The water was percolating through the coffee machine and into the carafe now. Coffee scent wafted through the room. He picked up his mug and switched it with the carafe.
“You’re going to scald yourself doing that.”
When the mug was full, he switched the carafe back without a drop spilled. He faced her with a smile. “I have skillz you can only dream about.”
“Milk’s in the fridge,” she said.
He found a carton of organic half-and-half and loaded up. He stood there with his cup, breathing in the smell. She stared at his cup, and he smiled because he knew what she was thinking. The coffee was righteously good. He filled another mug with coffee and put in her sugar. Then he reached over the desk and took away her tea. “You don’t need weed-flavored water. Coffee the way I make it, you can grow a pair even if you’re a girl.”
“Bless your heart,” she said. But she took the coffee and drank some, too. “It’s good.”
“I told you. Skillz.”
“Maybe you should be in charge of the coffee at home.”
Home
. Well, yeah. It was her home, too. So far, there wasn’t any change in his reaction to the ambient magic. No phone call, either, so Rasmus and Leonidas were still out there. He sat on the black leather chair, but it wasn’t made for someone his size. “I’m not doing anybody else,” he said. Oh, shit. That came out all kinds of wrong. “Seeing anyone. I’m not seeing anyone.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“Maybe it should be,” he said. He knew two kinds of relationships: his failed one with Fen and his one-nighters. He wanted something else with Paisley.
She came out from behind the desk and topped off her coffee from the carafe. He stared at her back until she leaned against the edge of the desk and took a big, long swallow. He arranged himself on the chair, a bit sideways, with one leg on the floor and the other thrown over the padded arm. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
She put down her coffee and ran her hands over her head and then kept them there. “Rasmus is getting to be a real pain in the behind.”
He studied her as if his life depended on being able to recall every physical detail. The dark red hair, the pale skin. The blue shadows under her eyes. The way the corners of her mouth tensed. She looked unhappy, and that was at least partly his fault. He didn’t know all that much about human women. Not nearly enough.
Did humans who couldn’t make psychic connections on their own memorize faces and expressions and try to fit the physical whole of a person into some kind of representation of the person’s interior life? He knew Paisley well enough to know she was stressed and tired and still dealing with the aftermath of Rasmus’s attack. Every time the mage got around her, she ended up shaky like she was now.
“If I had my way,” he said, “I’d end him right now.”
“I know.”
Hell yeah. He’d crush the mage’s heart in his bare hand. He drank the rest of his coffee and set the empty mug on the floor. Then he held out a hand, and after a hesitation, she put her fingers on his palm. Their eyes locked and he could see the question there:
Should I?
As far as he was concerned, the answer was
hell
and
yes
. He drew her toward him and shifted so she ended up sitting on his lap, his arms around her.
“I wish everything could just go back the way it was. I want a normal life,” she said as she settled against his torso. “Normal. I can barely remember what that’s like.”
“You can’t have a normal life.” Her eyes got big and hurt, and he felt bad for telling her the truth. “Besides, if you had a normal life, you wouldn’t know me.” He stroked her back, and when she relaxed against him, his heart went all funny again. Her ass was snugged up against him, but he played it cool.
He resettled himself, but there was no way she wasn’t going to notice his physical reaction down south. He shifted them so he had his feet on the floor and she was across his lap with one of his arms around her upper back and her shoulder tucked in against his side. He pushed up her sleeve to take a look at her wrist. “Looks pinker to me,” he said. All but one of the marks Rasmus had left had faded. One of the blisters on her shoulder had scarred like her wrist. “Does it hurt?”
“A little.”
“Let me help.” He set his hand to the back of her neck and spread his fingers upward, turning her head toward him so they were looking at each other. “Let me take care of you.”
“You already do that.”
“Let me help with this. Right now.”
She wasn’t acknowledging that he was touching her, but she also wasn’t moving away. That had to be a good sign. But he was thinking about things he shouldn’t be. Soft human skin, her curves, the taste of her, her mouth on him, his on her. And him. Possibly not even in human form. He stroked his fingers through her hair. He didn’t know what to say to her, what words to use. They hadn’t been necessary with Fen, and he’d never wanted more than a good time with anyone else.
“How?” she said.
“Let me in your head, and I can help with the pain.” Iskander’s phone vibrated in his front pocket. He ignored it and kept one hand moving over Paisley. He loved touching her. He wanted to do it more often. The contact calmed him, too, the way physical contact did between his own kind.
Paisley tipped her head back enough to stare at the ceiling. He swept his gaze downward and ended up looking at her chest and thinking impure thoughts. Her head came back to level, and by the time he realized it, there wasn’t any hiding that he’d been ogling her. She put her fingers under his chin and pushed up. She was smiling a little, which was good.
“Are you talking about an indwell?”
“Not like that.” He ran his fingers through her hair and ended up cupping the back of her head. “I’m not sure that would even work with you. I’m talking about a psychic connection between us. If it works, and it’s okay with you, I can make it so it lasts a while. It would help me know when you’re in trouble even when I’m not nearby. I could find you even faster than I can now. And you could find me, if you needed to. Sooner than you can now.”
“I don’t know.”
“We don’t have to.” He touched her injured wrist. “At least let me help with this.”
“Will it hurt?”
“It shouldn’t.”
“Lord knows aspirin never does any good.”
He plucked at the shoulder of her white jacket, and they both looked at her shoulder. He said, “Does this come off?”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said, and he put a whole world of longing in the word.
When he looked up and found her watching his face, he realized they were having a moment that had nothing to do with him helping with her wrist. The moment was about the two of them and the heat they were generating just from looking at each other.
“You were right,” she said.
“About?”
“Sex with you.”
“That so?”
“With you, it
is
better than chocolate.” She unsnapped the fastenings of her jacket, and he helped her slip it off. Underneath she wore a white ribbed tank top thin enough for him to see through to her bra. He scooped her ponytail off her back and over one shoulder.
“Nice. Really nice.” He wasn’t sure where to touch her. Everywhere. Nowhere? “You aren’t just a one-time thing for me,” he said. His chest was tight, and he recognized the sensation as anxiety. About Paisley and whether she wanted anything to do with him the way he did with her. “It’s different with you.” He didn’t like feeling this way—helpless. Uncertain. Wanting something he wasn’t sure he could have and afraid he wouldn’t get it. “I should have been bored after the first time, itching to move on. And I’m not.” He kept his arms around her, as if that would keep her with him more than just physically and for the moment. “I don’t know anything except I don’t want you thinking this is just me having a good time.”
She ran a hand up and down his torso. “I had a good time before.”
“A good time.”
Her hand wandered a bit more. “A very good time.”
He let out a breath. “I guess that’s better than telling me I’m lousy in bed.”
“You are definitely not lousy in bed.”
He stared at a wisp of red hair curling over the side of her neck. He imagined pressing his lips there. Maybe taking a nip. Enough to break skin. Reaching for her mind and making a connection there. And it wouldn’t be fucked up the way things had gotten with Fen. He ran a finger along the strap of her tank top. “Jesus, you make me hot.” He reached down to push off the black clogs she wore to work, but she toed them off, so he slid off her socks instead. They shifted on the chair again, and she ended up straddling him with her knees sliding deep into the cushions on either side of his legs. He put his hands on her ass, then slid his thumbs up either side of her spine. Her skin was warm through her shirt.
“Iskander,” she whispered. “Lord, that feels good.”
He drew her forward and breathed in. “I can’t stop thinking about touching you. Not since the first time.”
“You were pretty unforgettable yourself.”
He repeated the slide of his thumbs along her back. She arched, and he prayed she wasn’t going to be offended by the way he watched her breasts or the curve to her waist. “There’s something else about this connection I should mention before we try it.”
“Is it pervy?”
He laughed. “You seem like such a nice girl, but I think you’re bad.”
“Better than chocolate,” she said. “So. Is it pervy?”
“It could be.” He kept moving his hands over her and thinking about the way she kissed him, and how he wanted her to kiss him again. Jesus, he was hot for her. “If you think you’d like that.”
Her eyes popped open when he slid his hands around her rib cage not quite touching her breasts. Then he did, curving his hands around her. Her nipples tightened, and he brushed the tips of his fingers over her. “It would do that other stuff, too. Like I was saying”—he drew in a breath—“it could be a gateway between us, and we could use it for this bullshit with Rasmus, too. But right now, I want it for us. Like this.”
For a while, they didn’t say anything while he touched her. Caressed her, got himself hot and aroused. Her, too, from the looks of things. The rhythm of her breathing changed.
Eventually, though, she leaned away, and because he didn’t want to pressure her or come on too strong, he stopped touching her. He was dying to see her naked, to touch her skin. Dying to suck and nip and have his hands full of her. But without a link to her head, he had no way of knowing what she was thinking or feeling. “Tell me what you want,” he said.
She cupped the side of his face with her palm, the side with his traceries. The contact sent a whole new surge of arousal through him. “Sometimes,” she said in a low voice, “I want you so bad it hurts.”
“Me too.” He slipped his hands down the back of her jeans, reaching down, down, as far as he could, touching her soft skin, and at the same time he brought her toward him. She propped her hands on the back of the chair. Her eyes were wide open, her pupils pools of black surrounded by hazel.
She leaned in and pressed her mouth to his throat, the side of his jaw. “Make it stop hurting,” she whispered.
He brought his hands up and underneath the bottom of her tank top, sliding along her spine until the tips of his fingers brushed the bottom of her bra. He leaned in and pressed his mouth to the spot where her neck joined her shoulder and was rewarded with a soft moan from her. She smelled like vanilla and butter, the way she always did when she came home from work.
His mouth stayed close to her skin. He brought up one hand and pulled down her tank top strap, taking her bra strap with it. Such pale skin compared to his. He already knew that if he took his true form, she’d look even paler by comparison, and he was thinking he wanted that again. He was dying to do more, but at the same time, this encroachment from almost-innocent touching to touching that wasn’t innocent at all was worth the slow crank to out of control.
She didn’t back away. Instead, she leaned closer. Close enough to put certain parts of her anatomy against his torso. Underneath her shirt, he palmed one breast, and when he processed the fact that all that full curve was in his hand, his mind kind of shut down for a minute.
“I don’t have good sense where you’re concerned,” she said on a breathless gasp. “None at all.”
“I’ll take care of you,” he said. He was aware his vow to protect her was behind some of his intense satisfaction in saying that. Fine by him. Even better, he had his hand on her naked skin, and she wasn’t making him move it. In fact, she was breathing harder. Her nipple was hard beneath his palm, and he wanted her to feel the arousal more and more. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you. That’s a promise.”
“Right now, all I want is for you to make love to me.” Her words were warm breath against his ear.
“I would love to do that, cupcake.” He struggled to get his thoughts straight, and even then, half his brain was detouring south while the rest dealt with the logistics of getting her naked. He pulled her hair free of its elastic band. Thick, soft hair, dark red and streaked with highlights of gold, spilled over his hands and down one of his arms. He pulled back enough for her to see his eyes, because he knew they weren’t normal right now and she needed to know where he was at.
Paisley gazed into his face, into his eyes and into his heart. He watched her pupils get bigger and bigger when he flicked his fingertip over her nipple. He wanted in her head. He wanted to feel her reaction and know for a fact what she was thinking. He wanted her to know he was thinking about the taste of her skin, the shape of her mouth, and what might happen to them both if he touched her again.
His phone buzzed in his pocket again, and he ignored it again. A few seconds later, it vibrated, cut off, then started vibrating again. He dug it out and turned it off. He threw the phone onto the desk and tightened his hands around her. He wanted to do this. Hell, yes, he wanted to. “Even for just right now, you have to say yes, you’ll let me in your head.” He slid off the chair and knelt on the floor in front of her. She shifted to face him. He put his hands on her thighs, rubbing his hands along her legs. “You need to understand the risks before you agree to anything.”