She grinned at him and shoved her palm against his chest, backing him up toward the daybed. “Starting now. Unless you’re just going to talk it to death.”
His thighs hit the edge of the mattress. He grabbed her and pulled her down with him. “You know me,” he breathed into her ear as he cupped her breast in one hand. He gave a little groan of pleasure/pain. “Can’t stop gabbing.”
And then there were no more words.
*****
“Well, at least he made it up the stairs,” Senior said. Kemble and the older members of the family gathered in the kitchen. Jane had gone home for the night. Lanyon and Tammy had gone to their rooms to do whatever it was they always did there. Play music and text friends, Kemble supposed.
“They’re up in her studio?” Michael asked. He was yawning on the couch behind the breakfast table. Drew cuddled on his lap, her arms around his neck.
His mother nodded. “What a relief.” She cast a look at her husband, whose eyes crinkled. He shrugged helplessly and shook his head, as much in wonder as anything else. Kemble was still shocked that Senior was just accepting this relationship when he was so rabid about incest.
“How long ‘til we know for sure?” Kemble asked. It was getting on toward midnight, and bed was sounding really good.
Tristram snorted. “I think they’re gonna be awhile.”
Maggie grinned. Michael chuckled and Drew shushed him, even as she blushed.
Kemble was embarrassed. Everyone else in the room had experienced the joy of finding true love that was going on upstairs for his little brother and sister. Hmm. Maybe he’d have to stop calling Devin his brother. Did brother-in-law trump brother? Complicated. At least she wouldn’t get a new name. He realized he’d begun to accept that this was really going to happen.
“Why don’t you all go on up to bed?” his mother said. “Michael, you and Drew can stay here tonight if you want. You can have the blue bedroom.”
“No way we’re going to bed,” Michael said, shaking his head. “I’m not going to miss the look on their faces when they find out we already know and we’re waiting for them in the kitchen.”
“What makes you think they’ll come down to the kitchen?”
“He’s a man, isn’t he?” Tristram chuckled. “Never seen a man who’s done a thorough job of making love to his woman who didn’t need a sandwich or something afterwards.”
“Got it in one,” Michael agreed. “Could be hours though. Want a game of poker while we wait? Drew, Maggie, you in?” He and Tris began to clear one end of the breakfast table. When Senior started helping, Michael held up a hand in protest. “Not you, Adapter. We’d be broke in no time.”
His mother got up. “Kemble, can you go pick up Jane? She’ll want to be here. And we’d better tell the children in a couple of hours. Wouldn’t want them to be surprised by all of this.”
“Children?” Drew chuckled. “Even Tammy’s nearly twenty, Mother.”
Poor Devin, Kemble thought. I hope you bring Keelan down with you. You don’t want to face the whole family alone.
*****
Devin had her down beside him on the narrow bed. Kee reached for his cock. The girth of it made her groan a little herself. As he bent his head to suckle her breast, she pulled the silky skin up over the hard shaft beneath and then slid it back down. She wasn’t sure which sensation was more erotic, him sucking her nipple or her working his cock, but the result was almost instantaneous combustion. She opened her legs, and Devin rolled on top of her, supported on his elbows, suckling first one breast and then the other. His skin was tanned and brown against her paleness in the soft glow of the little light. She felt the drop of wetness at the tip of his member and rubbed it down the vein on the underside. Devin’s hips jerked.
“God, Kee,” he mumbled into her right breast. He came up for air and kissed her throat.
She couldn’t help herself. She ran her hands around to his buttocks and kneaded the round bulges of muscle there. They were the only part of him that was pale. All that exercise to get strong enough to ride those monster waves gave Devin a great butt.
He grabbed his cock and rubbed the tip in the slickness at her entrance and then up over her sensitive spot. She sucked in air like she was dying. Sensation washed over her like water sloshing out of a bathtub.
“Dev, please.” She couldn’t muster any more.
“Want you to come first,” he muttered between gasps, continuing the rubbing motion.
She was going insane. “If you don’t do this right now, I’m going to….” She couldn’t think of any threat bad enough. Really, she just couldn’t think.
But she didn’t need to. Devin always knew what she was thinking. He positioned his cock at her entrance and eased himself in. That! That was what she wanted: to be filled with him. She arched her hips upward, taking him in. His hips thrust in return. She knew he couldn’t help himself because she couldn’t either. And then they were thrusting together in that counterpoint that came from so deep inside that she didn’t have to have experience, or even think about it at all. It just was.
She was filled and stretched and nothing had ever felt more right. He held her and kissed her as their loins banged together. They were up in the corner of the house where no one could hear them. It was so satisfying to shriek as her pleasure neared. He didn’t try to quiet her this time. His grunts were the bass notes to her treble.
When her body arched, all sense of the outside world left. She was the rain that lost itself in the waves and the waves themselves as they battered the cliffs. She was the dust that lifted in the wind and the wind too, as it screamed across the earth. The muscles in her loins gripped Devin’s shaft. She felt him spurt inside her and heard his yell. Colors exploded inside her head as if they came from Devin’s seed. Ultramarine blue, rose madder, cadmium orange, viridian green, raw sienna, yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, titanium white, all swirled together and cascaded over her.
Slowly, the outside world intruded. Rain beat against the windowpanes again. The break in the storms was over. She lay, gasping, with Devin still inside her, encircled by his strong arms. His skin was damp with sweat, his chest heaving against hers. She ran her hands quietly through his slightly too-long hair, not wanting to speak. Devin raised his head and his eyes were hooded and sleepy brown. Brown was a complicated color. More complicated that people thought. He kissed her, able to be gentle again now that the most urgent of the passion was assuaged.
“I wonder if it’s always like that,” he murmured. “I mean for everybody else.”
That had her curious. “So what was it like?”
He looked abashed. “Not great with words.”
“Not great with hugging either, but you seemed to do okay just now,” she murmured.
He gave a sleepy chuckle. “Okay. I can see I’m gonna be nagged every day of my life.”
“Probably,” she agreed. “I’ve already had lots of practice.” She gave him a look that said he wasn’t getting out of answering. He’d know what she meant. That was a good feeling.
He sobered. “It was like the biggest waves, I guess. All blue-green aquamarine, like when the sun’s behind them, smelling of salt and that ocean smell.” His gaze grew distant. He was seeing her and not seeing her. “You know. It smells like all life started there. The power of the wave just lifts you up and carries you along. Your blood sings with it. All you can do is hang on, ocean all around you, until finally it crashes in on you and there you are, tumbling over and over, trying to breathe. Then it ebbs away.” His eyes focused again. “What was it like for you?”
“Paint colors all swirling together.”
They thought about that for a moment while she put her lips to the notch in his neck where she could feel his heart beating beneath his damp skin.
“Maybe it is different for us,” he murmured.
“I love you, Dev.” She had to actually say it. Besides just showing him the painting, and making love to him. “And I don’t care whether it’
s right or not. I’ve spent my whole life being a good girl. I’m not going to do it anymore.”
He lifted his brows in reproach.
“I’m not saying I’m going to start robbing banks,” she protested. “But this felt right, what we did tonight. So I’m not going to care about what anybody says about it. And if we have to leave the family, then we will. Though that would hurt.”
He smiled into her eyes and nuzzled her lips with his nose. “I love when you’re so determined to be bad. You get this little crease in your forehead, and your lips practically disappear you hold them so tight.”
“You act like you’ve seen that before,” she accused. What did he mean? This was the New Her. She’d transformed herself.
“Just a few times.” Was that sarcasm in his voice? “Like the time you roped me into helping you paint Tris and Kemble’s old tree house pink and orange.”
“Magenta and pumpkin,” she corrected.
“They were pretty pissed, even though they were past the age of using it.” He chuckled in remembrance. “And there was the time you cut Drew’s prom dress off so it was short enough for you, before she’d worn it. You’ve got to admit that was bad.”
Kee felt herself begin to blush. “Just kid stuff….” She mustered a protest. “I’ve been an angel about not getting to study in Paris, and not being able to date or go to clubs.”
“You didn’t really want to go to Paris. And you don’t like clubs.” She was about to protest that those considerations were beside the point, but he shushed her with a finger to her lips. “And when you walked into my room the other night with a bottle of tequila in one hand and a box of condoms you had stolen from Kemble.…” His voice was relentless.
She blushed. “That was after my resolution not to be a good girl anymore.”
“I’ll bet Maggie saw that look when you talked about coming after me.” There was a gleam of mischief in his eyes.
Wasn’t he even listening to her? That had been after her resolution too. “Is this what it’s going to be like loving someone who’s known you since you were nine? I might not be up to this.”
He sobered and his eyes went soft. “You aren’t a good girl or a bad girl, you’re just Kee. Impulsive. Alive. Like the way you dress. All the colors.”
“I don’t have Drew’s style.” She couldn’t help that her face squinched up a little.
“Or her lazy way of looking at people as though they should be someone else,” Devin said. That was surprisingly astute of him, actually. Sometimes Drew did look like that. “You’re just you, Kee. And I love the way you dress. You would have noticed how much I liked it, if you’d been looking at me recently.”
“I’ve been looking at you, believe me.”
“Not really. Or you’d have noticed my almost constant hard-on.”
Kee smiled and blushed at the same time. “Guess girls have it easier in that department.”
But he wasn’t listening again. He was kissing her chin. And her cheek. And nibbling her ear. She was having trouble catching her breath. The slow circle of sensation started between her legs. It felt like the colors of life swirling inside her. Yeah. She was who she was. And that would inform her art as well. In some ways it felt like Devin had given her that realization. And in some ways she’d grabbed for it, and that was why she deserved Devin.
“We should go down and wake the Parents,” she said halfheartedly.
“I can’t make it,” Devin said, his voice ragged. “I need you again, Kee. So much.”
“Funny,” she whispered. “Just what I was thinking.”
*****
Devin took Kee’s hand as he led her toward the stairs. They’d sneaked down to her room for a quick shower that had turned out to be not so quick. It was getting light.
He glanced back and saw her getting nervous.
“They’re fast asleep,” he reassured her. “And after four times.…”
“Five for me. You forgot the time you kissed me until I came.” Her eyes darted down toward her lovely, precious mound. Her smile was sly.
“Okay.” His grin probably looked self-satisfied. He felt pretty satisfied all around. Really satisfied. As in “all’s right with the world.” “After five times, I’m starved. I’ll face them better with something in my belly.”
Uh, oh. They could hear the clatter of dishes and the murmur of conversation. The smell of toast and bacon drifted up the stairs. At the bottom they both saw the light in the kitchen. He looked to Kee, whose expression was as horrified as he felt.
“You might not get that breakfast first,” she whispered.
He straightened. What was he thinking? His job was to protect Kee. Even if he had to protect her from her own family. He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. Huh. That was a hug. And it came naturally. “Okay. No breakfast,” he said, putting strength into his voice. Enough for two. “If Brian wants us to leave, we will. But we owe it to them to tell them, so it’s good they’re all in there.”
“I just hope Father doesn’t yell.”
“If he does, he’ll be yelling at me, I promise.”
Devin wished he’d put on a shirt. Jeans and flip-flops didn’t seem to go with the pending Big Announcement. Kee looked lovely, of course. She had on a deep purple silk robe over a matching little top with string straps and short pajama-pant things. It made her pale skin glow. Could you tell that she’d been well and truly loved? He kinda hoped you couldn’t.
He pulled her in against his side. She’d need that hug for support. They walked into the kitchen like they were walking the plank. All movement stopped. Brian and Brina looked up from the table. Michael and Drew, Tris and Maggie sat on tall stools at the bar. Jane and Tammy were loading plates. Lanyon was first in line, his plate already heaped. Kemble was turning as the fridge door closed, holding a huge pitcher of orange juice.
Devin and Kee stood stiffly in the archway.
“Come in, you two. Do you want breakfast?” Brina asked. She was smiling some secret little smile. Devin didn’t know whether to be encouraged or not. “Devin, you look famished.”
“Told you so,” Michael said. He and Tris did a high five behind Drew’s back.
Devin glanced over to Brian. He must not be able to see what Devin and Kee had done on their faces, or he’d be scowling. Or maybe he hadn’t yet taken in the fact that Devin had his arm around Kee’s shoulders.
“Not just yet,” Devin answered. His voice came out a little hoarse. He cleared his throat. “Kee and I have something to tell you.”
“You mean about you two being a couple?” Tammy asked blithely. “We all knew that.”
“You did not,” Lanyon accused. “You shrieked when Mom told us.” He brought his plate to the intimate table that seated six.
Devin blinked and looked around. Eleven expectant faces looked back. “If you want us to go, we’ll go,” he said stiffly.
“But we’re going together,” Kee added. Devin looked down at her, just at the moment she looked up. What he saw in her eyes made his own well up.
Get hold of yourself, he commanded. It wouldn't do to show weakness now. He took a breath and faced them.
“Why would we want you to go?” Brian asked sternly. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous out there? And since you look a little less fragile, it’s time to tell you in no uncertain terms that I’ll have no more chasing after Talismans alone.” He looked around at his family, captain-of-his-ship attitude coming off him in waves. “Any of you. This family sticks together.”
Devin blinked. A lecture … about going to Pendragon’s house?
“I, uh, don’t think you understand.” He cleared his throat again. “Kee and I are going to get married.”
“Well, of course you are,” Brina said, standing up and bustling over to them. “I’m so, so happy for both of you.”
And then they were surrounded. Everyone was talking at once. Tris clapped Devin on the back. “Always knew you two were made for each other.”
“Yeah,
right,” Michael said, smirking.
“Well, not like that, exactly.” Tris shrugged and grinned.
The women buzzed around Kee. “We’ll design a wedding dress you won’t believe,” Drew said. “Just a ceremony in the garden. We’ll wait until the weather’s nice of course.”
“I’m going to be a bridesmaid,” Tammy said with satisfaction. “Again.”
“Tamsen Tremaine, professional bridesmaid,” Lanyon said, poking Tammy.
“Hush, stupid. What do you know?” Tammy slapped her brother’s hand away.
Somehow Devin and Kee were separated. Devin found himself facing Brian. He swallowed. “I know how you feel about … about sex with women in a man’s family.”
“You mean incest?” Brian put his hand on Devin’s shoulder. “You aren’t brother and sister. And what’s bad is when powerful men take advantage of little girls. Keelan is your equal.”
Yeah. He got the difference. But he was still stunned that Brian accepted all this. “After all you’ve done for me, I should have asked your permission.”
Brian shook his head. Was that a suppressed grin? “When you had no intention of taking no for an answer? I’ve never been a fan of wasting time.”
Devin raised his chin. “You’re right. I mean to have her whether you allow it or not. I’m glad I didn’t have to punch you out for yelling at her though.”
Brian broke into a laugh. “Well, I guess I want someone for her who’s just that protective.” He sobered. “And someone for you who can love you like she can.” He lowered his voice. “Keelan has always been special to me. Don’t you dare hurt her. Much as I love you, I would have to kick your butt.”
“She’s special to me too, Brian.”
“Of course.” He shrugged. He cast a glance over to Brina. “She’s your destiny.”
Everybody found a place to eat. Kemble and Jane ended up standing at the island, but nobody wanted to move into the big dining room. Plates were passed and everyone wanted to know when Devin and Kee knew for sure.
Waiting for Magic Page 31
