Do You Believe in Magic? (37 page)

Read Do You Believe in Magic? Online

Authors: Ann Macela

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Magic, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Romance, #Contemporary

BOOK: Do You Believe in Magic?
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Francie shot him an extremely dubious glance, but his excitement was inciting hers, so she focused on the candle. She thought about her SMI center, which had begun to itch slightly, and visualized a tiny little flame in there. She tried moving the flame from inside her chest to the outside air.
The flame, the energy bit, the spark, whatever it was, didn’t seem to want to move, however. It just sat there in her center. She did feel slightly warmer there, but she told herself it was just her imagination.
She closed her eyes and tried to play it out like a movie on the back of her forehead. She could see the spark move from herself to the candle and the wick start to glow, but when she opened her eyes, the picture vanished, and nothing happened. Except the itch got stronger.
She sighed. “I don’t think this is working, Clay.”
“No feeling of warmth? No little zap? It’s what happens to me.”
“Nothing. Not really. Except I’m itching again.” She rubbed the spot. “I thought Daria said the itching went away with the First Mating.”
“God, I hope so, because I’m itching, too.” He scratched his chest. “Look, it doesn’t matter, your not being able to cast
flamma
, I mean. I might not be teaching you correctly.”
“Or, more likely, I simply can’t cast any spell at all. I’ll admit, it would be intriguing to be able to do that, and it’s fun to think about, like daydreaming what you would do with the money if you won the lottery. I do believe you and your family and other practitioners can work magic, but the idea I can, well, that’s pretty far-fetched to me.”
“Yeah, Mother did say she hasn’t been able to find any evidence a nonpractitioner gained the power from mating. I just sorta hoped, I guess.” He gave her a quick kiss. “But enough of this. Let’s shove the dishes into the dishwasher and go take our own shower. We have a First Mating to enjoy.”
Enjoy
was the operative word, Francie discovered in Clay’s oversized shower stall. Shampooing, soaping, and rinsing became opportunities to explore each other’s bodies: slide here, rub there, be sure to remember to rinse before tasting. She had never received such a thorough shampoo or had such an attentive shampooer. His large, long-fingered hands massaged her scalp and the back of her neck until she felt like purring. She had never known the delight of running her hands over slick hard muscles and hair-roughened skin. Her own fingers traced the line of his shoulders, measured the width of his chest, and almost satisfied her craving to touch and explore his wonderful body.
But when he bent her backward over his arm to suckle at her breasts, her pleasure turned to hunger and she rubbed her mound against him. When that wasn’t enough, she twisted one leg around his and ground herself against his rigid erection.
Clay needed no further invitation. He had been hard and ready since they entered the shower. He slid his hands from her back to her buttocks, gripped, lifted, braced her against the wall, and with an exultant “Ahhhh!” drove into her. Just where he wanted, was meant, to be.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips. His thrusts forced from her little grunts that soon became words: “Yes, yes, yes.”
He took the words from her mouth, sealed them in with his lips, and answered them with his tongue. As he thrust, each time reaching deeper into her hot depths, lights appeared again on the backs of his eyelids. He raised his head and opened his eyes. The lights were still there, around them, intermixed with the water falling from the shower. It was like being inside a rainbow in a rainstorm.
Her eyes shut, Francie moaned, tugged at him to return to the kiss.
“Look, Francie,” he murmured, pumping his hips again.
Her eyes slitted open, but her gaze was groggy.
“Look at the lights,” he said.
“Yes,” she whispered, “yes, yes, yes,” and she brought her ravenous mouth up to his.
To hell with the lights, Clay thought—his last bit of consciousness for a while. He thrust again, certain this one had to touch her womb, and felt her go over the edge. He followed into oblivious ecstasy.
His senses finally returned as her legs loosened from around him and they disengaged. She slid limply down his body. He held her until he was sure she could stand on her own, then stepped back. “Francie?”
“Hmmmm?” she said. She blinked at him sleepily.
He laughed. “Come on, let’s get ourselves dry and go back to bed.”
“All right,” she agreed dreamily, pleasantly, as though he had suggested a walk in the park.
Not until he was rubbing the towel over her did she wake up. “Wow,” she said. “What train was that?”
“I don’t know, the SMI Express, I guess.”
“Is this the way it usually is, the First Mating, I mean?”
“I have no idea. Nothing anybody told me prepared me for this, this . . .”
“Explosiveness?”
“That’s as good a word as any.” He gave her hair a final rub. “There. Enough.”
He gave her a little push out the bathroom door and followed her to the bed. She flopped down and burrowed into the mattress. He thought she was probably asleep before he could get around to his side. Once his head hit the pillow, he was gone, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
 
Pain!
Francie jerked upright in the bed, almost doubled over, her hands pressing into her center. Spasms of agony radiated from it to all parts of her body. She could barely get her breath. The distress diminished as she rubbed, and she realized Clay was sitting up also. Even in the not-quite dark, she could see he was massaging
his
breastbone.
“What happened?” she panted. “Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know,” he answered with a hoarse, shaky rasp. “I was dreaming of you . . .”
“I was dreaming about you . . .”
“And I felt this horrible need . . .”
“And I wanted you so badly . . .”
He turned toward her and flipped the covering sheet down to the end of the bed. He reached out his hand toward her chest. “Does it hurt?”
She reached toward his chest. “Not so much now. Does yours?”
Their fingers touched each other’s center at the same time. Energy surged between them, as if a circuit had been completed, and they both gasped.
Her gaze leaped to his. Rainbow lights began to play around them, and in the brightness she could see his gaze turn hot, his expression become fierce. He moved between her legs with the speed of a panther, pushed her down flat, mounted her, then entered her with a powerful, passionate thrust that forced a cry from her throat. The raw energy raging in their centers roared down their bodies and through this new link, completing the final circuit.
Both cried out again as lightning coursed through them, but their eyes remained locked on each other’s and their hands maintained the initial contact on their centers. For a long moment, neither stirred. Then the spectrum burst around them, and Clay began to move with great driving thrusts that raised her off the bed. She wrapped her legs around his thighs and, curving like a bow, rose to meet him.
She was drowning in his molten silver eyes, coming apart under the force of his savage possession. And she reveled in it.
More
, her body screamed.
More!
Tightening every muscle she owned when he was fully inside her, she bore up on him, trying to take more, to get closer, to make herself such a part of him and him such a part of her they could never come apart.
The energy rushing between them raced faster, threw off sparks, doubled and redoubled in power.
It was agonizingly painful.
It was excruciatingly exquisite.
They seemed to be melting, flowing together, reaching for something, reaching . . .
Until . . .
There it was, there, there, there.
Fusion
.
The light around them changed, became only red, then rippled through the spectrum. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
Silver. Gold. Pure, dazzling white.
Blinded, she screamed, her body arching to his as ecstasy rolled through her like a huge tidal wave and hammered her hips against his.
Her convulsion triggered his own.
The brilliant white light rendered him sightless, but he didn’t need vision to pour himself into her, empty himself, in contractions that went on and on and on. Exhilaration, exaltation, and absolute joy speared through his body, increased with every tight hug in her embrace, and exploded into sheer rapture.
He was certain he was dying. No one could stand this much pleasure and live. When they had touched each other’s center, he had been suddenly filled with a lust that turned his cock into granite and produced an overwhelming need to bury himself in her. His only remedy for the wild desire, his only solace from the potent pain, would be with her, in her.
As they joined and he felt the soft, hot clasp of her body, saw the golden flames in her smoky brown eyes, and shook from the intensity of the energy surge, he knew they would never be completely apart again. The link had been melded in a white-hot crucible and forged into permanence with hammer blows of enormous power.
When sight and sanity returned, he found himself lying on her, his face buried half in the pillow and half in her neck. Her arms lay limp around him, as did her legs. He didn’t want to move. He wasn’t sure he could. He could reach her neck with his lips, so he kissed her, felt her pulse beating with his tongue. Her hands flexed and so did her inner muscles.
The little jolt of electricity resulting from the small squeeze gave him the energy to rise to his elbows. He looked down into her eyes, all smoky again. “Are you all right?”
Francie nodded, although it was difficult to move. She had to clear her throat to speak. “I . . . I think so. What was that?” The knowledge came to her unbidden, but certain, with such a depth and rightness, it could not be denied. “That was power, magical power, wasn’t it?”
“Had to be. When I’ve cast a really powerful spell, I’ve gotten a buzz, but I’ve never felt anything like it. We could have lit up Houston.” He gave her a little kiss, then frowned. “Where did it come from? We woke up hurting, and I remember reaching for you. It started when I touched your center and you touched mine, didn’t it? An energy surge?”
“I think so. It was like we were connected.” She broke their eye contact and looked around, running her gaze over his body. “Clay, I can still see some lights around us. They’re faint, but they’re there.”
He turned his head to the side. “You’re right. Hold on, let me slide off you.” He maneuvered himself and her so they were lying on their sides, facing each other, legs intertwined. He was still inside her, but their chests did not touch.
“Let’s try it again. You touch my center and I’ll touch yours.”
They touched. Both jumped at the slight zap, but they didn’t break contact.
“That was like an electric shock,” Francie said. “And I feel the tingle all over inside. I think the lights are brighter.”
Clay glanced down their bodies. “Yeah, they are.” He studied the lights for a few seconds. “What this looks like to me is a magical aura. I’ve seen one on Daria when she has spelled herself. The lights form sort of a frame, shaped like your body, but standing off it a little. Do you see it?”
Francie raised her head to peer around. “Yes. Take your hand away.” They cut the contact. “That dimmed the lights quite a bit, but not entirely. I still feel, oh, I don’t know, ‘current’ running inside me.”
“So do I. But we’re still connected.” He looked down their bodies to the place where they joined. He withdrew from her slowly. Both caught their breath at the moment of separation. “No current.”
“Me, either. The lights are dimming, but still there. Scoot over until we’re not touching at all.” When they split completely, Francie said, “They just went off entirely.”
“For me, too.” He flopped over on his back and rubbed his chest. “Well, that was the damnedest thing I ever saw or experienced. I know Dad says being soul mates just gets better all the time, but if we go through this every time, it’s going to kill us both.”
She propped herself up on an elbow. “If the imperative’s causing this, it didn’t hurt us, did it? I mean, I feel fine now—exhausted, but fine.” She yawned, a big jaw-breaking yawn that she felt to her toes.
“Yeah.” He copied her yawn, then stretched up and looked at his bedside clock. “Two in the morning. Let’s get some sleep—if the damn SMI will let us.” He lay back down and pulled her into his arms. “Do you see any lights?”
“No. Everything is dark again,” she answered.
“Good.” He snuggled her closer.
Francie felt him fall into sleep. She yawned again, as she considered the previous minutes. What had happened? Except for absolutely stupendous lovemaking,
what
? The two of them, when literally together, created some sort of “aura” around themselves. Would this continue, or would the lights fade over time? What did the surge of power mean?

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