Heart's Magic (11 page)

He pushed her dress lower
without hands as he kissed his way from the top of her shoulders to
her collarbone, to the upper slopes of her breasts. His arm behind
her gave support as she tipped her head back, offering him access.
She was mad. She had to be. But the sensations swarming her could
not be denied, refused to be thwarted.

"We're good together."
Harry had dragged his lips across her skin back up to her ear to
murmur into it. "We could be even better. I want you to be sure
what you're givin' up. Be sure you can really do without
it."

Dear heaven, he'd untied her
corset laces. He was nosing aside her chemise to kiss his way-- His
hand was on her
thigh
under her skirts.

"Harry--
Harry,
what--" She couldn't catch her
breath. "What are you doing?"

"Just givin' you a little
taste, love. Just a tad bit o' wot we could be like together." He
lifted her head, lolling against his arm on the end of her boneless
neck, and kissed her. His tongue plunged deep to capture her cry as
his fingers found the slit in her pantalettes.

He teased her tender folds,
combing through her curls as he kissed her neck, her collarbone,
her breast, and then
licked
across her nipple. The sensation shot straight
through her to the place between her legs where his fingers played
and she gasped, writhing in his embrace. He slipped a finger inside
her, through a sudden, embarrassing wetness, and groaned around her
nipple. The vibration made her gasp.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean
to--" She hadn't wet on him. She was sure of it.

"Shh." He laid his cheek
against her bosom. "It's just your body gettin' ready for this. For
pleasure. Sayin' how much it likes what we're doin'."

Oh, dear Lord, she was
lost. Utterly and completely. She whimpered and squirmed in his
lap, whether for escape or eagerness, she didn't know. It didn't
matter. Harry wasn't letting go. His arm tightened around her, his
mouth found hers again, and his fingers slid up her surprisingly
slick channel to a place that made her shudder with the pleasure of
his touch.

Languid heat spread through
her, drawing her tight as it dissolved her will. All she knew was
that she needed this. No. She needed more. She clutched at Harry's
shoulders, her back arching with that need, thrusting her breasts
toward him.

"That's it, love," Harry
murmured, dragging his mouth across her skin, across the rise of
her breasts. "Show me wot you want. Shall I kiss your tits, then?
Such sweet, lovely tits they are."

His praise and the faintly
vulgar words he used made her feel erotic, beautiful, totally
female to his raw masculinity. He licked over her nipple again,
both of them, and again the lightning arrowed to her sex. When he
closed his mouth over the peak of her breast and suckled, as he
stroked her relentlessly below, sensation grew into pleasure too
intense to bear.

She told him so, gasping.
"Harry--I can't bear it. I can't--"

"Shh." He rubbed his face
over her breasts, the scrape of whiskers adding to the sensations
driving her mad. "Nothing to be afraid of. It's all right. Stop
fighting it. Just let go. Let it 'appen."

"I can't." Her body had
become an alien thing, driven by forces beyond her control.
Pleasure rippled through her, taking her over. "Harry, please. Help
me."

"I will. I am. Swear it."
His tongue licked out to tease her nipple again, before he lifted
his head and pressed his cheek tight to hers, his lips brushing her
ear. "Just let go. I'll catch you. I'll always be 'ere to catch
you."

He tightened his arm behind
her back, crushing her naked breasts to his broad, fully-clothed
chest. The stern texture of his worsted wool coat, the satiny
brocade of his waistcoat, the smooth linen of his shirt, felt
outrageously erotic against her skin. The strength of his hold
assured her that he would indeed catch her.

"Let go, Elinor, love," he
murmured in his lovely, rough-edged voice. "Come for me,
sweetheart."

Maybe it was the
endearment. Or the feel of his clothing on her bare breasts. Maybe
it was his strong arm around her or his clever fingers, never
ceasing with their circling and stroking and teasing. More likely,
it was everything at once, but whatever it was Elinor found herself
pushed up some impossibly high pinnacle of physical delight, where
she paused for an endless instant before the pleasure burst over
her and she fell. Her body throbbed and shook, consumed by
pleasure, her voice stolen away save for a single, gasped "Harry!"
She fell and fell and fell. And Harry caught her in his
kiss.

When she came to herself
again, Harry had both his arms wrapped around her, one over her
bared back, the other round her hips, holding her tight and safe.
He murmured nonsense in her ear, about how brave she was and how
beautiful, about how she shook so sweetly, and how he'd known she
would be all fire and passion.

Shame flooded her. All her
noble intentions, all her high-minded rationality had been routed
by mindless animal desires. She was no better than--

"Don't," Harry said,
holding her tighter. "Whatever you're thinkin', stop
it."

"How do you know I'm
thinking anything at all?" She pushed away from him and he let her
sit up, but refused to let her move out of his lap. "Obviously, I
wasn't," she muttered, yanking her chemise back up over her
breasts.

"I know you're thinking,
'cause I know you." Harry lifted her and set her on the sofa beside
him facing away and calmly tightened her corset as if he helped
ladies dress every day of the world. "You're always thinking.
You're probably thinkin' even when you're asleep, instead o'
dreamin'. Besides, you stiffened up like a poker in my arms,
instead o' lyin' there soft and sweet like you been
doin'."

"Harry, this was wrong. We
should never have done it." She wanted to accuse, to say
"
you
shouldn't
have," but he hadn't done anything alone. He never would have if
she'd actually said no. And she hadn't.

Only when her loss of
control had frightened her did she speak at all. She would accept
her share of the blame.

"Why?" He tugged her dress
back up over her shoulders and began buttoning it. "Didn't 'urt
nothing. Didn't even risk gettin' a babe on you."

"It's too dangerous. The
scandal-- The risk--"

Her dress still half
unbuttoned, Harry turned her around to face him, cupping her cheek
in his big, calloused hand. "I told you 'ow to get rid of the
scandal, but you won't 'ave none of it. Seems to me you're no
stranger to risk or scandal, given you're a lady wizard an' were
willin' to be my apprentice."

"That's different. That was
for the magic."

"So you're willing to risk
everything for magic--for your work, your mind--an' nothin' for
your heart. Seems to me that's a piss-poor way to live, Elinor.
Beggin' your pardon. It leaves you off balance. Standin' on your
head, instead o' strong on two feet."

She would not stay and take
any more abuse. She was not a silly girl to be seduced by faulty
logic and--and blandishments. She didn't wait for Harry to finish
buttoning her dress. She stood and dragged her jacket on over the
half-open bodice, then her shawl, trying to tie her bonnet at the
same time.

Harry came after her, but
he only settled her shawl over her shoulders so it didn't drag the
ground, then turned her so he could tie her bonnet. "This ain't
goin' away, Elinor. There's something between us."

"Sheer animal lust," she
snapped, jerking her head away. Her bonnet came untied, since he
kept hold of the ribbons.

"Likely." He took a step
closer and patiently retied the bow. "Nothin' wrong with that. We
got bodies as well as minds, Elinor. To keep the one working
properlike, we got to take care of the other."

"By fornication?" She
transformed all her shame into scorn and put it into her voice.
"For my
health?
"

"I ain't sayin' that. But I
am sayin' it does no good to ignore it, what's between us. It's
there, and it's real, and it ain't goin' away. Nor am
I."

"Then I will." Elinor
brushed his hands off her shoulders, where they'd gone when he
finished with her bow.

She hunted for her best
haughty look--difficult to summon given what she'd just done--and
strode out of the room, out of Harry's house. She had to find
another place to live. Immediately.

Harry thrust a hand through
his hair, then scrubbed it down over his face before adjusting his
trousers over his too-eager cock. Had that been disaster, or
success?

Both, maybe. The trouble
with that was, he didn't know which parts were which.

He'd got his kiss,and more.
He lifted his hand for another scent of her desire. She'd liked it,
what he did for her. What they'd done together. That was a success,
he thought. But she didn't like that she liked it. That wasn't
disaster, though. A challenge.

He'd never intended to
propose marriage, but he wasn't sorry he did it. It made sense.
While he was trying to talk Elinor into it, he decided he liked the
idea.

He liked having her around
and not because she organized his household to run more smoothly.
His servants did that. He liked talking with her, liked bouncing
his ideas off her clever mind. Who knew what things she might come
up with? Like throwing her wands. Who would have
thought?

During the few short months
she was his apprentice--from last August halfway through
January--he'd got used to seeing her, talking with her every day.
If they got married, he wouldn't have to give that up, now she
wasn't his apprentice any more.

Even better, if they
married, he would have access to that lush little body of hers any
time he wanted. And with marriage, he could protect her. Not just
from scandal. A husband had a duty to protect his wife, like a
master protected his apprentice. He didn't have that right any
more, since she took master level, and he didn't like
it.

She couldn't be worried he
would interfere with her magic or start ordering her around. He
gave her orders now, like he did pretty much everyone around him.
She either ignored him completely and did what she wanted or she
told him it was an idiotic order and then did what she wanted.
Sometimes she did what he ordered, but that was only because she
agreed with what he said. He didn't see how marriage would change
that.

But she didn't turn him
down because of how things were between them. She turned him down
because of the rest of the world and what it thought.

His bollixed-up proposal
hadn't helped any, he was sure. So that was a bit of a disaster
there. And a challenge.

Because, like he told
Elinor, he wasn't giving up. She wasn't his woman yet, but she
would be.

Her body's reaction had
surprised her, caught her totally off guard. Harry had the thought
that she mostly ignored her body, as long as it functioned the way
it ought, and wizards tended to be healthy. All magicians did. So,
Harry figured, her mind could build all the barriers between them
it wanted, but her body was vulnerable to him. It liked what he did
and he thought he could tempt her with more. If he could get her
body on his side, eventually her mind would come up with reasons to
accept what the rest of her wanted.

Which meant that he had to
keep her close and that could be a tricksy dodge, since she wasn't
his apprentice any more. She'd be getting the magister's guild
tithe now, so she didn't have to stay in the rooms out back. She
could go live in Brown's Hotel with Jax and Amanusa. Or, God
forbid, she could even move to the Wizard's Guild Hall.

He couldn't offer to help
her with guild administration matters, because of that
"appearances" problem, though he could perhaps offer the assistance
of the alchemist's guild secretary. It would have to be the dead
zones that would keep her close. Dealing with the dead zones
required magicians from all four disciplines and with their
shortage of wizards capable of working the magic, she wouldn't be
able to completely hide behind the others. He would start
there.

Elinor Tavis was his woman.
She just didn't know it yet.

All the way out of Harry's
house--by the front door, to preserve her dignity--around to the
garden gate and through the garden to the back gate to the mews
where her flat was, a peculiar, shimmery, sparkly, fizzly feeling
clung to Elinor.

It wasn't exactly the same
thing she'd felt when Harry--when
they
had done what they'd done.
Although really, Harry had
done
it. She'd simply collapsed into a quivering,
brainless heap and--and
enjoyed
it.

Elinor shuddered, the
peculiar feeling poking at her again, though it wasn't precisely
pokey. More fizzy. Sparkly, as in sparks, not jewels. She poked
back at the sensation, turning her mind to analyzing it as a way
of, hopefully, controlling it.