Darknight (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 2) (8 page)

Connor’s mother obviously had very good taste. Maybe it was her artist’s eye that had led her to choose these things, so different from the cheerful chaos of eclectic ornaments that decorated Sydney’s family’s Christmas tree.

By some unspoken agreement, Connor and I started hanging up the larger glass balls first, using them to create a sort of framework that we could fill in later with the smaller pieces. We worked without talking, focusing on the task at hand. Earlier he’d put on what sounded like a New Age holiday station, and the music played quietly in the background, mingling with the crackling of the fire.

As I moved I was far too conscious of him only a few feet away. We took care to maintain a safe distance between us, as if we both knew that a single touch would cause us to flare up hotter than the fire blazing in the hearth on the other side of the room.

I’d just reached up to hang one of those glittering mirrored ornaments from a high branch when a flicker of movement outside the window caught my eye. Lowering my hand, I squinted into the darkness outside. There it was again, a pale splotch against the black night. Then another, and another.

“It’s snowing!” I cried, and ran to the window, ornament still dangling from my fingers.

“You sound like a kid hoping for a snow day,” Connor said, hanging up the bell he held before coming to stand next to me and peer outside. “It’s just snow. We get a lot of it around here.”

“Well, we don’t in Jerome,” I replied, watching as the white flakes drifted down, swirling in a wind I couldn’t feel. It wasn’t entirely dark outside, of course; there were street lamps at regular intervals, and occasionally a car would go past, presumably running late to some Christmas Eve get-together or another. “It snows every once in a while, but it doesn’t last long. And Adam — that is, our weather-worker tries not to meddle with it too much. A couple of years ago, he tried to give us a white Yule, and the snow piled up so high it actually broke some basement windows.”

Connor’s lips twitched. “Well, it definitely snows here. Tomorrow morning you’ll get to see it piled up on every street corner.”

“You sound so jaded.”

“I was born here.” He shook his head. “Come on — we’re almost done with the tree. And then there are those tarts to eat.”

Truthfully, I couldn’t see as much as I would if it were daylight, so I let myself be persuaded to go back to the tree decorating. A few more minutes, and then it was pretty much done, except for the star to go on top.

That was a beautiful piece, made of cunningly twisted brass wire in delicate filigree designs, the sort of thing that looked as if it had been purchased from a local artisan. You didn’t see ornaments like that at your local big-box store. Connor had pulled the star out of the box earlier and set it aside. It was sitting on the coffee table, waiting to be set on the top of the tree.

We both reached for it. Maybe I could have pulled my hand back in time…maybe not. It was as if some part of me didn’t want to stop…wanted this to happen.

Our fingers touched. That same heat rushed over me, flooded every limb, every vein, sent the pulsing desire into raging life right in the center of me, into that emptiness I wanted filled. Filled with him.

For a second our eyes met. His seemed to glow almost as bright green as mine, and then we were falling to the rug, his weight on top of me, his mouth on mine. I opened to him, let him taste me, tasted the faint sweetness of cherry sauce and rosé wine on his tongue. My arms tightened around him, and I felt his hand drift up my waist, cup my breast, his touch so warm, even through my bra and camisole and sweater.

And then he paused, gaze locked on mine. His breath came harsh and ragged, just as it had that first night he had kissed me and awakened our bond. “Angela…are you sure?”

I didn’t have the power of speech in that moment. I only knew that I needed him, wanted him, and I didn’t have the strength to fight it anymore. Moving away from him then was as impossible as escaping the pull of a black hole.

Wordlessly, I nodded.

“Then I don’t want to do this here.” He let go of me, but only briefly, just so he could scoop me up in his arms and lift me from the floor, carry me up the stairs to his room.

It was colder there, away from the fire, but that didn’t matter, as the heat was still pounding in my veins, seeming to burn me from the inside. He set me down on the bed, and then he was on me again, mouth so sweet against mine, hands moving down my body so he could pull off the cardigan and lift the camisole over my head, unhook the fastener on the front of my bra.

His mouth closed on my nipple, and I cried out then, arching against him, feeling the heat and the need build even further. He reached down and fumbled with the heavy concho belt, trying to get it undone.

“I’m regretting buying you this thing,” he muttered.

I laughed and unerringly found the latch on the buckle, let the belt drop away and fall with a metallic thud to the rug-covered floor. He let out a little growl, and undid the button and zipper of my jeans, pulled them down, taking my underwear with them.

Then I was naked beneath him, no embarrassment at being completely exposed to him like this, nothing at all except the need to have him be as naked as I was. I reached up and grabbed his sweater and the T-shirt he wore underneath it, and pulled them over his head. His body was as beautiful as I’d imagined it must be, firm with muscle, stomach flat, skin smooth and warm-toned, a gift from that long-ago Navajo ancestor, perhaps.

But I didn’t have any more of a chance to admire him, because he lowered himself to me, trailed kisses down my neck, swirled his tongue around one nipple, then the other. I gasped, burying my hands in his heavy hair, holding him against me, even as I felt his fingers trace their way up the inside of my thigh, caressing me, coming closer, closer….

There
. A groan forced its way from my throat as he stroked me, touched the heat in my core and made it flare up higher, higher….

Even with the response he was able to evoke from my body, I hadn’t expected I would come that fast. But I did, wordlessly crying into the darkness as he gave me the release I’d been denied for so long.

And he didn’t stop there, but moved slowly down my stomach, kissing his way over my flesh, until his tongue found the dampness between my legs, kissed and suckled me there, as I whimpered and gasped and felt the pulsing need build in me again, heat rising, until yet another orgasm rocked its way through me. My fingers tightened in his hair, holding him there until the last little ripples had finally worked their way through to my fingers and toes.

Then I realized he was still wearing his jeans, which just seemed wrong, so I found his belt buckle and undid it, and went to the buttons of his Levi’s and more or less tore them free of their buttonholes. Just as he’d done with me, I grasped the waistband of his jeans and the boxer briefs he wore underneath and pulled them down as one. He sprang free, large and hard…
ready
.

I wrapped my fingers around him, felt the silky smoothness of his skin and the rigid strength of the flesh beneath. My hand moved up and down, and up and down again, and he moaned, letting me touch him, bring him to the brink.

“God, Angela, you’re killing me,” he groaned.

“That’s the last thing I want to do,” I whispered. I stopped, fingers still holding him, but not moving.

“I want to…be in you.”

“I know,” I replied. Beneath the waves of heat I felt the slightest shiver of apprehension. Or was that anticipation?

“And you’re — you’re ready?”

Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded.

He took in a breath, then shifted away from me. I let go of him, wondering what he was doing. The answer became clear as he yanked open the top drawer of his nightstand, pulled out a little foil packet.

I almost protested. After all, a witch didn’t really need that kind of protection; my Aunt Rachel had taught me a simple charm to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. It was something all young witches learned, although I hadn’t needed it up until this point.

But then I thought of all those young women Mary Mullen had mentioned, the ones who had been here before me…here in this very same bed. Probably Connor had been careful with them, too, but why take the risk? At least, not until he could get tested and we’d know for sure.

These thoughts flickered through my mind, oddly not killing the desire I felt for him, but only increasing it, as if I needed to forge this final bond with him so the specters of those girls who’d come before me could be banished forever. I waited, time seeming to hang, suspended, as he opened the packet and then slid the condom over his shaft.

He moved back toward me, slipped between my legs. Once there, though, he paused, staring down at me, as if to reassure himself that I wouldn’t stop him.

I knew I couldn’t do that, not now when we’d already come so far. This would change everything, and we would have to deal with that, but for now I wanted nothing else but Connor against me,
inside
me.

“Please,” I said.

The softest of sighs escaped his lips, and then I felt him moving against me, his tip pressing against me, and then into me. For the briefest second there was a flash of pain, and I shut my eyes. But then he was within me, moving slowly and steadily, pushing his length into my core, filling me. And the heat was there again, pulsing stronger and stronger, as we rocked together, breaths mingling, no sound at all except our ever-increasing gasps for air, driving into one another, taking our two halves and making them a whole.

Then at last the climax, rushing over us, pulling us along with it, two hapless swimmers struggling against a current we could not control. In that endless, weightless span of time, I felt the bond that had begun with a kiss finally fuse into a link I couldn’t begin to describe, only that I no longer knew where my soul ended and his began.

And within me the power of the
prima
flared up, a new strength glowing within me, bringing with it at last the knowledge that within me was the ability to do so many things I’d never even dreamed of.

I had come into my own.

Connor stared down into my face the way a man dying of thirst might gaze on the oasis of his salvation. He bent and kissed me, and the tenderness in that kiss was enough to make me want to weep.

“I love you, Angela,” he whispered.

“I love you, too, Connor,” I whispered back.

For in that moment I knew I did love him, that I’d loved him for longer than I wanted to admit.

What it all meant, I had no idea.

I only knew that there would be no turning back from this now.

W
e lay
in each other’s arms for a long time, savoring the warmth of one another’s flesh. Finally, though, I stirred and said, “Did that work up an appetite for some cranberry tarts?”

I saw his teeth flash in the darkness as he grinned. “For those…among other things. But I suppose we can go for tarts and then come back here for round two later.”

My body flared with heat at the thought. “That sounds perfect to me. But let me run over to the other room so I can get my jammies.”

“I like you better the way you are now.”

“It’s cold, Connor.” And it was; despite the building’s heat, I could practically feel the night’s chill seeping in around the window frame. “Besides, if I put my pajamas on now, that means you get to take them off later.”

“Point taken. Okay, I’m down with that.” He pushed himself off the bed and walked across the room to the dresser. Fine by me, as I got to see his well-muscled thighs and backside that way. All that hiking and skiing obviously had worked their own magic on his physique.

I could feel the damp heat stirring between my legs as I stared at him, but somehow I managed to force myself up and across to the guest room, where I pulled some clean underwear out of the duffle and then got into my flannel pajama bottoms and thermal top. After this I had a feeling I wouldn’t be sleeping in here ever again. And what would that be like, to close my eyes with Connor beside me, to know that I could reach out in the darkness and feel his warmth, his strength, just where I needed it?

When I came back to the master bedroom, he was wearing a pair of godawful plaid pajama pants and a Northern Pines University sweatshirt. He looked so adorable like that, with his hair mussed and his bare ankles showing under the too-short pajama bottoms, that I almost wanted to laugh.

I didn’t, though. “Ready for that tart?”

“You bet.” He flashed a smile at me. “And I have a surprise.”

“Haven’t we had enough surprises for tonight?”

“You’ll see.”

He reached out and wrapped his fingers around mine, and a tingling heat moved up my arm. Would it always be like this? Would every touch from him make me want to throw myself against him so he could fill me yet again?

In a way, I hoped not. It would be awfully hard to get anything done.

But for now I was all right with that unnerving warmth moving through me, the throbbing between my legs that told me I wasn’t done with him, not by a long shot.

We went downstairs hand in hand. Only when we reached the kitchen did he let go and reach for the refrigerator door. Opening it, he peered inside, then pulled out the tray of tarts I’d put in there to chill earlier. He wasn’t done there, though; he bent down and got something out of the door.

“Champagne?” I asked.

“Can you think of a better excuse to drink it?”

“Not really.”

He retrieved some rather dusty flutes from one of the higher shelves in a cupboard, then pulled out some plates for the tarts. I handed him a dish towel so he could wipe down the glasses, which clearly didn’t see much use.

The dirty dishes from dinner were still stacked next to the sink, but otherwise I hadn’t done too bad a job of tidying up. Although in the past it had sometimes irritated, now I was glad of the way my aunt had trained me to clean up as I went along so I wouldn’t be faced with a huge mess in the kitchen at the end of the evening.

Or in the morning,
I thought, eyeing the bottle of champagne. I had a feeling neither of us was going to be in the mood for dish washing tonight.

I transferred the tarts to the dishes and got out some forks, and then we both headed into the living room. The fire had banked down, smoldering into coals, but after setting the champagne and the glasses down on the coffee table, Connor placed some fresh wood in the hearth. The flames, newly energized, licked up against the logs, bringing some welcome warmth to the room.

Outside, the snow still fell. I wondered if it would do that all night.

“Want to make a wish?” he asked as he retrieved the champagne and began working the cork free with his thumbs.

“Is that what you’re supposed to do? Make a wish? The only times I’ve had champagne were at weddings and things like that.”

“You’ve never had anyone open a bottle of champagne, just for you?”

I shook my head.

“Well, I’m glad I’m the one to correct that oversight.” For a second his gaze met mine, and I shivered, remembering what it had felt like to have that beautifully sculpted mouth kissing my lips, making love to every inch of my body. “You don’t have to make a wish…it just feels like something we should do now.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking it over. I’d already had such an amazing wish granted, just being here with him like this, I wasn’t sure what else I could possibly ask for.

“Almost there,” he muttered, still working the cork with his thumbs. He angled the bottle slightly so the cork would shoot off toward the high ceiling, and not at a window or something else breakable.

Better think of something fast.
Just as the cork popped out of the bottle with a sharp
crack!
, I said, “I hope that you and I can always be as happy as we are right now.”

“That’s a good one. Now give me your glass fast, because this thing is about to spill over.”

Hurriedly I reached for one of the champagne flutes and handed it to him, and watched as he poured it about halfway full, pausing so the bubbles could flutter almost up to the rim of the glass before they subsided. He did the same with the second flute, then held it out toward me. We clinked them together, and he added, “May your wish come true.”

“It already has.”

He leaned down and pressed his lips against mine. Oh, how I wanted to sink down to the rug with him right then and there. But we’d have time for that soon enough. Besides, from what I recalled, that Navajo rug was fairly scratchy.

So I kissed him back, tasting him once again, and then we pulled apart and each took a sip of champagne. It was good, light and fizzy, practically dancing off my tongue.

“So do you have a habit of keeping champagne in your fridge, just in case?”

A quick, flashing grin. “No. I bought it because a friend of mine — a civilian friend — had just gotten engaged, and I was going to give it to him and his fiancée. But then they had a blow-out fight over something and called the whole thing off. I didn’t think a bottle of champagne was particularly appropriate, given the situation, so it’s just been sitting in there for the last six months.”

“Ouch,” I said, and hoped that didn’t mean the champagne was cursed or something.

“I thought that, too, but then it turned out she was cheating on him with one of her exes, so I supposed he dodged a bullet.” He waved a hand. “But enough of their drama. I don’t keep champagne around just so I can seduce women when I bring them up here to show them my etchings.”

“Oh, is that what you call it?”

“Very funny.” He swallowed some more champagne and then put down his glass, reaching for one of the plates with a tart on it. “Dessert?”

“Thank you.” I took the plate from him and settled myself down on the couch.

A second or two later, he sat next to me with his own helping of tart. He picked up his fork and took a bite, and his eyes shut, heavy black lashes startling against his cheeks. “Wow…that does taste like Christmas.”

“Since when are warlocks experts on Christmas?”

“When they grow up with it, I suppose.” His eyes opened, and his expression sobered. “It’s probably different for you there in Jerome. You McAllisters have your own little enclave — ”

“It’s not only witches in Jerome,” I pointed out.

“No, but about half the town is, and that makes a big difference. There are a lot of us Wilcoxes here in Flagstaff and all the way out to Winslow and so on, but you mix five hundred people into a pot with more than sixty thousand in it, and you get kind of lost. We do what we have to in order to blend in. Yes, we’re clannish, but so are a lot of tight-knit families. Most people don’t look all that closely.”

I took a bite of tart. It was good, the tartness of the cranberry topping contrasting and then mixing with the creamy sweetness of the cheesecake underneath. “I never would have thought of Wilcoxes blending in. I mean, you guys were always the boogeyman to me.”

He cracked a smile at that. “Do I look like the boogeyman?”

No, but your brother sometimes does.
Of course I didn’t voice that thought, instead remarking, “Connor, if I’d thought the boogeyman looked like you, I wouldn’t have done such a good job of making sure he was locked up tight in my closet when I went to bed.”

Before he said anything else, he ate some more of his own tart and washed it down with a swallow of champagne. “Believe it or not, we Wilcoxes don’t spend our days boiling babies and kicking puppies.”

His comment was so off-the-wall I just had to grin. “I didn’t really think you did.”

“Well, I just wanted to clear that up.”

All right, maybe there was no puppy-kicking or baby-boiling involved, but that didn’t mean the Wilcox clan didn’t engage in some bad juju if the situation warranted it. It was more like…we McAllisters set limits on our magic, both to be safe and to avoid inviting unwanted attention. Delving into the darker side of things had consequences we really didn’t want to face. The Wilcoxes didn’t seem to have the same concerns, although it did sound as if they didn’t want people scrutinizing their doings all too closely.

“I can’t excuse some of what we do,” he went on, appearing to correctly interpret my silence. “But we don’t all behave that way. In fact, most of us don’t.”

“So what do you do?” I asked. “I mean, if you’re not casting hexes or whatever.”

“We live our lives, same as you do. You’ll see, when you come with me tomorrow.”

“Come…with you?”

“To the party. There’s no reason you have to stay trapped in here any longer. That is, we’re….”

Well and truly bonded.
I hadn’t even stopped to think about it, but it was true. Now that Connor and I had been together, his clan would see it as me throwing my lot in with theirs. I no longer needed to be a prisoner in this apartment. The strange thing was, I didn’t feel any different. Oh, I felt different in the way that most young women must feel after they’ve lost their virginity. I’d stepped over a threshold. I wasn’t a girl anymore.

Even with that, though, I still felt like me…which meant I was severely disinclined to do anything that would make life easier for the Wilcoxes, no matter how much I cared for Connor. And I had to admit it puzzled me, because according to what I’d heard from my aunt, the
prima
must bond with her consort on her home territory, so her powers might remain connected to her own clan.

Figure it out later,
I told myself.
At least for the moment, you haven’t turned into the Wilcox equivalent of a Stepford wife.

Anyway, I had more pressing things on my mind. “You want me to come to the potluck? That just feels…weird.”

“You’ll have to meet them sometime,” he said, his voice coaxing. “Really, they don’t bite.”

I recalled the avaricious gleam in Damon’s eyes when he’d looked down at me when I was helpless on that makeshift altar a few days ago and thought,
Well,
some
of them, maybe
. “Okay,” I replied, then asked, tone wary, “Will your brother be there?”

“Yes. It’s always held at his house. The
primus
and all that.”

Who knows what look of terror must have flashed in my eyes. Something that must have been fairly obvious, because at once Connor set down his plate and took my free hand in one of his. “It’ll be all right,” he said. “He knows you’re with me now. He’s not going to try anything.”

“But to go to his
house
— ”

“Where there’ll be tons of people. I swear it will be fine. Don’t you trust me?”

Maybe I shouldn’t. After all, I didn’t know Connor all that well…we’d been around each other for only four days. But it was the frightened part of me thinking that, the McAllister girl who’d been taught that all the Wilcoxes were pure evil. It sounded as if it might be a bit more complicated than what I’d been told. And somewhere deep inside I knew I could trust Connor. The bond between was too strong, golden and glowing and pure. I could tell he had no agenda here. He only wanted me to meet his family.

I stared into his face, taking in the deep green eyes with their heavy fringe of lashes, the longish nose and high cheekbones, the beautiful mouth and strong chin. It was a face I loved very much, and the spirit and soul behind it even more.

“Yes, Connor,” I said. “I trust you.”

W
e finished
our champagne and dessert after that, growing drowsy and satisfied before the fire, with the Christmas tree glowing in the background. Sometime around one we deposited our empty plates and glasses in the kitchen and went back upstairs. Moving quietly and smoothly, in contrast to our frenzied coupling of earlier, we fell into bed together, pajamas falling in a heap on the floor as we pressed bare flesh against bare flesh, joining in a way that once again made me feel as if I no longer knew where he started and I began. And afterward we slept, twined in one another’s arms, breaths coming as one.

Pale morning light peeking through the blinds woke me. I blinked up at the ceiling, thinking of how I had awoken in this apartment just a few short days ago, and how much had changed in the intervening time. For there was Connor sprawled next to me, the white wintry daylight casting his perfect profile into sharp relief. I’d no longer have to sleep alone. He’d always be there next to me.

I saw his eyelids flutter, and he shifted, letting out a little groan as he stretched. “What time is it?” he asked.

There was a clock identical to the one in the guest bedroom on his nightstand. “Seven-fifteen. I’m sorry I woke you.”

He pushed himself to a sitting position and ran a hand through his hair, making various locks stand on end, and in the process making him look even more adorable. “No, it’s fine. I’m not a late riser. Besides, there’s something I want to show you.”