Serena's Magic
Authors: Heather Graham
Heather Graham
For Mary Torres
PROLOGUE
I
T WAS DUSK. SPECTRAL
vision time. And surely she was a vision, an illusion of dusk, of dreams. As he opened his eyes, she was simply there, across the expanse of the clear water now growing dark as the sun lowered from the sky to hover on the horizon before dipping beneath it. The day was bathed in that yellow and orange haze that came just for a short, magical time before darkness. An hour ago it had been hot, but now, here, with the dampness of the water rising and the sun setting, there was a slight chill, adding to the feeling of misted illusion. Where the water would still be warm from the day, the air was already becoming damp and cool with the coming of night.
And suddenly, as if part of the mystical illusion, she appeared.
Against the chill, she wore a cloak. A black cloak.
For a moment she merely gazed into the water, then her head lifted and her eyes calmly scanned the pond and her side of the shoreline. Then she spun about, a wealth of chestnut hair floating around her like a gold-tinged mantle. And as she circled, she raised her arms, and the black cape fell open. He saw that beneath it she was beautifully and splendidly … naked.
She stood there—for what must only have been seconds, but as he stared with shock and disbelief, it seemed like an eternity.
An eternity in which he revered and memorized every subtlety of her ivory flesh. In those few seconds he noted that her eyes were dark and stunningly deep and luminous; her nose was slender but long, although slightly tilted and arrogant; her face was part oval, part heart; her lips, in the distant light of dusk, were incredibly shaped, full and sensuously curving, as if she held all the secrets of the pool, and of the realm of twilight and dusk.
She appeared tall with the black cloak floating behind her. She was neither slim nor heavy, but some plane of perfection in between. Her high, full breasts were tipped with deep rouge, proud and inviting. They lusciously curved above a long, slender ribcage that tapered neatly to a minuscule waistline, the ivory skin like satin as it dipped in twilight shadow to the hollow of her belly. Her enticing hips were invitingly curved and angled to her long and shapely legs. They were slim and wickedly lithe, but strong and firm. It would occur to him later that he even noticed her feet; they too were long, and slender, just like her hands with the elegant fingers that stretched out in that embrace to the harbor of the trees.
Totally unaware of him, she was at ease with her surroundings. It was as if she were a part of the soft breeze, and of the foliage and the earth. There was something so sensual and provocative about her very innocence that he was staggered by a shaft of the most shattering raw desire he had ever experienced. Yet even that desire was touched by magic; it was a very male need to conquer and to dominate with selfish possession, but it was tempered by a tender need to cherish.
She stretched high, the gleaming ivory of her body glistening in the soft light, then the cloak fell about her feet and she disappeared into the water, making its crystal surface ripple in tiny waves.
He realized then that every muscle in his body had tensed, that a sheen of perspiration lay over his skin. His breathing suddenly sounded terribly harsh and shallow in the quiet of the clearing. The desire that had surged like a storm tempest within him at first sight of this spectacle surged through him with a full, pulsing, thundering sensation, filling his ears with the hammer of need, he wanted to laugh at himself, but he couldn’t. The sound caught in his throat. He had to harshly remind himself that she was not a dream or a vision, but a real woman, believing herself alone, appreciating her little heaven and her privacy.
He was an intruder. One only attacked wood nymphs in dreams, and he wasn’t dreaming. Or was he? No. She had disappeared, but the black cloak that had shielded her lay upon the earth in evidence that she did exist.
He should leave. Silently disappear and leave her to her innocent solitude. But though the ages had bred a man civil enough not to simply attack, there was enough primitivism left in the male so that he could neither be perfect gentleman enough to simply leave when he was spellbound by this strange magic. …
He had never played the pickup games at bars; he had never made up ridiculous lines. But now he was in a quandary. He wanted to meet her, but it would be rather absurd to walk up and introduce himself to a naked woman. Not a woman, he thought with a strange touch of whimsy, a witch. A beautiful witch. This was, after all, Salem.
Her head popped up in the water. She stood, waist high, and smoothed back her dripping hair. Again she plunged beneath the surface.
The pond wasn’t more than a hundred yards wide. Impulsively he stood, realizing he must have slept long, as his previously soaked cutoffs had dried. Plans were spinning in his mind as he entered the water and dove deep.
In spite of the cooling of the surrounding twilight air, the water seemed warm, retaining that touch of the sun. He surfaced for air, then plunged again. This time he found her. Those long legs moved gracefully against the crystal of the water. Her well-molded form was inviting, enticing him to touch.
She folded to plunge into another dive, her body naturally agile in the liquid playground. But as she dove down, her out-stretched hand touched him and her eyes opened wide with horror.
Of all things, he hadn’t meant to send her into a panic. He shot to the surface after her, just in time to hear her scream echo in a gasp through the shelter of the trees. She hadn’t had much time to fill her lungs with air, and therefore her scream was more gasp than clamorous sound.
“Hey,” he muttered quickly, “I’m sorry, I thought I was alone.” His lie was bold—and astonishingly convincing. He grinned to try to ease the terror in her eyes, but she hadn’t had a chance to recover enough from her shock to catch her breath, and treading water, she slipped back beneath the surface to arise again choking and sputtering. Concern then outweighed everything. He slipped an arm beneath her breast and began to tow her into shore, heedless of whether she protested his touch or not.
But still he noticed that her flesh had the feel of the silk he thought it; she was warm; the vibrancy of life pulsed through her; the full curve of her breasts was as firm and sensual as distance had hinted.
He reached the shoreline, assured himself that she was breathing, and procured her cloak and slipped it around her shoulders. She accepted it, fingers clutching the material close to her throat. He realized then that her eyes were so dark a blue as to be truly violet. Her hands and fingers were as delicately elegant as her feet, the nails medium length, and touched by that same coral bronze.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured again. Those beautiful, deep eyes were upon him, reflecting the liquid mystery of the pond. He couldn’t know then that she was staring quite as he had. In a bit of shock she was thinking he was the most perfect male she had ever seen. He might have walked out of a page of ancient history; he was as broad-shouldered and fully, sleekly muscled as a gladiator in a Roman arena; or perhaps he was more like a barbarian who had roamed the lands of prehistory, surviving by wit and agility and whatever raw strength and courage he could create. Water from the pond dripped in rivulets from his physique, glistening on the bronze of his flesh, enunciating the strong delineations of his finely toned chest. Even his abdomen, tight and trim, rippled with clean, wire-fine sinews.
It was his face she actually stared at; strange how her vision had first taken in his body. But then, it was an extraordinary body.
She drew her attention to the face of the man. Her first thought was that it was a strong face. The chin was clean-shaven and firm, the mouth full but taut, touched at the corners by faint lines that hinted of both an ability to smile and an ability to harden relentlessly. His nose was straight, proudly prominent, reminding her a bit of a great bird of flight, an eagle or a hawk.
His eyes were piercing crystals, a deep hazel which she quickly saw could burn with a brown so dark as to be night or lighten with a green that could be springtime and sunshine. In seconds she read many things in those eyes, while also knowing that the depths of the man were such that he would be difficult to ever know. Yet there was some type of instant recognition. She sensed that he could burn with the intensity of raging fire, laugh with the freedom of the air, and love with wild, tempestuous abandon, recklessly demanding and giving beyond the bounds of earth.
How ridiculous, she thought. I do not know this man; he has suddenly appeared, and this is really an absurd situation. I’m sitting here more naked than clothed with a total stranger.
“You’re trespassing,” she said, intending to sound indignant as she drew her cloak even more tightly against her.
He loved the indigo snap of her eyes with the righteous anger. “I’m sorry—I didn’t realize this was private property.” He made no effort to move, but remained stooped beside her. There was a scent to him, she thought, that was not cologne. It was a faint, but pleasant manly scent, and something more. It was stirring, and it touched her blood as did his probing, intense stare. She wanted to say more; she wanted to escape because absurdly she was beginning to feel that she was sinking, and that if she didn’t quickly find an edge to grasp, she would be forever lost. She parted her lips slightly, but no sound came from her because he was speaking, and his voice was deep and husky, and ungodly rich.
“I never believed,” he said, “that eyes could be truly violet. But yours are. …”
It wasn’t a line; he spoke with true incredulity. And as he moved closer to her, it wasn’t by conscious effort. It was some thing older even than time, more elusive than magic. That same elemental recognition, perhaps. But his lips touched hers, and it was lightning, a burst of starfire, dawn and moonlit midnight all in one. She should repel him she thought; she should move away with furious condemnation.
She arched her throat to better feel the sensations of his lips and taste the sweet salt of his mouth. Her tongue touched his, and as they deeply explored each other’s mouths, his arms came around her, and they were as strong and secure as the glistening muscles hinted. He bore her back against the earth at the water’s edge, and she moved with him without protest, lost to all normal reasoning. She was ruled by an emotion more intense than any she had ever experienced, and the single thought that permeated that emotion was that in her heart she knew this man … she had always been waiting for him. She had been born for this moment, for this man who had appeared like an apparition from the crystal of the pond. Being held by him, touched by him, was as natural as the breeze, as the high grasses that shrouded their forms. It was both destiny and magic. Even the breeze caressed them and the setting sun touched them with the glistening brilliance of a thousand diamonds; the earth knew it was right; she sheltered them; she embraced them benignly.
The cloak fell unnoticed from her fingers as they curled around the steel-like pillar of his neck. First with awe, and then with fervor, her fingers explored him, the endless hardness of his back, the dark, thickly curled expanse of his chest. The cloak no longer separated them; she arched her breasts against his chest, scarcely able to breathe with the dizzying sensation created by the friction of her tautening nipples against that erotic hair and the blazing heat that filled him. And still that first kiss continued. He held her face tenderly between his hands, and then his hands began to move. They massaged her temple, raking through her damp hair. They found the column of her throat; his thumbs reverently touched upon the ivory silk.