Last Enchantment

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

“You know that if she could, she’d kill you,” Tegan said. She rolled over, letting the fine, warm sand caress her stomach through the fabric of the fluffy towel.

“I know.” Oliver didn’t sound in the least worried but leaned up to adjust the shade over her. He seemed more worried about that. He put his hand on her skin and slid it from her bikini bottoms up to her shoulders. “You’re getting too warm. We should go in soon.”

“How will I get used to the sun if you never let me go in it?” She turned her head and pouted at him. “Here it is, four in the afternoon, and you say it’s still too hot.”

“It is. And we should eat before the sun goes down.”

“That’s not for hours yet.” She enjoyed teasing him, feeling the exasperation, followed by affection. She thought of rolling away from him and plunging into the pool by her side, but she feared he might have a complete freakout, so she moved toward him instead.

Growling low in his throat, he took her into his arms just as his cell phone, balanced on a table nearby, shrilled out its demand. The growl turned into a frustrated moan, and Tegan decided not to tease him anymore. Besides, she didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. She was getting too hot. So she strolled through the open French doors of the villa into the cool interior. Oliver followed, chatting to someone on the phone, but she didn’t listen in. She didn’t have to. He’d tell her.

After a quick shower, she found a long, cool sundress and went through to the kitchen. She loved this place, a small holiday villa in the south of France, just the right size as far as she was concerned. Staff came in every day, but for the most part, they were alone. And without the media hounding them. That was the best part. Almost the best part. She dragged some ingredients out of the refrigerator and started to chop lettuce and tomato for a salad. Because he was right about that, too. They should eat, but she didn’t want to go out.

Oliver strolled through the wide arch that led from the hall into the kitchen, clad only in a pair of white shorts, baggy, but not so big they hid the mouthwatering curves of his strong butt and thighs. When he caught her looking, he laughed and turned, showing off his spectacular body, tanned to perfection.

“I don’t know if I prefer you tanned or not,” she said, smiling.

“You’ll have to stick around and find out.” She’d never known him without a glow to his skin, but now his body was a rich toffee brown, eminently lickable.

“That gives us another six months.” But he didn’t laugh and she looked up, the knife slack in her fingers. “Tell me about the phone call.”

His throat moved as he swallowed. “Yes, the phone call.”

“Bad news?” She mentally prepared herself. Would it be Virginia’s death? She’d half expected it.

“Not precisely. A progress report. There was a body in the hotel. Nobody we knew, just some poor unfortunate woman caught in the explosion. A maid, as it turned out, a divorced woman living with her sister. So Virginia’s been charged with her killing. CAT is giving her up, but providing counsel for her trial. G has locked her Talents away.”

She stared, appalled. “So she’s lost her Talents as surely as if she’d been a raped virgin sorcerer?”

Slowly, he nodded. “I didn’t know G could do that, but apparently he can. Another sorcerer may have helped him.”

“Daria?”

“Maybe. Virginia’s coming to trial in a civilian court in Florida. Murder, pure and simple.”

“What about Marcus?”

He shook his head. “We have to be satisfied with a conviction in Florida. They won’t be kind. If she were put on trial for Marcus’s murder, that would be a test case, and it could go on for years while they sort things out. He had no close relatives. I’m the nearest he had, and I won’t drag his name through the mud again. Or yours.” He was staring at her, his light eyes darkened with passion. “Come to bed. Forget the food.”

The moment had come. They’d been here a month, waiting for G to contact them about the case, and she knew that after this, after they made love, this hiatus from real life would end. She didn’t need him to tell her, and she didn’t want to know. Not yet. She wanted this one last moment first.

So she put down the knife, left the chopping board with the lettuce neatly chopped and went to where he waited, arms outstretched. With his arm looped around her waist, they went across the hall into the bedroom they’d shared every night since they arrived here and dropped their clothes. Simply, with no teasing and no games, although those things had a place in their lives, too.

She lay down on the bed, and this time she held out her arms to him. He sank down beside her and drew her close. Before he could speak, she did. “I love you.”

He put a gentle finger across her mouth, and she smiled and kissed it. “I love you, too. You have to know that. But I didn’t want to burden you with it.” A smile flicked up the corners of his mouth. “We’ve been here a few weeks, and you don’t seem to want to run away. I get the feeling it’s more than my mentorship you want.”

“You better believe it.”

He removed his finger so he could replace it with his mouth. His kiss slowly deepened, and when he pushed inside her mind, she didn’t resist, dropping all her barriers for him.

He drew back, his eyes wide with shock. “Don’t do that. We’ll bond.”

“I don’t care.”

He drew her close, her breasts pressing against the firm planes of his chest. “You have to. Not yet, my love. One step at a time, hmm?”

“Is there something wrong?”

As he kissed her, he sent a gentle no into her mind. But at his urging, she closed a few barriers, preventing the total merging that would result in a bond that couldn’t be broken, the joining of two souls into one. He’d said “not yet,” not “no, never,” and they had time now, all the time they needed. She’d wait.

Rolling over, he tucked her under him and rubbed his body against her, letting her feel the hard length of his erection. She moaned his name and opened for him, lifting her knees to hug his waist. This had become so easy, but every time he brought her close to heaven, so she never, ever took it for granted. And now she’d admitted the secret that had been bugging her for weeks, it felt easier. She loved him.

She already knew he loved her. Not that he’d told her, but every time he looked at her, sheltered her from the sun or smoothed cream over her skin, she knew it. They shared jokes, most of their music tastes worked together, although she found his liking for Bruckner difficult to handle and he couldn’t understand her adoration of Bonnie Raitt. The little things made life interesting.

He kissed her mouth, making it long and lingering, then lifted away to press kisses to her throat and the hollow at the base of her throat. His bright eyes gazed into hers, and she smiled, loving him openly for the first time. Or maybe not. “Have I told you that before?”

“What?”

“That I love you?”

He swallowed, and the smile disappeared. “Yes, but it’s sweeter hearing it again.” He kissed her again. “So much sweeter, because it means it’s happened twice. All on its own. Don’t you think that means we were made for each other?”

“Then why won’t you bond with me?”

“Because you need time to find out who you are first. I don’t want to interfere with that. You’re strong, you’re working it out, and I don’t think it will be too long.” With one easy thrust, he entered her, and she gasped and squirmed to find the best position. “Maybe I can suggest something else to keep you going.” He thrust again, and she hissed through her teeth, feeling the head of his cock slide past her sweet spot and return to tease. “Marry me, Tegan.”

Her eyes were closing languorously, but she blinked them open and stared up into his, warm with passion but with an edge of amusement she found reflected in his mind. “What?”

“Marry me. I think we should give the press something good to talk about. So we’ll get married, have a grand wedding if you like, invite Talents from all over the world.” He thrust again.

“You know—I find it hard—I mean difficult—to think straight when you do that.”

He rolled over, bringing her on top. “Then you take control. Do me, Tegan.”

She took his invitation and pushed up on her hands, keeping her arms rigid and her back deeply arched before she pushed hard down on him, delighting in his hiss of response. “Oh, yes, fuck, yes, that’s what I’m talking about.”

The position wasn’t easy, but she’d been working out, regaining the strength she’d had a year before, and she managed this for at least five minutes, drawing his arousal out, teasing him, moving when he was in danger of coming to just the wrong touch, giving him time to come back down.

When he realized what she was doing, he growled, and curved his hand around her waist, moving it down to spread over her buttocks and feather down the crease of her ass. She flinched. She was closer than she’d thought.

“Turnabout is fair play,” he murmured and sat up enough to take her nipple into his mouth and give it the treatment it deserved, sucking hard, nipping, soothing gently. He was a master at that. “You haven’t said yes yet.”

So the game began, he determined to get her to agree to his proposal, she playfully holding off. “They say a woman should always say no until the last possible moment. Tease and tantalize.”

“Shit, you’re learning fast.”

“I have a good teacher.” She made a small sound of shock when he nipped her, immediately licking the tiny wound. But he’d taken a small taste of her blood and she wanted more. Wanted him to take more. “Sit up.”

She withdrew just long enough to bring her legs forward so she could sit on him and hold him when he sat up. Slowly, she bent her head until her teeth grazed his neck. When night fell, she’d do it for real, feed on one of the tourists in the village nearby and then return here and join with him. The thought drove her arousal up further. They gripped each other tightly, and she locked her legs around him. They worked together, playtime over, and when they came, it was at the same time, crying out wordlessly, bleeding into each other’s minds.

****

She held up her hand to the fast dwindling daylight, admiring the blue diamond he’d just put on her third finger. It wasn’t the one that he’d shown the cameras in Orlando. That, he said, had been a hastily borrowed one, produced for the cameras and returned to the store that same evening by Spartan. “When did you get this one?”

“Before Marcus died.” He sounded matter of fact.

“Before he turned me?”

He kissed her shoulder. “Yep.”

“Dear God,” she said, shaken. “I thought you said you’d never have a long term relationship with a mortal. Too heartbreaking. But if you bond, then you’d have taken my lifespan. I couldn’t have sustained a long life, my body had been too traumatized with the sorcerer training and what went on before.”

“Yep.” He raised his head and met her gaze. “I decided that would be enough for me.”

“You love me that much?”

“Yes.”

The simple averration shocked her. “So when I said I wanted to bond with you…”

“I think we should wait. We have much more time than we did before. We’ll either get three hundred years or five hundred, depending which lifespan we get. When a couple is equal, it’s impossible to tell. Let’s shoot for five hundred but be happy with three.”

“I’d have been happy with fifty.” She cradled his cheek in her hand, and he smiled down at her. She could have it all this time. Almost all. As she lowered her hand, it brushed over her breast, smooth skin caressing her, and she remembered something else.

He must have sensed the shadow in her mind because he glanced down and smiled. “All gone now.”

The brand, the hateful brand the rapist had forced on her. He was right. Not a line left, not even a suggestion. “I thought of having cosmetic surgery. I’m sure I’d have had it done if I hadn’t—if it hadn’t…”

“Shh.” He bent his head and kissed the spot. “I’d have kissed it because it was part of you. It didn’t matter to me, but because it mattered to you, I’d have supported your decision.”

“It reminded me of my failure.”

“There was no failure.” He kissed the spot again. “You were incredibly strong. When I saw you in that iso room, I knew what you were doing. You were trying to get it back, weren’t you?”

She nodded. “For the last time. After that, I promised myself I’d move on and work with what I had. They thought I was in despair, didn’t they? That wasn’t it.”

“I knew. I felt your strength. You were amazing.” She knew he meant it as he kissed her, deep and long.

A pause followed while she thanked him for the ring in the best way she could think of.

“Shit,” he said after she lifted her head and came back up the bed to him. “I have to give you more jewelry.”

“Go ahead.” She grinned. “You won’t last long.”

“But what a way to go.”