the homemade bay rum soap I’d slipped into his shower a few days ago to stock his barren apartment. I loved a spicy man, and it was all I could do not to hook a foot behind his knee and throw him to the black-and-white harlequin-tiled kitchen floor.
Patience, Libby.
But not too patient. This woman had needs and desires that demanded attention. How long could a girl be happy with a fumbling beginner when what she really needed was a skilled lover to master her mind, body and soul?
“Your breath on my skin feels good,” he said. “I know your lips are soft because they are the color of the rose petals in the garden.”
Mercy, but the man was a romantic without even trying.
“You don’t remember, but we’ve kissed before,” I said. “When I was trying to distract you from taking Vika’s soul.”
“I wish I could remember. I’ve lost so much.”
“I’ll refresh your memory.”
“Should I tilt my head?”
“No, I’ll do that. You just let it happen.”
I pressed my mouth to his and spread my hands across his rock-hard pectorals. I had to stand on my tiptoes, which gave me a thrill because—hell, it just did. The connection—no movement, just touching—activated all my nerve endings to scream pleasure and feed me.
I gripped him by the back of the head, running my fingertips through his short dark hair, and deepened the kiss. The man’s mouth was receptive and so hot. Spice teased my senses. I could have stayed right there all day. Oh, to bespell his heart and make him mine!
The guy was mine. Let no woman dare to take him from me.
Wait. Really? Claiming the guy? I was being too forward.
Breaking the kiss, I stepped away, smoothing my hands down my dress. “Whew! Sorry about that.”
He touched his lips and shrugged. “Sorry for what? I liked it. Did I do it wrong?”
“Not at all.”
His brows fell and his mouth pouted. The puppy dog had been denied a treat.
Shame on me. Libby St. Charles was not the denial sort. Be damned this too-forward business. I tended to take what I desired, and if it made me feel good, I’d overindulge.
“All righty then, here goes nothing, lover boy.”
This time I dashed my tongue across his, coaxing him to a sensual dance that teased at my inhibitions like a feather tracing me from head to toe. Every part of my skin craved contact with his. Clothing felt bothersome. And when I wanted him to dip me backward and make me his, the man simply took what I gave.
So I would become the teacher. He would learn, and then take the control I wanted him to own.
Sliding my hands down over his, I moved them lower on my hips. Reichardt squeezed and I moaned into his mouth. “You squeeze all you like, lover.”
“So much of you to enjoy,” he murmured, and this time he initiated the kiss.
He pressed my body against the counter and probably wasn’t aware how hard he leaned into me. I didn’t care. I wanted to be controlled by a man, needed it. His mouth, firm and seeking, tasted my lips and a murmur of satisfaction was my reward for this teaching session. I loved every moment of this connection, even his awkward movements as he tilted his head one way and then the other.
And when I felt his erection harden and lengthen against my mons—oh, baby. Did I mention I was a master of overindulgence?
“Uh...” Breaking the kiss, Reichardt looked down at his groin. “I’m not sure...”
“That’s supposed to happen,” I said sweetly and traced his moist lower lip with my finger. “That means you’re doing things right.”
“It’s so...hard. I feel as if I want to...”
I lifted a brow, waiting for him to list his fantasies about me. I could ramble off a salacious litany for him. But one step at a time. It was going to be difficult to control my urges around this man.
“I need a moment to myself.” Reichardt dashed out of the kitchen and through the swinging French doors.
Turning to the flower petals in the sink, I whistled a tune about two lovers finding one another. The former soul bringer had never had sex. I had myself a two-thousand-year-old virgin.
And I had so many great plans for him.
Two
While I dressed, Libby waited out in my starkly furnished living room. She was an early bird, or so I’d heard that expression in the market the other morning as we’d shopped for milk and bread and the apricot jam I enjoyed.
I liked to linger in bed, tucked between the sheets that smelled like cedar. If I wasn’t so compelled to become a useful, working part of society, I could entirely imagine becoming a bum who slept and ate his way through life.
I noticed the blue feather lying on the floor before the bed and picked it up. When I moved my fingers over the vanes, they shivered as if liquid yet felt cold and hard like iron. It was my feather. Libby said she’d found it in the pile of crystal ash that had remained after my wings had shattered and fallen away.
“Wings,” I murmured. “Could I get them back?”
I flexed my shoulders and spread out my arms, wondering what wings must have felt like. How large had they been? What purpose might they have served in the mortal realm? Had they been blue like this feather?
I overheard Libby out in the living room, on the phone with her sister, chatting about everything from cleaning solutions and getting blood stains out of vinyl couches to the latest music and—me.
My ears perked, my arms dropping the imaginary wings.
“He’s doing well. Still pretty weak. I wonder if he’ll always be so? He’s the muscles of a workhorse, but he can barely lift the vacuum.”
I clasped my hands across my chest, inadvertently squeezing a bicep. The muscle was hard, and it seemed I should be stronger. It bothered Libby that I couldn’t do some things? Hell, I’d needed her to help me move around the sofa. Shouldn’t a man be able to do that himself?
“Yes, he’s adjusting. CJ did that? I couldn’t imagine Reichardt lifting a washing machine to let me get to the dust beneath.”
I winced. Indeed, I needed to become stronger to gain Libby’s admiration. I’d seen the commercials on the television that featured muscle-bound men lifting heavy weights. Women swooned over them.
A man of my stature and with all these muscles shouldn’t be so weak. It had to do with transforming from a soul bringer to a mortal, I felt sure. If I had once traveled from Above and Beneath, I must have had some crazy powers. And Libby had detailed how I’d once lifted CJ and Vika with no more than my mind and had speared them with an invisible bolt that had left them bleeding.
I’d
