Page 26 of The Captive's Curse
His huge cock had been inside me.
Traces of his spend still coated me where it had been, his invisible mark on me.
And my magic, bright and eager, quivered toward him like a hunting hound on a leash.
Gods fuckingdamnit.
The hair rose on the back of my neck and chill tendrils worked their way down all my limbs, my blood feeling as if it quite literally ran cold.
So this was what my stupid magic had been leading me to since I woke up. Or rather, this waswhoit’d been leading me to. Now that Enzo was near, my amorphous, anxious tension had transmuted into something easily recognizable: need, deep andaching, my body and my magic both demanding more of what had satisfied them so perfectly last night.
My magic had never done this to me before. Caused me pain, yes. Malfunctioned terribly and dangerously and often embarrassingly, also yes.
But it had never responded to another man without the driving force of the curse behind it. Or if it had, it’d been a sufficiently weak response that I’d been able to mistake it for simple lust.
Some of my books on magic had been written in other lands where priests and mages believed every twilight mage had a perfect match, a man who’d not only soothe his cursed power into compliance but strengthen him, too.
Such utter drivel, really—or so I’d always thought.
And yet here we stood, with my spiritual and physical beings both helplessly yearning toward this man who’d declared his deep disappointment at his inability to get rid of me and had only fucked me out of necessity and the desire for an easy place to stick his cock. He hadn’t even stayed the night! Clearly my cursed magic’s cursed pull toward Enzo was entirely one-sided.
There had to be a way to sever the connection, divert my magic’s attention…something. I simply refused to spend the gods only knew how long in this castle mooning about and longing for Enzo’s touch simply because my dreadfully flawed magic had chosen to fail in yet another spectacular manner.
“Lord Cyril? Are you having some kind of fit?”
A fit? I blinked, shook my head, and forced my eyes to focus again. Enzo had pushed off the wall and come closer, frowning. The motion of walking made the bulge in the front of his trousers more visible. Not that it needed any help in that regard. And the top of his shirt gaped open to reveal a few additional square inches of tanned neck and chest and a hint of black hair peeking out.
Last night he’d kept his shirt on. I hadn’t even gotten to see his chest, all muscled and hairy and hard. Or feel it pressed against my back as he drove into me, pinning me with his weight…
“Lord Cyril!” I blinked again, gasped, and found Enzo looming over me from only a foot away, now glaring as well as frowning. “You keep blinking and muttering and crossing your eyes. I thought your magic only bothered you every nine or ten days. Or are you throwing another tantrum about your accommodations? You’re not getting a private bathing chamber. That’s final.”
My jaw clamped down so hard I almost broke my teeth. Oh, this had to be the worst thing that had ever happened to me. His tall, overwhelming presence, the charged warmth of the air between us, even his annoyance, were all stiffening my cock and twisting up my insides, the ends of my fingers tingling with eager magic.
Another tantrum. What a fucking prick. This man. It had to bethis man, of all the men in the world.
“I don’t throw tantrums,” I gritted out, wishing I could simply punch him. But that might hurt my hand, and I needed it to play my lute. “You’re right. The curse is still acting up. It’s dreadful. You’ll need to fuck me again. Probably more than once.” In a burst of gleeful inspiration, I tipped my head, fluttered my lashes, smiled sweetly, and added, “I was blinking away tears at the prospect of enduring it. Although you were incredibly quick last night, so luckily I won’t have to endure it for long.”
Enzo took another step and leaned in so that we were toe to toe and eye to…well, chin, even though I tilted my head back even more, almost to the point of losing my balance.
But I couldn’t move my feet. Every part of my body strained toward him, desperate to fall into him and open for him. The closer he came, the worse it got.
I hated my magic sometimes, so bitterly I could taste it.
Enzo’s eyes glittered, his jaw tight. “I was quick because you were in pain,” he said, “and because like I said, it’d been a while.”
“Hah,” I scoffed, and then did it again, because that absurdity demanded it. “Hah! You? Being thoughtful? Need I remind you yet again that youkidnapped me and held me to ransom,unsuccessfully at that,and then threatened me with zucchinislike the rude, vulgar, common criminal you are? And anyway, I’m not surprised it’s been a while given that you can’t last long enough to satisfy—aaah!”
“That’s it,” Enzo snarled, and caught me around the waist, lifting me all the way off my feet and dragging me toward the door he’d come out of. I kicked at his shins and struggled, but he’d pinned my arms at my sides, his own arms hard as granite around me. The world blurred into fragments as my head bounced, and my body rubbed all over his, the contact making me even dizzier. “Enough. I didn’t threaten you with zucchinis, you little liar, but I did threaten you with putting you over my knee, and I don’t fucking bluff!”
Over…his…My eyes widened and my whole body went rigid as shock took over, freezing me so that I couldn’t even fight him.
“No! I won’t be—you can’t do this—I won’t stand for it!” My voice got shriller and less coherent, but it didn’t matter, because he slammed the door behind us with his foot, and there was no one around to hear me anyway.
“No, you won’t stand for it. You’ll bend over for it,” he said, infuriatingly. “And I absolutely can do this. Who’s going to stop me? Not you.”
“I will! I’ll—use my magic—”
“Hah!” he scoffed in his turn, echoing mine at him, and driving me to a height of blinding rage I hadn’t known I could reach. Red sparkles swam in my vision.
