I twitched, not wanting to have this argument. “You’re too important to risk like that.”
His lips were set in a thin line. “This is my job as the elven Sa’han,” he started.
“Then you can do it from the outskirts like David and Edden,” I interrupted.
“But I will take my stand beside you because I love you,” he finished, and I slumped. Damn it. It’s going to be twice as hard now.
Uneasy, I rested my head against him, and finally he began to relax. “Ellasbeth has a nice place,” I said, startled when my fingers began to tingle, the hint of unfocused ley line energy dancing about the tips as he held my hand.
“I think so, too,” he said, his tone shifting. “If I was single . . .”
I turned to him, grinning. “You are single.”
“You know what I mean,” he said, then pulled me to him and kissed me.
My eyes closed, and I kissed him back, tasting champagne as the pent-up sexual need the vampires in the tower had instilled in me unfolded with a sharp snap. I shifted, my leg pinning him as my lips moved harder against his, feeling him respond. My arm wove under his, and I pulled him even closer as he pressed me into the couch. Desire flamed, and a soft noise of encouragement came from me as I drew away, breathless but wanting to see him, see his own desire for me in his eyes, letting it kindle mine to higher reaches.
The aroma of wine and cheese mixed with his scent of wild wind and open grasslands as he gazed at me, his breath slow and steady, promising more.
“I’m not doing this on Ellasbeth’s brand-new couch,” I said, pulse fast.
“Fair enough.” His hand shifted, pinching the throw between him and my shoulder. Breath held, he shifted our weight and pulled us both laughing to the floor.
My hair went everywhere, and I loved him all the more as we tumbled together, finally ending with him on top, my shoulder against the side of the couch, the underside of the low table half over us. “Mmmm, interesting,” I murmured as I reached to play with his hair. I liked his weight on me, pressing down, hinting at more as the lights from the city bathed us.
His smile was gentle, and he shifted the hair from my eyes. “I love you when you are kicking the bad guy’s ass,” he whispered, then gave me a gentle kiss. “I love you when you are working the problem to avoid it,” he added, his lips touching me again. “I love you when you create a new spell with the lines making your hair all staticky and in disarray,” he continued as he smoothed it from my forehead and kissed me there. “But I love you best when you are relaxed and in my arms. Like now.”
Again, he leaned to find my lips with his. They tasted of magic, and I lost myself in him as my arms went around his neck. Breath fast, I traced my lips over his neck, nibbling harder and with more demand as he moved against me. My hands shifted, and I undid the top button of his shirt, then the next, and the third until I could touch his chest.
He sighed, his lips making hop-skips down my neck as his hands found my breasts, touching, pinching, bringing me alive with little jolts of sensation. Wanting my shirt off, I arched my back, and in a smooth motion, Trent pulled it up and over, tangling my arms and pinning me there.
My eyes flashed open, and then I gasped when he bent low, pushing my chemise up until his lips found me, warm as his hands clasped one of my wrists, the other at my waist, hinting at going lower. I was pleasantly trapped, and I could do nothing but arch into him as his motions grew rougher.
But my breath caught when the faintest jolt of line energy zinged across my synapses, racing through my body from his hand at my waist to his fingers holding my wrist beside my head. I knew he felt my surprise as his motions slowed and the tingling energy abated. Breath close, he shifted to lie beside me, letting my wrist go as he found my eyes. There was a hint of question there, of vulnerability he’d never opened himself to. We’d never used ley lines like this, though it was common enough. There was too much potential risk, and he was too careful, too closed.
But he’d started it, and a quiver rippled through me at what this might lead to.
I took a breath to ask him if he was sure. Seeing it in my eyes, he covered my mouth with his, and I relaxed into a slow, satisfying kiss, my entire body coming alive.
And then, slowly, carefully, as we kissed and our hands explored, I let the barest hint of ley line energy slip from me to him.
A low growl of sound came from him as he felt it, and his teeth fastened on my lip for a bare instant. His head dropped, and he nuzzled to find my breasts again. My back arched, breath escaping me in a soft sound. My fingers traced his back, going lower as magic trickled from them, making him shudder.
We are wearing too many clothes, I mused, and then a flash of thought about Jenks raced through me. But he’d left knowing what was going to happen. He’d keep the perimeter. Keep us safe.
My eyes opened and my tracing fingers slowed when Trent pulled back, worry coloring his usual hot demand. “I’ve never let myself use the lines before,” he whispered. “Like that.”
Because he was too afraid to trust, I thought as I smiled up at him and laced my hands behind his neck. “You started it,” I said, smile dancing about my lips. I drew him to me, whispering, “We can go slow until you know if you like it. Not everyone does.” But for those who could trust, it was . . . amazingly fulfilling.
He nodded, and as his hands found my breast again, I took a slow, intoxicating breath and touched the ley line to fill my chi. God help me. Constance could wait and Ellasbeth would get over it. I sent my hand across his back to spill magic into him, but then quivered when a heady warmth spilled into me, alive and scintillating, tasting of ash and cinnamon and wine and dangerous, dangerous elf. A groan of pleasure slipped from me, and my hands flashed from his back to find his zipper. His lips were on me, tugging, pulling, tingling with unfocused magic, and I could hardly think.
My eyes flew open when the flow eased. Breathless, I found him looking at me, blinking in surprise at my reaction. “Oh, God. Don’t stop now,” I said as I finally got his zipper down. “The more you give me, the more I can send back into you.”
“Mmmm.” A hint of deviltry flickered in him, and he bent low over me once more. My breath came in a fast pant as his hands touched my bare skin, and it was as if the line filled me, racing through me in scintillating waves in time with his heartbeat, filling my chi until I was aching with it.
“S-slow . . .” I gasped, gripping him tighter as I clenched into him. “God, slow down. I thought you said you’d never done this with the lines.”
His eyes were dark with a heady demand, his hands never ceasing their steady motion, ever closer to my waistband. “I shall try to improve, nevertheless,” he said. And then he found my mouth with his.
My pulse hammered, and I let a trickle of the energy he had given me back into him, my hands moving lower, finding him taut through his clothes. Finally I managed to get his zipper down, and he sighed in relief at his new freedom as I shoved his pants as low as I could before hooking my foot in them and dragging them nearly off.