Forbidden Magic (11 page)

“Ram?” Ginny caught his hand.

Sparks exploded between their joined hands.

She jerked her hand back, looked down.

Ram followed her gaze and saw several black marks on her skin. Rage blasted through him.

He’d hurt her. Hurt the woman that had listened to him as he spilled his putrid guts, then took him in her arms and held him. Went to sleep curled up against his chest with total trust.

She’d trusted him, and he’d paid her back in pain. He was so fucking worthless. Furious, he snapped out, “I have to go.” He threw his legs over the side of the bed.

“Running away, Ram? Guess you’re as much a coward as Shayla.” He froze on the edge of the bed. He was somewhere between wanting to turn on her and spit out a vile retort and heading straight for the door without a word or a glance. But shit, he couldn’t do either. Her words—her accusation—was making its way down from his eardrums into his very soul. Complicating it all, her sleep-warmed scent flooded his senses. Clutching the edge of the sheet-covered mattress, he said roughly, “I don’t want to hurt you. That’s why I have to go.”

“You don’t have to do this alone.” Her warm hand settled on his shoulder. “You came to me in my worst moment this morning and gave me hope. No one has ever beaten my father before, but you did.”

“I didn’t beat him, Ginny. You still suffered.” Each second of her pain was imprinted on his mind. Once again, he lamented that he hadn’t had the ability to take her pain and bear it for her.

“You were
there
, Ram,” she told him. “Let me be here for you now. Let me help you.” Help him? Didn’t she get it? “Ginny, look at me. I’m racked with a craving for bloodlust. If a witch walked in this room right now with a bloody nose, I’d lose it and kill her. I was dreaming of killing a witch.” He forced the words out. “And right now, if I touch you,” he said with a grimace, looking down at his hands gripping the mattress, “I’ll burn you.”

“So? I’ll heal.” She shifted closer to him, her thighs pressing to his side as she stared at him.

“Sex helps the cravings, right?”

Hot shafts of desire spiked through him. Women wanted him, but it was always for what he could give them. No one touched him with only the goal of easing him. Especially with the risk of getting burned. His chest ached at her offer. Lifting his gaze to her face, he saw the thick emotion churning within the hazel depths of her eyes. She cared. Too much. He was going to hurt her one way or another, either burning her skin or breaking her heart. “No amount of relief or pleasure is worth your pain.”

She straightened, folding her arms beneath her breasts, her expression turning fierce. “You’re worth any price. I’ll be gone, but you will be here, and you have to survive, Ram. Live on. Carry the memory of us, of the short time we had together and what you meant to me, how damned much you meant to me…” She sucked in a breath. “Because I won’t. He’ll take every goddamned feeling I ever had for you.”

His chest felt like he’d been stabbed with a red-hot pole. “Damn it, Ginny. There has to be some way to stop him!”

“There’s not. Nothing stops him. But you have a chance.”

“I’m not going after Shayla.” He had told her that earlier. He hated talking about the soul mirror he didn’t want, while what he and Ginny had between them was ending before it had a chance to begin.

“Yes you are. Not now, not tonight. Because this is our time. My time.” Uncrossing her arms, she lifted her hands to his shoulders. “I get one chance at caring, at experiencing this kind of love. I’m going to live every second, feel every sensation, each scent and taste.”

“Love?” The word branded his brain and thrust it into neutral. She couldn’t love him.

Could she?

Her face shadowed. “I know you don’t love me. I’m not your soul mirror. But for me…” A pool of raw honesty filled her gaze. “It’s been you since I met you. And that’s enough.” She looked away, the lines of her face softening with sadness. “It’s all I’ll ever have.” Deep in Ram, the need to grab her to him, hold her tight and protect her with every last breath in his body clawed to be free. She was his. The most basic part of him was demanding the right to claim her.

But she wasn’t his to claim. Ram had understood since the day he’d attacked that young witch that he had no right to love. To be loved. His grandfather had warned him not to let his emotions rule him.

Ever.

Or he’d lose control of the dark side of himself. Just like he’d lost control that day he’d chased Britney.

Ginny? She was all-the-fuck-over his emotions. If he loosened the reins, if he touched her again, tasted her, breathed her in…

And then she left him by ascending?

He would crack. Break. Become a monster of epic proportions. It would destroy him.

“I can’t,” he said stubbornly.

Determination firmed up her expression and she turned back to him. She leaned close, brushing her fabric-covered breasts across his back, her breath fanning his neck. “Can’t what?

Care for me?”

Every movement sent shards of pleasure right down his spine. He clenched his jaw, fighting his body.

“Or have sex with me?” she asked in that breathy voice right into his ear.

His cock jerked, his balls squeezed. Ram whipped his head around. “Not happening,” he ground out. “I can feel the electrical buildup in me getting stronger. I’m not going to use my hands on you and cause you even one second of pain.”

She dropped her hands down his back, then slid them around his sides to his abdomen.

His muscles jumped and twitched beneath her touch.

She put her mouth to his ear. “That’s not a problem. Because you’re not in control here, I am.

You keep your hands right there on the edge of the mattress.” She trailed a kiss down the side of his neck.

While her hands slid down his stomach.

He couldn’t touch her to stop her. “I don’t have sex this way.” He stayed in control. Always.

No emotion. No vulnerability. He surrendered nothing when he had sex.

She undid the button on his pants. Lifting her lips from his shoulder, she looked into his eyes.

“With me, you do. You’re safe with me, Ram. Free to let someone else be in control so you can just feel.” Sliding her hand into his pants, she traced the head of his cock.

His body bowed from the fiery sensation of her gentle touch. And her powerful words.

She stared into his eyes. “Uh uh. No moving unless I tell you.” Color darkened her face.

“You’re mine for a little while. We’re going to make memories together, and you are going to hold onto them for both of us, forever.” She shoved his pants aside and closed her fingers around his shaft, her thumb gliding over the tip. “Say it, Ram. Say you belong to me for this moment in time.”

His head spun from her touch.

And her demands. Her sheer confidence in what her touch was doing to him. He could see it in her eyes—they were clearing to a sharp green.

Gripping the edge of the bed, he ground out, “No.” Struggling to hold on to himself, to keep her from ripping him open and releasing all the darkest parts of him that he kept ruthlessly locked down.

She hissed low in her throat. “You will.”

Damn that was hot. Ram fought not to push his cock deeper into her hand. Fought to remember he could hurt her. And she could destroy him.

She took her hand away, got off the bed, and stood in front of him.

He should get up, leave, put an end to this.

Protect himself. And her
.

But he couldn’t look away from her. He sat transfixed, watching as she grasped the edge of her shirt and pulled it up. He sucked in a breath as he watched her belly revealed, her ribs, then her breasts.

Dropping the shirt, she shook out her hair, the long strands falling around her like midnight.

Clad only in her black panties, she was a vision.

A primal need to claim her roared over him. The battle between the woman he wanted, needed, craved, and the fear that he could only be worthy and whole if he stayed in control. Cold and remote. Distant.

But if he got her to bend to his will, his way. Seduce her to his will. Then he’d be in control.

Focusing on his goal, he said, “Come here, Ginny. I can’t touch you, but I can taste you.” Oh hell yeah. He didn’t need his hands, he’d use his tongue on her mouth, her nipples, down her belly to the lush place between her thighs.

She drew her hands up her thighs, followed the curve of her hips, trailed up her sides until she cupped her breasts. Lifted them. “Taste these?”

He zeroed in on her swollen, ripe nipples. His heart pounded. He could do this. “Yes.”

“No.”

He jerked his gaze up and narrowed his eyes. She was challenging him, fighting him for dominance. And something much deeper—his heart.

He couldn’t use his hands. Couldn’t touch and stroke her into a frenzy of need that made her blindly desperate for him. “You’re pushing me, little angel.” She brushed her thumbs over her nipples. “Damn right. It’s your turn to submit. To trust me.” He lunged up. “Ginny.” His voice came out a low, thick growl. Every fiber of his being wanted to sweep her up, lay her down and teach her the penalty for taunting him. Make her beg with need, then scream with pleasure.

She didn’t even flinch, but stared back at him while releasing her breasts. Then she began sliding her hands down her belly. To the edge of those panties. “You’re strong enough to do this, Ram. Trust me now, then trust yourself to handle it when I’m gone.” She knew. Knew him right to his deepest fears. No one else knew him like that, and the intimacy spun through him like a tornado, ripping holes in his protective walls.

He clenched his fists against the storm, struggling to not dive at her, pull her hands away, drop to his knees and rip those panties off her.
Mine
, he thought wildly. He was only dimly aware of his own pants sliding lower on his hips.

Fingering the edge of her panties, she kept his gaze. “I will fight dirty for you, Ram. Because you’re worth any price. I’ll risk loving you, getting my heart broken and being forced to ascend.

But I will not take any less than all of you. I won’t let you hold back that one part of yourself, the one you protect, by giving you control.” She pushed her panties over the curve of her hips and shimmied them down her legs. “Either we make sensual memories filled with whatever emotion you can give me, or we do nothing.”

Flaming desire roared in his head. She stood there naked and so beautiful he couldn’t breathe. Only stare. And want.

“Now if you were willing to belong to me, to submit to me…” she drifted her fingers down into the hair that shielded her sex.

“Yes!” he rasped out, his chest heaving even as he knew he was losing the battle.

She tilted her head, her eyebrows rising. “Yes what?”

He couldn’t believe he was doing this. For the first time since he was a teenager, he relinquished control. But this was Ginny. His angel. A wall inside him shattered. “Yes. I belong to you.” He sucked in a breath, feeling years of restraint melt away. He bore his stare into hers and his voice deepened with meaning, “You are mine, now and always. I will fight the devil himself for you.” He was in agony to have her, to feel her body claim him. But his hands, he still couldn’t touch her, would not risk hurting her with the live electricity snapping inside him.

She stepped out of the panties pooled at her feet and walked to him. Putting her hands on his waist, she looked up into his eyes as she dragged her hands down, catching his pants then pushing them down. “For as long as we have—”

“I won’t let anyone take you from me.” He saw her face flush, her nipples hardened, and her scent thickened with arousal. She loved him claiming her. “You started this, angel. You wanted all of me, you have it. Now what?” He shuddered with the dual cravings ripping through him. “I can’t, won’t, touch you with my hands.”

Her eyes flared hot green as she stroked his cock from the head to his balls. Then she slipped her hand deeper, cupping his sac. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” He’d give her anything if she just kept touching him. “Can’t hold back much longer.” His cock throbbed mercilessly. Too many needs surged inside him.

“On the bed. Wrap your hands around the headboard. Don’t let go.” Her voice flowed with command.

He sank onto the bed, went flat on his back and grabbed the thick iron headboard. Before he could even test its strength, he felt her straddle him, her thighs spread wide. Then she lowered herself until his cockhead touched her soft, moist center.

She hesitated.

Ram dug his heels into the mattress and clenched his hands around the railing. He hadn’t gotten her ready, hadn’t touched her or kissed her… “Baby, are you wet enough?” He didn’t know if he could hold back.

“Shh, I’m a little new to this, but I’ll figure it…oh!” she pressed down an inch. Then another.

And another.

She was slick, wet, it felt so damned good. Ram squeezed the headboard. “More, angel. Take more.”

She pushed down, her body hot and tight. Nothing felt this good. Only Ginny. She paused, then pushed again.

Ram arched as she took him right to his balls. His heart pounded; his body broke out in icy-hot pleasure. He struggled to be still, let her body adjust to him. “Feel good?” he asked her.

She put her hands on his chest, leaned down, and kissed him. Hot, opened mouth, her tongue demanding entrance. She tasted all his mouth, as if learning him, while rocking her hips.

Ram was on fire. Her tongue filled his mouth while he filled her body. She pulled back, looked into his eyes. “More.”

“Ride me. Hard as you need to. Ride until you explode.” She pushed up, lifted her hips, and came down.

Ram thrust up, meeting her in a slap of bodies that inflamed him. He watched her mouth part, her eyes begin to dilate. She liked it. “Harder,” he rasped out.

Something broke free in her, and Ginny rode him. Her breasts bounced, her hair swaying, he could see the fire in his angel as she rode him for all she was worth.

Fearless and free and so stunning he couldn’t look away.

Her thighs clench hard around him, her internal muscles gripped his cock and he knew her orgasm was racing toward her. He seized the railing harder to keep from touching her.