And now just thinking about it was distracting MaLeila from concluding the essay she needed to turn in by midnight. She though getting some distance from him and finishing the essay at Marcel’s apartment would help, but inevitably her thoughts continued to wander.
“It can’t be that challenging,” Marcel said as he came from the back of the apartment in slacks and a button shirt that was only halfway buttoned.
“No,” MaLeila replied. “Why do you ask?”
“Because when you scrunch up your face like that, it means you’re concentrating really hard on something,” Marcel said as he sat next to her on the floor in front of the couch. “So if it’s not school work, what’s on your mind?”
MaLeila shook her head.
“Nothing,” MaLeila said reaching for her laptop.
Marcel closed the laptop before MaLeila could reach it and moved it onto the couch.
“Marcel. Give it back. I need to turn in this essay.”
“Not for four more hours. A short break won’t hurt.”
“A short break to do what?” MaLeila asked.
Marcel didn’t leave her waiting long for the answer. He put his mouth against hers and pulled her bottom lip into his mouth, gently sucking on it and letting it go before taking her top lip and doing the same. Every time he let go of her lip, MaLeila lost some of her breath in anticipation of him taking her lips again and by the time he had alternated between her lips twice more, her heart was racing and she was panting some with the effort of trying to gain the breath she lost every time he pulled his lips away from hers. Then he put his entire mouth on hers and guided MaLeila to lie on the floor with his body hoovering over her. As they continued to kiss, he reached a hand up to grab one of her breasts through her shirt and began to massage it. MaLeila moaned against Marcel’s lips and then reached behind him and grabbed his ass, pushing him towards her so that their hips were aligned against each other’s and most of his body was flush against hers. She needed to experience him with all her physical senses. So she pulled her lips away from his and leaned up on her elbows to run kisses along his jaw and down his neck which allowed her to simultaneously taste his skin, hear the way he moaned her name, feel the vibration of the basal tone of his voice, and smell the scent of him which reminded her of the smell of oak in the spring.
Her elbows began to ache after a while, so MaLeila let herself fall back to the carpet. She expected Marcel to lean down to kiss her again, but instead he continued to hover over her and stare. MaLeila felt like he might be trying to devour her with his blue eyes and in that moment, she thought he might certainly be able to. Heat rose to her cheeks and she looked away from him deciding to occupy herself with counting the buttons on his shirt. As she did so, she noticed the gold chain he always wore around his neck had fallen out his shirt and she saw the pendant for the first time.
“What’s this?” MaLeila asked, touching the pendant that looked like a golden sun with images carved inside.
“Family crest. All magic families, no matter how small have one.”
MaLeila knew that. She’d seen Irvin’s and not only had he explained what they were, but what his family’s crest meant. She started to ask Marcel more specific questions about his when he suddenly asked, “You’re on spring break next week right?”
MaLeila nodded.
“Then let’s take a vacation. Where do you want to go?”
MaLeila lifted herself back up on her elbows and asked, “Are you serious?”
“Why not?” Marcel asked. “You can turn in your essay tonight and we can get ready to leave tomorrow.”
“I can’t just up and leave like that,” MaLeila protested.
“Why not? It’s not like we’re leaving the country. The U.S. is a big place. Florida’s right beneath us. We can fly into Miami or we can take a road trip and fly back. Ever been there?” Marcel asked.
“No,” MaLeila admitted.
“Then let’s go,” Marcel said as he moved off her and helped her sit up again.
“What about the council?”
“What about them?”
“The reason you’re even over here is to investigate a sorceress who’s managed to escape their registry,” MaLeila pointed out.
“A sorceress who hasn’t shown her face since you saw her,” Marcel added. “And since when do you care about what the council thinks?”
“I don’t, but you work for them.”
Marcel shrugged. “I work for them, that doesn’t mean they can run my personal life.”
MaLeila huffed. “I tried telling them that a couple of years ago. They didn’t agree.”
“Then fuck ‘em.”
MaLeila sighed, all her protests defeated. Then she asked slowly, “Just the two of us.”
Marcel laughed and leaned down to peck her on the lips. He leaned back up and asked, “Is that what you’re worried about? Relax. If I were that eager to have my way with you, I would have done it right here in my apartment already.”
MaLeila grabbed her laptop from the couch and punched him in the arm at the same time while trying not to let him see her blush. Eventually he convinced her to go on a weekend trip to a beach not more than a few hours’ drive away in Florida. They left just as the sun was rising and probably would have left sooner if she hadn’t had to argue against Bastet’s and Merrick’s protests. In the end, she told them there was little they could do since she was eighteen with her own money, not to mention she was one of the most powerful living sorceresses though she rarely admitted it. Both Bastet and Merrick grudgingly agreed to let her be after that. Devdan wasn’t home when MaLeila left. It was hard to know whether he wouldn’t have cared or would have protested more than Bastet and Merrick. Whichever way he would have acted, MaLeila was glad that he hadn’t been there so Marcel wouldn’t be witness to one of their arguments, which would have only been exacerbated by the awkward push and pull between them after their kiss.
While MaLeila had been apprehensive about going on a vacation at all, not sure how much good being away from home would help her, the distance did make it easier to breathe.
“See,” Marcel said while at a nearby mall for the purpose of MaLeila buying a few bikinis and killing time until they could check in to their hotel. “I knew a change of scenery would do you some good.”
It wasn’t just the change of scenery. It was being away from Devdan, the source of all her problems lately. Not worrying about having to go home and face him, wondering if he would ignore her existence because he was angry with her or, lately, whether he’d kiss her again and whether she would let him do more than just kiss her the next time. Comparatively, MaLeila rather they be fighting off magic users every day like they were back when she first started high school. At least back then she and Devdan, along with Bastet, were so focused on the next threat there was no time to worry about or contemplate the complexities of their relationship. For the first time in a while, MaLeila felt normal.
“You know,” MaLeila said Sunday as they were preparing to go to the beach again, “I was thinking we could extend our vacation.”
“Were you?” Marcel asked leaning against the wall as he watched her in front of the mirror as she adjusted the top to her bikini.
“Yeah,” MaLeila muttered as she tried to adjust the top so her breasts didn’t look like they were about to pop out the garment. “It’s been nice. I was thinking we could stay until Wednesday or so. Maybe even Friday.”
“Would your brother, Bastet, and Devdan be comfortable with you staying away that long?”
MaLeila shrugged. “Bastet won’t care too much unless I call her. Once she gives her okay, she sticks to it. Merrick will get over it. Devdan… I’ll deal with him when I get back.”
Marcel laughed. “He’s that bad?”
“Yes. He used to come and go as he pleased, most of the time without telling anyone he was going either, for up to months at a time. But when I want to go somewhere outside the city limits, he throws a fit. Well, a fit for Devda
n. His fits usually involve him being sarcastic and ignoring me. He probably gave Bastet a time for letting me leave without him knowing too. I swear, he makes absolutely no sense.”
“Actually,” Marcel said. “It does.”
MaLeila turned to look at Marcel. “It does?”
Marcel nodded and walked past her to go sit on the bed.
“Okay. You’re going to have to explain that one to me.”
“Well, Devdan was a slave before, right?”
“Yes,” MaLeila said.
“Then it’s because he’s afraid you’ll leave and he won’t be able to find you again. Happened all the time back then. Slaves ran away, got sold, and there was no way to track them down. Most of them never saw their families again. It’s safe to assume when Claude got him, he was sold away from whatever family he had and he never could track them down. Sure he leaves all the time, but you know he’s coming back and he knows where to find you. When you leave, he can’t be so sure because he probably saw plenty of people leave and promise they would come back or they’d meet again, but they never did. You should be glad he cares about you that much,” Marcel explained.
MaLeila blinked and then opened and closed her mouth a few times before saying, “That actually makes a lot of sense.”
Marcel didn’t reply, allowing her to mull over his words in her head some more. Then she groaned and said, “I can’t read his mind. I have a lot of powers but that’s not one of them, not yet anyway. I can’t even ever imagine what he’s been through because he won’t talk about it. He hardly ever mentions his mother. How was I supposed to figure that out? Why didn’t he just tell me?”
“Because he didn’t want you to think any less of him. Contrary to what you may think, I get the feeling he cares a lot about what you think of him. Him acting like he doesn’t care is his way of hiding it.”
“Ugh,” MaLeila said both in reference to Devdan and to her bikini top. Then she said, “I’ve known that man for years. How did you figure that out and you’ve barely spoken to him twice.”
“Brush up on your history of American Slavery. That will help.”
“I like to think that I know a lot more about it than other people. Bastet is always telling me about it, especially when the movies and shows come out. She’s always saying how it was so much worse than what they show on television and that she was lucky Claude got her out when he did.”
“Then maybe I should put it this way. Instead of looking at it as something that happened way in the past, keep in mind that Devdan lived through it. He may not have been a slave for a long time, but it did help shape him.”
MaLeila nodded, deciding to keep it in mind the next time she got a chance to talk to Devdan. She’d never be able to outright address it, but she would at least know how to better deal with him when he was acting in a way that she thought was unreasonable.
MaLeila groaned at the top of her bikini and threw her hands down.
“I give up. Whatever. I don’t know if it’s too small or it’s made like this,” she said in reference to the way the material pushed on her breasts, managing to give her a cleavage even though she only had a B-cup.
Marcel laughed and came up behind her in the mirror, wrapping his arms around her waist while saying, “I think it looks nice. Great view if you ask me.”
MaLeila groaned, hoping her face didn’t look as hot as it felt. She grabbed his arms and pulled them from around her.
“Alright. I’m putting the other one on,” she said.
Marcel wrapped his arms back around her and pulled him to her. “No. Leave it on.”
“I’m not trying to give you any ideas.”
Marcel laughed in her neck, the vibrations traveling down MaLeila’s spine and starting to make her hot for reasons other than being embarrassed.
“You mean any more ideas than I already have,” Marcel said kissing her cheek over and over again until MaLeila finally turned her head to her right to meet his lips.
As they kissed, Marcel caressed the bare skin of her abdomen, moved his hands down her sides until they touched the skin of her thighs just below the boy shorts of her bikini, then moved them back up her sides and to her abdomen again.
MaLeila pulled her lips away from his some making a humming sound as his caresses continued to send delightful shocks to her nerves. She opened her eyes half-lidded and said, “Don’t we have to get going? So we can get a good spot before everyone gets to the beach?”
“You gave me other ideas,” Marcel said and closed the small gap MaLeila had created again.
His hands went down her body and then back up again, this time going higher until they rested on her breasts. He gently squeezed them at first, then harder until he was massaging them through her bikini. MaLeila made a quiet squealing sound before pulling her lips away from Marcel’s and sucking in a gasp. The resulting sensations from Marcel’s hands made MaLeila’s legs begin to feel unsteady and slowly she felt the return of an ache she had begun to get well acquainted with in the last few weeks from just Marcel kissing her and touching her through her clothes. When Marcel had joked that she had nothing to worry about when it came to him having his way with her while they were away, it wasn’t him MaLeila was worried about. She was worried about herself, because the sensations and aches that Marcel made her feel were new, made her feel excited in a way she had never felt before and desperately made her want to let him relieve the ache he caused.
At home when she started to feel like this, she could stop him and tell him that it was late and she needed to go home so no one worried about where she was or that she had a lot of homework to do and he needed to stop distracting her. But on vacation in their own hotel room, with nowhere they really had to go, there was nothing to bring her back to reality or remind her of all the reasons they shouldn’t go any further. Away from everyone and everything else, it was just her and Marcel and how he made her feel, how much better he could possibly make her feel if she let him, and that was all that mattered.
The left strap of her top fell off her shoulder and the more Marcel massaged, the more the fabric covering her breast slipped from his grasp until it slipped completely, leaving her entire breast exposed to him. He pinched her nipple, and MaLeila tossed her head back against his chest and moaned, the tight ache between her legs getting worse. She pressed her thighs together to help relieve the ache, but when she opened them again, the ache had only gotten worse. Or maybe it was because her other breast was now uncovered and Marcel was pinching and squeezing that one too. He stopped his ministrations and turned her to face him. As soon as she was facing him, their lips were upon each other’s, his hands cupping her butt, her hands on the back of his neck and head to push him closer to her. Then he hoisted her up and carried her to the bed. The process of lying her down on the bed, disconnected their bodies from each other and MaLeila promptly moved her hands to his butt and pushed his hips against pelvic region.
“Oh God,” she moaned when she felt the hard bulge in his trunks against her covered heat. “Marcel.”
He peppered kisses all over her face and down her neck while using both hands to grab either side of her butt and grind her against him. MaLeila balled her fist up in his shirt and arched her back. While doing so, she got tired of tugging on his cotton tunic and slid her hands under his shirt to feel the muscles in his back. It wasn’t enough, so she started to lift the hem of his shirt, exposing the taut muscles of his stomach when two things happened simultaneously. First, he stopped kissing her face and slid down her body until he had her entire nipple and as much of her breasts as he could fit in his mouth. Second, music from her phone began to play.
She reached out a hand to the nightstand next to them to grab it, only to gasp and arch herself into Marcel at the jolt that went straight to the tight ache in her pelvic region resulting from Marcel sucking hard on her nipple.
“Let it go,” he demanded against her breast.
“That’s,” MaLeila’s gasped again as he sucked again.
Then she took in a breath and managed to pant, “That’s Bastet’s ringtone. She’d only call if it was really important. I have to… I have to… Marcel!”
His name came out in a loud gasp—partly from tying to get his attention; partly from the ache in her pelvic region reaching its peak causing her to first go taut before it released and caused her hot body to go languid and tremble with spasms from the resulting orgasm.
When it over, she lay back on the bed under Marcel, feeling like she light and heavy at the same time as she looked at him through the haze of her euphoria.
“Fuck,” she gasped, not caring about the smug satisfied smile on his face that normally annoyed her.
Marcel’s response was to kiss her lips again. Then he purred in her ear, “Now aren’t you glad you didn’t answer it.”
MaLeila tried to answer him with her next breath, but only succeeded in exhaling heavily again.
“If you thought that was something, then you’ll have no words for what I plan to do with you next,” he said, beginning to kiss her neck again.
MaLeila felt the ache that had only moments ago been relieved begin to return, feeling as though Marcel’s lips were directly kissing and agitating the ache between her legs rather than her neck.
Music played from her phone again. And this time MaLeila managed to somewhat push him away and scoot back to grab her phone.
“I told you I needed to answer it,” MaLeila said still panting. She tried and failed to get her breathing back to normal before answering. “What happened?”
If Bastet noticed her odd breathing, she must not have cared because she said promptly, “Are you near a television?”
“Yeah,” MaLeila said looking around the room for the remote to the television in front of the bed.
“Turn to the news right now.”
Bastet never gave MaLeila orders and because she never did, MaLeila pushed Marcel all the way off her, much to his disappointment, and turned on the television. It took her a while to find a news station, but when she did, her jaw dropped.
The Immortal Queen Tsubame: Awakening Page 9
