“Time to call it a night,” she said. “You might not have solved any of your problems, but at least you got some paperwork done.”
Except, as she grabbed the soft leather jacket she’d worn against the almost-winter chill, she realized that she’d come to a resolution of sorts. There was a strange sort of peace inside her that hadn’t been there before, one that said if she could go up against a ghost-demon and summon a whole village’s worth of butterflies, she could handle starting something new with Rabbit.
Carefully, she told herself. Very carefully. Because she wasn’t going to make the same mistakes this time. This wasn’t about forever after; it was about taking what they both wanted while they still had the chance.
The cloud-hazed night was inky black, with just a glimmer of moonlight to guide her along the pathway to the cottage she and Rabbit had shared for more than two years. She didn’t hesitate at the steps, didn’t pause before knocking—bang, bang, bang—using the sharp, peremptory cadence she’d used back in college, the one that said “move it or lose it, buster.” She caught her breath, though, as the knob turned, then let it out as the panel opened to reveal Rabbit standing barefoot, wearing worn sweats and a black hoodie.
His eyes burned into her, resonating with the leftover heat from their earlier kiss. “You came.”
Adrenaline buzzed in her veins, making her feel powerful. “Were you waiting for me?”
“I was doing my damnedest not to go after you. I would’ve lasted another fifteen minutes, maybe less.” His gaze skimmed over her, feeling like a touch. “Come in. Please.”
She didn’t hesitate. This was what she’d come for, after all.
He stepped back so she could move past him into the kitchen, then shut the door behind her, enclosing them in a four-room cottage that suddenly seemed far smaller than she remembered. It should’ve felt strange, being back there after all this time, but the air smelled of vanilla and patchouli. The twin scents twined together, amping her magic. More, they drew her deeper into the cottage, across the kitchen and living room, and all the way to the bedroom door.
She stopped there, and breathed, “Oh.”
Rabbit came up behind her and stood very close, looking over her shoulder into the room they had shared for so long. Two lit candles sat in holders on the nightstand, one white, one red, both hers. The red one was burned down to little more than a nub, while the white was newer, yet set in wax from a prior white candle, now burned away. Together, they filled the room with warm yellow light, showing where the familiar bedspread was dented in the shape of a big, heavy body curled on its side, with a dog-eared paperback lying nearby.
Her eyes misted at the sight. How many nights had they lain like that together, with her reading and him zoned out on his iPod, the two of them fitting together like the pieces of a puzzle? And how many nights over the past few months had she found herself curled up the same way, alone?
“The candles aren’t because I miss the way things used to be,” he said.
She turned to him, heart lumping in her throat. “They’re not?”
“Not tonight. Tonight I lit them because I was hoping you’d come.”
He stood in the doorway, filling it. But it wasn’t the size of his body or the hugeness of what he was saying that threatened to overwhelm her. It was the excitement that seared through her veins, and the knowledge that she was strong enough to make this work. “A summoning spell, you mean?”
“Hey, it worked on the butterflies.” He paused. “Will you stay with me?”
She didn’t know whether he meant for the next few hours, the night, or for as long as they had left, but she found that it didn’t really matter. “We can’t go back.”
“I don’t want to go back; I want to move forward.” He closed the small distance between them, and took her hand. “This can be whatever you want it to be.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to her temple, her cheek. “Anything, so long as it means I don’t have to stay away from you anymore.”
“Was that what you were doing? FYI, you kind of suck at it.”
He grinned. “Got you here, didn’t it?”
“I guess it did.” Taking a deep breath that smelled of her candles, she turned her head, found his lips, and sank into the kiss she had come for. And, for the moment, at least, she was exactly where she wanted to be, doing exactly what she wanted to do. On her own terms.
Rabbit met the kiss as relief slashed through him. Excitement. Pounding need. He couldn’t believe she was really there, that this was really happening. Even after everything that had happened today, he hadn’t been sure she would be ready to trust him like this again.
That she was seemed like a minor fucking miracle.
His body lit and his heart thudded. His fingers curled around her jaw, then the back of her skull, as she moved against him, bumping her hips and rubbing her belly against his cock, which was already throbbing and hard. But beside that urgency, there was softness, sweetness. Her lips were lush and giving, her breasts gentle curves that were familiar, yet not, like it was new all over again.
In the back of his mind he was more than half-afraid that he might be dozing, drooling on his Clive Cussler. But if that was the case, fuck, he never wanted to wake up, because this was nothing like the nightmares. It’s real, something whispered inside him, cutting through the wonder and the almost-fear that if he opened his eyes he’d be back alone in the bed, smelling her scent without her being anywhere near. But he wasn’t alone, she wasn’t far away, and this was really happening. He knew it from the way her fingers curled into his waistband, sealing them together, and from the sexy purr she made in the back of her throat when he changed the angle of his mouth.
He caught her wrist, kissed her fingers, and then parted from her to draw her down to the bed they had shared for so long. They didn’t say anything; there didn’t seem to be any need for more words.
The mattress dipped beneath him and poor Clive headed for the floor as she followed him down to the bed and straddled his hips, pinning him and rendering him a very willing prisoner. His hands found her waist and slid up as hers reached for the zipper of his hoodie and tugged it down. Her eyes lit when she found he wasn’t wearing anything beneath it, and she spread the edges of his sweatshirt wide, baring his chest, with the new layer of ridged scars. She sobered and traced the marks with her fingers, and where before the scar tissue had been numb, now they caught fire and throbbed with a sensation that wasn’t quite pleasure, wasn’t quite pain.
He caught her hand. “Don’t. I got what I deserved.”
She flattened her hand over the worst of it, over his heartbeat, but she didn’t argue. Instead, she shifted to kiss the spot where the whip marks intersected, and then, looking up so their eyes met, she said, “Moving forward, right?”
“Moving forward.” Emotion roughened his voice and gave the words the force of a spell. Sex magic poured through him, buoying his excitement and revving his system into overdrive. And for the first time, her magic rose up to answer his as they kissed—she wasn’t holding back anymore, wasn’t blocking the buzz of energy. This wasn’t the connection they’d had before, when their powers had been joined. Instead, the sex magic spiraled out into the air surrounding them, ramping up the heat and throbbing with the beat of his blood in his veins.
Suddenly he couldn’t lie there beneath her anymore. He surged up and over, reversing them so he rose above her, caging her in with his legs and arms.
She grinned and started to wiggle out from underneath him, as she had so often done before, turning her preference for being on top into a game. Now, though, he tightened his arms and dropped his head to nuzzle her neck, kiss her throat, nip at the soft skin behind one ear. She shuddered and moaned, and went pliant beneath him in a sudden capitulation that burned through him.
“Gods, Myr.” His voice was ragged, his cock so hard it hurt, wanting—needing—to be inside her.
He braced himself over her as he dragged his teeth to the dip at the base of her throat and kissed her there, lingering until she arched against him. Her hands came up to grip his waist, then dug in on either side of his spine. Snagging the hem of her shirt, he tugged it up and off, then shucked his hoodie, managing the moves with barely a pause in kissing her cheeks, her eyelids, her temples and then, when she dug her nails into his skin and sought his mouth, her lips.
Then, finally, he lowered himself so they were chest to chest, touching along the lengths of their bodies. He groaned as her soft warmth seeped into him, filling the empty spaces and lighting the shadows, reminding him that he might’ve been doing fine without her, but he was so fucking much better with her.
“Damn, I missed you,” he rasped, pressing his cheek to hers.
She had been his first, his only, and being skin-on-skin with her after three very long—and very life-
