Sacrificial Magic - Stacia Kane

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his energy she would have known from the way he kissed her, the way he fisted her hair tight at the nape of her neck, the firm possessiveness of his hand on her bottom as he yanked her up against him, bending her backward. Rough and eager, and that energy infected her, too, made her grab his shoulders, wrap her leg around his.

      She bit his tongue just hard enough to hurt a little, her head already swimming. His gasp shot a thrill straight down her spine, shot her temperature up what had to be ten degrees or so, because she was sweating even before he slid his hand between her legs from behind and it was her turn to gasp. A gasp more like—almost embarrassingly so—a whimper. A week was too long, way too fucking long. A minute was too long, it was all too long when he was every fast panting breath she took, when the smell and taste and sight of him blotted out everything else in the world.

      She already had one leg around him; she wanted to add the other one, to climb up him and let him take her wherever he wanted to go.

      Which he did anyway. Instead of her climbing him, he grabbed her hips, hustled her the few steps into the living room until the backs of her thighs hit the arm of the couch. She drifted over it slowly, controlled by his hold on her.

      She needed to tell him. She needed to tell him right away. Now, as he helped her slide up on the couch so he could cover her with his body. Now, before they actually had sex. If they had sex before she told him, it would look as though she’d been trying to hide it from him, as though she’d known he’d be mad and wanted to make sure she got laid first. Or as though she hoped that after, he’d be in such a good mood and so relaxed that he wouldn’t care. It would look like manipulation.

      But fuck, she didn’t want to say anything or do anything that might make him stop. Not when his mouth left hers to play with her neck, sucking on it, biting it. Not when she could feel the energy around him changing, that savagery that told her what he’d been doing all day turning into something else, something just as primitive. Just as dangerous. Her heart pounded and wouldn’t stop; desperation choked her.

      She ran her palms down his back over his shirt, then up under it over his chest to feel his skin, the thick hair and the scar on the left side, over his heart. The heart beating fast against her hand, almost as fast as hers. The heart that kept beating because of that scar, because of what she’d done.

      What she was so glad she’d done. Because if she hadn’t done it he wouldn’t be alive, wouldn’t be there with his hands hot on her back, unfastening her bra beneath her shirt, then sliding around to her front. She wouldn’t be shivering harder and arching her back into those hands, reaching up to grab his hair thick between her fingers.

      She swallowed; hard to do with her breath coming so fast in her throat. She couldn’t get enough air to speak louder than a husky whisper, didn’t want to break the kiss long enough to speak at all. But she had to. “I wanted to tell you something.”

      In response he lifted the hems of her two shirts together. It almost hurt to have to take her hands off him so he could tug both of them over her head, catching her open bra on the way; the second her arms were free she grabbed him again, feeling as if it had been months and not barely an eyeblink. And every fearful alarm in her brain warned her about that, and she couldn’t ignore it but neither could she help it.

      She wanted to continue, to tell him what she had to tell him; instead she put her mouth to much better purpose, tasting the skin of his throat salty from sweat. And while she was pulling the collar of his shirt out of her way she might as well start undoing the buttons, get it off him so he could take off the shirt underneath and she could feel his skin against hers. Her insides buzzed; she felt shivery and hot, like her body was made of liquid just about to hit the boiling point.

      Or maybe just at the boiling point. His lips traveled over her collarbone and farther down to tease her nipples in turn, to pull them into the hot cavern of his mouth, and what had been a whimper turned into something even more than that. More like begging, and his eyes flashed satisfaction at her when he glanced up. Pleasure at his victory.

      It felt like years instead of a week since he’d touched her, since she’d gotten to feel his weight on hers, his lips on her body; they’d decided it was better not to start anything they couldn’t finish.

      She had to tell him. Had to, but the words wouldn’t come out. Not when every cell in her body threatened to explode, not when her body acted on its own accord from wanting his so fucking bad and she knew he felt the same.

      She tilted her pelvis up so the ridge of his erection pressed against her through their jeans. Another gasp from him, a mumble of something that sounded like her name but the roaring of her blood made it too hard to hear.

      Her thoughts were starting to disappear, to focus less on actual thinking and more on instincts and sensations, especially when he popped open the button of her jeans, tugged the zipper down, and hooked his fingers under the waistband and her panties. She lifted her hips so he could pull them down, his gaze fixed on her bare skin being revealed.

      The words burbled up in her chest, flew out of her mouth before she could stop them. Before she even realized she’d thought them. “I hung out at Lex’s place for a while today.”

      Pause. Long pause. His head dropped, hanging loose from his neck. His hands stopped moving and left her hips to sink into the couch cushion beneath them. Oh, shit. Even for her—and her track record of saying the right thing, or of not saying the wrong thing, was pretty abysmal—that was bad.

      “Aye?”

      Just one word, but that one word felt like a slap, so distant, so … so impersonal. Fuck. He wouldn’t even look at her; he sat up, ran his hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck with his gaze focused somewhere off in the distance. She’d known he wouldn’t react well—how could he—but she hadn’t expected him to be this cold.

      Kind of a stupid expectation on her part. Particularly stupid given the mood he was in when he arrived. Sure, Lex’s name had come up before, but she hadn’t spent “a while” with him since the battle in the City of Eternity. And Terrible had been there then. She certainly hadn’t been to Lex’s place since then; hadn’t been there in a couple of months, actually, since two nights before Terrible caught them in the graveyard. Hadn’t really been alone with Lex.

      Not to mention that having this conversation—any conversation—was obviously not what he’d wanted to do. Especially not when that had been their first chance in a week, and he was so cranked up that her skin felt ready to burst into flame just from his energy touching it.

      “My case, my new one? It’s on Twenty-second, the Mercy Lewis school.” It felt rather odd to be discussing work while she lay on the couch naked from the waist up; part of her wanted to grab her shirts or at least her bra, but she didn’t want to sit up, either. If she did that she’d be admitting this was going to be a real talk, a long serious one, not a quick interruption. “He showed up as I was about to leave. I guess someone told him a Churchwitch was there and he wanted to see who it was.”

      Actually, that wasn’t right, was it? Someone had told him she was there, specifically. Or they’d described her and he knew who it was. Maybe she shouldn’t mention that, since she wasn’t certain.

      “An lucky chances, turns up bein you.”

      “Terrible …”

      His bowling shirt lay in a careless heap on the floor; the heavy muscles under his skin moved as he dug around in it—shit, she could watch that all day, even through her fear—pulled out two cigarettes, and handed her one.

      When he flipped the wheel on his black steel lighter the six-inch flame cast shadows on the walls, on his face; sunset had darkened the room to thick dusk.

      “I didn’t ask for the case. They just—Elder Griffin gave it to me, because Aros, the guy who had it before me? He took off and Elder Griffin thought I’d be able to handle it.”

      Still no response; still he didn’t look at her. Shit.

      Her shirts draped over the arm of the couch where he’d tossed them.

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