CHAPTER SIX
“I’d be insulted if I didn’t understand what you meant. The first time the fey magic came out, it scared the crap out of me. After it was all over, I went wolf and ran and ran across the canyons and buttes, but I finally realized I couldn’t outrun it. I couldn’t outrun myself.” His humor was gone. “And then, the chase really started, and for the first time in my life, I was the prey.” His expression darkened as he stared out at the stone circle.
“That can’t have been comfortable for your wolf.”
He blew out a breath, shaking his head. “You can say that again. It’s been kind of chaotic ever since, and really bloody. So far, I’ve been able to defeat all those who have tried to steal my power, but some of those battles were too close for comfort, and I honestly don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to the new magic. I was damned lucky a few times that it struck out in the right way to help the situation, but at other times, I’ve been caught totally clueless on how to get it to either join in the battle or help protect my back. It’s like it was sitting, watching, almost mocking my efforts.”
“Now that’s one thing you’ve got to stop right away,” she told him, seeing something she could help with. “It’s not separate from you, even though it feels that way because it’s new to you. Thing is, it was there all the time, within you. It is you. You have to embrace that and accept it on a fundamental level. I bet those times when the magic aided you were situations where you weren’t thinking too hard about it. Maybe there wasn’t even time to think. You just reacted to the threat and used everything inside of you to answer it.”
He looked pensive. “Yeah. I think maybe you might be on to something there.”
“Good.” She smiled over at him. “That’s something we can work on. A place to start, at least.”
“You’ve already taught me a lot, Deena.” His voice dropped to a low, intimate tone, and the swirling patterns of magic in his eyes slowed to a seductive blaze that almost mesmerized her.
She saw him moving closer and could easily read his intentions. He was going to kiss her, and she was going to allow it. No. Not just allow it. She was going to revel in it.
She’d been wanting him to kiss again almost from the moment their first kiss had ended. She leaned closer, inviting the kiss she had been anticipating, happy the time had finally arrived for their lips to meet again.
His mouth claimed hers, and this time, there was no stopping. No brakes. Nothing to hinder them. He was already naked, and they were within the loving protection of the Goddess’s own stone circle. They were as safe as they could possibly be.
They were in their own little world with nothing but the feel of his hot skin under her hands and the taste of his kiss, and the hardness of his desire, so evident as he took her to the soft earth in front of the low stone altar.
The interior of the circle was always clean and lush with plant life. The Goddess’s magic kept it glowing with greenery and the occasional flower, though in winter such things weren’t visible unless you were within the circle. And the circle itself wasn’t visible to non-magical folk at all.
Josh lay her on her back, coming down over her as he took full possession of her mouth. She moaned as she felt the warmth of him blanketing her from above. He kept the vast majority of his solid weight off of her, leaning up on his arms, but she still felt surrounded—encompassed—in his embrace, his hands on the ground on either side of her head.
The kiss went deeper, his tongue staking a claim on her that she could not deny. She didn’t want to deny him anything. She wanted it all. With Josh.
The attraction was raw and powerful. Just like his magic. Something in him had called out to her from the first. Something primal. Even more basic than his wolf nature. This was magic primeval, his energy calling to hers, his spirit finding a connection with hers in a way that was both unique and utterly fascinating.
“Do you want me?” Josh broke off kissing her to ask. “Do you want this? Us?”
His magic was still very near the surface, but it was more controlled now. More patient and pensive. It was waiting for her answer. He was waiting for her answer.
Did she want to make love to Josh? Oh, yeah.
She nodded at him, unable to form the words for a moment. This felt big. Momentous. Life-altering.
But did it feel that way to him, as well? She couldn’t be sure. Did it really matter right at this very moment?
She convinced herself it didn’t. There would be time later to carefully consider her actions, but right now, all that mattered was his hands on her body, his body joining to hers. Pleasure promised and received. Given and taken in equal measure. She wanted that with all her heart, and she knew, without fully understanding how she knew, she would get that from this encounter. This man. This special moment out of time.
“Yes,” she managed to say, holding his gaze and wondering if he felt how the world had changed with that single word.
“Yes?” he repeated, as if unsure he’d heard her correctly.
She nodded again. “Yes, Josh.” Her words were coming more easily now that she’d crossed the hurdle of making up her mind. “I want to be with you. Now. Here.”
A smile started in his sparkling eyes and stretched his lips. It warmed her, even as she saw the satisfaction of his inner predator, having cornered his prey. But the wolf meant her no harm. She knew that instinctively. No, the wolf that shared Josh’s soul had been stalking her for days, she realized suddenly. The wolf had wanted her for a while and was satisfied with a hunt well played.
She would have laughed had the situation not been so potentially explosive. Josh’s hands on her body were making her squirm as he divested her of her clothing…slowly…gently…intently.
Her own magic gathered, pushed against her skin, wanting to get out. The magic wanted to romp with the answering energy in Josh’s soul. It wanted to caress him the way his wild magic caressed her with his every touch.
She’d never experienced anything like it before. Then again, she’d never made love to a half-fey werewolf before. The flavor of his magic was heady. Powerful and wild. Nascent, yet fully developed, and his fey side was even stronger than hers in its intensity. The feel of their magics blending was heady stuff. She almost felt drunk on the simple touches they’d exchanged to this point. She wondered what would happen when they climaxed. Supernova? She was almost afraid to find out, but nothing was going to stop this. Not now.
Her fears of the unknown. His uncertainty about his feyness. All of that meant little when he was undressing her. Stroking each inch of skin he uncovered. Laying kisses down on each part of her body he exposed.
He paused at her breasts, licking and sucking, squeezing and rubbing. Her breath grew short as she panted, and her excitement rose to new heights. Her clothing disappeared, and she lost track of where he threw the various items. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the two of them, here and now.
She tried to stroke him the way he was stroking her, but he wouldn’t allow much contact. He made her feel as if this was all for her. That she was the center of his universe at this moment and that her pleasure was paramount. She wanted to give equal measure, but he moved away from her seeking hands and diverted her with new moves that made her moan with desire.
The man was a menace. A skilled lover who seemed to know every trick in the book to make her forget all about her plans to cover him in kisses and make her impatient for him to fill her with his hardness so they could ride to the stars together. She was through waiting. She wanted to feel him inside her.
“Do me now, Josh,” she breathed, clutching his shoulders as he made room for himself between her splayed thighs. “Come into me now. No more waiting.” Her words were ragged puffs of whispered air, but he seemed to hear. And obey.
He pushed into her, going slowly at first. He was a big man, and she hadn’t done this in far too long. She had to adjust, and he gave her all the time she needed to do so. But then… As soon as they were both comfortable, he began to move.
And the Earth itself moved. Or at least, it seemed to from her perspective. Almost immediately, pleasure zinged through her. It was a small climax compared to what came next, but it stole her breath and made her realize she’d never been with a man who cared so much for her before. Josh was truly special. In so many ways.
He rode her through the initial peaks and pushed her ever higher. He was a considerate lover, not rushing her or pushing her too hard. But he was also an animal at heart. At least part of him was a wolf spirit, and that wolf both cared for its mate—or at least the woman it was mating with at the time—and drove them both toward climax. Relentlessly. With the wildness that was part of his soul.
At the same time, Deena was very aware of the way their magics were building up. Merging and parting. Converging with almost explosive strength, then moving away as if repelled. At one point, they joined together, and she wasn’t entirely sure that, when the magic separated again, it was as purely one or the other as it had been. It certainly felt like a little bit of his primeval nature had joined to her human-fey magic, and a bit of her seemed to be part of him now. Unless she was much mistaken.
But those thoughts were for another time. She would ponder it all later. There were probably unexpected ramifications to what she believed might have just happened, but they were in the Goddess’s circle, under Her protection. Whatever happened here would probably work out for the best. At least, she hoped so.
And then, there was no more time for thinking as the world spun apart in the brightest climax yet. Josh tensed above her as he cried out, coming to his own completion, even as she shook with reaction, her body spasming in the most amazing pleasure she had ever known.
They clung to each other as the intensity of the orgasm washed over them both. At one point, she opened her eyes to see the sacred circle lit with a billion particles of the purest white light, reaching up toward the heavens as if to add to the collection of stars already there.
That was their magic. The combination of their energies was as explosive as she’d suspected it would be, but the unexpected purity of the bright white light was something she could not ever had guessed at. It was significant in ways that she could spend a lifetime pondering, but for right now, she was just happy to be here, sharing this moment, with one of the most intriguing men she had ever encountered.
“You okay?” His voice was a sexy low growl near her ear.
He’d collapsed partially over her, though the bulk of his considerable weight was to her side. Their legs were still tangled together, but he’d managed to move most of his torso off her before his strength gave out.
She looked over at him and smiled. “I’m wonderful.” Her words were slurred with bliss, slow with lethargy he’d induced by scrambling her pleasure receptors and turning her mind to mush in the best possible way.
He smiled back. “Me too.” He rolled slightly, landing beside her, on his back, gazing upward at the last of the little white sparkles of their energy floating heavenward. “Did we cause that?” he asked, pointing to the fading energy that was still strong enough to be visible from within the magical confines of the stone circle.
“Mm-hmm,” she replied, feeling both satisfied and oddly proud. “It was even more intense a few minutes ago.”
“You bet it was.”
She chuckled at his humor. “I’ll second that, but I was talking about the energy floating up to the universe.”
He played innocent. “So was I. Scout’s honor.”
She looked over at him, narrowing her eyes. “Were you ever a scout?”
“No, but I’ve been known to hide out in the woods near the scout camps. At least I know scouts won’t indiscriminately start shooting at a lone wolf in the woods.”
A comfortable silence fell for a few moments.
“It must be so cool to be able to become a wolf,” she said, not realizing she was about to reveal that particular thought out loud. It seemed all her defenses were down after the amazing experience of making love with Josh.
Not that she minded that he now knew how cool she thought shapeshifting was. On the contrary, of all her inner conjectures to come out unexpectedly, that was probably the least embarrassing.
“It is,” he agreed. “It can also be dangerous under the wrong circumstances.”
“I bet,” she agreed. “But still… To have heightened senses must be neat. Or gross, I guess, at times.”
“Nothing really grosses out my wolf side. Nature is nature. The only thing that really bothers me is the scent of certain harsh chemicals and really strong odors that don’t exist in nature. Excessive noise gets to me, too, which is why cities are difficult.”
“But not impossible, right? I mean, you had to have gone to New York to meet Duncan, and I know there are Packs of wolves who live there.”
“Yeah, I ran afoul of one while I was looking for Duncan. I hate wolf Packs.” His voice had turned to a growl that surprised her.
“Really? Why?” He’d surprised her with his attitude toward other wolves.
“All those petty rules,” he replied. “All that formality and one-upmanship.”
“Spoken like the wolf who knows he has no equal,” she complimented him, realizing how hard things must’ve been for him all this time, not really knowing the other side of his nature. “I can see where it would’ve been tough for you. All that magic bottled up inside… You must’ve known instinctively that there was more, but you didn’t know how to get to it.”
He rolled his head over to meet her gaze. “Maybe.” Then, he turned to look starward again. “I can’t really say what screwed up my past, but now that I’ve met you and am learning about all this stuff…” He gestured toward the last little sparks of white light that were just visible as they made their way out into the universe. “I have hope for a better future for possibly the first time in my life. If I haven’t said it before, thank you for that, Deena. And for so much more. You’re a pretty amazing woman.”
She felt like preening under his praise. His words made her feel all warm and fuzzy, though she wasn’t very good at accepting compliments.
“I’m glad you think so, because I think you’re a pretty amazing guy,” she told him, feeling a little shy, even after their incredible sexual encounter.
“You do?” His tone was back to teasing as he rolled onto his side, propping his head up on one hand. “Then, what do you say to continuing this inside? On a softer surface? With sheets?”
The light dancing in his eyes now was tamed. Happy and not as chaotic as the golden swirling light she’d seen before. Their encounter had changed him. It had changed his energies, subduing his power in a good way, making order out of the chaos. At least for now. Perhaps the change would be long-term, but there was no way to know that at this point.
Still, any change from that explosive, tempestuous energy was good. This was a step in the right direction, for sure. She smiled with happiness, both for his progress—even though he didn’t realize it just yet—and his suggestion that they go inside and try this again. As far as she was concerned, she had nothing but him on her agenda for the rest of the night.