationships were built on mutual respect and trust, with a big dose of passion thrown in. They had the passion, there was definitely respect, and she had no reason not to trust him.
She took the chain off her head. The one with the eagle, too. As soon as O’Malley and his friend left, she’d give Kal the necklaces. They were his to do with what he wanted and she’d just have to trust that he’d choose to stay with her.
“Yer gonna have to get it from her some time, ye know, if ye want that job ye’ve been hankerin’ after for all these centuries,” said Paddy. “Just come out with it an’ tell her, for gods’ sakes. That way me and O’Malley can stick it t’ ol’ Seamus an’ ye can move on t’ yer job. ’Twas only a means t’ an end, anyhow, this Service thing, right?
“Once she gave ye up to that Albert guy, yer sentence was done, so ye should be able t’ move on, right? I’d think yer Samantha would be pleased t’ hear she could help ya in that. ’Course I’m guessin’ ye might not want t’ tell her, given what ye two have been up to. She might think ye’ve been usin’ her.”
“Well, of course he has, ye nitwit.” O’Malley conked Paddy on the head with the end of his shillelagh. “She was the last master of his sentence. Albert was number one thousand and two. There’s no reason fer Kal t’ be hangin’ around w’ her now. He’s no’ stupid; he’s no’ gonna fall in love with her, for St. Pat’s sake. Ye know genies canna love mortals or they’ll lose their magic an’ immortality. Me, I’d do just what he did. Enjoy the perks, but take the lantern an’ run. Be free as a bird as soon as possible.”
