Totally Spellbound (23 page)

“Why didn’t you clean up the pee?” Rob
asked.

“I’d like to say I was
going to leave it for you, but I had my hands full of Fates for
longer than I wanted,” John said.

Rob opened his mouth to comment, but
John shook a wooden spoon at him.

“And get your mind out of the gutter.
Those women don’t do anything alone.”

“I thought that wouldn’t bother you,”
Rob said.

“Gentlemen,” Megan said gently, “there
is a child present.”

“Yeah.” Kyle sighed. “But I had to
learn about all this stuff a long time ago, Aunt Meg.”

She looked alarmed. “What
stuff?”

“Y’know, like how Fates do everything
together. If you think about it, it can be really icky. Like this
makeup thing. I mean—”

“Okay,” Megan said putting up her
hands. “I see what you mean.”

Kyle still had his back to her. He
gave Rob a sideways grin, and winked. Did the boy really know what
Rob had meant?

Megan would have thought such things
were bad for the boy, but back in Rob’s day, children were around
parents all the time. Many people slept in one-room huts and had
huge families.

The human race survived.

Kyle’s grin widened. He snapped his
fingers, and Fang fell in beside him.

“Me and Fang want to finish watching
the anime that we ordered up. Is it okay to watch in my room? You
guys are gonna talk about grown-up stuff.”

“It’s okay,” Megan said. “So long as
you grab an apple from the kitchen to chase away that chips-and-dip
lunch you had.”

“That won’t make my lunch healthier,
Aunt Meg,” Kyle said.

“But it’ll make me feel better,” Megan
said.

Kyle rolled his eyes, and went into
the kitchen. John tossed him an apple, which he caught, and then he
headed down the hall, Fang trailing behind him.

“That’s one special kid,” Rob
said.

“We think so,” Megan said with obvious
pride.

“Your brother must have been really
young when he was born.”

“Why?” Megan asked.

Rob glanced at her. John shook his
head, then made a show of turning on the tiny television the hotel
had thoughtfully provided on the kitchen counter.

Apparently, he didn’t want
to hear their conversation any more than Kyle did.

“Because,” Rob said. “My people can’t
have children once they come into their magic. Men usually come
into it around twenty or so.”

“Travers couldn’t have been magic that
long,” Megan said. “I would have noticed.”

“I have a hunch he hadn’t
noticed,” Rob said.

Megan gave him a soft smile. “Travers
is good at being oblivious sometimes. But you couldn’t ask for a
better brother.”

She was being loyal after the sharp
comment she’d made about him earlier. She did seem to adore her
family. She had defended them when Rob criticized them, and she had
shown over and over again how much she loved Kyle.

Rob approached her and reached out a
hand for her. “Let’s finish that discussion.”

Her eyes suddenly seemed guarded.
“Let’s not.”

“Megan, I….” And then he just decided
to stop talking. Talking wasn’t getting him anywhere.

So he leaned forward, and kissed
her.

She stood very still for a moment,
then leaned into him ever so slightly. He wrapped his arms around
her waist and pulled her close.

She tasted of sunshine and
lip gloss and something sweet, something he’d never tasted before,
something uniquely Megan. She was so soft and warm, and she leaned
against him as if drawing strength from him, her arms wrapping
around his neck and bringing him even closer.

He wasn’t sure how long they kissed.
All he knew was that when he finally broke it off—to tell her that
he wanted to go to a more private area, just to talk (and maybe do
something more)—he was surprised to see that her eyes were closed
and tears dotted her cheeks.

He touched one, and stared at it in
awe, a shiny drop of water against the ridges on his
forefinger.

“Megan?” he whispered.

She didn’t open her eyes. Instead, she
squeezed them even tighter. Her eyelashes were wet.

He placed both hands on the sides of
her face, and used his thumbs to wipe away the remaining tears.
Then he kissed her damp, salty skin.

She let out a small moan. Her eyelids
fluttered open. Her eyes seemed even greener than they had
before.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t
mean—”

“Oh, look.”

“Kissing!”

“Perfect.”

Rob felt a thread of irritation.
Couldn’t those three women leave him alone?

He looked over
Megan’s shoulder. The Fates had crowded together in the hallway
like they were posing for the opening credits on a sitcom. He half
expected to hear theme music—
Here’s a story
about three strange ladies
—and was
relieved when he didn’t.

“This is private,” he said.

“We can tell.” Clotho smiled.
“Everyone who wants privacy stands in the most public place in the
suite.”

“You could get a room,” Lachesis said.
“You can afford it.”

“I thought Megan had a room,” Atropos
said.

They were wearing tasteful but
glittery makeup that somehow made their jeans-and-blouse outfits
from earlier in the day look very glamorous.

He had to ignore them. Megan’s cheeks
were flushed, her eyes closed again, an expression of pain on her
face.

“You have a room?” he asked, wondering
which of the rooms off the hallway was hers.

She nodded.

“Let’s go there,” he said.

She didn’t answer. Then she sighed
deeply, opened her eyes, and smiled as if she had never done that
before.

She kept her face averted from the
Fates and took his hand.

To his surprise, she led him out of
the suite and into the hallway. Then she reached into her pocket
and removed a keycard.

She opened the door to the adjoining
suite as the other door swung shut.

Before it snicked closed, he could
hear the Fates.

“I do so love true love,” Clotho
said.

“It’s nice when it works out like it’s
supposed to,” Lachesis said.

“Let’s hope that they don’t get too
distracted,” Atropos said. “We need them to keep true love
alive.”

Rob didn’t hear the
response. But he did frown.
It’s nice when
it works out like it’s supposed to
? What
did that mean?

Marian had been his soulmate, not
Megan.

Right?

He shivered once and followed Megan
into her suite, not sure he wanted to know the answer to his
internal question.

He probably thought she
was a basket case.

As Megan stepped into her own suite,
she wiped her face with the back of her hand. Tears. She’d never
cried before when she’d been kissed.

But she had never felt so
inexpressibly sad before, like a part of her was mourning something
that she didn’t even know was there.

And then there was the part that had
gotten all shuddery, the part that knew she had never been kissed
like that before and was afraid she never would again.

Her suite was colder than her
brother’s. She walked to the temperature control and adjusted it
upward.

Rob stood in the entry.

“Sorry about all that,” he said. “I
just had to get away from those women.”

Megan nodded, feeling hideously
embarrassed. She didn’t want to turn around, but she couldn’t
monkey with the temperature controls all day.

Rob came up behind her and slipped his
arms around her waist.

“Where were we?” he muttered. “Ah, I
remember. I had decided that talking was no way to convince you I’m
attracted to you.”

Then he kissed her bare neck, right
where it met her shoulder, and a delicious shudder of desire ran
through her.

The tears threatened to
come back, too.

She didn’t want that, but she didn’t
want him to let go. She turned around inside his arms. He looked up
in surprise—his entire face seemed alive with passion—and she
kissed him.

He pulled her so close that she
couldn’t quite tell where she ended and he began. He kissed her
mouth, her damp cheeks, her eyes. He kissed her neck, and that
shiver ran through her again.

And she was kissing him back, her
hands finding the jacket on his suit coat and helping it slid off,
and then the buttons on his shirt, and the fly on his trousers, and
somehow, she was leading him toward the bed she hadn’t yet slept
in.

He had a magical mouth that managed to
find every part of her that could arouse her, and he hadn’t even
gotten past her shoulders yet. First his hands were busy with her
shirt, then the clasp of her bra, and then the button on her
jeans.

She tripped, and fell
backward on the bed, pulling him on top of her. His pants came off
easily and she helped him with hers, and all the time he kissed
her, finding the sensitive areas on her breasts, her stomach, her
hips, his fingers finding even more sensitive places in even more
sensitive areas.

He brushed against her
leg, and she bent down, grabbing him, and moving him exactly where
she wanted him. He slipped inside, his face between her breasts,
her legs wrapped around him, forcing him deeper and
deeper.

He murmured her name, then raised his
head, and she kissed him.

She had never felt so beautiful, so
desired.

So loved.

Her eyes closed again, and the tears
threatened.

He moved inside her and she could feel
the pressure building in both of them and it was like she wasn’t
one person anymore.

She could feel his passion and hers,
his need and hers.

There were no barriers
left.

They were one person, and when
she—they—couldn’t take it anymore, and the climax came…

…she couldn’t tell if it was his or
hers or theirs.

She couldn’t tell, and she wasn’t sure
if she wanted to. She drowned in sensation—their sensation, two
bodies that had somehow—magically—become one.

He had never felt like that before.
Not once in eight hundred years.

Rob clasped his arms around Megan,
holding her to him, pulling her with him as he fell to her
side.

He didn’t want to lose the
togetherness. He didn’t want to lose that sense of being more than
himself, of being inside her body and her mind at the same
time.

He’d had no idea how a
woman felt during lovemaking—until now—and it was even more
arousing than he had thought. If he weren’t so tired, it would
arouse him all over again.

He kissed that sensitive place on her
neck, gently this time. He would never ever be able to be with
another woman, not after this.

Megan stirred, her hand caressing his
back. But she didn’t seem to want to separate from him either. Her
face was buried in his shoulder, her warm body tucked against his,
so soft, so precious.

Intellectually, he knew what had
happened. He had just made love to a true empath, an empath who had
lost her guards—if she ever really had any—and had let him so deep
inside her that her magic had flowed both ways.

For that moment, anyway, she had been
as attracted to him as he had been to her, because she felt his
emotions.

He knew he should tell her that, but
he wasn’t sure how. He would be telling her to question her own
emotions—and yet, he was doing that. He was questioning how she
felt.

He didn’t want her to regret this, to
think that somehow, this was some sort of aberration for
her.

Although he had a feeling it
was.

He smoothed her hair back. “You okay?”
he asked softly.

She raised her head. Her eyelashes
were still spiky from those earlier tears. “I’ve never felt
anything like that.”

His heart skipped a beat. He brought
her head closer, kissed her forehead, and sighed.

“Why are you suddenly so sad?” she
asked, and gave him his opening.

He sighed again.

“Is it Marian?” she asked.

He froze. Marian. He hadn’t thought of
her since he stepped into the apartment, since he found himself
wondering about great love.

Megan had given him an answer to his
earlier question. He had loved Marian with all of his heart. It had
been a true love, a union of like minds.