Love Potions

by Michelle M. Pillow

  “I’m told we men can be rather dense. It could help.”

  “Fine,” Lydia gave a pretend sigh of exasperation. “Erik, hon, enough with all the talk. Can you shut up and kiss me already?”

  He growled and buried his face in her neck. Nipping at her, he said, “Not exactly the ‘I love ya’ I was looking for.”

  “Are you kidding?” Lydia pulled him by the hair to make him look at her. “Like I’m going to commit fully before I find out if you’re all talk. I mean, you did lead me to believe you were something of a god in bed.”

  “Oh, now ya challenge my manhood?” He flipped her over on her back and pinned her down with a heavy thigh. “I’m trying to be a gentleman and let ya recover from your ordeal, but—”

  “Stop talking.” Lydia leaned up and pressed her mouth to his. She let her hand glide lower to his hip. To her surprise, she discovered he didn’t wear any clothes. Unable to help herself, she let her hand glide over a firm ass cheek, her fingers cupping the bottom edge.

  “Aye, love, whatever ya want.” His words were light and playful, but she had a feeling he meant them completely. He would give her whatever she wanted. When she’d pulled at his magick he hadn’t tried to stop her. The residual effects of what happened to them lingered inside her. She felt so much of him, a connection she’d never had with another person before. It was an invisible thread reaching out of him and coming into her. She knew him intimately, not by memories but by instinct and emotions. Lydia understood him, and when she kissed him there were no doubts in her mind that this is who she was meant to be with.

  His fingers skimmed over the silk of the pajamas. The material seemed to melt against her flesh from his warmth. With very little effort he undressed her. A brush of his finger against a button caused it to unfasten. A whisk of his hand drew her pants down her legs without his even needing to physically pull on them. Silk tickled her flesh, but the sensation was instantly replaced by the hard muscles of his naked thigh.

  Without pulling the sleeve from her arms, he tugged the shirt out from under her body. Apparently, it had melted through her. She gave a small laugh. “Interesting magic trick. For your next act, please don’t pull any rabbits out of my…well, hat.”

  “There’s no trick to my magick,” he assured her. He took her hand from his ass and glided it around to the front. Erik pushed her fingers against his arousal. “It’s all very real.” Then chuckling, he licked playfully at her mouth. “And ya can’t call my manhood ‘rabbit’. At least give it a manly name I can brag about.”

  She began to form a smartass answer, but instead gasped loudly as his hand moved over her flesh to leave tingling trails of magick in its wake. She saw the blue marks of it over her breasts and arms before it dissipated. Erik cupped her sex. The tingling intensified. She gasped, arching off the bed when a finger entered her. His grin widened. Pulses of energy vibrated from his hand along her body. She jerked violently, trembling as a climax was ripped out of her with his power.

  Lydia gasped for breath, completely shocked by what had just happened. Her bones felt as if they melted inside her legs. She couldn’t move. Her heart hammered, pounding in her chest and ears and throat. It was all she could do to draw breath.

  Erik looked very proud of himself. He kissed the corner of her lips before whispering by her ear, “And that was just my hand, love.”

  “Ah,” was all she could manage to answer. Yes, physically he was a great lover, but there was more between them, so much more. The real pleasure came from their emotional connection. It was strong and more real than anything else she’d ever experienced with a man. The very idea of Erik left her breathless.

  “I’ll take that to mean ya think I’m more than proving my worth as a lover,” he said playfully. Something in his happy gaze said he felt their connection too.

  Taking advantage of her weakened state, he began kissing the length of her body. Lips grazed her stomach and thighs before his tongue licked the center heat of her sex. Every thought left her as her brain focused on the moment.

  Erik took his time, not rushing even as the hard length of his arousal attested to his need. He appeared to enjoy torturing himself—and Lydia while he was at it—drawing out the perfection of the moment. He kept his kisses light and constantly moving. He licked the folds of her sex, nipped at her inner thigh, sucked on the sensitive flesh of her hip. Only when her legs stirred, trying to force him up her body to finish her did he draw his cock to her pussy.

  He entered her deep and sure, thrusting hard. Erik filled her and one word whispered through her mind as he did, “Finally.” The restraint inside him broke. His skin glimmered with magick, coating their naked flesh with its light. She felt the power inside him building and renewing, feeding off their sexual energy, luring her to take some for herself. There was more, just behind the sexual need. After this moment, nothing would tear them apart. She belonged to him, and he to her. They were bonded.

  A breeze swept over the room, but there was no natural cause for it, no open windows or doors. It blew his hair around his handsome face and cooled her heated flesh. With each thrust of his body in hers the magick around them became more fervent. He pulled out. Covers flung from the bed across the room. He pushed in. The portrait on the wall rattled. Out. The bed shook and lifted off the ground. In. The bed rocked, rotating them in a slow circle over the floor. Out. A dresser slid sideways and hit a wall. In. She couldn’t take the pleasure building inside her body, couldn’t think to fight the feelings growing inside her heart.

  Lydia cried out, climaxing as she’d never climaxed before. Pleasure rippled over her in a wave, pulsing with a visible yellow glow over Erik and the magickally possessed room. Erik had ahold of her hips, gripping tight as if he’d fly away if he let go. His knees were braced and he managed to thrust a few more times before he too met release.

  As her tremors subsided everything stopped moving and the bed dropped hard on the floor. She breathed hard, unable to get enough oxygen into her sated body. Gasping, she said, “You weren’t kidding. You are like a god in bed. That was some show you put on.”

  Erik collapsed next to her and chuckled even as he too panted for air. “That wasn’t my show, love.”

  Lydia stiffened. Was he saying she did that?

  “Luckily for me, sex replenishes my magick or ya would have sucked me dry of more than my seed.” He touched her thigh. “I’ve never had my magick pulled out of me by the tip of my cock before, well except when ya had your mouth on me in the car.”

  Lydia glanced around the room, mortified that someone might have heard. She wasn’t ashamed of her relationship with Erik, but this was a family home.

  “Don’t ya worry about the mess, love,” Erik said, following her gaze to his room. “As soon as I can muster the energy I’ll clean it up. Though, ya keep fucking a man like that and I’ll gladly let ya rearrange the whole mansion.”

  She wanted to answer, but she was too weak. Lydia stared up at the crooked portrait of Erik in the Highlands of Scotland, presumably done very long ago before the ancestors of her ancestors had even met and had children. She wasn’t even a possibility in that world. In that moment, she felt very mortal. She had what? Another fifty years? Sixty? He would live forever.

  “Ah, don’t worry love,” he whispered, misreading her expression. “That feeling is normal after ya expend so much magick. Just close your eyes and rest. Ya will feel great when ya wake up.”

  …

  Erik grinned as Lydia’s eyes closed and she almost instantly fell asleep. He could tell she was exhausted. Next time he might have to temper her absorption of him, but just a little bit. There was no way he was going to stop her completely, not if she made love to him like that. Magick wasn’t the only thing she’d pulled out of his cock. She’d drained him completely of his seed. Never in his life had he been so sated. In fact, he didn’t think he could manage another erection at the moment if he wanted to. That had never happened before.

  Erik couldn’t h
ave been happier. He’d waited so long to claim her like this, and it was so much more than he’d hoped.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Congratulations!” Margareta announced.

  Lydia froze in shock in the dining room doorway. Margareta and Angus were both staring at her with smiles on their faces. She held her breath, and thought, Please don’t let them be talking about what I did with their son.

  Yeah, the orgasm had been, well, room altering, but it wasn’t something she cared to discuss with parental figures. When she awoke Erik was gone and the room had been returned to normal. She had no idea how long she slept, only that she was starving for something to eat.

  “Daughter!” Angus beamed at her. “Welcome to the clan.”

  Now she was even more confused. They made absolutely no sense. Seeing their coffee cups she thought maybe they were both drinking a little Irish whiskey in their coffee. “I, um, huh?” She pointed behind her. “Are you aware that Malina is petrified on the staircase? She looks like she was trying to run out the front door.” Lydia gestured to her shoulder. “She has a messenger bag stuck mid-motion behind her.”

  “Pay no mind to Malina. She tried to disobey me and follow the men out to battle. Clearly, she is not ready if that little unpleasantness with the love potion is any indication.” Margareta waved her hand in dismissal. “She’ll thaw out in a few more hours.”

  “Ya have to let the girl grow up sometime,” Angus muttered.

  “Erik just told us the happy news.” Margareta ignored her husband’s comment. “Don’t ya worry none about not having a mother. I’ll help ya see to all the plans. Ya will have the finest wedding a girl could hope for. I am here to help ya decide every detail.”

  “She should have a grand event,” Angus mumbled more to himself than to his wife, “ya have been planning on throwing a wedding for one of our kids for the last three hundred years.” Then to Lydia, he winked, “I’d run if I were ya, lass, and elope. This one will have your wedding looking like a fairy tale ball complete with singing horses and dancing flowers.”

  Good idea, Lydia thought. Run away from this conversation.

  Lydia slowly backed out of the dining room. She might starve, but her stomach would have to wait. Clearly the MacGregor elders were suffering from some kind of delusion.

  “Ya scared her,” Margareta scolded her husband. The words were followed by a loud smack and Angus’s unconcerned laughter. “If ya lose me my grandchildren I’ll do more than brain ya!”

  “There ya are.” Erik grinned at her as he came bounding down the steps two at a time. He stepped around his statue of a sister as if such a thing were normal. Perhaps here it was. He paused, nodding at Malina. “Morning, banshee.” He gave a small brotherly laugh and poked his thumb toward her face. “She does kind of look like a banshee with her hair flying around like that and her mouth all open. Yeah, ma froze her good. See how her eyes don’t move?” Erik leaned closer to her and grinned as he looked into her mouth. “Ha, Euann put a mint in there.” He patted Malina’s arm.

  “I’m beginning to see why Malina used me to whammy you,” Lydia said.

  “Hey, a mint is better than a beetle.” Erik continued down the stairs until he was within kissing distance of Lydia.

  “I think you need to check on your parents.” Lydia pointed toward the dining room. “I don’t think all of your brothers ’shrooms made it into the casserole.”

  “What do ya mean?” Erik frowned and made a move to go to his parents’ aid.

  “They think we’re getting married.”

  Erik stopped and then gave a sheepish look to the floor. “Don’t be mad I told them without ya. I was excited.”

  “Erik…” Lydia made a weak noise. Marriage? The idea didn’t necessarily repulse her, but it all seemed a little sudden. She did love him, yet… “Isn’t there something you’re forgetting to do?”

  “No.” He shook his head in thought. Damn but he was sexy. Even now she wanted to kiss him and forget everything else. “Iain’s condition is unchanged. Euann and Rory are taking turns sitting with Charlotte. Niall is out making sure the cover up worked.”

  “I meant a proposal.”

  The man actually looked confused. “Proposal for what? As far as I know I wasn’t supposed to be working on a business plan for anything. Are my parents trying to expand your business? If ya don’t want to, just tell them no. They’ll fuss but not every family business needs to be a multi-million dollar corporation. Though, I suppose we could generate a lot of local goodwill by expanding and employing the locals. I can have that realtor man, Frank, look into properties—”

  “Traditionally the man gets down on one knee and asks the woman if she’ll marry him instead of just assuming she will.” Lydia nodded her head slowly to prompt his agreement and then shook it in denial when the words didn’t seem to fully register.

  “You’re my fíorghrá,” Erik said, as if that explained it all. “Of course we’ll get married. I was serious when I said you’ve captured me. Ya love me. I’m utterly and completely taken with—”

  “We need to get this lassie to the hospital.” Euann carried Charlotte in his arms. “She started to wake up. I used a little potion on her to force her asleep, but it won’t keep her under for too long.” Charlotte’s foot bumped Malina as he carried her past his sister. Euann grimaced. “Dammit, banshee, aren’t ya thawed yet?” Then to Erik, he gestured his head toward their sister and said, “She does kind of look like a banshee like that, doesn’t she? If I had time, I’d dye her hair white and take pictures.”

  “Why a hospital?” Lydia looked at Erik. This family really had no concept of the word emergency. “I thought you said she was safe here, that the magick just needed to wear off.”

  “Erik ordered us not to wipe her memory again under any circumstances, and considering the potion she drank and what she did to Iain, I don’t want to be the next warlock she sucks power…well, anyway. So, I figured that leaves one option. We leached enough magick out of her that she won’t accidentally throw nurses all around the room with it. If we can’t erase what happened then we should get her to the hospital with the others. Niall said the townsfolk woke up and the emergency room looks like an epidemic hit. If we slip Charlotte in now they’ll think she tripped balls with the others.”

  “Tripped balls?” Erik repeated.

  “It means hallucinate, old man,” Euann explained.

  “That would be like lying to her again,” Lydia interrupted before the brothers could start bickering. “She’ll think she’s crazy. You don’t know what it was like in that basement, not knowing who had you or what was going to happen. I can’t let her deal with that on her own. It was real. It happened.”

  “It’s up to ya, Lyd. She’s your friend. We can try to erase what happened and hope that the potion wore off, or we can get her to the hospital with the others.” Erik touched her arm. “Once everything calms down we can tell her whatever truth ya think is right.”

  “Fine,” Lydia motioned to the door. “Let’s take her to the hospital with the others. It would probably be good if they did some blood tests on her anyway.” Maybe it would be for the best if Charlotte thought the basement nightmare was just a bad drug trip. Perhaps then the woman could forget the fear like a bad dream. After Charlotte drank the potion she’d fallen unconscious so it was possible she knew nothing about sucking Iain’s magick from him or the attempted sacrifice.

  “Hey, Erik, she’s getting a little heavy. Do ya think—?” Euann adjusted Charlotte in his arms.

  “It looks like ya have her. I’ll get the car,” Erik answered.

  Lydia gave him a stern look.

  “My darling intended will get the car.” Erik went to the table at the bottom of the stairs and produced a set of keys from a small drawer. “It’s around back, love.”

  “Engaged?” Euann grinned. “Congratulations. That’s wonderful news. It’s been some time since we had a clan wedding. Ma will be thrilled. She’s been filling up that
wedding planning book of hers for centuries.”

  Lydia snatched the keys from Erik. “You have really got to quit telling people that.”

  …

  Erik grinned as his bride walked away from him. He couldn’t help himself. Never in his life had he been this happy.

  “I don’t understand. Why can’t I know? I’m family.” Euann carried Charlotte toward Erik and thrust her at him so he was forced to catch her and help carry her weight to the car.

  “Och, she’s just upset because I forgot to propose to her first,” Erik answered.

  “Ya forgot to ask your future wife to marry ya?” Euann laughed. “Smooth, brother, very smooth.”

  “I forgot about that part of the custom. She would have said yes, right? We’re clearly destined to be together. It’s not like I’ve really thought about the whole marriage process over the last…ever. So I forgot a couple details.” He managed a small shrug. “What do ya mean heavy? This lass barely weighs a thing.”

  “I know,” Euann thrust Charlotte’s weight completely over onto Erik and let go of her. “I just wanted to make ya carry her.”

  Erik adjusted Charlotte in his arms as he watched Euann run for the stairs. “Where are ya going? We need to get up to the hospital.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll be right behind ya.” Euann stopped by Malina. “But ya really don’t think I can pass up a picture of this, do ya?”

  Erik gave a small laugh. He heard his car coming from around the back of the house. Lydia’s driving grinded a little hard on his gears and he flinched. As he backed toward the front door, he yelled, “I want a copy!” Malina blinked. “And ya better hurry, the banshee is waking up.”

  …

  “Here.” Erik dumped an armful of vending machine junk food on Lydia’s lap. “I wasn’t sure what ya wanted so I got one of everything.”

  Lydia glanced up at him from her place in the hospital lobby and smiled gratefully. She was just happy to get a chance to eat something—finally. Taking a chocolate bar off the top of the pile, she tore it open and bit into it. She barely tasted it before starting on a second bar.