Three Hot Wishes (Fantasy Come to Life - Magic in the Real World Novel) (27 page)

Angel

I knew she was right. Too much of it made sense. Too many things clicked into place when she'd said it. The way Jessie hadn't seemed surprised by the last minute change of my opponent. The fact that I hadn't felt that final punch...

That was the worst of it. I hadn't been able to enjoy the victory, and most of that was because deep down I'd known.

I hadn't wanted to admit it, but I was right to feel hollow.

"Are you okay?" she asked, clearly concerned.

"That's a hard one to answer." I saw her face, and gave her a wink that hopefully reassured her. "I'm not pissed off at you, that's for sure. If anything, the worst thing about this is that the only person I can trust is the one I've known for the least amount of time."

"Sorry..." she said.

"Don't be. And don't get me wrong; I'm glad you're on my side."

She sighed. "You just wish Jessie and the rest of the world were too?"

"I'm not holding my breath for that." I pushed the plate of pancakes away, my appetite gone the way of whatever joy I'd felt at winning the fight. "That fat little shit wouldn't bother to step around my body if he found me laying on the street. Still, I thought our best interests lay in the same direction."

"Maybe they still do? I mean, I don't know what they were talking about, so there's every chance that-"

I shook his head angrily, cutting her off. "Now, this makes too much sense. There's always the chance that somebody like him ill hang you out to dry. I knew it from the start. I'd just gotten too lazy to worry about looking after my own best interests."

Sloane lifted the cup of coffee to her lips and took a sip. I was amazed that the cup came away without a lipstick smear. With a mouth as red and inviting as hers, I was sure there'd have been a metric fuckton of makeup involved.

But no, she didn't have time for games like that. She was the type of girl you either took as she was or moved on.

I liked that.

No, I needed that...

"Thanks," I said.

She cocked an eyebrow at me. "What are you thanking me for? I just told you that you would have lost a fight you thought you'd won."

"Yeah, but you only told me because you cared. That's new to me, you know?"

Sloane gave me a look that told me to cut the bullshit. "I saw home you came on to me, a couple of nights ago. You're used to girls falling all over your muscles, and don't tell me for an instant you aren't."

"Yeah, maybe," I said, "I'm not going to pretend that I haven't slept with my share of easy women. What I know for a fact is that none of them cared for me half as much as you just showed you did."

That caught her by surprise. "So what, then? Are you going to take me back to your place like all the other skanks?"

"I never brought any of them home. I never showed them where I lived. I never called them back."

Sloane rolled her eyes. "Wow, you're totally getting into my pants with an attitude like that."

"This is more about the truth than about trying to fuck you. I'd rather you know what I was like before now, so when it isn't like that, when you see how I am with you you'll know it's the first time I've been like that. Loving, and all."

"You can't know that," I said.

"I do."

"You've just met me."

I shrugged. "It doesn't feel like that. Besides, and I know you're going to get pissed off at me for mentioning, but I've never done anything like that web cam stuff."

I thought maybe I'd played the wrong card when Sloane pushed the rest of her coffee away and got up.

"Sorry," I said, trying to grab her hand. "I just want you to know that I'm different with you. I feel different with you."

Sloane tensed, but she let me hold her hand even though she was standing and I was still in my spot in the booth. "If I let you take me someplace right this second, Angel, where would it be?"

"My place," I answered, without hesitation.

"Good. But let's go to my apartment anyway. I've got some stray cats that need feeding, and I don't think I could handle our first time being at the Ritz. Too much to live up to, you know?"

I sat there, dumbfounded. "Huh?"

She smiled, slipping her hand from mine and heading toward the door. "I said pay the bill and let's see what you've still got left in you, after the night's exertions..."

I leapt up, sending the coffee cup crashing to the floor. It didn't matter. I left enough money on the table to cover what we'd eaten as well as a big tip and hurried after her, unable or unwilling to believe my luck.

Sloane

I melted into his body as my mouth opened up to him beneath his hot kiss. I heard myself moan into his mouth ever so slightly, and for the first time in a long time my own actions didn't make me feel self-conscious.

His arms came around me, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so needed. Yes, there was desire there too, of course, but there was so much more.

His broad thumb tilted my head back and his lips drifted down the side of my neck, making me shudder deliciously.

"You don't have to invite me up," he said into my ear, his voice dark and smooth. "We can go as slow as you want."

"It's messy," I said, feeling lame.

"I don't care."

I put my hands flat on his chest and pushed away a little, trying to get some space between us to clear my head. I could hear my own heart pounding in my chest, and my breath was coming fast.

"It's just some crappy apartment, Angel."

"Good," he said, grabbing my hands and spinning me around so that my breasts were pressed to the wall. Instinctively, I ground my ass against him when I felt his body press close to mine, only to find that he was hard and ready for me.

"My place is nothing like you're used to."

He nibbled the nape of my neck and growled against my flesh. "You're nothing like I'm used to Sloane. I'm done with all that bullshit. Don't hold the money you think I've got against me. It's all just smoke and mirrors. Shit like that comes and goes, but I want you forever."

My head was swimming with lust, and for the first time in a long time my brain couldn't come up with a good reason to put in front of my desire.

I trusted Angel. I didn't think he'd hurt me, and I was tired of denying myself something that felt so right just because things in the past had gone so wrong with others.

And his body felt like heaven! His hands came up my body and cupped my breasts, his thumb and forefinger capturing my nipples in amazing pinpricks of pleasure that pooled between my thighs and made me pant with desire.

It was everything that I had hoped it would be and more. My mouth opened and his found it, our lips pressing against one another and our tongues intertwining.

He and I were suddenly in a frenzy, tugging furiously at each other's clothing and trying to get into the apartment at the same time. I lived up three flights, and every time I broke away to show him where we were going either he or I would return to our embrace.

Was he going to have me right here in the stairwell?

"Listen," I said into his ear, fighting the urge to let my hand slide down his torso again and brush his cock. I was able to stop myself somehow, but only just. "Let me have you."

"Of course," he said, and I saw a sly little grin on his face appear. "Not like that," I said, shaking my head. "I can't do it like that. I need to be the one in charge, this time. If you aren't okay with that, I get it. But that's what I need right now. I've been... I've been hurt before and..."

The wicked smile vanished from his face, and he grabbed my shoulders with a calm and gentle strength that made the fire in me blaze into something even greater.

"Hey," he said, kissing my mouth hard to shut me up. "You don't need to say anything else, okay? You can tell me later, or you can never mention it again. Take me up to your apartment and do what you'd got to do. I'm yours, and I'm willing."

The fears, the worry and the pain from my past fell away in a rush. I let my head fall forward, my face in the crook of his shoulder as I let him hold me for a moment.

Was this love? I didn't even know what that was anymore. I'd spent so long trying to avoid the word, desperate not to put myself into situations where I'd be confronted by it.

But now...

Now I wanted Angel, and I knew Angel wanted me. The web cam had been a dress rehearsal, and I needed to show him that I could be just as sensual when I wasn't getting paid for my services.

"Follow me," I whispered, turning around hurrying up the stairs, dragging him behind me by the hand. "And hurry up!"

Angel

She led me up to her apartment by the hand, her tight ass and dancer's thighs right in front of me as we dashed up the stairs as fast as we could go.

I'd seen the pain in her eyes when she'd asked for control, and it was all I could do to give it to her willingly.

Sloane was damaged. Hurt beyond what I could imagine, and if letting her take the lead meant that she'd be more comfortable, than that was what I needed too.

That didn't mean I was going to be a total saint, though. I reached out my hand and grabbed her ass. She rewarded me with a sexy come-hither look thrown over her shoulder, and suddenly we were at the top of the stairwell.

She must have already had her key out, because the door was opened in a flurry and she pulled me inside with a fierce tug.

That was one thing I was finding about Sloane, and maybe it was true of most dancers. She was strong. I guess it made sense, all those hours of training her body, honing it into something graceful and unique and precise, but still...

It was dark inside the apartment, and she left the lights off. It was probably to hide the fact that she was embarrassed by her furniture, or the apartment itself, but I didn't give a shit about those things.

The darkness made her mysterious though, and for a moment she let go of my hand and I had only the faint smell of her shampoo and the rustle of her clothes as she took them off to use to find my way to her.

"Sloane?" I asked.

"Come here," she said, her voice husky. "Get on the bed."

I approached with caution, expecting to bark my shins against a wooden bed frame lurking in the darkness and instead happily hitting the softness of a mattress on the ground. I caught my balance and climbed into the bed. There either weren't any blankets or she'd taken them away, but that didn't matter.

Now that my eyes had begun to adjust, the alarm clock on her nightstand threw just enough light for me to see her shape against the night. I watched, transfixed, as she got down onto the bed on her hands and knees and prowled toward me before pushing herself upright and undoing her bra.

Her breasts now free, I couldn't help but stare. Ballerinas were small-framed women, but that hadn't stunted her development. I ached to take her nipples into my mouth, to run my tongue up the undersides of them and feel their fullness gently between my teeth.

"God," I heard myself say, in a low voice I'd have used in church, years and years ago. "I want you."

Sloane smiled, an angle of light coming in off the street and touching her white teeth, her bright eye, the wild red hair that had first drawn my eye in her direction. She slid her panties off gracefully.

"Now you," she said expectantly.

I scrambled to comply, almost bumping her right off the mattress as I hurriedly threw my pants and boxers off before practically tearing my shirt off over my head.

I lay before her, both of us naked, my cock sticking straight up awkwardly as I waited for her to tell me what she wanted me to do.

But I'd missed the point. She didn't want to boss me around.

She wanted to be in control.

Sloane dropped back down to all fours and slunk toward me, stopping now and then to dip her mouth to my skin, taking a nibble or giving me a lick as she crawled up my body. I trembled, throwing my head back against the pillow as I felt her breast drag across my cock as her breath brushed across the tip.

Her inner thighs were fever hot, and I fought the urge to reach out and drag her up me. No, this was her turn, just like she said. If I got in the way of that, whatever she needed from me would be ruined.

Sure, it was torture to have so much of her so near at hand and not be able to grab her, to pull her head down and beg her with my hips to take my cock in her mouth, or to fill my hands with her breasts.

But it was the sweetest sort of torture imaginable. She crawled up and over my body until the tip of my cock was at her wet entrance. I could feel the connection, like a bolt of lightning as she lowered her head to look into my eyes.

"Angel?"

"Yes?"

"Is this a one-time thing?"

I shook my head. I was worried that she'd think I'd say anything right then. I mean, any guy would, but I wanted her to know that I wasn't going to lie to her, not now and not ever.

"No," I said. "Not unless you want it to be."

A slow, hungry smile was her only answer before she shifted her weight and started to sink down onto my cock.