Forbidden Magic: The Complete Collection

by Anya Merchant

  Victor was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed. Unfortunately, he felt obligated to follow up with Lucy, and so he took the long way through the city to get to her place.

  Calling her would have been quicker, easier, and more practical, but Victor told himself that he needed to see her in person. After all, he’d faced off against life-threatening enemies. Lucy could have ended up in a similar spot and might not even be able to answer the phone.

  Yeah, that’s it. That’s why I’m going over there.

  He shielded the drone under his arm as he moved into the more active section of the city. It took him about ten minutes to get to Lucy’s, and by that time, he’d collected a surprising number of strange looks, especially given that it was the middle of the night.

  Victor walked up to the second level of the apartment complex, set the drone down to the side of the door, and then knocked.

  The door opened after a couple of seconds, and Kiara was standing behind it. She had on a tiny pair of shorts, the kind that contour to the curve of a girl’s butt, and stride the line between clothing and underwear. Over them, she wore a baggy white t-shirt. Her hair was ruffled, as though she’d been asleep.

  “Victor?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “You look like crap. What happened?”

  “It’s a long story,” he said. Kiara took his hand and gently pulled him into the apartment, and Victor followed after her.

  “Here, sit down on the couch,” she said. “Let me get you something to drink.”

  She bounced past the divider that separated the living room from the kitchen, giving Victor an illicit opportunity to ogle her butt.

  “Thanks, Kiara,” he said. “Is your sister home?”

  “I thought she was out with you?” Kiara set a tea kettle onto the stove, and a chill went down Victor’s spine.

  “Damn it,” muttered Victor. He pulled out his phone and tried her number. Nobody answered.

  “What the hell were the two of you out doing tonight, and more importantly, why didn’t you bring me in on it?” Kiara walked back into the living room, arms crossed and eyes accusatory.

  “It’s a long story,” said Victor. “We didn’t tell you because…”

  Should I tell her about Bruce?

  It seemed like the logical thing to do. There was no way to predict how Bruce would respond to the failed attempt at surveillance. Victor was relatively sure that the drones had been working on his behalf, and at least one of them had gotten a good look at him.

  On the other hand, it seemed unreasonable for him to expect her to take his word, given what Lucy had told him about Kiara and Bruce’s history. There were better approaches to take then to try to enlist Kiara against someone who was, at the very least, a close friend of hers.

  “It was short notice,” he finally said. “You weren’t around when Lucy brought it up, and we figured that we could handle it ourselves.”

  It was close enough to the truth, and seemed to placate Kiara’s curiosity. She sat down on the couch and slid in a bit closer to Victor, letting her shoulder brush up against his.

  “What were you two going after?” she asked.

  “It was a stakeout,” he said. “We were watching Terrance.”

  “Terrance? As in, Terrance from Monteiro?”

  “Yeah.” Victor ran a hand through his hair, and the motion caused his injured rib to explode in pain.

  “Jeez, you really wrecked yourself, didn’t you?” Kiara reached her hand over and put it on Victor’s chest tenderly. “Did Terrance do this to you?”

  Victor slowly shook his head.

  I have to tell her. She deserves to know the truth.

  “Kiara…” he said. “Do you know why Bruce came back to Undercliff City?”

  The tea kettle let out a sharp wail, and Kiara lowered her eyes at him.

  “What… did you just say?” She blinked and stood up, pulling her hand off him.

  “Look, Lucy and I-“

  “Are you serious, Victor?” She shook her head and walked into the kitchen, her feet striking more heavily than they had before.

  “Would you listen to me? Lucy and I saw him-“

  “Talking to Terrance?” Kiara grabbed the tea kettle and began angrily pouring boiling water into cups. “That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?”

  “Well… yeah,” he said. “The two of them had a meeting, and then I followed after Bruce. That’s when I was attacked by his drones, Kiara!”

  “Did you ever see him send the drones after you?” she asked.

  Victor thought about it for a second.

  “I mean, I guess technically no, but-“

  “This is ridiculous, Victor.” She shook her head and brought over a cup of tea. “I told you back when we first met, after that first incident, that I was involved with someone else.”

  “Kiara, this isn’t about that!”

  “Like hell it isn’t,” she said.

  “Would you just listen to me?” Victor stood up, and Kiara moved in closer to him, shooting daggers out of her eyes as she got up in his face.

  “I thought you were better than this, Victor.”

  The tension in the room made it feel as though a bomb was about to go off. Victor wanted to grab Kiara and quite literally, shake some sense into her. He wanted to grab her and do more than just that, to feel her skin, and touch the parts of her body that she always seemed to insist on flaunting about.

  I need to get some air…

  The door to the apartment swung open, and a tired looking Lucy walked in through it. She shot Victor and Kiara a curious look and then kicked off her shoes.

  “Lucy, perfect timing,” he said. “Do you mind telling Kiara what happened tonight?”

  Lucy shrugged.

  “Nothing much, really,” she said. “We tailed Terrance for a while. Victor split off to follow another lead, and I kept Terrance covered.”

  Victor blinked. He started to object to her recounting of the events, but Lucy flashed him an urgent look.

  “Are you done, Victor?” asked Kiara. “Can you chill out now, and quit being such a jealous weirdo?”

  Victor grit his teeth hard enough to make them hurt. He took a deep breath and walked toward the door of the apartment.

  “I guess I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow then, Lucy,” he said, carefully enunciating each syllable.

  “Yes,” she said. “That would be best.”

  Victor walked out of the apartment, shut the door behind him, and threw a punch into thin air. He sighed, picked up the drone, and then started walking home.

  CHAPTER 10

  Victor unlocked the front door the townhouse and walked inside, feeling tension melt off his shoulders as he kicked off his shoes. The feeling only lasted for a couple of seconds.

  “Hey, Victor.”

  Sabrina was sitting on his couch, legs primly crossed and both hands folded and resting on her top knee. She looked even better in the light than she had at the tavern earlier in the night, and Victor felt his eyes being drawn down from her emerald green eyes to the cleavage offered up like a sacrifice by her low cut blouse.

  “What… the hell… are you doing here?” he asked. He felt angry and a little horny, but more than anything, tired.

  “Sorry, Vic.” Kronenberg’s voice filled the room, apologetic and omnipresent. “She followed me home, and, well, I told her that she could wait for you here if…”

  “If what?” snapped Victor.

  “If she changed the sheets on my bed for me,” said Kronenberg. “Julie only does it for me once a week, and that’s far too long for me to wait.”

  “It’s no problem,” said Sabrina. “I didn’t mind.”

  Victor buried his face in his hands and let out a long, overworked sigh. He pulled both palms together into a placating, prayer gesture and pointed them at Sabrina.

  “What made you think that this was okay?” he asked. “We talked for all of five minutes at Sammy’s Place. This is my house!�
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  Victor let his voice rise to a shout. It felt good, in a cathartic and explosive kind of way.

  “I’ve never connected with anyone like that before,” she said. “There is something different about you, Victor, and I need to find out what.”

  She stood up and took a slow step toward him.

  I don’t get it. Usually my scarlet aura wears off in minutes, maybe a half-hour, tops.

  “This is borderline stalker behavior.” Victor shook his head as Sabrina stepped in closer to him. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  It didn’t matter that he was yelling, clearly exhausted, and completely disheveled. Sabrina’s smile didn’t falter. She licked her lips slowly and let herself press up on Victor, her big breasts smooshing against his chest.

  “It sounds like you’ve had a long day,” she said, her voice sensual and soft. “Do you want to take it out on me?”

  Victor flashed a sardonic smile, wrinkled his brow, and sighed. He nodded slowly, and then took Sabrina by the hand and led her into his room.

  The door had been shut for all of a millisecond when Sabrina started kissing him. Her mouth moved against his with urgent, aching need. Victor kissed her back aggressively, grabbing at her waist and biting her bottom lip.

  “Victor,” she whimpered. Sabrina kissed his neck and then lied down on the bed. She slid her thighs open slightly and leaned forward, accentuating the view down her blouse. Victor felt his cock stiffen into eager hardness and pushed himself onto her.

  He kissed her passionately and practically tore her top and bra off. Her breasts were some of the best Victor had ever seen, big, all natural, and perfectly proportioned. Sabrina’s stomach was slim and toned, and hinted at her spending a lot of time at the gym.

  “Oh, Victor.” Sabrina was breathing heavy and ran her hands through his hair. “Please…”

  Well, it’s not taking advantage of her if I didn’t mean to flare her arousal. Is it?

  He kissed her again, pulled his shirt off, followed immediately by his pants. Sabrina leaned back on the bed, and Victor saw a brief flash of confusion in her eyes.

  “Your chest,” she whispered. Her fingers reached up and touched the word scarred across his abdomen.

  “It’s an old war wound,” he said, forcing a smile. “Doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  “Repent?” Sabrina asked. “What does that-“

  Victor cut her off with a kiss, pinning her hands to the bed behind her as a spark of aggressiveness reignited inside of him. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to fuck.

  He worked his cock out of his boxers and pulled Sabrina’s skirt up, not bothering to take it off. Victor didn’t bother to take off her panties either, pulling them to one side as lust overwhelmed him.

  He slid the head of his cock into her hot, waiting cunt and gasped. She felt incredible. Sabrina looked like a playboy model, and felt every bit as good as he’d imagined, if not even more amazing.

  Her mouth fell open as he began to push up into her, and her eyes took on a faraway, almost vacant sheen. She moaned and wrapped her legs around him, and Victor began to fuck her as though his life depended on it.

  His cock slammed in and out, shaking the bed with every movement. Sabrina let out loud, passionate moans. Victor pawed at her breasts, squeezing them together and feeling them bounce and jiggle under his fingers.

  Yes. This is exactly what I need!

  Something took control of him, a primal, animalistic part of his brain. He fucked Sabrina as though she was a whore, his slave, his toy. She cried louder the further he took it, seemingly taking pleasure in being used and abused.

  Victor held both of her hands back against the headboard and nibbled on her neck as he pumped his cock into her, each stroke faster than the last. He sucked on her nipples, grabbed her waist, and thrust at the speed of a jackhammer.

  Sabrina’s hips bounced up to meet each of his movements. There was desperate need in her body language, as though she’d been kept on the brink of satisfaction for hours on end. Victor thought about what the scarlet aura had done to her, and how bad she must have reacted to it to have come all the way back to his house to wait.

  She was sitting in my living room, dripping with desire. Waiting for me to come and give her what she needed.

  “Oh god, Victor!” shouted Sabrina. “I… I…”

  Victor grabbed her by the waist, pulled out, and flipped her over. He pushed her head down into a pillow and slipped his cock back into her, fucking her ruthlessly from behind. Sabrina moaned in time with his thrusts, and he pawed at her breasts and tweaked her nipples.

  It was sex in its truest form, without the pretense of anything other than hot, sweaty, release. Victor slammed into her, and the rhythm their bodies slapping together echoed off the walls. He felt his cock pulsing with pleasure, which built with every thrust, until he could feel it threatening to burst.

  Sabrina reached her orgasm first. She shuddered and went completely limp with a satisfied squeal, as though someone had flipped a switch and turned her off. Victor kept thrusting, over and over again, and after a minute, she was moving with him again, exploring the possibility of a second taste of the divine.

  Victor dug his fingers into her waist as he pumped into her. He could feel his cock probing, exploring, getting to know her more intimately than most of the guys who dreamed about her and worshiped her would ever get a chance to. His cock began to tense up, and pleasure hit him in a warm wave, splashing over his body as he reached his limit.

  “Oh, damn…” He pressed his cock as deep into her as it would go and blasted out his seed, filling her up with it and collapsing forward. Sabrina ran her hand through his hair with soft movements, and the two of them lay there together.

  “That… was nice,” she whispered. Victor smiled once and closed his eyes. Sleep overtook him before he could raise an objection to it.

  CHAPTER 11

  Sleep had never before felt so good in Victor’s entire life, and pulling himself out of it when the light of dawn began to leak in through his windows took a gargantuan amount of discipline. Part of him screamed for just one more minute, and his body still ached from his injuries the day before, but he slipped off his bed and to his feet.

  His injured rib was tender, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d expected it to be. Victor thanked his body for doing such a straightforward job on it, grabbed a towel, and headed for the bathroom.

  I smell breakfast. Kronenberg doesn’t normally cook, though, does he?

  Sabrina was at the stove, busily preparing eggs, bacon, and bagels. She had on a tiny white apron that Victor had found in the house and never used, and she wore it over her bra and panties. She smiled at him as she walked out of his room. Victor just stared.

  “What… are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Cooking breakfast.” Sabrina flipped one of the toasted bagels onto a plate. “Obviously.”

  She turned as Victor walked over to give him a quick kiss on the lips, one that reminded him of just how exciting mornings can be. She looked fantastic in her semi-nude state. Every element of her body that Victor had appreciated the night before looked even better in the light, from her perfect butt, to her generous boobs. He took a deep breath and forced himself to say the words.

  “You have to go.” Victor frowned, as much for his sake as for hers. “I’m sorry. I have to go to work, and last night was just… a one-time thing.”

  The scarlet aura shouldn’t last this long. This doesn’t make any sense.

  “I don’t mind leaving, Victor,” said Sabrina.

  “Uh… you don’t?”

  “Of course not.” She pulled the rest of the food off the stove and flashed him a flirtatious smile. “But I’ll be back.”

  Victor put a hand on his forehead. Sabrina closed the distance between them, and let her body draw dangerously close to his. The voice of reason in his head became a whisper, while his hormones yelled at him over the loudspeaker.

  “Look, Sabrina
, I don’t know how this happened, but there are better guys than me out there,” said Victor. “I’m a mess. My life is like a black hole, and trust me, it’s not fun to get too close to one of those.”

  “I don’t care.” She took a finger and pressed it against his chest, directly over his heart. Victor found the gesture to be more entitled than endearing, and he felt a kernel of irrational anger well up inside of him.

  “I don’t think you’re hearing me,” he said, locking eyes with her. “Get your stuff, and get out. It’s better for everyone this way.”

  Victor turned, towel in hand, and walked into the bathroom. He ran the water for the shower and smiled to himself in the mirror. Out of all the problems he’d run into over the course of his life, having an egregiously gorgeous woman obsessing over him had never been one of them.

  He spent ten minutes bathing, shaving, and brushing his teeth, and then headed back out into the living room. Kronenberg had already sent his drone off to work, and there was no sign of Sabrina in the kitchen. Victor was just starting toward his room when there was a knock at the door. He shrugged, figuring it was Sabrina and that she’d forgotten something, and went to answer it in his towel.

  “Just grab whatever you need and…” Victor froze when he saw Kiara standing on his porch. “Oh. Hey.”

  “Hey…” Kiara held one hand against the elbow of the other arm. “Lucy sent me to make sure you got to work on time. She has something to talk to you about.”

  Kiara was frowning, and it mirrored Victor’s reaction. The tension from the argument the night before still hung in the air. She wore a short black skirt with leggings underneath, a t-shirt with a star on the front, and a fluffy coat.

  “Alright,” said Victor. He stood there awkwardly in his towel for another second. “Do you want to come in while I get ready?”

  Kiara shrugged, but she followed after him when he turned to head back into the living room. She raised an eyebrow when she saw the food in the kitchen.

  “Uh… Kronenberg’s helper came by to check on him early,” said Victor. “And made some food.”

  The door to Victor’s room opened, and Sabrina walked out of it. She’d abandoned the apron and wore only her bra and panties, which made it impossible for him to ignore the way her hips swayed and breasts bounced with every step. It took him a second to process that Kiara was there, and exactly why that was a bad thing.