Heart's Magic (25 page)

The words were soft, almost
nonexistent, but she knew he heard her because he obeyed her plea.
He kissed her, lips, teeth, and tongue, hauling her up against him
with a hand planted firmly on her bottom. The sensations came to
her, floating across the distance between her mind and her body.
She wallowed in them.
Concentrated
on them.

The heat of his mouth and
his hand on her bottom scorched her, but not through layers of
petticoats. She could feel each individual finger through the
unruffled portion of her pantalettes and it felt good. So did the
strong arm around her back, offering support. She liked the feel of
him against her. That place between her legs where he'd touched her
before, where he'd waked those incredible sensations, began to
clamor.

She moved her arm. Just one
and rather like a puppet master pulling at distant strings, but she
moved it. She put it around his waist and she liked that even more.
She liked the broad, solid feel of him. So she put her other arm
around him and he filled her arms with his strength, his sturdy,
physical reality. She held on tight and she kissed him.

And when she could sense
every part of her own physical self from the top of her dizzied
head to the tips of her tingling toes, when the feel of Harry in
her arms tightened her nipples into hard points and flooded her
loins with wanting, she reached across the infinite distance
and
stepped
back
into her own body.

She knew she had succeeded,
because the sensations immediately intensified to the point where
thought was nearly obliterated. She wanted. She
needed,
and what she needed was
Harry.

He wasn't kissing her mouth
any longer. He had moved down to her neck, one hand cupping her
head instead of her bottom to keep it from lolling so bonelessly as
his mouth traced damp patterns toward her collarbone. Oh, she liked
that. She wanted more of those kisses, lower. He'd kissed her
breasts before and she wanted him to do it again, and if that was
wicked and wanton of her, so be it.

She raised her hand, thrust
it into Harry's silky caramel-colored hair, and urged him lower.
Instead of doing what she wanted, he lifted his head, dragging a
growl from her.

"Elinor?" The cell was
dark, but she could sense his eyes trying to search her face. "Are
you back with me?"

"Stop talking, Harry, and
kiss me," she growled.

"Are you sure?" He touched
her face, patted it, never relinquishing his hold around her
back.

"Of course I'm sure." She
stiffened her knees--difficult, given the passions racing through
her--and stood on her own. "Look. I'm standing. I have control of
my own limbs--" She began with his cravat, untying it, then
attacked his shirt buttons, opening them with flying fingers.
"Right down to my fingertips. I am of sound body and mind--at least
reasonably so, given the situation."

She had reached his
waistcoat where she began unbuttoning both layers at once, first
waistcoat, then shirt beneath, as fast as she could make her
trembling fingers go. "Harry, I want this. I want
you.
"

"Then you should 'ave wot
you want." Both his big hands planted themselves on her bottom and
lifted. With a squeak, Elinor threw her arms around his neck and
held on, but he didn't go far. Not even a whole step, before he was
lowering her to a narrow bed, coming down beside her half a second
later, naked from the waist up.

The expanse of bare skin
for her to explore threw all remaining thoughts from her mind,
especially since her chemise and pantalettes had somehow dissolved
and her own bare skin was the territory under exploration by
Harry's hands. His lips followed shortly behind, leaving her
absolutely mindless with delight. So many delights, she couldn't
focus on any one of them long enough to analyze what made it so
delightful.

He kissed her breasts,
licking and suckling her nipples, while his hands roved everywhere
at once. She tried to do the same, but couldn't figure the trick of
it. She had to touch one place at a time--his broad shoulders, the
valley of his spine between the heavy muscle down his back, the
delicious contrast between his delicate collarbone and powerful
chest. She found the flat, crinkle-edged disks of his nipples and
pressed her fingers over them until the tiny points beaded up, then
she pinched them, lightly, with her nails.

"Gawd, Elinor--" His heated
breath gusted over her own wet, distended nipples.

The sudden coolness sent an
erotic rush through her body to coil tighter in her most private of
places. "
Harry.
"

Her hips lifted without her
volition, begging for his attention, and finally he gave it, his
fingers slipping into the damp curls. One pressed between her
folds, skated along that sweetest of spots he'd introduced to her,
and she convulsed, shattering with pleasure, shouting his
name.

She clutched at him,
pulling and clinging while her body shook. It was wonderful
madness, whirling upside-down with pleasure and delight--and it
wasn't enough. It wasn't finished. She wanted more. She didn't know
exactly what more she wanted, but she wanted it with a desperation
that frightened her.

"
Harry,
" she moaned again, dragging him
up over her, rubbing her bare breasts against his naked
chest.

He was moving, hands busy
with something, returning her half-crazed kisses with distracted
kisses of his own, and then he was lowering himself over her,
making a place between her legs. She pushed her hips up. His
trousers were gone, she realized. His skin felt just as good there
as everywhere else.

"Are you sure, Elinor?" He
caught her thrashing head between his hands and held her still,
though it was too dark to see his face with any clarity. "There's
no goin' back once we do this. Do you want me? Be sure."

"I'm sure, I'm sure." She
writhed beneath him. "
Harry.
" She drew his name out, not
quite begging, not quite demanding, but a deal of both.

"All right, then. Easy,
love. Don't be in such a hurry."

She could hear the smile in
his voice as he lifted one of her legs up over his hip. He'd braced
his own leg on the floor, she realized, as he held her leg in place
and reached between them with his other hand. She gasped, sensation
rattling her again as the blunt, silk-smooth head of his male organ
stroked over her sensitized flesh, setting it to tingling and
throbbing once more. Then he was pushing inside her.

The pain was sharp but
quickly over, and he was there,
with
her, seated deep, holding her close, kissing her
temple, murmuring soft, sweet words she could scarcely understand.
She shifted position, adjusting to the feel of him there, and he
groaned. He shifted position in turn, no more than that, but the
tiny outward drag, followed by a longer push felt...right. Exactly
what she wanted.

Elinor tried her own little
down-and-up motion and was rewarded with another groan from Harry
before he drew almost all the way out of her only to plunge in
again, fast, hard, and deep. He set up a steady rhythm then, easy
to catch and follow. It felt good, and right, and better and better
with every pistoning stroke.

The pleasure rose more
slowly this time but more intensely, drawing every bit of her into
the tight focus of the concentrated sensation Harry created inside
her. She felt herself squeezed tighter, pushed higher, stretched
wider, until she broke apart screaming as Harry shouted his own
release.

The first thing she became
aware of when her mind began to assemble itself again from the
smithereens Harry had blown it into, was the bright bloom of magic
burbling joyously around the room. This time, when it bumped up
against her, she opened her magic senses and let it in.

The sorcery magic felt
nice. Not alien or odd at all. It was warm and happy and felt
rather like Harry in a way. Not any way she could define, but it
did. She let the magic settle where it wanted inside her. In her
blood mostly, she thought.

There was magic left over.
Quite a bit of it. She could send it out, the way she had last
time, but she wondered what else she could do with it. Harry had
contributed to the making of it, but she couldn't actually
give
him any of the magic,
she didn't think. Since he wasn't her familiar. But maybe she could
use some of it for healing that injury.

Moving her lips, Elinor
silently invoked the blood still inside Harry centered around his
wound. She pushed as much of the sex magic as she could into the
area. It seemed to be healing nicely, just not as quickly as she
would have liked.

"Elinor?" Harry called her
back into herself.

She hadn't exactly stepped
out, just
looked,
and guided magic. Or maybe she was getting the trick of blood
riding. "Yes, Harry?"

Harry rolled to his side
and sat up to shove his trousers off. He'd only managed to get them
to his knees, given her urgency, which had most definitely and most
rapidly communicated itself to him. He just didn't know yet whether
she'd been in her right mind. "You all right?"

She'd gone limp again,
after. But since he'd collapsed himself for a while there, he
figured--hoped--she hadn't gone wandering again. And then there was
the whole losing-her-virginity bit.

"Quite," she said in her
usual crisp tones. "Where are we? Nigel's cell?" She didn't sound
like someone weeping for her lost innocence.

He wanted to ask if she was
sure, but didn't quite dare. He answered her question instead.
"Yeah. He locked us in when he escaped."

He dug for a blanket to
cover Elinor. A man took care of his woman and she was most
definitely his now. He wished he could see her, though. "Biggs got
hit with something. The door maybe, when Cranshaw rushed out. I
don't know 'ow bad he's hurt, but he's not conscious, because he's
not answering.

"Door's locked. I can't
open it. The warding's that good, an' I ain't got the keys. So I
reckon we're stuck 'ere till the guard changes. Not sure when
exactly that is, but since it's too dark to see my watch, I don't
guess it matters."

He dragged the rough wool
blanket from beneath her and covered her with it. "I 'ate puttin'
this scratchy stuff up against your skin," he muttered.
"Wait--"

He leaned out from the cot,
groping for one of the discarded petticoats. He had to leave the
bunk before he found one. He lifted the blanket and spread the
petticoat, netting side up, over her, inserting it between soft,
delicate skin and scratchy wool blanket. Then he squeezed in beside
her in the narrow confines of the cot.

Elinor hadn't said anything
since she'd asked where they were. She wasn't an excessively chatty
woman but the extended silence worried him. Who knew what was going
on inside that head of hers? Especially since--

Massive doses of guilt rose
up again from where he'd swallowed them down in the need to care
for her. He
thought
she'd been back in possession of herself when they made love
but he didn't
know.
He was almost positive she hadn't been when he kissed her and
began undressing her.

He wasn't sorry for
anything he'd done. In the same circumstances, he'd do it again.
But a woman didn't always see things the same as a man did, and he
still wasn't sure he hadn't hurt her some way. He hated that worry.
So was it better to take his punishment now or later?

Now, he decided. Later
would only give her time to dwell on it.

"Are you
sure
you're all right?" He turned them
until he was tucked in behind her, the only way they could both fit
in the limited space.

"Yes, I am sure." Elinor
pulled his arm down beneath her head for a pillow.

That was a good sign,
wasn't it? Harry allowed himself a tiny smile. "Wot about--well,
you an' me? Any regrets?"

She took a deep breath,
held it a moment, then let it all out at once, before she wriggled
around to face him. All her wriggling nearly had him standing to
attention again. Would have, if he wasn't nearer to forty years old
than thirty. He pulled her flush against him to keep her from
toppling off the bunk.

"No." She leaned back
against his hold in a futile attempt to see his face. Unless she
had the vision of a cat. "Not really."

"
Not
really,
" he repeated. "That sounds like you
do."

"But they're not real
regrets." Elinor snuggled into him, rubbing her nose against his
neck. "Just--well, it was stupid of me to get myself into that
position to begin with. Except, I think I did some good, so I'm not
truly sorry I rode Nigel's blood. But I shouldn't have come here
alone."

"No, you shouldn't have."
Harry managed, just, to keep his mind on what Elinor was saying and
not let it shut down due to the softness pressed all along his
naked self. The stockings tied just above her knees felt incredibly
erotic, stroking his legs. "Why did you?"