22 #3
Felix gasped quietly, as if it was his skin on fire.
‘You felt that?’ Asta asked.
Felix nodded. ‘Everything you feel, I feel. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to it.
I am not done with you.’ He turned his attention to her suit, unclasping the snap at her throat and running the zipper down as far as it would go.
‘Sit down,’ he said, backing her up to the chair.
He took off her boots and worked her out of her race suit, leaving her in her T-shirt and shorts.
Asta caught his hand as it passed down her side. ‘Felix,’ she murmured, a smile tugging at her mouth, ‘you do remember you said you wanted to be friends.’
‘I’m a very friendly guy.’ He pushed her to sit back and crouched before the chair, wincing at his knee as he did so.
He ran his fingers over the skin of her left arm, following the progress with an intense stare. Bursts of electricity followed everything he did. He chased the sensations up her shoulder and across her collarbones, as if he knew exactly where they were leading. He did, Asta reminded herself.
‘But are you sure? What if we—’
He lifted his face to meet her eyes. ‘Oh, I’m sure. Are you?’
Asta thought about this question. She had wanted this from him – with him – for so long.
Even when she had been angry with him, hurt by him, she had daydreamed about one day finding herself right here.
She didn’t know what would happen if she let herself finally follow this longing to its end, but it wasn’t about knowing.
For once, it wasn’t about having a plan.
It was about loving this person in front of her. And she did love him. So much.
She nodded. ‘Yes.’ She grabbed his neck and pulled him in for a kiss. His stubble rasped on her chin.
He broke the kiss and laughed to himself. ‘I should have shaved this morning.’
Felix moved in front of her and began to run his hands up her legs in fleeting touches.
The current that pulsed through her body was almost more than Asta could handle.
Felix watched her – his breath catching with hers when his fingertips skimmed over her ankles and the backs of her knees, his body flinching with hers when his hands brushed the bruises on her hamstring, his eyes softening as hers did when he flirted with her inner thigh.
Asta wrapped her legs around his back and pulled him closer to her, drawing another kiss from his lips. ‘I want to feel your feelings, too. Can you do that?’
Felix worked his hands, speaking the incantation to produce a second light marble. He was panting, his eyes bright with anticipation.
He lifted the glowing ball to his mouth. ‘Ready?’
Asta nodded. He placed it on his tongue.
‘I’m going to let go now, and I’ll offer you my feelings. All you need to do is—’
‘Oh!’ Asta exclaimed. There it was. She grasped at the stream, and his sensations flooded her, overlapping with her own, as if she inhabited two bodies at once.
His body thrilled with desire, was heavy with it, hunger and fullness emanating from every cell.
She reached out and touched his lips where the little glowing sun had been, and she felt the tickling touch of her own fingers.
She ran her hands through his hair, and she could feel the pleasure cascading down his head and neck.
There was pain, too, where his bent knee pressed on the carpet. The ache of it ran deep.
Asta got off the chair and put him in it.
She straddled his legs but put no weight on them, her feet planted on the ground.
The throb of desire she felt from him told her that he liked having her standing over him like this.
She chased his pleasure as he had chased hers, bending over him and kissing him deeply.
Through his mind, she could feel the silk of her own lips even while her body felt his.
He pulled her to him, lifted her shirt, and ran his lips over her bare stomach. He tasted her skin, and the salt was on her tongue, too. The dual senses amplified each other. It left her tipsy, euphoric, ravenous for more.
‘What do you like?’ she asked. ‘Let me feel it with you.’
He stood up from the chair, and Asta helped unfasten the complicated clasps of his race suit.
The black and gold Seraphin crown parted with the zipper.
He removed the brace from his knee, then unlaced his boots and kicked them off as Asta went around behind him to peel the high-tech fabric down his legs.
He was wearing a black undershirt and black shorts, both marked with the family crest.
She put her chin on his shoulder. ‘They’ve got you branded.’
He pulled the shirt off over his head and threw the shorts to the floor and turned to face her, completely naked. ‘Not anymore.’
She wriggled out of her own underthings, and he grabbed her to him. Her hands buried themselves in his dark hair. She felt, doubly, the heat of their bodies pressed together. His body responded, growing hard and eager.
‘Give it back to me,’ he said, and she could feel him reaching for the stream of her perceptions. She let go and surrendered herself to it, let go as if they were careening down the mountainside together. They stumbled toward the bed.
Her body became an instrument for him to play. Then he gave her the stream of his sensations again, and she played him. A pulsing melody that built and built until the whole room was dancing.
Felix rolled on to his back and worked his hands in the air above his chest, his fingers delicate in their movements. As he undid the magic, his aching satisfaction seemed to blow away from Asta’s mind in the wind, and all she was left with was her own.
On the other side of the wall, they could hear the stable door opening, then the heavy footsteps of a dragon.
Essie’s familiar groan, followed by a thud that shook the wall, told them that she had been cleaned off and rubbed down and was now settling in for a well-earned nap.
There were a few muted words from the groom, a rumbling response from Essie, then the scrape of the stable door swinging closed again.
‘So, what else?’ Asta asked when there were no more sounds from Essie. She drew one of Felix’s hands to her, touching each of the fingertips one by one, fascinated.
Felix looked at her in confusion. ‘Excuse me?’
‘What else can magic do?’
He caught her hand with his and pulled until she rolled over on top of him. ‘Oh, that wasn’t enough for you?’
She laughed into his hair. ‘No! So we can read each other’s minds, big whoop. Show me something else!’
He rolled them both again so that he was on top, hips pinning her down. He kissed her breasts, along her ribs, her throat. ‘I’ll show you something else. Just you wait.’
‘Show me something now. Something magic.’
He climbed off her, favoring his knee to avoid putting weight on it, and lay down again at her side.
‘Okay,’ he said, nestling his head close to hers. ‘Remember this one?’ He conjured a tangle of shimmering cord between his hands.
Asta reached out and touched it, enjoying the buzz of the illusion on her fingertips. ‘I still can’t believe you didn’t sell this. No one has done anything like it. How strong is it?’
‘Let’s see.’ He attached one end of the cord to his arm, one to hers. ‘Give it a try.’
Asta hesitated, considering the knot around her wrist. ‘Should I really? You remember where this got us last time, don’t you?’
Felix was quiet. He was remembering the attic, too, she thought. The things they said. Their worlds collapsing.
‘That wasn’t because of the magic,’ he said at last.
Asta laughed, and her laughter seemed to clear some lingering worry from his face. ‘Fair enough.’
She tugged on the cord and found that it was taut, as strong as the leather of Carmine’s harness.
‘It goes both ways! You worked it out. You’re a magic genius.’ She kissed him. ‘How does it work? Are we the only ones who can see it?’
No, Felix told her. In fact, the cord was not only visible to the people around its two anchor users, the solidity translated as well. As long as the magic remained charged and the two anchor points connected, anyone would see or feel its effect. More than that. The cord could sustain weight.
Asta was amazed. ‘That’s not a perception. How did you get it to do that?’
‘Magic,’ Felix answered, his eyes twinkling.
He showed her how to secure and release it, how to make it strengthen and stretch, how to lock it and retract it, all while he kept the magic charged for her.
She practiced until she got it right, and he kissed her, proud of her progress.
When she was done, he reduced the length and coiled the shimmering cord around her arm, wrist to shoulder like she was his sculpture and he the artist. She admired the magic sheen against her skin.
‘Can I keep this?’
‘I made it for you,’ Felix said, smiling modestly. ‘Just remember, it won’t do anything if it isn’t attached on both ends.’
‘Oh, I see how it is,’ Asta laughed. ‘This is how you keep me from running away again.’
The sad look on Felix’s face made Asta regret her words.
‘It doesn’t actually have to be me on the other side. You could use it with anyone you trust. Even Carmine. Just do it like I showed you.’
She smiled at him, wishing she could reassure him. ‘I still need you to charge it, don’t I?’
‘That’s true.’ He smiled back a little wanly. ‘Just ask me. I’ll turn it on for you and power the magic. Whenever you want it.’ Felix released the charge, and the light faded to nothing.
Asta pressed her hands to her forehead. ‘Felix, this is brilliant. Like, groundbreaking.’
‘It’s just a hobby.’
‘Stop it. If you were literally anyone else in the world, you would be the most kick-ass illusionist anyone ever heard of. Sucks for you that you’re also an extremely talented, sexy-ass rider with access to the best dragons in the world.’
‘Yeah, sucks for me.’ Felix dropped his hands beside him and looked up at the ceiling.
Something in his voice made Asta lift herself on her elbows to study his face.