The Magic's in the Music (Magic Series Book 5) (12 page)

The moonlight seemed to beat at him, not a kindly cleansing influence anymore but a battering ram, banging against the door of his soul. He collapsed to his knees, his body shaking. He bent his head, hunching his shoulders as if to protect himself.

But there was no protection from this assault.

Maybe there was a way, though, to relieve the pressure building inside his loins and his gut. He grabbed his cock in his left hand and began to jerk it roughly.

*

Greta threw back
the covers. She wasn’t getting any sleep tonight. She was still painfully aching between her legs and her thighs were wet. This was ridiculous. And she was not going to masturbate in some strange house because she had it bad for…whatever his name was. How could she have it so bad for him when she’d seen him exactly twice? She didn’t even know him. She’d only seen him in good light for the first time in the foyer downstairs an hour ago. She was really losing it.

She didn’t even pull on the robe Jane had lent her. She just started pacing the room, growing more agitated by the minute, until she stopped as though something had shaken her into stillness. She turned to the draped windows. Her breasts felt full and tender. Her center grew quiet as she walked slowly to the window and pulled the brocade aside.

The moon, partially obscured by a graceful tree with feathery leaves, washed over a flagstone terrace. Grass stretched down to a pergola covered with heaps of some vine. The lawn was surrounded by gardens. She recognized rose bushes and birds of paradise among other plants. Beyond the pergola, the moon cut a silver channel along the ocean. The house must be up on cliffs here, since she couldn’t see the breakers. Stars dotted the night, though you couldn’t see as many at sea level as you would in the mountains.

She opened the latch on the window and swung it outwards. The roar of the waves breaking against the cliffs thundered. The air smelled of seaweed and sand and the fecundity of the ocean that had given birth to all life. Stars were fainter than usual, washed out by the light of the moon. But there was her old friend Orion. And she could, very faintly, see the Pleiades. Soon, in the south, she’d be able to see the comet Galahad with her naked eye.

She gasped as she caught sight of a man. He was naked, standing in three-quarter profile, his arms held wide, fingers splayed in supplication or in prayer.
God, it’s him.
The dark waving hair to his shoulders gave him away. Even from here she could see he was trembling, every muscle tensed, and he had a very impressive erection. She shouldn’t be seeing this. But she couldn’t look away from the muscular buttocks and thighs flexing to keep him upright as some strong emotion washed through him. The moonlight hit his chest, outlining his pectorals and abdominals. Its glow was bright enough that she could even see the muscle in his shoulders and back that didn’t face the light. His penis jutted out, thick and straight. He was beautiful. She’d never seen anything so elemental, so…real as the Ghost in the moonlight, in spite of his name.

The ache in her loins was just this side of real pain. When he sank to his knees, legs spread in the grass, shoulders shaking, her heart went out to him. And then she saw him grip his cock and begin to stroke. He wasn’t gentle. He wasn’t coy. This wasn’t for pleasure. He wanted to rip an orgasm out by its roots.

Greta was mesmerized. Worse, she found her own hand reaching downward. At least he had no idea she was here, watching him. She spread the lips of her sex and stroked herself through the thick juices, her eyes glued to the man below her, doing the same. She meant to do it slowly, but there was no room for lingering sensuality. At the first stroke of her fingers, sensation shot to her breasts and her womb. She wanted the release as badly as that man on his knees down there. She rubbed herself, harder, faster, in time to the Ghost’s jerking below.

It didn’t take long for either of them to reach their climax. She bit her lips against her convulsive cry, even as his groan floated up from the garden. His semen spurted into the grass in long jets. Her orgasm went on and on. So did his. She didn’t close her eyes. She couldn’t look away from the man whose hips jerked and strained below her. Her knees went weak though and she leaned against the unopened side of the window, the drapes falling behind her.

When it was finally over, she sagged, gasping, and grabbed the draperies for support. He leaned over, heaving as he gasped for breath. He stayed bent, staring at the grass beneath his knees, his hair a curtain for his face. Greta had never felt so drained in her life. Thank God he hadn’t seen her. No one had to know she’d done something so shameful.

Then his body went still. With aching slowness, he turned his head. She should have moved, but she didn’t. Maybe she couldn’t. His face turned toward the house, then looked up, until he was staring right at her; and she was staring back, unable or unwilling to move. The pain in his expression, the horror at seeing her there, made her clench in defense.

With a gasp, she turned and fumbled her way through the drapes and back into the dark room.

What the hell just happened here?

‡

She disappeared. Had
she been an illusion? Lan shook his head to clear it. The milky skin, slim waist, flaring hips, perfect breasts…those were the stuff of dreams. But she’d been there all right, naked in the window above him.

And she’d seen what he’d done.

Fuck.
What kind of out-of-control asshole jerks off in his parents’ yard, buck-naked? He glanced around as though others might have seen him too. But the yard was silent, empty, the windows of the house dark. Just like he was.

He shoved himself up. The moon still gleamed as it made its way toward the watery horizon, but it didn’t seem magical anymore. It couldn’t cleanse him. It was a force for chaos in his life, not control. Just like she was.

Maybe the girl was the reason he was so…not himself. That fit. Because he was pretty sure she was meant for him. She must have the Merlin gene, just like his family. After all these centuries of the magic dispersing until the world had thought it was lost, now for some reason, it had decided to gather again. Whenever two of the genes came into contact, they called to each other, demanding the hosts mate and produce children whose magic would be even stronger.

He hung his head. It had happened just that way with his siblings and their mates. They hadn’t had any choice about it. They’d gotten magic powers. They’d gotten married. Tris already had babies. Kemble had one on the way. Destiny. Great, right?

But what if you didn’t want any part of it? What if you didn’t want to be some unwitting cog in the wheel of the universe as it turned back toward magic? What if you didn’t want to fight Morgan Le Fay and her Clan for the stupid Talismans Merlin had created to amplify magic powers?

What if you just wanted to be left the fuck alone?

Standing, he staggered back. He turned into the house, his body exhausted. Coming out into the yard naked and jerking off under the moonlight was probably enough to get you a padded cell. He could see that now.

He had to get out of here. His life was his own, Goddamnit.

He was too exhausted to slam the French doors. He slid into the Bay of Pigs and shuffled down the hallway, feeling like a husk. He’d go. Now.

His stomach rolled. Yeah. He knew what that was, too. He’d feel sick when he tried to leave her. It had already started at the club tonight. Tris and Maggie, Drew and Michael had all fought their attractions, and it made them damned sick. Well, he also knew that distance helped. And he was willing to bet a whole heaping bunch of Scotch wouldn’t hurt either. He pulled on his clothes haphazardly and staggered out to the Harley.

*

Greta felt a
little better now. She’d gotten an hour or two of disturbed sleep after sunrise, after her stomach had calmed down a little. What a night. The whole mutual masturbation thing with the Ghost in the garden under the moonlight seemed unreal. Waking with sticky thighs argued that she hadn’t dreamed it. Her panic when he’d turned his head and stared straight at her was real, too. What must he think of her?

She peered at herself in the mirror. If Kevin Anderson could see the circles under her eyes, he’d cast her as the superhero’s mother, not his girlfriend, or maybe as the smart-aleck CGI raccoon. She was stiff, too. Her knees were bruised and scabbed. She sighed and darted a glance over to the lovely electric-blue, silk blouse and black, tailored slacks hanging on the hook inside the bedroom door. Apparently she’d slept soundly enough to miss the welcome wagon visit. Obviously, her benefactor wasn’t blonde, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and it was very nice of one of the Ghost’s sisters to lend her clothing. They’d even left some soft ballet shoes—the kind with elastic around the outside, so the fit didn’t matter as much. She’d have the clothes cleaned and returned when she got home.

If it was home anymore. She couldn’t look at her phone. She’d be all over the Internet by now in horrible, grainy pictures. And those articles were forever. They’d come up when anybody Googled her from now until she was eighty-five. Getting pictures just whetted those ghouls’ appetite for more, too. There was no doubt they’d be camped outside her apartment.

She dressed, surprised that the clothes fit pretty well, and sat stiffly on the edge of the bed to call Bernie. She had to look up his number in her contacts list. She wasn’t one of those starlets who had their agent on speed-dial. It occurred to her that she actually didn’t talk to him much, and yet he was the only person she could think of to call on in a pinch.

“Hey, Jennifer, Gretchen here. Is Bernie in?”

“Hi, Ms. Falk. I’m afraid not. He’s in New York at the Television Buyers conference.”

“Oh.” Greta pressed on in spite of her disappointment. “When do you expect him back?”

“He’s got a flight back on Saturday.”

As in almost a week. Greta felt her heart sink.

“Is it an emergency? I can have him call you between meetings.”

Greta wanted to scream that of course it was an emergency. But was it? All she’d wanted for the last seven years was to stand on her own two feet and control her own life, and here she was calling her agent to come fix things because the nasty men had taken bad pictures of her. She’d never wanted to be one of those sniveling, entitled brats who needed constant handholding. “No, it isn’t,” she said with as much control as she could muster. “Just let him know I called.”

“Will do, Ms. Falk.” Jennifer sounded so cheerful. It was enough to turn one’s stomach even if one’s stomach wasn’t already fragile.

Greta clicked off. Where did this leave her? In some strange family’s house, brought home by their very errant son. No parents wanted their son to be somebody like the Ghost. He had probably been in trouble twenty-four-seven all his life. Who knew how many times they’d had to bail him out of jail? And now he’d brought some girl home like a stray cat in the middle of the night, said stray cat being her. Greta hadn’t felt so humiliated since…

Well, she wouldn’t think about that.

She took a deep breath and stood. Better get this over with. A quick thank you, call for a cab, and this whole sorry incident would be over. She’d just brave the gauntlet at her apartment and stay locked inside until Saturday. Maybe the Ghost had slept even later than she had, and she could slip away before she had to face him.