by Ophelia Bell
“Can I take you home with me?” he asked.
“You’d better. Otherwise, I might just have my way with you right here.”
An almost primal sound rumbled up from deep in his chest and his hands ventured higher. They were so large, he could have wrapped both of them entirely around her waist and crushed her, yet he didn’t. He was so gentle she almost wanted him to squeeze harder just to be sure he was real. Evie’s breath caught when he brushed his thumbs along the sides of her breasts. His lust-filled gaze remained locked on hers, his mouth a mischievous curl. Then her mind short-circuited as he boldly stroked both thumbs over her nipples right through her thin blouse. A sharp jolt of pleasure shot through her, and it was all she could do not to wrap herself around him right there.
“I dare you,” he said, and swiped across again, causing another flood of tingling warmth to surge between her legs.
“Ohh-kayy,” she breathed, gripping his hands and reluctantly peeling them away from her sides. “I think we have someplace to be right now.” She turned and pulled him behind her, trying her best to ignore the confusion of sensations clamoring through her body. Her face burned, her heart raced, and a knot of molten heat had taken up residence between her thighs. It was tricky to even take a breath, but somehow she managed to pull sufficient air into her lungs to clear her head and see straight.
Marcus didn’t balk at her urgency. He stood and followed, laughing all the way to the subway until they were seated. He asked, “Where are we going?”
“To your place,” she said.
“Good thing you put us on the right train.”
Evie hadn’t even realized how many of his secrets the wind had told her in those few moments when he’d first touched her. They’d sunk in and become part of her. And in the moment she hadn’t thought, just instinctively headed in the direction the breeze blew.
“I… thought we might ride a bit until I caught my breath, is all. You live in Brooklyn?” She looked innocently up at him.
“I do.”
The train lurched into motion and he caught her against him. He didn’t let go.
His warm, solid body felt good against her, his embrace protective and comfortable. Better than the last fifty years of being thrown in front of so many men, dressed up like the daughter of a wealthy merchant sometimes, or dressed down like a Gypsy whore other times. Her people exhausted every avenue, and had more avenues to exhaust. This was the first time she’d given herself to the possibility willingly.
His hand fell to her thigh and she sighed.
“You like that?” he asked.
She gave him a quizzical look. “You’re a cocky bastard. That’s what I like. And yeah, I like your hand right where it is. For now.”
Marcus grinned again, and she barely resisted the urge to push his hand higher, but relaxed and leaned against him for the rest of the trip. After a while, his fingers began tracing little patterns through the fabric of her skirt, making her wish he was in contact with her skin. She was still contemplating a change of plan when the loudspeaker announced their destination and Marcus stood. She had a brief view of a tightly muscled stomach under his shirt when he bent over to sling a satchel over one shoulder, and then he unceremoniously grabbed her hand and tugged her along.
Okay, I guess I’m along for the ride, whatever that means.
“Where are we going?”
“My place. It’s clean, don’t worry.”
She nearly tripped over an uneven slab in the sidewalk. When she regained her bearings, she increased her pace. “I wasn’t worried about your place. Is there anything else I should worry about?”
Her tone must have alarmed him, because he slowed down to a walk. He squeezed her hand and looked down at her, brow furrowed. “We don’t have to do this… whatever this is. I just didn’t want to lose the thrill, you know? But if you’ve changed your mind…”
Evie’s heart raced. Maybe she wasn’t as fearless as she thought. Maybe she was being supremely dumb. He wasn’t the One, and she didn’t even know him. Sure, she had decades more experience than he did, but not with love, not with her own heart, and there were other things to worry about. Fuck, how could she be so reckless?
“What scares you, Evie?” he asked softly, reaching up to caress her face. He stroked his thumb over her cheek as though trying to soothe a scared kitten.
The truth would betray her nature. What scared her was them. The Ultiori hunters. He might be one and working his seduction on her now. She didn’t think he was one, at least. The Wind was good at sending peoples’ secrets to her ears without them knowing, but the Wind wasn’t perfect. The Ultiori had their own tricks of deception—how they did it, she didn’t know. She’d only heard stories. Suddenly she grew uncertain about this crazy idea of hers.
She had to give him an answer. “You scare me,” she whispered, eyes wide. “I’m afraid… I’m afraid we can’t go back after this. That if I do it, our choices will be taken from us. We were strangers until a little while ago, but now we’re headed down a path that might never let us turn around again.”
He raked his fingers through his thick hair. His shoulders hunched awkwardly, almost like he was trying to shrink, like he was self-conscious of his size on the sidewalk beside her. Finally, he simply squatted down and looked up at her. She had the sense that he might be about to beg, but he only rested his hands on her hips and squeezed gently.
“You terrify me,” he said softly, and she knew what he said was true. Even if the Wind hadn’t been there to verify his honesty, she’d have known it by the wetness in his eyes. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and the first one I’ve ever wanted so much I’d behave like a rutting stag the first time we meet. I don’t do this, Evie. What I want to do with you is entirely out of character for me. I know you have no reason to believe that because we just met, but it’s the truth.”
She laughed, taken aback by his bare honesty. “Surely, there have been others… Look at you.” She waved her hand down his sturdy frame, still crouched before her.
He shook his head. “I’ve tried off and on, but somehow the women I’m most drawn to are wildly inaccessible. You’re the first who’s given me the time of day. That in itself makes you infinitely more amazing to me. But there’s something deeper.”
He reached up and placed his palm against the center of her chest. The simple touch stole her breath. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I really want to know everything there is to know about you.”
Evie found it hard to fill her lungs enough to speak. Finally, in a near whisper, she said, “What if I never trust you enough to share my secrets?”
“Then I’ll have to prove to you that you can.”
She sighed, relieved that he told her the truth, but also more anxious than ever that she hadn’t heard any hint of a lie. If she had, she’d have had an excuse to avoid following through with her crazy plan.
She urged him to stand and laced her fingers through his again. Taking a deep breath, she found that steely will of hers, along with the wicked streak that had urged her to seek him out to begin with.
“Rutting stag, huh? I think I like the sound of that.” She grinned up at him. Abruptly he wrapped her in his arms and laid a hot, hungry kiss against her lips. In spite of the cold brick wall he had her pressed into, all she could feel was his heat flooding through her thin dress. She clung to him, melting against him, both of them oblivious to the traffic on the sidewalk passing by like nothing out of the ordinary was occurring. Like she wasn’t on the verge of letting this man fuck her silly against the wall right out in public on a cool spring evening.
The honk of a cab made Marcus jump and draw away from her. She held on, reluctant to lose the warmth of his body and the sweet pull of his mouth. A small, petulant sound came out of her and he groaned in response. He placed his hands against the wall on either side of her head and peer
ed down into her eyes.
“You’ll be the death of me, Evie North. But I think you’ll be worth it.”
After placing a chaste kiss on her forehead, he pulled her to his side, leading her down the sidewalk again. In only a few steps, he pulled keys out of his pocket and opened a door in the front of the brownstone he’d just had her pinned to.
“You mean to tell me we were ten feet from your door?” Evie laughed.
“I was overcome,” he said, smirking at her. “Besides, if you were a bad kisser, I’d have made some excuse and sent you on your way before letting you know where I lived. Picking up strange women in Central Park is a good way to get murdered.”
She gaped at him. “And only murderers can be bad kissers, I take it? I suppose I’m glad you found my skills acceptable.”
Marcus stepped through the door, propping it open with his body and gesturing for her to walk through. As she passed by, she caught him subtly adjusting the bulge that filled the front of his trousers.
“More than acceptable,” he said, flushing when her eyes went to his hand at his crotch and her eyebrow shot up.
Evie took his hand and stepped close, leaning against his solid form. She threaded her fingers through his, amazed yet again at how thoroughly he stole her breath. He seemed to have stopped breathing as well, his mouth partway open and his gaze fixed on hers. She raked her fingernails up the side of his neck and pulled his head down. When their lips met again, she let herself savor the velvet softness of him and the stiff pressure of his erection against her belly. She pressed her hips harder against his, enjoying the way he moaned into her mouth.
She suddenly had the urge to tease him, to see how long she could draw out his need for her. It was the kind of thing she’d heard dragons would do to their partners, to increase the draw of the magic and the payoff when their partner finally found release. Her kind subsisted on the same magic, but the music was what drew it to them. That wasn’t to say she didn’t crave the intimate connection that sex provided. After all, there was a kind of sublime rhythm in making love that was as beautiful as any song she had ever sung.
She wondered whether Marcus had ever played an instrument. He had long, strong fingers that had already set her strings humming with pleasure. She pulled his hand to her breast, unclasped his fingers, and pressed his palm against the small mound of warm flesh. Her nipple ached for his touch, but he didn’t respond at first. Then, as though reacting to the steady pulse between her thighs, he brushed his fingertips over her stiff bud again. The pleasure vibrated through her so acutely she could almost hear the music of it. Again he stroked his fingers over her through her sheer top, teasing as gently as he might the strings of a guitar, coaxing from his instrument a soft, reverberating thrum.
The music came out as a soft sigh from her lips.
“I’d like to make you sing again, just for me,” Marcus murmured into her ear. His fingers found a slow rhythm over her breast, each pass causing vibrations of ecstasy to flow through her. She could only sigh again and nod.
Abruptly, the world tilted and she found herself cradled in his arms. He stepped the rest of the way through the door and kicked it closed behind him, mounting the stairs blindly as he bent his head to kiss her again. Moments later he crashed through another door on an upper landing, elbowed it shut and carried her across the room.
Evie opened her eyes when he finally pulled back from the kiss and set her down. She stood in a dimly lit and very Spartan studio apartment. The full-sized bed was neatly made and the kitchenette pristine. The only signs that the place was lived in were the books and papers strewn across the surface of a wooden table that appeared to serve as Marcus’s desk.
“You’re a student?” she asked.
His eyes clouded briefly. “For now.” He didn’t elaborate, but the dark tone carried with it a sense of helplessness that was at odds with his earlier eager lightheartedness.
Evie raised a hand and brushed it tenderly down his cheek. He had a secret that weighed heavily on his conscience. She was more convinced now that, regardless of their lack of a deeper connection, somehow she had chosen him for a reason.
“What would you like me to sing for you?”
His wicked grin returned and he stepped in close, crowding her backward until the backs of her legs hit the side of his bed.
“You’ll see,” he said. His hands came up and cupped the sides of her head, his mouth descending again, tongue darting between her lips in the sweetest, most urgent kiss yet. The fervor with which he consumed her set her heart racing and her hands groping, trying to find purchase on his sides. He pressed closer, one arm wrapping around her and urging her down to the bed, while his mouth descended to her throat and the bare tops of her small breasts, on display above the ruffled fabric of her blouse.
He tugged her laces loose and spread the fabric wide, tracing his lips down her sternum and pulling the blouse lower as he went. Evie laced her fingers through his thick hair, stroking as his tongue darted out to tease one pert nipple. He captured it in his mouth and sucked hard, the sharp sensation making her gasp and arch up off the mattress, pulling harder at his hair.
Marcus chuckled around the stiff, pink flesh. “That’s right, sing for me.”
“Oh!” she gasped louder when he cupped her other breast and tweaked her nipple.
“Christ, Evie, you’re destroying me. Do you have any idea how perfect you are?”
She really had no ideas whatsoever, at the moment. Her body was nothing more than a bundle of senses, experiencing every little teasing touch, the lush scent of his masculine musk mixed with the clean aroma of whatever shampoo he used. The small bit of awareness she managed to cling to outside of him was the whisper of the Wind, confirming again and again the truth of his desire and the incongruous rightness of her choice to be with him right now.
He pulled back and simply gazed down at her half-naked body, her blouse shoved down to expose her breasts. With a determined look, he grasped the top of it and pulled it farther making her yelp as she was briefly bound up in it when he tugged it down to her wrists. He pulled even farther, snagging the waist of her skirt and panties, peeling her clothing off until she was fully naked for him.
With a low curse, Marcus raked his gaze down her body and collapsed to his knees on the floor beside the bed. His eyes brimmed with fevered lust and he dug his fingertips into her thighs, sliding his hands higher to grip her hips and pull her toward him. Evie’s backside hit the edge of the bed and she wondered if he intended to pull her all the way into his lap, but he stopped and bent to press the most reverent of kisses against her navel.
The warm caress so close to her core caused her to quiver with anticipation. His mouth turned up at the corners and his eyes twinkled as though he sensed her eagerness. Sliding his hands back down, he slowly caressed, rubbing along the tops of her thighs, his fingertips grazing perilously close to her already wet folds with each pass. At the same time, his mouth drifted lower, tongue sweeping out and tickling wetly at the top of her dark triangle of hair.
Marcus slid his hands in another slow stroke up the insides of her legs, pushing them apart, then cupped the backs of her knees and separated them high and wide, spreading her open for him. Glancing up at her, he raised one eyebrow in silent query. Evie only responded with a languid smile, but that was all the acknowledgment he needed. Abruptly, he wrapped each arm around the tops of her thighs and bent his head, teasing her folds open at the same time as his tongue darted out, the warm, pink tip snaking through the slick furrow with deliberate care. Evie nearly came apart from that one lick.
With his mouth latched onto her, he allowed his hands to drift back up her torso to cup her breasts. His thumbs resumed their earlier rhythm, stroking in maddening circles and sweeps over her nipples in time with the steady strum of his tongue over her clit.
In Evie’s mind, a composition began to unfold, sweet notes p
laying for her alone with each note of pleasure he drew out of her. Soon he began to hum along with the beat of her pulse, the soft sounds vibrating over the slick, sensitive flesh of her core. Sounds erupted unbidden from her own throat, ringing sweet and clear through the small apartment. At first the sound was an incoherent collection of random syllables, but gradually converged into words of a song heard long ago in another era, another country. The first love song Evie had ever learned matched the rhythm of Marcus’s attention perfectly, but as he conducted her body’s reactions toward a growing crescendo, the true meaning of the song became bittersweet.
She kept singing even as her breath hitched and her body writhed, consumed by her climax. His mouth remained tight against her, tongue sliding more slowly over her quivering flesh and drawing out the orgasm for an endless moment, as if he were testing the strength of her lungs to see how long they could hold that final note together.
The last note came out as a breathy sigh, her body finally relaxing, but still tingling with remnants of pleasure. Marcus pressed a soft kiss on her inner thigh and looked up at her, licking his lips.
“Encore?” he said, grinning.
“Who are you?” Evie asked, incredulous. She sat up as he rose from the floor.
“Just a man who knows how to appreciate a creature as exquisite as you. You must have been lying to me when you said you weren’t an angel. Only angels have such beautiful voices.”
“Oh? And how many angels have you made sing like that?” She reached out and hooked her fingers into the waist of his jeans, tugging him close. His eyes darkened as he looked down at her.
“Now that I’ve met one in the flesh, I’m sure the rest weren’t the real thing. You’re too perfect to be human, I’m sure of it.”
