Awaken to Pleasure (3 page)

Years ago she’d thought the primitive furnishings and simple ways of life inside the dome had been a strange contrast to the life she’d had before. In that lifetime, she’d been living in a big city, with easy access to electricity, running water, even luxuries like chocolate.

How did that compare to now having a half-naked man in her home, telling her that he’d come out of a little bottle?

Maybe she’d been killed by the witches after all, and was stuck in some kind of in between.

“I’m a djinn, yes.” His lips curved up in a smirk. “That is why I live in the bottle.”

“A
djinn
. Right.” She smiled nervously, wondering if perhaps she just had a crazy person in her house rather than someone with magic. But that didn’t explain his hand. Or the fire, though it had been blue and not purple or green. “A djinn who can only grant sexual wishes. Who lives in a bottle that I stumbled over on the plains. Lucky me.”

“My magic is not limited to sexual pleasures.” Boone looked highly affronted, and his clipped tone revealed the fact that he was insulted. And Moira was pissed at herself for the heat building in her belly when he spoke of sex. “I can grant any wish that your mortal mind can dream up. What I was trying to express to you earlier is that I have yet to come across as woman in possession of my lamp who does not wish for the carnal pleasures that they do not receive from their mates.”

“I don’t like magic.” Moira tugged in frustration at the hair that was still caught between his fingers even as something hot trickled down her spine at the way his mouth had formed the word
carnal
.

Damn it, it had been so long since she’d experienced the touch of another. Even here in Mavi, she held herself back from the hugs, the kisses.

She didn’t deserve the comfort.

“I am bound by the lamp, and you are the current keeper of it. I cannot use magic to harm you.” Moira thought she saw a hint of frustration in his eyes, but it was gone before she could be sure. “I may not be mortal, but I think you are safe enough from me.”

Safe enough from him…to use him for the crazy urges rioting through her system? Haven, what was
wrong
with her? She avoided magic at all costs. She had to, to stay sane.

But this man was making her want something she’d denied herself for years.

“Explain the wishes.”

He rolled his eyes, but did as she asked. “Wish. You only get one. Whatever your heart desires.” He looked into her eyes as he spoke, and she felt her pulse stutter. “The only wishes I do not advise involve death. Magic demands a price, and the death of another will rip life from she who commands it as well.”

That was honestly right there. And at the root of it, her gut instinct said that she could trust him. Crazy as that was.

Her gut had allowed her to survive before the havens had been established. Even when she hadn’t wanted to.

Hadn’t she punished herself enough? Couldn’t she take even a moment of pleasure?

In that moment she fully believed that he had magic, because even while her rational brain argued that this was insane, that this was against everything she believed in—giving herself comfort and consorting with magic—still she wanted.

And when she looked at him, into those blue eyes, she knew that he wanted her, too. The need, the comfort that came with it, made her soul ache. It heated the room, warmed her skin.

She knew he might have cast a spell over her to make her feel this way. But she couldn’t bring herself to care. So this was possibly the stupidest thing she’d ever done. But—maybe this was
his
magic—the more time she spent inhaling his scent, the less she thought he could have anything to do with the witches.

Of which clearly he couldn’t be one, because he had gotten through the walls.

Right. Not a witch. Just a strange, sexy man with a handful of entertaining tricks. He was here, she was here, and they both wanted.

Damn it, she was tired. Tired of punishing herself, though the guilt would never leave. Tired of being strong for everyone else.

She was going to take this moment. And she would worry about the consequences later.

Boone had stepped closer and the scent that drifted off his skin—of musky male sweat and something exotic and spicy—tickled her nostrils and fogged her mind. All her self-control was vanishing. She knew that she should be kicking Boone and his fantastic story out of her house instead of pressing her body closer to his. But something about him, about the situation, had aroused her beyond belief, and she could think of nothing beyond satisfying the ache that raged between her thighs.

“I don’t believe you’re a genie.” She wanted to make it clear that she wasn’t gullible, nor an easy mark, as she arched her back and let Boone’s lips caress her throat. “But the story was entertaining enough.” She moaned out loud when an unexpected nip at her shoulder was soothed with the wet warmth of a tongue.

“A djinn,” he corrected. His fingers worked their way through the layers of cloth that comprised her cloak even as his mouth whispered light kisses over her own, kisses that had her reeling. She felt the vibration of his chuckle against her lips, felt his own curve into a smile. “And that’s what they all say.”

Her cloak dropped to the floor with a soft swish; she was naked beneath. Her dark nipples contracted to tiny pegs under the scrutiny of Boone’s gaze, and she shivered as his eyes drank in the slope of her shoulders, the swell of her belly, the curve of her hips. His fingers fumbled with the fastenings of his own trousers, which quickly joined her cloak on the floor, and the sight of his thick member, standing so proudly from the darkly curled thatch, made her swallow through a dry throat.

Then he was there, his long-fingered hands tracing her waist and flirting with the swell of her ass. Desperate to experience the hardness that she could feel pressing into the soft flesh of her belly, she rocked her hips against his in a primitive invitation.

One last shred of sanity worked its way through the lust, and though it cost her, she pushed away.

“This isn’t my wish, right?” Her breath came out on a pant. “I mean, I haven’t wished for anything yet.”

If he was counting this as fulfilling her wish—
if
he was what he said he was, and she was starting to wonder why he would have any reason to lie—then she had to stop. She couldn’t waste a wish on sex, not when this year’s crops had been poor and she could use it to stop people’s hunger.

“No. This is not your wish.” Boone drew back, smiled wickedly down into her face. “This is because we want to. This is finding a bit of light in the darkness.

Moira wondered at that for a moment—against all odds, she was starting to believe what he said. But did that mean he was imprisoned in the lamp when no one had called him, the same as she was imprisoned in the dome?

That seemed like dark magic to her.

And then he bent, lifted her in his arms and placed her inside the wooden tub, halting all coherent thought.

Moira sputtered; this was not what she had been expecting at all. Her outrage dissipated, however, with the realization that the usually tepid water of the bath was warm; no, no, it was hot. Her muscles became languid pools of bliss even as she frowned, her brain rapidly trying to work out a rational solution.

She hissed when Boone’s fingers flirted with the surface of the water and reached up to skim lightly over a nipple. “Believe me yet?” he asked, his fingers closing in a pinch that should have hurt and instead had a slickness pooling between her thighs, a slickness that had nothing to do with the water that swirled around her.

“No.” The word escaped her lips on a gasp as his fingers trailed lower and began to toy with the curls fuzzing her outer lips. “There must be…a rational…explanation…aah…” She cried out when a finger found the sweet bud of her clit, circled it firmly once, and moved on.

“Hmm.” Boone leaned forward, the wooden slats of the tub blocking the view of his faintly veined cock. Lifting the dense mass of her hair up in a fist, he nuzzled at the back of her neck, trailing hot, wet kisses up and down the slender arch. Lazily he trailed a finger through the steaming water; tiny bubbles effervesced in the wake. “What about now?”

Shock jolted through Moira’s system and she was rendered speechless. Another flick of Boone’s fingers scented the water with jasmine, and yet another lit the wicks of the soft wax candles that were scattered throughout the room. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the sapphire of the lamp glowing as if lit from within; when she frantically tilted her head back to meet Boone’s gaze, she realized that his eyes were doing the same. But he chose that moment to rise from his knees, to step into the water with her, and the sight of his engorged flesh mere inches from her lips had rational thought flying from her mind, to be replaced with sheer lust.

Clambering to her knees, she opened her mouth wide and allowed Boone’s flesh to fill her mouth. Her hands reached up to toy with the muscles of his ass even as he groaned and grasped her by the back of the head. Drunk on the tang of salt and man, it took her a moment to realize that he was tugging on her hair, trying to disengage himself from her lips. For a moment she was unsure of herself, wondering if she had perhaps done something wrong. Instead Boone pushed her backward until her back rested against the wood of the tub and she was pinned between it and his body. Bending her knees, he spread her legs wide, and she arched her hips, desperate for the touch that she prayed was coming.

Drawing in a deep breath, Boone ducked under the surface of the slick water. His golden hair waved in the wet, and Moira closed her eyes to better enjoy. But instead of the expected sensation of the rough pad of his tongue, she felt a curious tickle, followed by a tightening of the muscles of her thighs. Her eyes flew open and she looked down, through the whispering water; as she watched, a steady stream of silvery bubbles frothed to the surface, but not before tickling at her incredibly sensitive flesh.

They gasped at the same time, she at the erotic sensation and him for air. She meant to beg him for more—for the concrete feeling of his lips and teeth on her clit—but he had submerged himself again, and Moira found that she could do nothing but writhe at the exquisite tease. The touch she so craved did come, however, and after a scant few minutes of Boone’s tongue intimately exploring her innermost crevices, Moira gasped and tensed, her tortured flesh rioting with a pleasure, the intensity of which she had never before felt.

The orgasm left her wrecked and blinking with surprise; her lax flesh forced her to comply when she was turned and bent at the waist, the heavy globes of her breasts hanging over the edge of the tub, their nipples tightening in the cool night air. She expected that her cunt was about to be filled with thick cock, and she stiffened when instead two fingers probed into the pucker that rested between the curved swells of her ass cheeks. She tried to move her body forward, away from the foreign invasion; she wanted the ache in her cleft assuaged, not this. But as she struggled, she incited arousal in nerves that she hadn’t even known she possessed, and by the time the fat head of Boone’s cock pressed against her she was whimpering, short, sharp cries that demanded that he fulfill her wish.

She had expected him to enter her slowly, to torture her by pressing himself inch by inch into her waiting flesh. The single thrust that sheathed him to the hilt caused her to cry out on a strangled breath; when he began to move in the same way, she found herself holding on to the edge of the tub for dear life.

While initially she was aware of the bite of the wood against the soft flesh of her belly, of the slap of Boone’s flesh against her own, pleasure soon overcame reality and her world narrowed— narrowed until all she was aware of were tiny, pleasure-induced spasms. And of the glow of sapphire in the lamp that sat right before her eyes. She didn’t need to turn around to know that Boone’s eyes would look exactly the same.

The familiar tremble in her thighs that always accompanied an impending orgasm began to make its presence known. When the world began to go bright, Boone pulled Moira tightly back against him, impaling her fully on his flesh, and quickly moved his fingers from the sweet curves of her buttocks to her clit, where he strummed a melody that Moira couldn’t hear but that she certainly enjoyed.

Gasping, she finally stilled, acutely aware that, despite the violent motions of her backside as she met Boone thrust for firm thrust, he was still as hard as iron within her—he had yet to come. She forced her deliciously lax flesh to wiggle experimentally against his, and was gratified to hear him exhale on a moan that sounded desperate.

“Turn around.” His voice was husky, raking over the rough gravel of unslaked lust. It caused the still smoldering embers of arousal that simmered low in Moira’s belly to burst again into full flame. With a murmur of agreement, she pushed herself away from the rough edge of the tub, from the hypnotic glow of the Lamp of the Sapphire, and turned so that she was again settled with her back to the wood. Boone ran firm fingers down the entire length of each of her legs as she settled, making her shiver. After a slow, sensual caress to the bottoms of her feet, one that had her purring with delight, he rested a bent knee on each of his shoulders; Moira floundered in the simmering water, digging for purchase on the slick floor of the tub.

She needn’t have worried, however, for as his fingers expertly opened the swollen lips of her labia, allowing his slick cock to enter her once more, she found herself cradled so tightly between wood and man that she couldn’t have moved if she wanted to. Widening the space between her legs, she allowed her gaze to become riveted on his eyes—eyes that flashed with every thrust that filled her all the way to her womb.

They came together, she on a breathy sigh and he with a loud shout that issued out of the depths of his throat. When the quaking in her muscles had died down to tiny shivers, she went limp, as he did, and they lolled in the water that was still, miraculously, steaming. The air was silent but for the raggedness of their breath as it left their lungs.