A Little Magic(74)
This, she thought, was what the poets wrote of. This was why a man or a woman would reject reason for even the chance of love.
This warmth, this pleasure of another’s body against your own. This gift of heart, and all the sighs and secrets it offered.
He gave her pleasure, as he had promised, drowning floods of it that washed through her in slow waves. She could have lain steeped in it forever.
She gave to him a taste, a touch, so that sensation pillowed the aches. He savored, and lingered, and held fast to the beauty she offered.
When flames licked at the edges of warmth, she welcomed them. The pretty clouds that had cushioned her began to thin. Falling through them, she cried out. A sound of triumph as her heart burst inside her.
And heard him moan, heard the quick whispers, a kind of incantation as he rose over her. Through the candlelight and the shimmer of her own vision she saw his face, his eyes. So green now they were like dark jewels. Swamped with love, she laid a hand on his cheek, murmured his name.
“Look at me. Aye, at me.” His breath wanted to tear out of his lungs. His body begged to plunge. “Only pleasure.”
He took her innocence, filled her, and gave her the joy. She opened for him, rose with him, her eyes swimming with shocked delight. And with the love he craved like breath.
And this time, when she fell, he gathered himself and plunged after her.
Her body shimmered. She was certain that if she looked in the mirror she would see it was golden. And his, she thought, trailing a hand lazily up and down his back. His was so beautiful. Strong and hard and smooth.
His heart was thundering against hers still. What a fantastic sensation that was, to be under the weight of the man you loved and feel his heart race for you.
Perhaps that was why her mother kept searching, kept risking. For this one moment of bliss. Love, Kayleen thought, changes everything.
And she loved.
Was loved. She repeated that over and over in her head. She was loved. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t said it, in those precise words. He couldn’t look at her as he did, couldn’t touch her as he did and not love her.
A woman didn’t change her life, believe in spells and fairy tales after years of denial, and not be given the happy ending.
Flynn loved her. That was all she needed to know.
“Why do you worry?”
She blinked herself back. “What?”
“I feel it. Inside you.” He lifted his head and studied her face. “The worry.”
“No. It’s only that everything’s different now. So much is happening to me in so little time.” She brushed her fingers through his hair and smiled. “But it’s not worry.”
“I want your happiness, Kayleen.”
“I know.” And wasn’t that love, after all? “I know.” And laughing, she threw her arms around him. “And you have it. You make me ridiculously happy.”
“There’s often not enough ridiculous in a life.” He pulled her up with him so they were sitting tangled together on silk roses. “So let’s have a bit.”
The stone in his pendant glowed brighter as he grinned. He fisted his hands, shot them open.
In a wink the bed around them was covered with platters of food and bottles of wine. It made her jolt. She wondered if such things always would. Angling her head, she lifted a glass.
“I’d rather champagne, if you please.”
“Well, then.”
She watched the glass fill, bottom to top, with the frothy wine. And laughing, she toasted him and drank it down.
6
ALL of her life Kayleen had done the sensible thing. As a child, she’d tidied her room without being reminded, studied hard in school and turned in all assignments in a timely fashion. She had grown into a woman who was never late for an appointment, spent her money wisely, and ran the family business with a cool, clear head.
Looking back through the veil of what had been, Kayleen decided she had certainly been one of the most tedious people on the face of the planet.
How could she have known there was such freedom in doing the ridiculous or the impulsive or the foolish?
She said as much to Flynn as she lay sprawled over him on the bed of velvety flowers.
“You couldn’t be tedious.”
“Oh, but I could.” She lifted her head from his chest. She wore nothing but her smile, with its dimple, and flowers in her hair. “I was the queen of tedium. I set my alarm for six o’clock every morning, even when I didn’t have to get up for work. I even set alarms when I was on vacation.”
“Because you didn’t want to miss anything.”
“No. Because one must maintain discipline. I walked to work every day, rain or shine, along the exact same route. This was after making my bed and eating a balanced breakfast, of course.”