A Kiss of Magic: A Kiss of Magic Book One (13 page)

“All right,” she said with a smile.

“Now I’ll be getting out of your way,” he said, stepping aside.

She smiled at him and continued walking up to the house. She entered the front door and ran into Tudman.

“My lord is in the morning room. Breakfast is waiting for you there, Miss.”

“Thank you,” she said, moving through the house and directly into the morning room.

Dendri was sitting at the table, relaxed back in his chair and reading his paper. There was a half drunk cup of coffee in front of him and a plate with a piece of toast and jam spread on it. It made her smile, remembering the pink apples and her memory of her parents’ cook.

He looked up when she entered the room, his dark green eyes fixing on her with an almost hungry regard, as if his appetites found her far more appealing than a piece of toast.

“Good morning,” he said, folding his paper and resting it down on the table beside his plate.

“Oh, don’t let me bother you. I just wanted some coffee,” she said as she moved up to a chair on the opposite side of the round, wrought iron table. He regarded her choice of seats with a silently raised brow. She ignored him and pulled out the chair.

She sat down and poured herself a cup of hot black coffee from the carafe in the center of the table.

“You’re very beautiful,” he said.

The compliment took her by surprise and seemed to come out of nowhere. She blushed and looked up at him through her lashes.

“I mean it,” he pressed. “Fresh in from out of doors, your skin aglow and your hair mussed by the wind. I like it that way, by the way. Down, that is. You wore it that way last night and it was all I could do to keep my hands out of it and to myself.”

Her blush deepened.

“Thank you,” was all she could manage to say. How else could someone respond to such outrageous remarks?

“And I shan’t even start on the way those breeches love your bottom. Here I thought dresses made you beyond ravishing…and now to see you like this, every inch of you on display…”

“Please stop!” she cried. She didn’t know if she could take much more. Her face was on fire and his words made inexplicable heat burn through her blood. It made her want things. Made her crave them. It was hard to keep her thoughts straight when he was overwhelming her like this.

“I think I will…for now,” he said, “if it makes you so uncomfortable.”

“It’s not that it makes me feel uncomfortable,” she said softly. “I’m just…I’m not used to it.”

He smiled. “Well, we’re going to have to get you used to it. I shall introduce my compliments to you more slowly. Give you time to adjust.”

She laughed at that. “Do you think that will work?”

“I have every hope that it will. Especially when coupled with…other methods of getting you to accept me.”

Her eyes darted up to his.

“Other methods?” she echoed. The minute she said it she wished she could call the query back.

He sat forward a little, that lazy smile smearing across his fine lips.

“I think you know the answer to that already. Albeit only in an introductory manner.”

Yasra had to clear a sudden catch in her tight throat.

“I think I should tell you that I don’t expect you to change your entire life for me. You needn’t…you needn’t pay attention to me if you don’t wish to. I’ll be all right with that.”

That brow shot up on one side.

“Is that so?” he said. His lips twitched as if he were trying not to laugh at her. “I trust you have learned that I am a man who knows his own mind. Perhaps through some of Wil’s anecdotes last night or through your own experiences?”

“I…well, yes of course.”

“So then you can be rest assured, Yasra, that any and all attention I focus upon you is very much what I desire. If you change my life it is because I wish it to be changed. You needn’t worry you are infringing on my life. That you are somehow an unwelcome intrusion.”

“I-I only meant that—“

“I know what you meant. I am merely explaining my perspective. I am very happy to find myself part of a Gestalt pairing.”

“Because of the power it will bring you,” she said, looking down at her coffee cup.

He was silent a moment. “I won’t pretend that this new power is undesired or unpalatable. It fascinates me. Excites me. But that excitement is separate and apart from the way I desire you personally. I hope you understand that.”

“You wouldn’t have even known I was alive if you hadn’t touched me,” she said softly.

“I thought the same thing at first. But when I rewound the experience…when I slowed it down…I found that I had noticed you on a visceral level even before we touched.”

She looked at him in doubtful surprise.

“Is that true?” she asked.

“Let us get one thing straight between us, Yasra,” he said firmly. “I always say what I mean. I do not lie. And I always expect my word to be taken at face value.”

“I’m sorry if I don’t know that,” she said in a prickly tone. “I don’t know you.”

He relaxed back in his chair again. “Ah, but you will. We are getting to know each other more and more with every passing moment.” He regarded her a moment. “It was your throat,” he said.

“My…what?”

“It was what I noticed first the day of the test. You were a very pretty girl in a very pretty dress, but you had an exceptional throat and neck. Long and graceful. Not white and pale…tanned as if you spend time out of doors a lot. Your neck at the yoke of your shoulder…it beckoned to me. Made me want to put my mouth on you there. But I dismissed the craving because I was…well, I was there for another reason. I didn’t want anything to interfere with that.”

“Why were you there?” she asked. “Why was Dendri Adiron at a simple grade school test out?”

“I wish I could explain it to you. I cannot even explain it to myself. The principal asked me to watch the tests, joked about me proctoring…and I just said yes. It was fate, Yasra. Part of your power as a Necromay is the ability to sense the future…to feel the paths of fate. Perhaps this was all destined. It is said the spirits that surround us help guide us to our fated paths. Perhaps my mother guided my hand that day. Perhaps there is someone guiding you as well. As you become more practiced you will be able to see those that surround you.”

“I don’t think there’s anyone who cares about my fate surrounding me. I don’t know anyone close to me who has died who would give a damn about me.”

His lips tugged down at the corners.

“You really have been all alone all of your life, haven’t you?” he said softly.

Yasra looked back to her coffee cup, shifting with discomfort in her chair. She didn’t want him to feel sorry for her.

“I don’t need your pity,” she said.

“It’s not pity,” he said sternly. “It’s compassion. Do not fault me for feeling emotions on your behalf.”

She was quiet a long minute, feeling ashamed of herself for her mulish behavior. He didn’t deserve it. He himself had done nothing to deserve her causticness. The only negativity attributed to him had come from the mouth of a woman who was supposed to have been his friend. She should not take the words of another over him or his actions. She wasn’t being fair.

“It was your shoulders,” she said quietly, looking up and tumbling into the rich green of his eyes. “I saw you across the way and I thought of how powerful and handsome and virile you looked…and wondered what it would be like to hold onto your shoulders…to feel their strength as you came up against me. Then the next thing I knew they were calling my name and you were standing next to me. You touched me and…”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to. They both remembered quite vividly what had happened next.

There was the sudden sound of metal scraping against stone as Dendri shoved himself out of the wrought iron chair and came around the table. He caught up her hand and yanked her up out of her seat and against his body. He was tall and hard, his body unforgiving in its strength and power. And yet she melded with him softly. Perfectly. Her body connecting to his as though they had embraced thousands of times and learned how to get it just right.

“You tempt me mercilessly,” he ground out, his mouth bare inches above hers, his breath cascading over her lips. “And the funny thing is, I know you don’t mean to do it. God help me if you ever figure out the power of your allure. The ways in which you could use it against me.” He wrapped a strong hand around her waist, using the grasp to pull her lower body into deeper connection with his.

“I would never do that,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt me. I meant to hold sway over me. To have the power to drive me to distraction. To tempt me beyond my ability to cope.” He brushed his mouth against hers, the warmth of his lips fleeting. His breath smelled of coffee and she wondered if he would taste of it as well. “Damn it all to hell and back,” he hissed, suddenly stepping back away from her. Confused, she instinctively stepped to follow him, but he held up a hand and stayed her. He closed his eyes briefly, looking as though he were engaged in some sort of internal struggle.

“Good morning!”

Bess chirped out the greeting as she entered the room. Dendri’s eyes opened and she suddenly understood. He had sensed Bess’s imminent arrival. He had stepped away to spare her any embarrassment or discomfort. It had also been incredibly difficult for him to do so.

He turned his back on her and walked back to his chair, drawing it back up to the table and sitting down casually.

“Good morning Bess. I trust you slept well,” he said. But his voice, for all he was trying to come off casual and easy, was rough with unrealized desire. The scorching way he looked at her that next moment only solidified the impression.

Yasra sank down into her seat, her skin feeling uncomfortable and warm on her body. She wished Bess had not come in right then. What had he been planning to do? Would his hands have been on her? His mouth? Would he have been satisfied with just a kiss? Just a touch?

She didn’t think so. She didn’t think so because she wouldn’t have been satisfied with it.

“I did,” Bess said. “But Yasra steals the covers and I get chilled.”

“How very unkind of you Yasra,” he said with amusement softening the heat in his eyes. “If you like I can have one of the maids bring you extra blankets so you may have covers all your own, safe from the thief beside you.”

Bess giggled. “That’s all right. There are extra covers on the bed in the adjoining room. I can use those.”

“As you wish. But remember, if you ever have need of anything, you only need to ask and it will be provided for you.”

“Thank you,” Bess said. “You’ve been very kind to us.”

“Every woman deserves the opportunity to be spoiled and treated well. I want you to feel like you are at home here since you will be here for the next little while. I was thinking you might want to return to your bedsit and pack up more clothes and things for a prolonged stay. You can go while Yasra and I conduct our lessons today.”

“All right. But I was hoping that I could watch you one day, during your lessons.”

Yasra’s face flared with color. Every time she and Dendri had a lesson, they ended up in an intimate situation of some sort. But Bess was innocent of the undercurrent of sexuality charging the room between her and Dendri, so she did not see the devouring amusement with which he regarded her.

“There will be plenty of opportunity for that,” Dendri said.

“I suppose so,” Bess said with a little sigh. “Very well. I will pack for both of us. You can trust me to get everything you need.”

“Of course I trust you,” Yasra said, reaching out to give Bess’s hand a squeeze. “I wouldn’t trust anyone else.”

“I will get Bicky’s toys as well. I forgot them yesterday and she kept attacking my toes through the bedcovers last night.”

“That must have been before Yasra stole them,” Dendri said with a chuckle.

Bess laughed. “It was.” Then after a moment, “I liked your friends last night. They were very nice for the most part.”

“For the most part?” Dendri asked.

Bess was startled to be caught on the phrase. She exchanged a brief look with Yasra.

“Bess is usually very uncomfortable around majji,” Yasra said, rescuing her. She didn’t want Dendri to know what Olla had said to her. She would digest and resolve that matter for herself.

“You shouldn’t be,” Dendri said to her. “Most of us can be quite pleasant.”

“I liked Wil a great deal. He is very charming.”

“And he knows it,” Dendri said. “Wil never lacks for good company. Especially women.”

“I can see why,” Bess said. “Have you been friends long?”

“Almost our entire lives. Since before we tested out.”

Yasra was surprised at that.

“Before either of you knew what houses you were from?”

“Before we showed even the slightest aptitude. I guess you could say we were nons when we met.”

“That really is a long time!” Bess marveled. “It’s nice to have a friend like that. I don’t know where I would be without a friend like Yasra.”