The Beast Within (22 page)

Mira arched against him. Her hands dropped down his stomach, undid his belt, unbuttoned his jeans and slid down his zipper.

His engorged cock surged out. He didn’t have to look to know he was swollen bigger and harder than he’d ever been. Desperate for her, for Mira’s body to slide down around him and hug him tight. She stroked her fingers along his length and circled the weeping head. He saw lights flash behind his eyes.

Dragging his mouth from hers, he said, “You want to play, wildcat?” He reached down and pushed her dress up over her hips. Then he stepped back, forcing her to release his cock.

Blue panties just covered her mound. He could see she was swollen and damp through the silk. The memory of her rich spicy taste filled his mouth. His ears rang and his cock beaded at the sight. Gage slid his finger along her satin-covered seam, feeling the heat of her through the material.

He needed more.

He needed to put his mark back on her. It had faded away and he didn’t like it. His magic on her was the most erotic and fulfilling sight he’d ever seen, or ever would.

His magic poured through his finger and the panties vanished. With the dress pushed up over her hips, he saw his finger slide deep into folds of her cleft. Hot, wet, the deep pulse of need. He looked up. Her face was growing more flushed, her pupils dilating with desire. “More, Mira. Give me more.”

She leaned her hips back against the desk and spread her legs.

Gage slid his finger inside her, feeling her body clamp around him. He circled her clit with his thumb and stroked her walls in and out.

Mira dropped her head back, her mouth falling open as she rode him. Harder. Faster. He couldn’t take any more. He stood up, cupped her hips and lifted her to rest her butt the edge of the desk.

She kept her hands braced on the desk, but angled her head down. “Your penis is covered in mantling.”

“Watch, sweet cat, while I fill you with magic.” He pressed the head against her folds.

“I feel your magic, it’s filling me.” She shimmied her hips, trying to draw him in. “More.” It came out a purring demand.

He thrust into her. Her soft, wet channel gloved him and he shuddered with waves of hot ecstasy. The intensity robbed him of speech, only sensation. Feelings. Locking his hands on her ass, he thrust, surged and filled her.

Still not enough. More. He lifted her higher, off the desk and down onto his cock.

Mira dug her fingers into his shoulders, wrapped her legs around him and rode him with a roiling passion. He lost track of everything but the joining of their bodies and the building pleasure. The intensity ramped up. Thrusting harder, deeper, feeling her muscles tighten and ready.

Then he thrust home, so deep within Mira that everything broke free. She cried out, digging her nails into his shoulders. Searing pleasure raced down his spine and detonated. He held Mira tight, his wildcat, and let the pleasure crash over them until they were both spent.

He shifted her in his arms, leaning her back and looked. His mantling swirled around her breasts, curled down her belly, tucked between her legs and feathered down over her thighs.

The sight shifted his heart in his chest, then sent a wave of power crashing through his triskellion. For a long second, everything stopped.

His magic, his breath, even his heart.

He just stared at his magic on Mira.

Then a whipcord of power shot through him, his heart began to beat again, his breath flowed and the three spirals in his triskellion fell into perfect sync, each spiral turning and feeding the next one and so on in a perfect, endless circle.

His powers had grounded.

Gage felt the magnetic potion bind around his triskellion in a cold flash. This was what the potion should have felt like when he drank it. All his magic went on alert, seeking…searching…working.

Then he felt the click, like two sides of a magnet snapping together, when his powers locked on to the wizard and Calia Tate.

He held Mira protectively as they flash-jumped.

But this time, Gage was in control.

A master wizard once more.

“W
here are we?” Mira’s head spun and she was completely disoriented. Her ears were clogged, and she couldn’t get her bearings. This was worse than the other jumps.

“Easy,” Gage’s voice reassured her and his face filled her vision. “The potion tore though the wizard’s cloak and tried to flash-jump us to him.”

Mira’s ears popped and her heart skipped. “Gram’s here! Where?” She lifted one hand to her heart and realized that her dress was tied around her neck, and Gage had his pants buttoned and belted. He’d somehow fixed their clothes while they jumped.

“Not here,” he said softly. “We hit a ward and bounced off it. I took us to my house. We’re in my bathroom.”

“Ward? What?” She looked around to see a huge Jacuzzi tub, double-sink vanity, walk-in shower and toilet. She’d been here before after the troll blood got on her. Gage waved a hand at the tub, and water started filling it. Steam rose enticingly. The bathroom lights dimmed and a dozen candles flickered around the tub.

Then Gage turned his gaze on her. He brushed her hair back off her face and bare shoulder, then reached behind her neck and untied the halter straps. “Wards are protection fields a wizard creates to keep others out. It’s like hitting hard rubber and why you probably feel a little more dizzy than the other jumps. But I got a quick glimpse and they are in a hotel room. Your grandmother was asleep. She’s fine, I swear it. Once they are on the move, he won’t be able to use wards and we’ll find them.”

She grabbed the straps of her dress and held them as she tried to process it. “What if we don’t? What if—” What if Gage didn’t really care about her? What if she’d just given her body and heart to a wizard with too much magic and no emotion? Sex was how he connected.

Not emotion.

He took hold of her face. “Mira, he’s not hurting her. He’s trying to get something from her. She must have him convinced she’s doing it. Or maybe she is doing it.”

“Gram is smart. She’ll take care of herself.” She had to believe that. Had to.

“Like her granddaughter.” He tugged the straps from her hand and pulled the dress down and off her. As he went to work, lifting each foot to slip off her silver sandals, he said, “A bath will help relax you. We’ll rest up and be ready to find them in the morning.” Gage stood then, kicked off his shoes and stripped off his jeans.

Feeling strangely vulnerable, she turned and stepped into the tub and quickly sank down into the hot water. The jets pulsed and churned, easing her tight muscles.

Gage stepped in, the candles flickering golden light off his body.

Mira looked up. His legs were solid, the ribbons of richly colored mantling accentuating his hard muscles. She lifted her gaze to his hips and his penis began to thicken.

The pit of her stomach turned over.

She forced her gaze up to the intricate triskellion. The three connected spirals looked different, more in sync than before as they churned out power into the mantling. She forced her gaze higher, traveling up his chest that broadened into shoulders wide enough to fill the average doorway. Then his face, the full lips softening the hard planes. And his eyes—they could look distant and cool blue, or churning colors of emotion, or almost tender as they were now, with that hint of gray riding the blue.

“Done looking?” His voice was low.

He had done this hundreds of times. Thousands. Mira was just another woman in a string of women stretching out over centuries. He was ancient, powerful and she was…

Not enough. She wouldn’t be enough. Hell, she’d grow old while he would just grow more powerful.

Sitting straighter to remember she had a backbone she said, “Not bad for an old guy.”

He narrowed his eyes as he sat down. “Old?” He reached out, lifting her soaking wet, one hundred and too-many pounds, and pulled her over his legs and onto his lap. “Did I feel old to you when I was thrusting into you, making you purr, kitty?”

Her stomach tightened with the tiny aftershocks. She never felt that free and sexy with any man. She tried to keep it casual and shrugged. “My experience is limited, I haven’t even had sex in a year or so.”

His arms tightened around her and his face softened in the glow of the candles. “No?”

The water bubbled around them while his arms held her anchored to him. “That must sound rather pathetic to someone like you.”

His face tightened. “Mira, look down. Look at your breasts, your stomach, your thighs.”

She dropped her gaze and sucked in a shocked breath. “Your mantling.” She touched the line going down her stomach.

His hand covered hers. “Damn right. You’re wearing my magic. You are like no other woman I’ve been with. You are special, to me and to my magic.”

She watched as he brushed his thumb over a line low on her stomach. “It’s never happened before?”

“Never. But I like it. A lot. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. I’m hoping you like it too.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if it was permanent, but that was wading into territory she wasn’t ready for. Right now, she just wanted to be with Gage. Tomorrow morning they were going to find and rescue Gram and then face reality. Tonight, she just wanted…this. “I like it,” she said and laid her head against his chest, feeling a sense of warm security.

He stroked her hair. “Not having sex for a while, that doesn’t sound pathetic to me. It sounds like a woman who values herself.”

She could hear the steady beat of his heart, and the soft
whoosh
of his magic in his mantling and the accepting tone of his words. As if he valued her too. “Last guy I dated was named Palmer. He was a grade school teacher and wanted to write a mystery.” She didn’t talk about this. Ever. Even to Gram. But she wanted to tell him, wanted him to understand. “Turns out he was a low-level medium and he was using me to try and raise my parents from the dead. He wanted to write the story of the Demon Massacre in Raven Mist. He wanted to be famous.”

Gage’s voice hardened. “Did he raise them?”

It was a horrible thing to consider. “No. At first, I didn’t realize what he was doing….”

He brushed his hand along her face. “Magic-blind, so you couldn’t feel him trying to channel through you. He used sex to get you to open up to him, to trust him, didn’t he?”

Mira had wanted to love Palmer. Wanted someone of her own, someone who made her feel respected and important. “Yes. I didn’t even realize…not until I went to his house for a special dinner with lots of wine. Once he thought I was drunk enough, he started trying to channel my parents.”

Gage’s eyes churned like the ocean. “What did you do?”

That lightened her mood. “You’re sure I did something?”

“Hell, yes.”

She grinned. “I set his research notes on fire and left.”

He laughed. “That’s my wildcat.”

She wasn’t his…was she? She didn’t even know what she was doing sleeping with the wizard. How could she trust a man who wielded so much magic? It made her feel vulnerable, exposed. She blurted out, “I won’t be lied to and used.”

He tensed, the mantling along his arms and shoulders seeming to twitch. Then he relaxed and said, “What would I use you for? You’re the one who blackmailed me.”

True. What would he use her for? He could get sex from most any woman he desired, and he was a magic-born wizard who had achieved master status. He didn’t need to resort to stupid tricks. She grinned, teasing him about the blackmail. “I also don’t like being told no. I usually get my way.”

He shifted her so that her back rested against his chest. Then he lazily traced the lines curling around her nipples while leaning down to whisper in her ear, “How do you feel about touching?”

Hot sparks of pleasure arrowed straight down her belly. “Touching might be okay.”

“And licking?” He drew his tongue over the shell of her ear. At the same time, he rolled her nipples.

She squirmed on his lap and felt his erection pressing against her lower back. “I’m not completely against licking.”

He chuckled and she felt it rumble up his chest against her back. He dropped his hands to her thighs, spreading them wide in the water. “What about this, kitty?” He ran his fingers up the inside of her thighs. “I’m going to need to know how—”

His fingers slipped into her folds, gently parting her. She held her breath, waiting for his next move, his next words…desire and heat building. She couldn’t stay still. Then he touched her, the pad of his finger sliding over her clit.

He whispered roughly—“you feel about petting. The kind of petting that makes my kitty purr.”

She was caged in his powerful arms, his words and touches making her crazy with need. He circled her clit, petting, stroking until she had to grab on to his rock-solid forearms. “Gage!”

“Oh yeah, you like that.” He licked the tender spot at the curve of her neck. “But what about this?”

He slid two fingers into her channel, pressing deep, and then gently bit her shoulder. He withdrew his fingers and did it again. And again.

Mira held on to his arms, riding his fingers, feeling Gage everywhere. Safe. Hot. Sexy. She closed her eyes and surrendered to it all.

She surrendered to him.

The shock of sensations raced through her and tossed her over the cliff into a blinding orgasm. Gage held her safe and kept her pleasure going, thrusting his fingers in, biting and licking her tender skin as she gave herself over to him.

Once she got her breath back and control of her limbs, she leaned her head back and looked up into his face. “There’s one more question you haven’t asked.”

He quirked his mouth up in a self-confident grin. “I don’t need to ask if you liked coming for me, kitten.”

She had never imagined being called pet names, but she liked it coming from him. Using his arms as leverage, she got up, turned and straddled him. Watching his face, she said, “What about this, Gage?” She stroked his erection, gliding her fingers down to his balls and back up to the swollen head. “Don’t you want to know if I like this?”

“Hell, yes,” he growled out.

Spreading her thighs, she pressed him against her folds. She watched his face, saw his pupils dilating, his nose flaring. She had control of Gage, the powerful wizard. “Or this?” she asked as she took him in an inch. Then another. His eyes closed and he groaned as she lowered herself another inch and clenched her muscles around him.

His muscles bulged like he was straining for control. Opening his eyes, he demanded, “Do you like it, Mira?”

His gaze was stark, real, so full of such raw passion that she forgot her game and captured his face with her hands. “Yes.” Then she kissed him, tasted him, stroking his tongue with hers while she took Gage all the way into her body.

And her heart.

Gage worked fast, while Rhys paced on the screen and said, “Sinclair St. James is as old as you, probably as powerful.”

“Yes.” His lab was cold, but even though he was wearing just a pair of sweatpants it didn’t bother him. He stood at the granite table, adding ingredients to an iron pot simmering over a flame. “Sin’s ward was simple, basically a rubber web. I’m going to dissolve it with bicarbonate and vinegar.” He had started with a spring-water base, then added a cup of vinegar and a couple of Alka-Seltzer tablets.

The whole mess furiously bubbled.

“You hit his ward. He will have recognized you,” Rhys said.

“And he’ll be expecting me, yes.” Gage picked up the mortar where he’d pulverized the gemstones with magnet shavings. They’d left the gemstones in the office at the nightclub when they had jumped, but he’d flashed back and retrieved them. He dumped the pulverized stones and magnet into the potion, then used a long-handled spoon to stir it together. Since the gemstones came from Calia’s bracelet, the potion would take him directly to her. He was sure Sin would be there too.

“You think you can kill Sin?”

Gage set down the spoon, picked up the knife and looked at his mentor. Rhys had taught him to do the right thing regardless of his own feelings on the matter. “I have to. I can’t let emotions cloud my judgment. He’s challenged me by kidnapping a sensitive right out of my town.” He cut his finger and allowed a single drop of blood to fall into the potion to activate it.

A violent cloud of vapor billowed up.

Gage put in a second drop of blood and the cloud reversed itself and went back into the potion.

It was done.

“What about Mira?” Rhys said.

He used magic to lift the potion and pour it into the cooling beaker. “She’s asleep. And since she’s magic-blind, she won’t feel or sense what I’m doing. I don’t want her there.”

“You think Sin knows you are fried? Or were fried, I should say. Nothing wrong with your magic now.”

“Mira doesn’t know that I’ve been lying to her from the start. I was able to trick her or distract her when she got suspicious of my lack of magic or mistakes. I don’t want her to find out.” He’d done what he had to but it felt like he’d betrayed her. Used her.

“It worked. She grounded you, freeing your power. You’re not short-circuiting anymore from the overload. Your triskellion is moving in perfect rhythm.”

“But for how long? What happens if Mira leaves?” His chest tightened, making it hard to draw a breath. Mira was his wildcat with a fierce and honest heart. He didn’t want to lose her, and his magic needed her.

“You could fry again. We don’t have any track record to go by,” Rhys answered. “But what are you going to do? Lie to her forever? What makes you think she’ll want to stay with you?”

He didn’t know, damn it. He’d never had to try to convince a woman to stay with him. “I’ll get her grandmother back and then I’ll…seduce her or something.” No emotion, he reminded himself and looked at Rhys on the screen. “I don’t need any distractions while I’m dealing with Sin. He’s dangerous as hell. And I can’t have him telling Mira I was fried, and that I used her to ground my powers and heal.” That was the logical way to handle this. Now that he had his full powers back, he needed to clean up his town and make sure his authority was firmly entrenched. People’s lives depended on him, people like Mira.

A gasp caught him by surprise.