by Berinn Rae
Or would he come with teasing eyes that would tighten her stomach into knots of sexual hunger? As friends, she and Daniel had spent hundreds of evenings here on the roof together, sharing a beer in summer at the end of a sweltering day, drinking wine over impromptu dinners or a game of chess, building planters in the spring.
In the fall they cleared away dead leaves and plants, bagging them to drop from the roof, leaning out like children to wager on whether the bag would burst or not when it hit the ground. Talking, sharing, laughing … always laughing. Often Lorraine joined them. Sometimes the Forman family and the awkward newlyweds, Ruby and Brian, came up for a barbecue. These few were the only tenants who treasured this unique sanctuary where the stifling noises and hectic pace of city life faded to insignificance.
Oh, why did Daniel have to ruin it all by kissing her? And now rising inside her like a horrific monster from the deep was this freaky, run-amok power that made a painting come to life! Magic … the exhilarating, inspired energy she always so unconsciously and joyously put into her work had suddenly transformed into a frightening, alien thing. Magic, Nila had warned, volatile and dangerous unless she learned where it came from and how to control it. What inside her created supernatural power? And why had it sprung to sudden life now? Lily pressed her face against her knees trying to quiet the questions hammering at her brain.
The shriek of a door opening made her jump, and Daniel stepped down into the light. She watched him pause to gently brush an orchid, leaning to sniff the delicate scent. Straightening, he saw her down the length of the greenhouse. For a moment he just looked at her, then held up the bottle of wine in a gesture of truce.
“Wine or beer?” he asked in a neutral tone. She couldn’t tell his mood and her pulse beat faster in her throat.
He wove his way between benches of ripening tomatoes, begonias and mint to set the bottles on a nearby worktable before flopping down in the chair beside her. Lily pointed at the wine, which he uncorked.
“I don’t need a glass.” She snatched the bottle and tipped a mouthful down her throat. Her eyes on his were defiant and wary. “I’m primed for a night of oblivious debauchery.”
Daniel raised a quizzical eyebrow and twisting the cap off a beer, clinked it to her bottle. “Then here’s to a night of dissipation. And other utterly stupid things — ”
“You always do this, Daniel, pick up a conversation where we left off. Even if it’s days later. I’m not keen on continuing this one.”
“How can I turn a blind eye on you, Nila, and — let me guess — a love potion?”
“So what? I need a lecture from you since now I attract men like dogs to a training whistle? I’ll just say it. You are not responsible for destroying what was a perfect friendship.”
“I should hope not,” he responded. “And let me just say that I’ve wanted to kiss you since the day you knocked on my door asking for an apartment.” His gaze was confrontational.
Lily sat forward. “Then the potion isn’t affecting you?”
“Nope.”
“Good.” Lily took another swig of wine. “So forget the kiss and stay friends?”
He hooked an ankle around her chair to drag it closer to his. “I don’t happen to think kissing ruins a friendship. And I’m pretty sure someone who snogs her cousin hasn’t the right to judge — ”
“Like you’ve never humiliated yourself.”
He grinned, “I kissed you, didn’t I? It was all right but might have been more inspiring if you’d participated.”
She laughed, gave his chair a kick. “You’re wacked.”
They sat in silence for a while, Daniel sipping his beer and plucking at the label while Lily slogged back wine like it was flavored water. His face, caught in the mellow light of the grow lamp, was a captivating blend of mauve and indigo shadows. She wished she could paint him just this way, all softened angles and sweet curves …
“So, Lil. Tell me what happened in your apartment last night?”
“Last night?” She frowned. “This day has been endless, I don’t remember last night.”
“You cleaned up a hell of a lot of paint.”
She sent him an apologetic glance louder than words that said she wished she could tell him everything.
Draining his beer, Daniel set the bottle on the floor and reached over to grab hold of her legs and pull them up on his lap. Her eyes went drowsy as he slipped off her shoes and began to rub his thumbs over the arches of her feet. Discovering her toes cold to the touch, he tucked them inside his shirt against his warm belly.
“Can you remember the last time you ate, Lily? Because you’re knocking that wine back pretty fast on what I’m guessing is an empty stomach.”
“Have you forgotten I’m headed for drunk? And I think I had lunch. Maybe.”
“Will you stay put if I run to the deli for sandwiches?”
“Will you get me a Reuben?”
He frowned. “You only eat a Reuben when you’re depressed.”
She dug her toes into his stomach so hard he flinched. “It doesn’t take a psychic to see I’m depressed, Daniel. Just like it doesn’t take a genius to figure out you inherited your grandmother’s gift. You’re a Reader too, aren’t you? I’ve seen how you carefully and oh-so-casually keep your distance from people.”
Anger flitted across his face and was gone. “I don’t casually do anything. And you aren’t one to talk about keeping your distance.”
She leaned forward, outraged. “How can you justify never sharing something this big with me? A telepath … Christ, Daniel, you must know all there is to know about me.”
“I don’t snoop — ”
“Or maybe our friendship is about keeping you safe?” she sneered. “I mean, who better to hide behind than a friend whose thoughts and emotions flit about like soap bubbles? And being a woman,” she smiled and skimmed her heel up the inside of his thigh, “I can offer much more in the way of friendship than Gradyn Spencer can.”
Brows thunderous, he flung her feet off his lap. “Yeah, but you won’t. You’re afraid to offer anything that’s real, Lily.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her eyes shot hostile sparks at him.
Daniel leaned back in his chair. “That our friendship has always been defined in your terms, not mine. And don’t think I won’t kiss you again to up the stakes, Lily.”
“Well,” she pretended a yawn. “I’d rather be asleep than kiss you.”
In one quick move, Daniel’s had his hands on her waist, lifting her out of the chair and onto the bench. Fire blazed in his eyes. “Is that so?”
Fire in her belly, she glared up at him. “Absolutely.”
His mouth hit hers with lusty, bruising force, and she rose to meet him. Their arms tangled around each other. Lily buried her hands in his hair, pasted her body against him, soft breasts to solid chest, belly to belly. Her legs slid around his waist to lock him close. She knew he’d wanted this, had goaded her into it, but the moment his mouth touched hers all anger melted into steaming flame.
Sweet Jesus, she wanted this, too … this fusing of lips, deep, eager kisses sliding into devouring, open-mouthed hunger. He tasted of beer and an exhilarating, raw power kept carefully contained. She arched closer, needy sighs escaping her throat. His fingers cupped her chin, stroked her cheek while his hot mouth pressed wet kisses on her throat. Breath ragged, Lily felt sanity shred under the fierce exchange of caresses. Tugging his shirt tails free, she ran her hands up the skin of his back, felt his muscles shudder beneath her palms. His hands, frenzied now, poured over her hips to curve under her bottom and lift her roughly, precisely, against him. And still he kissed her, tortured her with nips of his teeth and flicks of his tongue until she felt herself dissolve in a mindless delirium that excluded breathing, thinking, everything but a fevered need for him inside her.
Lily knew the moment his careful control slipped. His fingers cradled the back of her neck, flesh to flesh, and she felt a sudden, exploding awareness of
his every thought as if she swam inside his blood. She sensed his power straining to break free, felt his elation, his ready passion wrapped up in sweet longing and a loneliness as penetrating as her own. She half sobbed his name and pressed her mouth to the unsteady throb of his pulse. And tasted, like brandy, the velvety dark of his magic.
• • •
Daniel knew he should slow down and couldn’t. To have her like this, her skin blazing under his hands, her body begging. His heart swelled to bursting with an unimaginable joy. Her fingers plucked away his glasses, smoothed the line of his brow, the hard bone of his cheek before settling tender and trembling at the back of his neck. Her every touch fired his nerves with the desperate wanting of her. And so he took, locking his mouth hard on hers until their teeth clashed then backing away to tease and bite, tempting, torturing. Gods afire … the taste of her soared through his veins like golden wine and innocent sins.
He was shaking. His fingers tore open the buttons of her coat, then her blouse until at last he held her small and perfect breast in his palm. His other hand slipped up under her skirt, found the naked warmth where her thigh-high stocking ended and soft flesh began. She groaned at the bold stroke of his thumb over her pulsing femoral artery and thrust closer. His fingers edged inside her panties. She froze, pushed away from him with a gasping cry. They stared at each other in shock.
Panting for breath, she whispered, “You want this instead of a friendship? Be sure, Daniel. Please be sure. Before we go too far. Can you promise me that this … this desire is real? That what we feel has nothing to do with the potion?”
He lifted his hands, tremulous and reluctant, off her body. “I swear it’s not the potion, Lily. I’ve wanted you this way since the day we met.” His grin was unsteady. “That’s what passion is. And love.”
“Love?” Her eyes widened, a deep and vulnerable blue.
“God, yes, Lily. How can you not know I love you?”
“Like a friend. Like I love you.”
“Right,” he laughed bitterly and stepped away from her.
“Daniel, please … I can’t deny I want to strip you naked right here and do it in the dirt, but is sex worth losing our friendship?”
Pain flashed across his dark face. “Being with me would just be sex to you?”
“I don’t know!” She slid off the table to snatch his hands in hers. “It’s been, well, more than a year since I’ve had sex, and not even good sex … isn’t it obvious I’m horny as hell? Aren’t you? You haven’t dated since last summer!” Panic showed in her eyes. “Daniel, how do you know we’ll work?”
“I just know.”
“And you’re willing to risk what we already have?”
He moved in to quiet her quivering body with gentle strokes of his hands. “I don’t see it as a risk, Lil. I know you love me, you kiss me like you’re on fire, for God’s sake. Is it lustful? Yeah, so what? I’m not afraid to want you in my bed, not just my life.” He stopped her protest with a finger pressed to her lips. “Will you at least think about it? About an ‘us’?”
“How can I think? All I want is your hands on me, your mouth on me.” She reached for the wine bottle and took a long, gasping drink. “Damn you, Daniel.”
He grinned then, a wicked quirk of his lips. “We could not think, get really drunk, and just have monkey sex.”
“Then what? What if I’m the lousiest lay you’ve ever had?”
He laughed. “I already know that’s impossible. Gods and Saints, Lily, I practically tore your clothes off.” He flicked at her opened blouse, which she snatched hastily closed. “Let me love you, Lil. We need each other, haven’t you figured that out yet? And not just as friends it seems. So take me for a test drive, see how my chassis hums.”
Lily laughingly slapped away his hand edging towards her breast. “I think it’s my chassis that hums. Your piston fires.”
“Let’s hope so.” He swooped in for a long kiss. “Okay, we’ll play it cool. Take it slow. I promise. Now, as much as I’m dying to shag you ’til dawn’s early light, I need food.”
“But I’m not nearly drunk yet!”
“There’s time.” He smiled down at her face cupped between his hands. “We’ve got time, Lily. But I’m telling you right now, our ‘friendship’ has run its course.”
Chapter Ten
The next morning Lily woke to a silky tickle on her cheek. She smiled, eyes closed, and breathed in humid air, the rich scent of growing plants. Her groggy brain wondered how she could still be in the solarium when she lay cocooned in her warm bed. The tickle became a glide over her throat, and her eyes snapped open. She sat up to discover the hanging ivy plant had, overnight, overgrown her room, and now twined in loving tendrils around her body!
Through her bedroom door Lily could see fat philodendron leaves, three times their normal size, spreading thick and lush across the ceiling of her apartment. Plucking free of the vines wrapping around her, she eased out of bed and down the hall. Gods and Saints, she’d woken up to domestic plants on steroids!
Even as she watched, strands of andreanum and cordatum tangled around lamps and easels, computer deck, and couch, swarming the room like the thickets around Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Lily tugged them clear in distaste. Well, it took no great leap of imagination to see that this sudden green house explosion came from magic. Her own damned magic! Somehow her lovely houseplants were feeding off her powers as if she’d offered up bloody fingers like the clerk in Little Shop of Horrors!
She gulped down half a cup of scalding coffee and got to work, hacking and tearing the run-amok greenery away from every window to let daylight back into her home. Then she pruned the stems back from the lamps, overhead lights and ceiling, pausing once to wonder if perhaps they would grow like this at Christmas so she could deck them with bulbs and tinsel. And mistletoe …
She’d hauled a ladder up from the basement and was cutting free the ceiling when she heard a tinny voice near her ear. “Half a league, half a league, half a league onward!”
On the string of lights dangling amongst the leaves, a pink flamingo grinned at her.
Lily’s jaw dropped, and so did the shears, and she hugged the ladder in sudden, disconcerted vertigo.
Another voice spoke, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
Christ’s Apostles, the plastic flamingos were quoting poetry! Shakespeare and Tennyson, no less.
Lily closed her eyes, rested her forehead against the ladder and drew a long breath. How she wished she’d never seen Madame Bagasha’s shop, never felt that incredible sense of rightness there! She wished Nila was a girl she hadn’t met, and the potion a thing she’d never guzzled. What in the hell was she to do about this latest insane magical hiccup? If Daniel heard the flamingos’ blather or the McCready sisters came to investigate —
“Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door! Quothe the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’” A flamingo hanging eye to eye with her winked. Edgar Allen Poe? Ye Gods!
“Shut up!” Lily shouted. “Just stop. I’m a blink away from the nuthouse already. You guys can’t do this to me, okay? It’s my magic, damn it! So you, hungry plants, stop growing like you’re on replacement hormones. And you, babbling flamingos, stop spouting like someone crowned you poet laureates. Please!”
All the flamingos along the string giggled and bounced, and not quietly either. In the end, to drown them out, she fired up classical music on her comp-deck. When she left for work, the flamingos were arguing over whether this sonata was Beethoven or that symphony was Schubert.
And so, going slowly mad with ravenous plants she cut back daily and plastic flamingos who never ran out of poetic ditties, Lily lived through three desolate, Daniel-less days before she realized he was avoiding her, too. She seemed to see him everywhere, blurred glimpses of his face as he rounded a corner blocks away or through the window of a coffee shop when she sped by on the e-bus.
Walking home from work one night, she caught him crossing to th
e other side of the street when he saw her coming. Granted, his truck stood parked there, but still he barely waved. She pretended a careless nonchalance, acted busily absorbed in her paintings for Gradyn Spencer’s grand opening less than two weeks away. Pretended too, to forget the way Daniel’s kisses made her feel both cherished and possessed. How, held close against his body, she’d felt his lonely need … as he’d felt hers. What was left in her world that rivaled his generous mouth, his sensitive touch? Oil and canvas? Gods afire … she missed him with a grief that at times dropped her shaking to her knees.
She’d always lived in the abstract; floating among the textures, patterns, and colors she found so inspiring. Now filled with new and undeniably disturbing emotions, Lily felt helpless, in thrall, like a rabbit cornered by a coyote. She possessed neither the skill nor experience to navigate back to accustomed ground.
Her life made no sense without Daniel’s steadfast presence. He’d said their friendship had run its course, but he’d also said there was time. He just hadn’t specified how much time. Damn it, he knew her, knew she didn’t do well with either/or ultimatums … and that’s all he’d left her!
Every day Lily found a new Lost and Found cartoon Ellen left lying about like housekeeping tips; sitting beside the coffee machine, on top her drawing table, taped to her work stool. It seemed these days G.I.L. was picking on the techno-nerd character. In one strip, the guy wrote an email to his grandmother in unintelligible geek-speak and she answered back in Hungarian. In another he was online gaming and missed a date with his dream girl, unaware she’d blown off her date with him because she was his anonymous on-line opponent. And a third cartoon showed him going to job interviews wearing a tie that said “Byte me.”
