no longer trembled. Instead he moved rapidly and deliberately to sheath himself. She sprawled across the bed, and he grabbed the damp crotch of her panties. With one swift tug, the seams gave way.
The thrilling sound of him ripping her panties from her body nearly made her climax. He’d never been like this. She moaned, needing him, aching for him...and then he was there, surging into her with a powerful thrust that made her gasp.
His mouth hovered inches from hers. “I have you, now, my precious.”
She would have laughed, because Lord of the Rings quotes had been inside jokes of theirs during college. But his wild assault had left her breathless, and hot. She’d never been so turned on.
He seemed to have achieved total immersion, but somehow he rocked his hips forward and settled himself deeper yet. “There. Right there.”
The jolt of his penis set off her first tremor. “Cole.”
His laugh was low and rich with satisfaction. “Ready for me, you are.”
Hysterics and passion bubbled equally inside of her. “Not Yoda, too!” She gasped. “You’re killing me here!”
“I’m distracting myself. Turns out I don’t want a repeat of that first night, after all.” He eased back slowly, setting off little explosions across her skin. Then he drove in again, filling her as only Cole could.
Her blood pounded through her veins as another spasm hit, and another.
“Ah, Taryn, you’re going to come first.” And he stroked her again, and again, and again.
Cupping his face, she pulled him down, needing his mouth on hers, because she was about to come, and if she yelled, she’d wake Mrs. Gustafson. He made love to her mouth with his tongue, mimicking the same steady rhythm of his hips. He required an embarrassingly short time to achieve his goal. As he swallowed her soft cries, she arched upward in a powerful climax. If he hadn’t had her pinned to the bed, she believed she might have flown.
As her world spun and she quivered in his arms, his rhythm changed. Now his hips rocked with more speed and less care. Lifting his mouth from hers, he began to pant. “Yes...yes...now...Taryn...now.” With one final thrust, he drove home, his body shuddering with the aftershocks of his orgasm.
Sliding both hands under his shirt, she caressed his sweaty back. Her hands remembered the texture of his skin and the ripple of his muscles. He liked to be caressed after sex. She’d forgotten that. Each memory that surfaced was a treasure she’d kept locked away, but now she could uncover them all. Cole was back in her arms at last.
* * *
Cole’s technique had lacked eloquence, but he was pleased with the end result. Brushing a kiss over her full lips, he eased away from her and gave her a Schwarzenegger “I’ll be back.”
“You’d better be,” she murmured. “And next time I want it long and slow.”
“Me, too.” He headed for the little bathroom with its white antique fixtures. He’d never stayed here, but he’d toured the place. Whenever they had non-magickal folks visit Evergreen Industries, he put them up at the Nutcracker Inn. Everyone raved about it.
Good thing he wouldn’t ever stay here, because now the place would be loaded with memories of Taryn. A sharp pain in the vicinity of his heart reminded him of the risk he was taking by falling in with her plan. These few days could turn him into an emotional cripple, but he was willing to pay that price.
Now that he realized no one else would do but Taryn, and Taryn was forbidden to him, he’d stay single forever. That might have sounded harsh to someone else, but to Cole, it made perfect sense. Marrying someone he loved less than Taryn would be unkind to them, and to himself.
Taking off his shirt, he walked back into the room and paused. She’d always been speedy at undressing, but she must have set a world record this time. Gloriously naked, she crouched beside the fireplace with a lit match in her hand.
The small flame illuminated her delicate features, and another pain sliced through his heart. So beautiful. She tossed the match into the fireplace and swore when it fell uselessly through the grate. Opening the box of matches, she struck another one.
Silly as it was, he wanted her to succeed, but he didn’t give her method much chance. Focusing on the logs arranged in the fireplace, he timed his muttered incantation to her match-tossing. The logs caught.
“Yes!” She turned to him, her smile bright. “You were standing there thinking I wouldn’t get it started, weren’t you?”
“Actually, I thought you would.” He’d simply increased her odds.
“Let’s make love here in front of the fire.”
“Why not?” He was touched that she’d ask, and that she’d used the phrase make love instead of have sex. They used to make love in front of the fire. His duplex had been a real find—a rental with a woodburning fireplace. He’d used magick to keep the blaze going while they were otherwise occupied.
An unmagickal fire required constant tending, which meant having sex by the fire was romantic in theory but inconvenient in practice. She’d never questioned the consistency of their fires. He hoped that was because she’d been too busy enjoying herself.
He wondered if she’d ever tried having hearthside sex with anyone else. If so, she would have discovered it didn’t work quite the way it had with him. Selfishly, he liked knowing that their experience would stand out in her mind.
She rose from the hearth with an unselfconsciousness that showed she hadn’t really been worried about revealing her body. He couldn’t stop looking at her. She was the same, yet different.
The tiny mole positioned over her heart was still there, waiting for his kiss. But her breasts were more voluptuous now, and her hips flared a bit more, emphasizing her narrow waist. His gaze traveled the length of her slender legs. He had fond memories of those legs wrapped around his hips. She knew how to lock him in tight while giving him room to move. He didn’t need much, just enough to create the right kind of friction....
She said something, but he was so lost in memories he missed it.
“Earth to Cole.”
“Hmm?”
“Your clothes, Evergreen. Lose ’em. I’ll fix us a bed by the fire.”
He grinned at her and snapped a quick salute. “Aye, aye, cap’n.”
“Smart-ass.”
“Sweet-ass.” How quickly they’d become comfortable with each other again. Ten years had vanished, replaced with the easy relationship he remembered so well. Taryn got him. Well, not completely, because she didn’t know about the magick. That should have been a huge omission, but somehow, when they were together, it didn’t seem to matter. They made their own magick.
By the time he’d shucked the rest of his clothes and located another condom, she’d spread a quilt on the floor and tossed a couple of pillows there, too. He walked toward her, his cock already standing at attention. “You made your bed. Now lie in it.”
“I
