Drive Me Wild (26 page)

“Yeah, about as much as it occurred to you to discuss it with me. I didn’t hear you asking if I was on the pill, and you sure as hell never mentioned condoms, so don’t try to lay this on my shoulders, Simba. You’ve got just as much obligation to think these things through as I have.”

“I have obligations you haven’t even considered,” he snarled. “I have an obligation not to let my race die out. And that brings me neatly back to the topic at hand. If you are not pregnant, would you care to tell me why the seven women who just paid me a visit
are
?”

She set her jaw and met his glower with one of her own. It was either glower at him or let him see how much it hurt that he never considered the idea that she might be his mate. “Not my area of expertise, buddy. It’s your species and your curse. Figure it out for your damned self.”

“That is not an acceptable answer, sweet Tess.” His eyes did that glinty thing and took on the distinct glow of mischief. “You have clearly become involved in my curse, or we would not be having this conversation. There have not been seven Feline pregnancies in Manhattan in any given six months since before I was born, yet now I see that many in one week. And the only explanation I can think of centers on you. I find that to be very interesting.”

“I find it to be a pain in the ass. That seems to be all anyone can talk to me about. Apparently, that’s why all your Other friends like me—not because of my charming smile and gift for witty repartee, but because if you knock me up, your cousins can all do the same with the women they’re boinking.”

He raised an eyebrow, amusement ghosting across his features. “Boinking?”

Tess felt herself blush. “You know what I mean. It’s hardly flattering to know the rest of the world sees me as your saving womb, or something. Especially since that’s not even one of the terms of your damned curse.”

“And you know the terms, do you? Would you care to refresh my memory?”

“Shouldn’t you know it by heart? Isn’t that sort of your job?”

He leaned down until his lips brushed hers as he spoke. “Humor me.”

“Fine.” The self-control she exerted to stop herself from licking his lips should have qualified her for some sort of medal. A Purple Nipple, or something. “From what Missy told me, since you never bothered to, one of your tomcatting ancestors made the dumb move of trifling with the heart of a witch and needed to be taught a lesson.”

“Tess…”

His warning rumble probably had something to do with her editorial comments, but she didn’t particularly care.

“Since the witch was suffering from loving a man who didn’t love her enough to stay faithful to her, kittens or no kittens, she cursed him. She said that from then on, no spotted Feline would have an easy time getting the kittens her lover wanted so desperately. Until a spotted Felix found a witch mate and stayed faithful for a year and a day, there would be fewer and fewer children born to the spotted cats. That’s what Missy told me, and it looks like that’s just the problem you have now, isn’t it?”

He purred, his mouth curving into a smirk. “Not anymore.”

Tess rolled her eyes. “You don’t honestly still believe that I have anything to do with those women getting pregnant, do you?”

She knew she was in trouble the moment she said that. Because by this point, it sounded normal to her.

“Let’s consider it logically for just a moment, shall we? The curse states that in order for the curse to be lifted, a Felix—which could conceivably be you—would have to mate with a witch—and I will concede that I qualify—and remain faithful to her for at least a year and a day. Well, I can tell you right now, Pete Puma, that two out of three does not cut it when it comes to lifting curses!”

His smirk shifted into a grin, wide and pleased and toothy. “You truly do not understand, do you?”

“Understand what?”

That’s when he laughed. Laughed! As if he didn’t have her pinned to the floor, and she weren’t mad enough at him to chew through his hide.

“For a witch, you certainly seem to lack a basic understanding of magic.”

“What do you mean by that? Do you think you’re some sort of expert?”

“Not at all, but I believe I see what has happened, and I am surprised that you do not.”

“Do you work at pissing me off, or is this a God-given talent?”

He shifted her wrists to one hand and used the other to sneak beneath the hem of her sweatshirt again. When she bucked against him and tried to wriggle out of his grasp, he had the nerve to purr with pleasure and angle his hips to hers so that every time she moved, she stroked herself along the ridge of his erection.

“What do you consider to be the basis of all magic?” he asked.

She gargled in frustration. “Don’t even tell me you’re going to lecture me on spellcraft now. Listen, Sylvester, I’ve heard all this from my grandfather, and he went insane. I don’t need to hear the Magic One-Oh-One speech from you, too!”

He leaned down and nibbled at her neck, his hand gliding up to close, rough and warm, around her breast. “Just answer the question, sweet Tess.”

“Will!” She bit it out from between her clenched teeth. What she wouldn’t have given just then for the will to keep her nipple from beading eagerly at the first brush of his fingers.

“Very good.” He shifted to her throat and licked the hollow there. “And what is it called when you exercise will in order to cause a desired outcome?”

She felt his fingers close around her nipple and pinch, and she couldn’t keep her hips from rolling invitingly against his. She felt her folds parting beneath the soft cloth of her yoga pants and his erection nestled against her center as if making itself at home. She moaned.

“In—intent.”

“Very good, Tess.” He purred it against her throat while he pressed his pelvis into hers, grinding against her and making them both shudder. “Having discussed the topic of magic more than once with my Fae friends, I had been laboring under the impression that the key to spells—and therefore, one assumes, to curses—is to have a clear intent.”

Suddenly impatient, Rafe lifted his torso from hers and stripped off her sweatshirt, leaving it tangled around the wrists he still gripped in one hand. Then he leaned close to her, pressing skin to skin, and sighed at the feeling.

Well, he sighed. She moaned. Damn it.

Then he eased down, his hand slipping beneath her waistband and his teeth tugging her bra out of the way, leaving the cup bunched beneath her breast. He lapped once at her nipple and she shuddered.

“So if intent is the key to a curse, my sweet Tess…”

God, is he still talking?

“… what do you suppose was the intent of the witch when she cast her curse?”

He punctuated his question by closing his teeth around her nipple and nibbling. She almost came right then and there.

“Stop dicking around and just tell me what you’re talking about!”

She might have screamed it, but she didn’t care. Despite the fact that she was lying half naked on the carpet in the middle of the library of a couple she’d met less than two weeks ago.

He laughed and lifted his head, abandoning her breast but plunging his fingers between her legs to tease her soft folds. “You really do not know? Tess, Tess, Tess. What am I going to do with you?”

“I don’t know,” she hissed, “but if you don’t do it in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to have to hurt you.”

Her threat made him laugh harder. “Oh, we cannot have that.”

The phrase
quick as a cat
sprang to her mind as he shifted off her, stripped them both, and tumbled her back to the carpet. He had her hands pinned again before she realized they were free, but this time when she struggled against him, her shifting hips only succeeded in helping to position him at her entrance.

“Rafe.” She murmured his name and twisted her body restlessly beneath him. She needed him inside her again. After all her lectures on responsible sex, he once again had her hot enough to worry about it tomorrow. “Please.”

“Of course, my sweet Tess.” He slid home with one smooth thrust, driving to the hilt inside her, and making her body arch beneath him. “Is that better, sweetheart?”

She heard the amusement in his dark rumbles and set her jaw. “It will be better … once you … move!”

She tried to set the rhythm herself, but he held her still. He released her hands to grip her hips and hold her in place. He filled her completely, pressing high and hard inside her and keeping her from riding him the way she wanted. She cried out.

“Hush,” he soothed, fingers flexing against her skin. “You will get what you want in just a minute, baby.” He paused, his grin flashing. “Then we’ll see if you get a baby.”

Tess froze.

“A baby?” she repeated carefully.

He flexed his hips, his hardness shifting inside her, making her moan.

“Do you not want to have children?” He watched her warily.

“It’s not that,” she said, finding it nearly impossible to concentrate while he stayed buried inside her. “I just didn’t think … that is, you never said
you
wanted to have them. Especially not with me.”

His eyes glowed as he leaned down to kiss her. “You’re the key to everything,” he told her, his raspy voice suddenly tender. “You lifted the curse. How could I not want you, and a child with you?”

She felt the joy and heat drain out of her at once. Suddenly he no longer felt like a welcome part of her finally back in place, but like an invader trying to conquer her body. “Right. The curse. I’d forgotten. It’s all about the curse, isn’t it? That’s all you care about.”

“You are wrong.” He grabbed her hands again when she raised them to his chest to push him away. He pinned them down next to her head and forced her gaze to meet his. “I have trouble believing that you do not understand this already, but let me explain.”

His voice was rough and hard, but his thrusts were gentle as he began rocking his hips against hers. “What you do not seem to see, my sweet, thick-skulled
gatita,
is that the important part of the curse was not the words with which it was spoken, but the intent with which it was cast.”

She heard him, but she also felt him, and she damned her body for betraying her by softening around him and welcoming him deep inside her. If he continued, she’d be lost again, and another little piece of her heart would break off, knowing that she loved him and he just wanted to fuck her.

He leaned down to kiss her softly, and she closed her eyes against the glow of his. If she continued to look at him, she would almost be able to convince herself that the light in his eyes was love. She didn’t want to lie to herself like that.

“If the intent is everything, sweet Tess, then the witch’s intent was not to force a Felix to remain faithful for only a year and a day. She did not care about time limits.” He bit her lower lip, then soothed the tiny pain with the rasp of his tongue. “She cared about love.”

Tess’s eyes flew open and she gazed up at him. Had Rafe De Santos just said the L word?

“The curse was never meant to withstand love.” He moved smoothly above her, every shift and flex another kind of caress, a caress accompanied by the words she was finally beginning to understand. “The minute that old witch got her wish, the curse ceased to have meaning. And that happened the minute a Felix fell in love with his own witch.”

He nudged deeply inside her and stopped, resting against the mouth of her womb, so much a part of her that Tess thought she would die if he separated from her for a moment. She stared up at him and felt her heart stop. She knew then what he was going to say. Whether it was her gift or a different kind of power entirely, she couldn’t say, but she knew, and she began to smile.

He kissed her softly, sweetly, lovingly, and pulled back to gaze down at her with a tender golden gaze. “It happened the minute I fell in love with you.”

Tess felt her heart expand until it threatened to burst. It pressed up into her throat, making it difficult to breathe, and down into her belly, making her stomach turn a happy somersault. She had to wait for the first wave of joy to recede before she could speak. “I love you, too, Rafael.”

He smiled at her like sunshine and resumed his strokes, sliding in and out of her with long, lazy thrusts that soothed even as they aroused. She could feel her climax nearing, more like the gentle swell of a deep ocean wave than like the breakers that crashed over her and threatened to drag her under. She had already gone under, and she didn’t mind drowning in him.

She stared up into his eyes as they moved together. He released her hands and she wrapped her arms around him, clutching him to her. Her legs curled around his hips to cradle him close to her. And as she stared up into his eyes, again she knew.

She felt the smile curve her mouth, saw his head tilt and his own smile in response.

“What?” he whispered, brushing his mouth over hers in another of those tender, drugging kisses.

“Just a little déjà vu,” she murmured, laughing.

He stilled and his gaze sharpened. “About what? What do you see?”

She slid her hands down the length of his back to his ass, where she squeezed playfully.

“All sorts of things,” she teased. “But if you come in the next five minutes, you’ll get to make your own mark on repopulating the Feline world.”

Rafe’s eyes widened, his mouth opened, and the joy that flooded his expression made Tess’s heart expand once more. “Really?”

“Really.” She smiled through the happy sting of tears and lifted her head so she could tug his lower lip between her teeth. Her body clenched tightly around his, and her fingernails scraped teasingly across his ass. “But if you don’t make sure I come with you, I’m naming him Hubert.”

*   *   *

The baby, born a standard Feline six months later, was perfect, happy and healthy and thoroughly celebrated.

They named him Gabriel.