Spellbound

believe, what I can accept. Except one thing.” He lowered himself to her, kept his mouth a whisper from hers. “This matters. Here. Now. You. It matters.”
    “Love me.” She drew his mouth down to hers. “I’ve ached for you so long.”
    It was slow and testing and sweet. Sighs and secrets, tastes and textures. He knew how her mouth would fit against his, knew the erotic slide of her tongue, the suggestive arch of her hips. He swallowed each catchy breath as he took his hands slowly, so slowly over her. Skimming curves, warming flesh. He filled his hands with her breasts, then his mouth, teasing her nipples with tongue and teeth until she groaned out his name like a prayer.
    She took her hands over him, testing those muscles, tracing the small scars. Not a warrior’s body, but a man’s, she thought. And for now, hers. Her heart beat slow and thick as he used his mouth on her with a patience and concentration she knew now she’d been foolish not to expect.
    Her heart beat thickly, the sun warmed her closed lids as pleasure swamped her. And love held so long in her heart bloomed like wild roses.
    “Calin.”
    His name shuddered through her lips when he cupped her. He watched her eyes fly open, saw the deep-blue irises go glassy and blind in speechless arousal. He sent her over the edge, viciously delighted when she cried out, shuddered, when her hands fell weakly.
    His, was all he could think as he blazed a hot trail down her thigh. His. His.
    Blood thundered in his head as he slipped inside her, as she moaned in pleasure, arched in welcome. Now her eyes were open, vivid blue and intense. Now her arms were around him, a circle of possession. She mated with him, their rhythm ancient and sure.
    His strokes went deep, deeper, and his mouth crusheddown on hers in breathless, mutual pleasure. She flew, as she had waited a lifetime to fly, as he emptied himself into her.
    She held him close as the tension drained from his body. Stroked his hair as he rested his head between her breasts. “It’s new,” she said quietly. “Ours. I didn’t know it could be. Knowing so much, yet this I never knew.”
    He shifted, lifted his head so that he could see her face. Her skin was soft, dewy, her eyes slumberous, her mouth rosy and swollen. “None of this should be possible.” He cupped a hand under her chin, turned her profile just slightly, already seeing it in frame, in just that light. Black and white. And he would title it Aftermath . “I’m probably having a breakdown.”
    Her laugh was a quick, silly snort. Carefree, careless. “Well, your engine seemed to be running fine, Calin, if you’re after asking me.”
    His mouth twitched in response. “We’re pushing into the twenty-first century. I have a fax built into my car phone, a computer in my office that does everything but make my bed, and I’m supposed to believe I’ve just made love to a witch. A witch who makes fire burn out of thin air, calls up winds where there isn’t a breeze in sight.”
    She combed her fingers through his hair as she’d dreamed of doing countless times. “Magic and technology aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s only that the second so rarely takes the first into account. Normality is only in the perspective.” She watched his eyes cloud at that. “You had visions, Calin. As a child you had them.”
    “And I put away childish things.”
    “Visions? Childish?” Her eyes snapped once, then she closed them on a sigh. “Why must you think so? A child’s mind and heart are perhaps more open to such matters. But you saw and you felt and you knew things that others didn’t. It was a gift you were given.”
    “I’m no witch.”
    “No, that only makes the gift more special. Calin—”
    “No.” He sat up, shaking his head. “It’s too much. Let it be for a while. I don’t know what I feel.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, into his hair. “All I know is that herewas where I had to be—and you’re who I had to be with. Let the rest alone for a while.”
    They had so little time. She nearly said it before she stopped herself. If time was so short, then what they had was precious. If she was damned for taking it for only the two of them, then she was damned.
    “Then let it rest we will.” She lay back, stretched out a hand for his. “Come kiss me again. Come lie with me.”
    He skimmed a hand up her thigh, watched her smile bloom slow. And the light. Oh, the light. “Stay right there.” He bounded out of