A Kiss of Magic: A Kiss of Magic Book One (33 page)

I. Love. You.

Then he sank deep into her mind as well and did so with a deep, erotic stroke. He began to coax her into sex majic, using his mind to excite her even more. This time, before she could be lost to him entirely she seized hold of his as yet open mind and plunged herself into the pleasure centers of his mind. She had not been able to do this since their initial sex majic, his defenses being set against her and raised far too high. Now that he was relaxed and open to her she wanted to give him the pleasure he had always given to her. She stroked her mind against his, adjusted his senses, and manipulated him until his nerves were screaming with sensitivity.

He cried out, his mouth leaving her body as his head fell far back, baring his throat to her. She took advantage of the exposure with her mouth coming to tease at his neck, her teeth nipping and her tongue drawing in a silky slide as she tickled his nerves into feeling it intensely. Hotly. More than what it would have been had she not been in his mind. At the same time, she tightened her body around him, clutched at him as he stroked out and then in again.

“Dear God, you’re going to make me come,” he rasped, his breath panting in her ear. “I don’t want to. Not yet. Please!” he begged her, “This is the first time I’m making love to you while knowing fully that I am in love with you. I want to make it last.”

She brought her lips to his ear as she chuckled softly, knowing she had complete power over him in that moment.

“I don’t,” she said, each word falling hotly on his senses.

He cursed vehemently. Cursed again. Then he began to thrust into her hard and with barely leashed violence. The hardness of the wall behind her allowed him to sink deep and he plunged just as deeply into the pleasure core of her mind. He rapidly built her up to the same fevered pitch that he was at and she came in a shocking, blinding explosion. Dendri felt her body clutching at his and he could bear it no longer. His orgasm was ferocious and fierce, roaring through him with unbelievable intensity. She had rolled back into her own mind at the moment of her climax, but it did nothing to lessen the brilliancy of his culmination.

He had never felt anything like it. And that was saying something for him. He had had sex with other Aspano majji before, but never had it been like this.

Because that had been sex…and this had been making love.

Tears burned into his eyes, the enormity of his emotions overwhelming him. He felt her entering his mind once again and his first instinct was to protect himself, to guard himself from allowing another to see him this exposed…this vulnerable. But he quashed the instinct. This was Yasra. His Yasra. He let her in, let her see everything he was feeling, and she did likewise. The radiance and depth of her love for him humbled him.

He did not deserve it. After hurting her the way that he had, he did not deserve her.

“Yasra. My beautiful love,” he said hoarsely. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“I already have,” she said, kissing him softly on the corner of his lips. That corner curled upward.

“Why? I do not deserve it.”

“No,” she agreed, “you don’t. But I’m giving it to you anyway. I’m giving me to you. Be careful with me. I might break easily.”

“I will always treat you with the utmost respect and care,” he promised her. “All I ask is a chance to prove it to you.”

“I’ll give you that chance. Happily.”

Dendri pulled back a little and took in the half-clothed, obviously sexual, situation of their bodies. She sighed as he slipped free of her body and, dropping her legs from around his waist he stepped away from her and righted his clothing. What was left of it. She did the same to her bodice and with a twitch of the fabric made certain her skirts were in place. When she went to reach for her drawers he stopped her by grasping her wrist.

“No. I want to know you’re ready for me again if I want you. I don’t want you to wash me from your body either. I want my seed running down your thighs as you walk.”

She blushed furiously, but her heart thundered at his erotic request. She would smell of him. She would feel him with every step she took. She would be marked by him completely.

She nodded and he smiled at her. He bent his head to kiss her ear and whispered softly, “And I will not wash your scent from my body either. I am yours and I would have everyone know it.”

“Who is everyone? It is only Bess here. And perhaps the servants.”

“I will take you out to dine in the city,” he said. “I will have you sitting in the center of a busy restaurant smelling of me.”

“No one will be able to tell,” she said, her color deepening.

“You will,” he said hotly.

Her heart thundered and she nodded her compliance.

“Now shall we find Bess and take her with us?”

“Yes, please,” she said.

He took her hand, threading his fingers with hers just as he had all day, and led her from the room.

Epilogue

Yasra learned a few things about her lover in the weeks that followed. The main component of which was that he was entirely too possessive of her. He would not let any other man touch her. He would not let her go out anywhere with another man…including Wil. When she called him on this, telling him he didn’t trust her, he said he trusted her implicitly. It was the other men he did not trust.

“Even Wil?” she asked incredulously.

“Even Wil,” he said, as if it made all the sense in the world.

She said nothing else about it. Mainly because a secret part of her liked the possessive side of him. It was an outward display of how much she meant to him. Of how he would protect her from anything and everything troublesome that might cross her path.

Besides, she could hardly complain when she felt the same way. One night, when Olla had been invited for dinner, the invitation only including her out of Dendri’s love for her brother, she gave Yasra her painted smile as she led her off into a corner of the parlor before supper.

“You make a fine couple,” Olla said magnanimously, “but I do hope you haven’t fallen in love with him. I warned you, didn’t I? He will come back to me eventually. He always does.”

Yasra considered her for a moment. “I really don’t think that will be the case this time. I think he is quite tired of your vapid, peevish little ways. I know I would be.” She gave her a smile of her own when she saw her cheeks color with temper.

“You think you’re so special because you are Gestalt,” she hissed at Yasra. “There is nothing special about you.”

Before she could reply, Dendri walked up to her side. He picked up her hand and gave her fingers and ardent kiss, his eyes trained on Olla the entire time.

“Olla. It’s so good to have you here,” he said generously. His smile did not reach his eyes. In fact, it was the coldest smile she had ever seen him give anyone. “But if you do not temper your remarks to my wife, you will not be invited back…in spite of my love for your brother. Is that understood?”

“Your
wife
?” Olla was incredulous. “You aren’t married. She is not your wife!”

“As of this afternoon she is. Didn’t your brother tell you? He and Jory and Myra were all witnesses. This is a wedding supper.”

Olla looked around the room. The soiree was filled with guests of all kinds, including the triumvirate. She had been so honored to be invited, thinking this was a party for the triumvirate, thinking they were the guests of honor, that she had not thought it could be otherwise. Wil had not told her anything about a wedding.

“Oh, that’s right,” Dendri said with a snap of his fingers. “I told Wil it was a secret. He kept it well, I must say. I am surprised he wouldn’t tell his own sister. But, that is the kind of friend he is. Trustworthy and dependable. Good-hearted. Not one who would spew poisonous words to others who are vulnerable to them.” Dendri leaned in to her. “If I ever hear you speak one ill word to my wife again…if I even hear one poisonous thought in her direction, it will be the very last time you see the inside of this house. I would have seen to it already, but my wife insisted we be forgiving on behalf of your brother.”

“B-but I…I j-just…” she stammered, color staining her cheeks as the rest of her went pale. “Dendri, I didn’t mean anything by it. Of course I will give your wife all the respect she deserves.”

“See that you do. It will take me some time to trust you again Olla. Until then, I will monitor all of your thoughts while you are in my house or while you are anywhere close to my wife. Is that clear?”

Olla nodded, her expression miserable.

“Come, husband,” Yasra said beckoningly. “Let us see to our other guests.”

Dendri leveled a censorious glare onto Olla, but then turned to Yasra and smiled at her with all of the love and affection in his heart.

He bent and pressed a kiss to her forehead, choosing to ignore the stinging stab of jealousy that came from Olla. He would let her suffer her petty thoughts. It was punishment in and of itself.

He brought her over to Ariana Colla and the other male triumvirs.

“Congratulations, Adiron,” Mason Hittie said. “This is an auspicious beginning to what we hope will be a lengthy Gestalt pairing.”

“How goes your training?” Jutsin asked.

“Slowly…but steadily,” Yasra assured them. “We have decided to focus on training in one house at a time. For the beginning that is. That will change as we develop. As I become more conversant in my natural majic—the majic of a Necromay—versus what is natural to the Gestalt.”

“A wise idea. There is much to learn. Much to be covered. You do not want to overwhelm yourself,” Ariana said. “And now that we are at peace with the Kiltians, we do not need Dendri so much. He is yours for however and whenever you need him.”

“Thank you, but I already know that,” Yasra said. “Dendri has promised me his time and attention and I know he will keep his word.”

“Some attentions more than others, eh Dendri?” Ariana asked coquettishly.

“Ariana!” Mason scolded. He cleared his throat roughly, but then smiled. “But she does have a point.”

Dendri laughed. “Yes. Some more than others. Yasra is quite demanding of my…attentions.”

“Dendri!” Yasra gasped. She slapped his chest as she colored.

“Never fear, my beloved wife, I will not tell them how divine our love life is both inside and out of the bedroom,” he said, a twinkle in his eye.

“Oh! You’re horrible! All four of you!” Yasra declared as they all laughed. If her cheeks got any redder!

“If you’ll excuse us. There’s something that requires my…attention.”

Dendri swept Yasra away and out of the din of the room. He pulled her down the hall and into the quiet of an alcove. She scrubbed at one of her rosy cheeks with a fist and slapped his chest again.

“You’re incorrigible! They’re going to think that we…that you…that I…”

“That we are going to fuck while we have a house full of guests?” He smiled wolfishly as he opened the door to the bedroom and pushed her inside. “They are right.”

“Dendri!” she gasped. “We can’t! The dinner gong is going to ring any moment!”

“Then we best hurry,” he said, lifting her skirt of her gown, his mouth on hers as he crowded her back toward the bed.

“Dendri, please!”

“I am trying to please you. Can you not see that?” He slid a hand up her thigh and suddenly his mouth froze against hers. He growled softly. “Besides,” he said hotly, “if you weren't expecting this, you would have worn drawers.”

“Well seeing as how you ripped the last two pairs trying to get them off of me I figured this was the better idea!”

“It’s a lovely idea,” he said with a grin. Now come on. Relax.” He slid onto the bed with her, pushing her gown up around her hips.

He looked down into her eyes, the green depths of his turning soft with desire.

“Come,” he whispered in what was becoming his familiar way. “Come into me.”

“Come into me,” she returned before they each sank deep into the thoughts of the other.