And still I cling to these moments of peace with bloody, battered fingertips. Declan’s right about one thing—I do feel fragile right now, as if I’ll crack if one more rug is pulled out from under me.
Declan sighs, his hand tangling in my short, razor-cut hair. I can feel his need to speak just as I can feel his hesitation. Maybe, like me, he is unwilling to shatter the quiet between us. Maybe, like me, he knows just how much we need it.
The minutes tick away as I listen to the steady thump of his heart beneath my ear. I should get up, take a shower, let him breathe. But he’s still inside me, still hard, and I find myself unable to break this most tangible connection between us.
Eventually, though, he says, “Tell me about Shelby.”
I don’t ask how he knows her name—sometimes I think he knows everything. Or at least is powerful enough to get whatever information he wants or needs with a flick of his metaphorical magic wand.
“I don’t know much,” I answer, lifting my head to look at him.
“Tell me what you do know.” He presses my head back to his chest and wraps his other arm around my waist so that I’m anchored to him. So that I can’t move away. Not that I have any plans to try.
I tell him what Nate told me and what Lily’s tarot cards said. He listens in silence, interrupting only to ask pertinent questions—many of which I don’t know the answers to. When I’ve finished relating what I know, he doesn’t speak for the longest time.
I do squirm away now, the anxious feeling building inside me again as I think about Shelby, scared and alone. I can feel my mind drifting, can feel it trying to connect back to her again. It’s the first time I’ve ever had a conscious awareness of my magic taking control—usually it just grabs me by the throat and drags me wherever it wants me to go—and I wonder if I’m finally getting a grip on it. Or if the control is simply because I’m so close to Declan, whose command of Heka is no less than terrifying.
Whatever it is, I’m grateful. I know that I can’t leave Shelby there alone, suffering, if there’s any way that I can help her.
Declan doesn’t protest when I scramble off him, just follows my progress across the room with watchful eyes. I grab my sleep shirt and tug it over my head, then go into the bathroom to clean up. If I’m going to try to connect with Shelby, or whatever the hell I did earlier, I’m not going to do it all sex-mussed and naked.
When I come back into the bedroom a couple of minutes later, Declan is sitting, cross-legged and nude, in the middle of my bed. For a second I can’t do anything but stare. He’s so damn gorgeous that it freezes me in place, and even though I’m completely satiated, I feel a familiar heat start low in my abdomen.
He smiles at me and raises an eyebrow in a wicked invitation I have absolutely no intention of accepting. And just to make that clear—to Declan and myself—I grab a pair of old and very unattractive sweatpants out of my oh-so-comfortable-but-never-to-be-worn-in-public drawer. Only after I’ve yanked them up my legs and into place do I dare to settle myself on the bed.
Amusement flashes into Declan’s eyes—making him look a million times younger—but it disappears so quickly that I barely have a chance to process it. Unfortunately, it’s not the only thing to disappear. Seconds later, I watch in astonishment as my pants melt right off my legs and into nothingness.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I yelp.
He just shrugs. “I like your legs.” Then he leans over, trails a finger up my calf, over my knee and around to my upper thigh. He plays with me for a second, rubbing up and down my sex before circling my clit a few times.
I press into his hand despite my best intentions, let my knees fall wide. He smiles in delight and now that he’s proven his point—that he can make me want him with almost no effort at all—I think he’ll take his hand away. But he doesn’t. Instead he increases the pressure until I’m gasping, stroking and circling until he sends me straight over the edge into another orgasm.
I’m still trembling when he pulls me into his arms, brushes soft kisses over my hair and forehead. “Was that strictly necessary?” I ask when I can find my voice again.
“I’m sorry. Making you climax is rapidly becoming an addiction.” He strokes a hand down my arm, holds me close until I finally recover.
“You don’t sound all that sorry.”
I feel him grin against my hair. “Maybe sorry is the wrong word for it.”
“You think?” I grab a pillow and smack him with it.
The next thing I know, I’m flat on my back and he’s looming over me, his eyes laughing as he finds a ticklish spot on my ribs. “No!” I gasp, wiggling and writhing as I try to escape. I almost make it when my breast brushes against his palm and distracts him, but seconds later he intensifies his attack, refusing to stop even when I’m a giggling, squirming mess.