Page 78 of Magick and Lead
The faintest smile touched my lips. “Maybe.”
“I’ll die for you, then,” he said and brought my hand to his lips. My only hand. And he kissed it as if it were the most precious thing in existence, as if it were the forehead of his own firstborn child.
“I love you, Essaphine Torholt,” he said. “And you can’t stop me.”
This time, it was I who kissed him, pulling his lips to mine ferociously, his lips soft and hungry and delicious against mine. To hell with caution. And the world. History could unfold as it would. But I was here, now. And I wanted Charlie. I wanted him, and I would have him. Already I was reaching for his belt, unbuckling, unzipping. I took his length in my hand and found him already hard as iron, his shaft throbbing in my fist.
He opened his mouth and for a second, I thought he would protest. Instead, he brought those lips to my neck. They traced down to my collarbone, kissing, tasting, sending a shiver through me as he reached down and scooped me up, my thighs in his hands, and set me down on the plane’s lower wing. I pulled up my dress and grabbed the front of his shirt in my fist, hauling him toward me.
“Come here,” I whispered, my breath already ragged.
I was ready for him. Wet, aching. But he wouldn’t fill me yet. Instead, he reached down with one hand and traced his fingers up my slit, soft as a rustle of silk. My head tilted back as a shiver rolled through me.
“Please,” I whispered.
He lay over me, his powerful body eclipsing the light from the window, one strong hand pinning me at the wrist.
“You’re on a plane now, Your Majesty,” he said. “That means I’m in charge.”
He pulled the top of my dress down, revealing my breasts, and went to work, his tongue tracing a circle around one nipple until it pricked erect, then blowing across it, a sigh of breath that sent my hips gyrating with desire. He took the breast in his mouth. Teasing, tasting, suckling. Below, his fingers moved, circling in earnest now, driving me on toward a certain pleasure that rose within me, as inexorable as a coming storm.
But that’s not how I wanted to come. I wanted him. Needed him.
“I want you,” I whispered.
Almost before the words had left my breathless lips, he was there, pressing into me so slow and strong and deep I roared with the ache and the pleasure of it. He was hard as granite. Slow as sunset. Inexorable as… as…
There were no words. Only sheer, animal pleasure. He filled me like I’d never been filled. I ached like I’d never ached. My legs trembled. Sweat slicked my face. Muttered words escaped my lips, but I didn’t know what I was saying.
There was such desire in his every stroke. Such need. Such reverence. He was taking me—completely. And I gave myself completely. Faster now. Harder. His movement in time with the beating of my own heart. I’d tried to hold back, tried to keep myself from the full extent of my pleasure, afraid of letting him make me feel too much?—
But it was impossible now. The pleasure crested in me, making my back arch, my legs tremble. A cry rose from my mouth as the pleasure hit me, over and over like the lashing of a whip. With a snarl, he let go, too. I felt him filling me, his release throbbing and hot as he pressed as deep as he could go. And I wanted him still deeper. To take all of him. Feel all of him. To drink his essence and, and…
His thumb traced over one of my breasts, and the sensation sent another wave of pleasure crashing over me. Then another.
When it was done, I found Charlie’s face close to mine. Nose to nose. Eye to eye. Breath to breath, our bodies enmeshed together as if they were one.
“I love you,” he breathed.
I love you, too.Those words almost came out of my lips, unbidden, but I bit them back just in time.
He was still inside me, moving slowly, and my eyes rolled and shut with pleasure. When I opened them again, he was smiling.
“I love you, Essa,” he said again, louder. Mocking me. Teasing me. Daring me to spill the truth he saw in my eyes and say it back.
“It changes nothing,” I whispered.
Instead of replying right away, he slid deeper, sending an aftershock of ecstasy rolling through me. He leaned in until his lips brushed mine.
“You’re wrong, Essa,” he whispered. “It changes everything.”
It hit us both in the same moment, sudden as the twang of a bowstring, that dragon intuition, and we both snapped our heads toward the door.
“They’re coming,” I said.
36
CHARLIE
