Authors: Teresa Noelle Roberts
Okay, otters were wired a little funny, or at least
his
otter was. But Deck could get used to itâat least now that he'd admitted to himself that it gave him an excuse to unleash a part of himself that he'd always kept carefully constrained. Donovans were
nice
in bed. It was drummed into their heads when they were being taught to use their red magic.
But in this case, Deck's lover's idea of nice was rough and dirty, in an erotic way.
And that let Deck go wild too.
Still kissing, he manhandled Kyle down the hall. Kyle dragged his feet like a cat on a leash, but he was also kissing wildly and touching Deck everywhere Deck would let him.
They made it to the bedroom, but not as far as the bed. Once they reached the thick sea-green carpet, Deck forced Kyle to the ground. The two of them wrestled briefly, but Kyle put up only token resistance.
Just enough to make it more fun for both of them.
They wound up with Kyle on his hands and knees on the floor and Deck kneeling behind him.
Deck clamped his hand on the back of Kyle's neck and pressed his face down toward the floor. Kyle's muscles resisted, but just before he gave in, he turned his head slightly so Deck could see his grin.
Once Kyle was in position, Deck slapped his ass. “Don't move,” he ordered. Then he slapped that gorgeous ass a few more times because it felt so good under his hand and he liked the dusky flush that blossomed on the tan skin.
And he really, really liked the way Kyle moaned and pushed back to meet his blows. Okay, technically that was moving, but he wanted Kyle to get in to the spanking, be unable to stop offering his ass for more. Deck kept going until his hand stung and Kyle's aura revealed he was on the verge of losing his mind.
Deck repeated, “Don't move,” then slipped away long enough to get the lube out of the bedside table. Too long since it had been used for anything except to ease jerking off. Deck may have pushed Kyle away last fall, but after he did, he hadn't felt the urge to hook up with anyone else. Not sexy Ben Wanaka, who tried to seduce him on a surfing trip to Hawaii. Not the two uninhibited fox girls, half sibs of Paul's husband, who made him an offer he ended up refusing, although identical twin redheads should have been a no-brainer.
But as soon as it seemed to be too late, he'd known the only one he really wanted was Kyle.
And now Meaghan, a little voice tickled in his brain. But he opted to ignore it until he'd sated himself and Kyle.
He returned with the bottle of lube, already slicked himself. He'd threatened to fuck Kyle raw, and, the way he felt, that still might happen, but they should at least start out comfortable.
He spread those fine ass cheeks and drizzled lube into the crack between them, then opened Kyle up with one finger.
Kyle pushed back, fucking himself on the invading digit. He hadn't talked much since they started playingâneither of them had, too intent on sensation and on doing more immediately gratifying things with their mouthsâbut now he begged, “Come on, Deck. Fuck me. Give me your dick.”
“When I'm good and ready.” Which he was, but he had a point to make. “And did I say you could raise your head?”
Kyle lowered his head to the rug again, but as he did, he moaned, “Please. Fuck me hard.”
The words sounded like they'd been torn out of him: hoarse, broken, lost.
They went straight to Deck's cock so he couldn't tease any longer, couldn't open Kyle up finger by finger, couldn't pretend patience he didn't feel, couldn't keep trying to control the situation.
All he could do was fuck like a madman, and that was what he did.
When he thrust in, not bothering to go slowly and sensually, Kyle let out an
oof
that might have been pain. But while there may have been some discomfortâa rough entry, no matter how much you wanted it, could smartâKyle slammed back to meet him, as if pleasure far outweighed any twinges.
Deck grabbed Kyle's hips, withdrew, then drove in even deeper.
Kyle gripped his cock like a vise. Deck felt it everywhere, not just on his dick. Kyle was moaning, an eerie keen that occasionally broke into an otter's chitter, but it was a good sound because he was fucking back with all his considerable strength, clamping down with his internal muscles. The room blue-shifted as if they were fucking inside an incredible wave. The ever-present shushing and pounding of the surf below the house grew louder. Deck's eyes were open because he'd wanted to watch Kyle's beautiful body as they joined, but instead of seeing Kyle with normal vision, he saw him with witch-sight, limned in red magic, his aura shaped like the man Deck was fucking but also like a man-sized otter. He hadn't meant to raise power, but he was, and it was more power than he'd raised in a long time.
“So good. So hot and tight. Oh Powers, Kyle, I've missed you.”
“Missedâ¦youâ¦too.” Kyle's voice was distorted, almost unrecognizable, and Deck didn't think it was just because his face was down on the carpet. “Needâ¦need⦔
But he couldn't articulate what he needed, so Deck was left to guess based on what he craved himself. Deck drove his nails into Kyle's ass hard enough to leave deep welts. Then he shifted position, draping his body over Kyle's. He couldn't penetrate as deeply or as roughly at this angle, but it seemed more intimate, and he craved that after the long separation.
He slipped his hand under Kyle and grasped the other man's cock. Kyle wailed as Deck began to stroke and tug.
To the rhythm of the fucking.
To the rhythm of the waves crashing outside, and the waves he always felt inside him the way a normy was subliminally aware of the beating of his heart.
Everything was tangled together. Deck no longer knew where he left off and Kyle began, where land left off and ocean began, where sex left off and love began. The room spun and swirled and he felt like he'd wiped out messily, caught up in a violent wave so he no longer knew which way was up. Then Kyle's bodyâor was it his? He couldn't tell anymoreâwent very still, tensed. Come spurted onto his hand as Kyle cried out Deck's name.
Deck's orgasm broke over him hard. Definitely a wipeout, held down by wave after wave, but instead of drowning, he was learning to breathe water. Power swirled around them, red and ocean blue.
What the hell was he going to do with it? He hadn't meant to collect all this power; especially with a thunderstorm going on, he didn't dare hang on to it.
Meaghan
needed all the help she could get, and their magic was compatible. With the last bit of brainpower he could muster, Deck shunted the power at Meaghan, directing some of it to her rickety shields. He let the rest bathe over the woman, muttering a prayer that it might make her stronger.
Then he let himself collapse to the floor, using his weight to pull Kyle with him so they were spooning. In a few minutes he figured they'd stagger to the bed, but right now he just wanted to hold Kyle close and revel in the warmth of his body, the smooth heat of Kyle's skin under his hands.
And try very hard to embrace the moment and not think too hard.
Fucking Kyle raised oceans of power, even though he hadn't been aiming for that at all. All that swirling magical energy had to mean something.
His magic hadn't danced for Kyle, not the way every other Donovan in the world described the experience of having sex for the first time with their true life partner. Not this time, not any of the times they'd been together before.
But something had happened, sure as wave and rock. Something magical, something emotional, something deep as the Marianas Trench.
Just nothing he could put into a normal Donovan context.
Didn't that just figure?
Chapter Thirteen
The night had turned stormy, full of crashing waves and booming thunder. Snuggled into a cozy bed, warm and safe, Meaghan asked if she could leave the window open so the sounds could wash over her. Roslyn, who'd shown her to the room and gotten her tucked into bed, had chuckled at the request, saying, “You and young Declan are two of a kind.” Meaghan smiled at that. She liked Deck, with his big body and easy laugh and long, silky hair, and could think of far worse things than being compared to him.
Then Roslyn had added something she hadn't liked at all: “Including erratic magic. His powers are as likely as yours are to misbehave. You at least have the excuse of being as untrained as a child, but with an adult's power level. He's simply undisciplined.” Then the old woman paused. “Actually,
acushla
, I wrong him. That was true when he was a boy, but I suspect he has a different problem now. He has such an odd combination of magics no one could help him integrate them, so things were bound to explode in his face as he was learning. Where magic's concerned, if you assume something might not work, it often won't. I think Deck has fallen into that trap. Thanks in part to his parents. Fire witches and ice witches are perfectionists by nature, impatient and intolerant of those who aren't as quick as they, and Desmond and Sigrid are fire and ice. I hate to speak ill of my only son, but it would have been better for both Desmond's nerves and Deck's magic if he'd let someone else train the lad from the get-go.”
“That sounds like an important safety tip, ma'am. I'll try to be patient with myself. I'm not going to catch up overnight with people who started learning magic as little kids.”
On some level, it was helpful to realize that the Donovans were powerful and good-hearted, but they weren't infallible. Even Deck's parents managed to screw up raising a witch kid. The jury was still out as to whether she could forgive her birth parents or wanted to meet them, but that certainly gave Meaghan more sympathy. She must have scared the hell out of them.
Roslyn stroked her hair. “We assigned Declan to teach you out of necessity, but it may be the best thing that's ever happened to the lad. He'll have to review the basics to teach you, and that will rebuild his confidence.” To Meaghan's surprise, Roslyn kissed her cheek and tucked her in the way Meaghan imagined a mother or grandmother would a child.
She supposed her parents must have done similar things when she was still with them, but it was the first time she could remember being tucked in so lovingly.
After Roslyn leftâMeaghan heard the click of putting the light out and thought,
Force of habit
âMeaghan curled up in the bed and listened to the storm outside. The throbbing waves and driving rain soothed her, like water pouring over her spirit, and the wild, untamed sound of thunder called to her as well. She was never able to hear the sounds of nature at the hospital, so those wild sounds were a symbol of her freedom.
She might not have long to enjoy her freedom, but she resolved to seize every second of it.
She just wished she knew how to go about it better, especially where Kyle and Deck were concerned. The memory of Kyle's kisses aroused her, and he definitely seemed interestedâbut he'd shied away when she'd offered oral sex, which she thought was what you were supposed to do in such situations. Deck's laughing voice and big solid body tempted her, and the way he'd kissed and held her this afternoon had definitely
not
been brotherly. But he and Kyle were together, with a bond she could sense with her magic, which complicated things immensely. She wouldn't want to do anything to screw that up, especially since she couldn't hope for more than a fling with either of them. She was too broken for someone like Kyle or Deck, someone strong and healthy and nonevil, to want long term. And she didn't have a long term to offer, in any case.
Well, that was a depressing thought. Not one she wanted to ponder. The only good thing about growing up as an Agency experimental subject, though, was that she was good at clearing her mind. Using every trick she'd developed in a lifetime of trying to think about anything but her reality, she focused on the sounds of the ocean and the quiet noises of the big houseâpeople moving around, occasional murmurs of speech, laughter and a strange sound she realized after a few seconds was a couple having vigorous sex. No one weeping, no one screaming, no noises in her head, and accompanying all the happy noises of everyday life, the sounds of waves and thunder. Despite bone-deep exhaustion, Meaghan wasn't sure she could sleep after her crazy day, but the soothing sounds helped her drift into a light slumber.
When the first waves of magic broke over her, she thought she'd drifted off into a delightful dream. She floated in a sea of energy, riding its swells, and every cell of her body tingled. She felt stronger, but she also felt light-headed. Then she realized her constant low-grade headache was gone, and the light-headedness was from being free of pain for the first time in several years. She felt like dancing, or jumping for joy.
Or maybe fucking. At least touching and being touched. She felt so damn good she might fly out of her skin without the grounding of touch.
She couldn't keep her hands from gliding over her body, enjoying the electric sensations of skin on skin. She rarely touched herself after she'd figured out that coming provoked seizures, but the wonderful liquid energy surrounding her made it impossible to resist.
She'd be safe here. She was shielded, and the house was shielded, and even if a vision tried to break in, she knew how to fight off visions now.
And wasn't this part of freedom, to learn to enjoy her own body? To learn a little about sexuality without coercion involved?
As she did, she imagined Deck or Kyle touching her. No, Deck
and
Kyle together.
Go for brokeâit's a fantasy.
Her nipples strained. Her pussy ached with arousal. She hadn't even touched it but it felt like someone was. She rode wave after wave of energy, and it felt how she imagined surfing must feel and how she imagined sex with Kyle or Deck would feel, passionate yet caring. Her skin tingled. The room spun, or she spun in the roomâshe refused to believe it was her damaged brain having its way with her.
Her body arched, and as an orgasm claimed her, hard and unexpected and wonderful, she saw blue and red waves waft her up, caress her, break over her.
Which brought her down from the high of orgasm faster than the proverbial cold shower or thinking about Shaw.
She'd seen colors and she hadn't been having a vision.
Her optic nerves had been completely dead for three years. Since early childhood, she hadn't been able to see in the way most people understood it, though until the nerves finally died, she'd been aware of light.
For the past few years, even her dreams had been made up of sound, smell and touch, though occasionally a vision would feed an image directly into her brainâusually a horrifying one or a wash of blood.
And she'd just seen red and blue, a happy, vibrant red that might be the same basic color as blood, but couldn't feel more different.
She hoped that everything she'd experienced, including the orgasm, was some Donovan witchery gone astray and carrying her with it.
Because, otherwise, she was hallucinating. Her brain was sending false signals, which might mean she was getting sicker. Might die before she'd had a chance to live in freedom.
Tears filled her useless eyes.
But another wave buoyed her up, and this time she could tell it was magic because the euphoria wasn't so mixed up with lust. It felt like Garrett's bits of healing magic, only a thousand times better. Desire still rode along with it, but wasn't as distracting as before, now that she'd come.
It was magic, and it let her see red and blue, and even though she still couldn't see anything elseâincluding the hand she waved in front of her eyes just in case the Donovans were that good and she was experiencing a miraculous recoveryâshe'd seen
something
and that was more than she'd ever hoped to do.
And she'd come without having a vision, or at least without being thrust into someone else's pain and terror. Maybe she'd been thrust into someone else's love life. That would explain the arousal, the orgasm and maybe even the colors. For all she knew, sighted witches always saw red and blue when they came. But if she'd been an accidental voyeur, she'd take that over her usual visions any day.