Rush (21 page)

“What’s your favorite book?” I said.

“The Song Of Ice And Fire series by
George R.R. Martin,” he said without a second’s hesitation.

I made a face. “Those are so dark and
depressing.”

“Yeah, but they’re real.”

“I suppose.” To him, dark and depressing
must seem more real because it matched the life he’d led. It was probably
wildly inappropriate, but at this moment I very much wanted to take him in my
arms and comfort all the pain away.

“What’s your favorite book?” he said.

I blushed. “I’d rather not say.”

“Oh, come on. I showed you mine. It’s
only fair for you to show me yours.”

My face got even hotter. “You’ll laugh.”

“No, I won’t. Promise.”

I shook my head.

“Come on. You can’t tease me like that.
You have to tell me.”

I put my hands over my face, then peeked
out from between my fingers. “Fifty Shades Of Grey,” I said as fast as I could.

He blinked. A slow smile spread over his
face. “Isn’t that a naughty book?”

“Maybe.” I hid behind my fingers again. “Or
trilogy. It’s actually a trilogy.”

“And isn’t there a lot of bondage in it?”

I nodded. It had seemed strange to me
that I could like a story so much when it revolved around a passionate sexual
relationship, because I’d never experienced that kind of passion and wasn’t
convinced it existed in real life. Now, of course, I knew it did. I had it with
Max.

“Wow. That is so not what I thought you’d
say.” He had a big smile in his voice, too, and the timber had changed, gotten
deeper.

“You’re laughing at me.”

“No, I’m not. Really, Caro, I’m not.” He
leaned forward and pulled at my hands. “Don’t be embarrassed. Sex is a good
thing.”

“Says the heathen, devil-worshipping
magician guy.”

He laughed. “Exactly. And I know what I’m
talking about.”

I let him pull my hands down. “You
really don’t think I’m some kind of slut?”

“No. I think you should own your
sexuality. Embrace it. It’s not healthy to live in denial.”

“A lot of people think it’s a really
badly written book.”

He raised his brows. “But you think...”

“The story was really fun. And that’s
what matters.”

“Well, there you go.”

Our hands were still clasped. He raised
them to his lips and brushed a kiss across my skin.

“Thank you,” I said.

He smiled at me, and the warmth in his
eyes made me tingle all over, the achy butterflies swarming up inside me. “That
makes two things we have in common. No, three. Ghosts, folk music, and fantasy
fiction.”

“We’re two weird peas in a pod. Now that
I’ve realized how weird I am, I can never go back to my sorority house.” I was
kind of kidding, but in a way it was true.

“A lot of people are gaming these days
and there are all those ghost-hunting shows on TV, so I doubt they’d think you’re
all that weird,” Max said. “It’s mostly those of us who work magic who get the
funny looks.”

“I don’t know. I’ve gotten a few of
those looks. More than a few, actually.”

“That sucks.” He leaned forward, still
holding onto my hand. “You know you can always talk to me about this stuff,
right?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

My arm was stretched out in his
direction because of his hold on me. I could have pulled it back, disengaged.
Instead, I scooted closer.

His eyes seemed darker, heavy-lidded and
hot as he gazed at me. My pulse sped up so fast I felt almost dizzy. He was
going to kiss me. Was he going to kiss me?

I should leave. Technically, I still
belonged to Trent. If Max and I were going to have an affair, I should first
break up with my boyfriend. I should definitely leave. But I waited while Max
came up on all fours and stalked me like a prowling cat.

His head tilted, slowly, as he came
near. He was once again giving me a chance to back out. I didn’t want to back
out and I didn’t want to call Trent to break up with him. I wanted to kiss Max.

My body leaned a little farther toward
his and our lips met. His were soft, warm, coaxing. They clung to mine for an
instant and then released.

I brought my hand up to the side of his
face. His perpetual stubble felt scratchy under my palm. Our lips caught again.
I opened my mouth and licked him.

He let out a sigh. We opened to each
other at the same time, our tongues sliding, probing, tasting. I pushed my
fingers into cool, silky black hair as he pulled me forward into his arms.

His body was as hard with muscle as I
remembered. I put my arms around him, flattened my hands across his powerful
back. His shirt was in the way. I slipped my hands underneath it to enjoy the
smooth warmth of his skin.

He clasped the back of my head in one
large hand and devoured my mouth, licking and nipping me, plunging his tongue
deep. I ached so badly for him I couldn’t contain myself as I wriggled against
him. Strange little whimpers and moans escaped me.

Max lowered me to the floor and
stretched himself out, half over me and half beside me. His leg slipped between
mine and his hand crept under my t-shirt and slid upward to my breast. I arched
into his touch. The ache in my core pulsed and throbbed.

His thumb brushed my nipple through the
thin satin of my bra and a bright bolt of pleasure shot through me from my
breast to my core. I gasped. He did it again and I cried out against his lips.
My legs moved restlessly against the relentless aching pleasure inside me.

We were both panting desperately. I
could feel the hard ridge of his erection pressing against my thigh. Weirdly,
it excited me even more. I’d never found a guy’s arousal especially exciting until
now.

He pulled up my t-shirt and unclasped
the hook on my bra, baring my breasts. I stared up at him in a haze of desire
and found him staring back at me. The expression on his face was something I’d
never seen on a guy before, awe and reverence overlaying the obvious desire in
his eyes.

Bending his head, he took my nipple into
the warm wet of his mouth and sucked. I grabbed onto him with a helpless
whimper. It was the best thing I’d ever felt.

He tormented first one side of me and
then the other until I was wildly aroused. When his hand left my breast and
slipped beneath the waistband of my yoga pants, the brush of his fingers
against my inner thigh brought another moan from my throat.

“Caroline,” he said raggedly. “If you
want to continue this, we should go to the bedroom.”

“Okay.”

“Are you sure? I want you to be sure.”

I sat up, my clothes all rumpled and my
bra hanging open. “I’m sure.”

We got up, hand in hand, moving from the
bare-bones living room to a bedroom just as sparse. There was nothing in here
except a big mattress on the floor and, next to it, a desk lamp on top of a
cheap plastic single drawer. Max and I sank to the bed, kissing hungrily and
pulling at each other’s clothing.

“Trent said your pendant is a pentacle.
Is that true?” I said, reaching out to touch the beads.

“Yes and no,” Max said. He pulled the
necklace out from beneath his shirt collar.

The beads were some kind of
silvery-black mineral interspersed with the occasional white to clear bead.
There were two pendants layered over each other. On the bottom was a silver
pentacle and over it a beautiful silver owl in flight.

“Ooh,” I said softly. “That’s so pretty.
Not what I expected at all.”

“Too pretty for a guy?” he said with
laughter in his voice.

“No. That’s not what I meant. I just
thought it would be something like a skull. You know, something all scary and
stuff.”

“Oh, I see. Something ominous, because I’m
a sinister master of the occult.”

I glanced up at him to see him grinning
at me. “You’re making fun of me.”

“Maybe a little. But only in the nicest
way possible.”

I shoved him playfully. “It’s not my
fault I don’t know anything about this stuff.”

“Yeah, but skulls are big fashion
nowadays. I’m surprised you don’t have any on your purse. Or maybe a t-shirt
with a sugar skull on it. You’re sadly lacking in the trend department, little
girl.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. “Am not.
Anyway, my mom would probably kill me if I came home wearing something with
skulls on it.” Of course, she’d treat me to a long lecture on the mental health
dangers of dabbling in the paranormal first. When she was done schooling me, I’d
probably be glad to die.

“You always do what your mommy tells
you?” His dark eyes sparkled, crinkling at the corners.

“Of course not. But I have to pick my
battles.” I pressed my fingertip gently to the owl’s wing. “Why do you wear
these? Do they mean something in particular to you?”

He covered my hand with his much larger
one. “The pentacle was a gift from Brad and Marie. It represents a number of
things, one of them being the five elements.”

“Five? I thought there were only four.”

“Earth, air, fire, and water, plus
spirit makes five.”

“Oh. That’s actually kind of cool. What
about the owl?”

He shrugged a little. “You might say it’s
my totem animal. I think of the owl as a creature that’s comfortable in the
realm of the dead, a creature that sees and understands the hidden parts of
existence.”

My eyes were round now. “Spooky.”

His other hand cupped the side of my
face, his thumb stroking along the line of my jaw. “I don’t think of it that
way. It’s just another part of the world, one we don’t usually pay much
attention to. But it’s not necessarily dangerous.”

My gaze drifted to his lips. They were
so beautifully cut, just full enough, and every time I looked at them I wanted to
kiss them. “The only other person I ever discussed this stuff with was my Aunt
Jo. And she’s crazy.”

“Hmmm. Well, I’m pretty sure I’m not
crazy.”

I’d begun to tingle again between my
legs. “What about the beads? Do they have meaning too?”

He slid his hand to my neck, caressing
the sensitive side of my throat. “The black ones are hematite. They’re
grounding and protective. The white ones are clear quartz. They have a lot of
uses, especially enhancing psychic abilities.”

I leaned in closer. “I had no idea.”

He tasted my lips. “Did you know sex is
magical too?”

“No.” I took his bottom lip between my
teeth. “That sounds totally wild.”

“Yeah.” Gently, he cupped my breast. “You
can raise a lot of energy that way.”

His hand found its way between my legs
again and I let my thighs fall open with an eagerness I’d never thought I could
feel.

He moaned. “You’re so wet, baby.” Coming
from Max, the endearment excited me in a way it never had before. The naughty
talk, too. I wished he’d say it again.

I wanted to touch him, but I was
suddenly shy. Instead I let him pet me, brush his fingertips over my
exquisitely swollen and sensitive flesh while I quivered and gasped. One of
those fingers slid inside me, making me arch my back as my eyes rolled up.

He moved his finger rhythmically and it
felt like a pleasure bomb exploded in my body. I threw my head back with a loud
cry. His mouth came down on mine and I shoved my tongue deep into him, trying
to take him the way he was taking me. Max groaned as I kissed him, his mouth frantic
on mine, as if he wanted to utterly consume me.

He drew back, his breath coming hard. “I
need you, Caro. Please.”

“Yes.”

He fumbled in the drawer. A moment later
I heard the rip of a condom packet. He rolled it onto himself and I reached
down to grasp him and help guide him into me. When my hand closed around him,
he shuddered.

He slid into me. We both moaned. He felt
so much better, so much
more
than any guy I’d ever been with before. Not
that there had been many. Just two before him, and they were driven completely
from my mind as Max began to move in and out of me.

The pleasure I’d had earlier was nothing
compared to this. I bucked beneath him, my legs wrapping around his waist, my
hands clutching his shoulders as he reared over me. He seemed to be hitting
every pleasure point in my body, nerves I hadn’t even known I possessed singing
with delight.

I moaned his name. My gaze and his came
together and clung. We stared at each other as we moved together, both of us
moaning. It was almost too much. I never looked—I never—

He was everything in my world. The way
his hair slid into his face as he moved over me, the musky scent of him, the
sound of his pleasure, the hot silky weight of him on top of me, inside
me...Max took me over and there was nothing else. The rhythmic push and pull of
him detonated another ecstatic explosion in me; wordless cries and groans fell
from my mouth and I didn’t even recognize my own voice.