Magic to the Bone

  And for the first time, I felt self-conscious of it. I curled my fingers closer around my fork, and couldn’t believe I felt bad. It was just a mark. A burn. I’d been burned before.

  But never like this, never with so many colors, never so sensitive, never so . . . beautiful. Did liking a disfiguring mark make me a freak? Did being ashamed of it make me any better?

  I scooped a bite of noodles and sauce into my mouth. ‘‘It burned,’’ I said. ‘‘But it hasn’t really hurt, just itches sometimes. Do you think it will fade like a burn?’’

  ‘‘I think that depends.’’

  ‘‘On what?’’

  ‘‘On if you ever use magic again.’’

  ‘‘Listen, I like Nola and all that stuff she stands for, but I am not going to turn magic-free just because I got a little burn.’’

  ‘‘Good,’’ he said. ‘‘You have a great ability, Allie. It would be a shame to see you give it up.’’

  I took a swig of grape soda. ‘‘I think I can cover the marks with makeup.’’

  ‘‘I suppose, but I don’t think you should.’’

  ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘I think it’s beautiful. Exotic. Powerful.’’

  I looked up into those tiger eyes and saw the fire burning behind them.

  Oh.

  ‘‘I like the sound of that,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Good.’’ He went back to eating, but there was a palatable heat between us. I started thinking about that bed of his, starting thinking about those sheets.

  ‘‘The bands on your left hand will probably stay,’’ he finally said.

  ‘‘Okay. I give up. How do you know these things?’’

  I hadn’t expected him to answer. I especially hadn’t expected him to tell me what sounded like the truth.

  ‘‘I’ve studied magic my entire life. My . . . my job involves . . . being aware of all the ways magic can manifest. Knowing how it is used, legally and illegally.’’

  ‘‘Wait. Did you just tell me you’re a cop?’’

  ‘‘No.’’

  ‘‘FBI? CIA? Is there a division of government that oversees magic use?’’

  ‘‘Not exactly.’’

  ‘‘So you’re part of what? A secret society of, oh, here let me guess, uh . . . Buddhist monks who believe it is their divine calling to run around telling people how to use magic.’’

  ‘‘I’m not a Buddhist.’’

  ‘‘Well, if you’re even half of what I just accused you of being, you are most certainly a vigilante.’’

  ‘‘Most certainly?’’

  ‘‘Seems pretty clear to me. Is there a secret handshake to get into your little fraternity?’’

  ‘‘Yes.’’

  I studied his face, calm, neutral. He’d be hella good at playing poker. ‘‘Bullshit.’’

  He smiled. ‘‘The lines on your right hand and arm won’t go away either,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Okay, so let’s pretend that I believe you are a part of a secret society of magic cops.’’

  ‘‘Okay.’’

  ‘‘And let’s pretend I know that magic has been around for hundreds, thousands of years.’’

  ‘‘Okay.’’

  ‘‘Have you ever seen this before?’’ I held up both hands, my right hand a webwork of opalescent lines, the left banded in black at each joint.

  He reached, took both my hands by the fingers, studied the backs of them, then gently turned them over to study the palms.

  ‘‘This.’’ He traced the palm of my right hand like a fortune-teller. The gentle strokes sent heat that had nothing to do with magic rushing up my thighs. ‘‘This is where magic marked and claimed you. When you use magic, you feel it moving through these lines.’’

  I nodded.

  ‘‘It is magic’s gift to you. This,’’ he said, running his fingers gently between the fingers of my left hand, his touch softly circling each joint, ‘‘is where you denied its effort to absorb you. When you use magic, you may lose feeling here first, and if you use it too much, or too quickly, that sensation will travel from your hand, to your arm, and eventually could stop your heart. It is the price you pay for the gift.’’

  ‘‘Positive energy.’’ He lifted my right hand slightly. ‘‘Negative energy.’’ He lifted my left hand.

  ‘‘Power and restraint.’’ He drew my hands together. ‘‘Very sexy.’’

  Great. I was a battery. Well, at least he had a nice way of saying it.

  ‘‘Sexy,’’ I mused. ‘‘Are you un-slowing down our relationship, Jones?’’

  ‘‘Maybe. How un-slow do you think you can handle it?’’

  This had to be the lamest relationship I’d ever been in.

  ‘‘Ground rules,’’ I said. ‘‘This is just for tonight. No promises means no complications and no complications means no dumping in the morning.’’

  ‘‘I can live with that.’’

  ‘‘You still hungry?’’ I asked. He had not taken his hands off of mine, and still held me as if I were something he did not want to disappear.

  ‘‘Not for food,’’ he answered.

  Oh, baby, sweet-talk me all night long.

  I pulled my hands out of his. ‘‘Good. I’m done too. Let’s go see if your bed’s big enough for the two of us.’’ I strutted off, and lifted my tank top up over my head and then off. I don’t know what it was about him, but he made me want to get naked in a hurry.

  He jogged up beside me and gently drew his hand up my back before wrapping it around my waist and walking with me to the bedroom.

  I figured this was going to be hot and quick, maybe a little fun, or a little rough. But Zayvion had different ideas.

  He locked the door and walked to the dresser. I, standing alone, kicked off my running shoes and made my socks into little balls that I stuffed inside my shoes.

  ‘‘Zay?’’ I asked.

  ‘‘Mmm?’’ He opened a drawer and I heard the rattle of matches in a box, then the scritch of a match being lit. He lit the candle on the dresser.

  ‘‘You want me to help with that?’’

  ‘‘No, I’m almost done.’’

  Okay, so this, maybe, was the downfall of having a perfectionist for a lover.

  ‘‘You want me to make sure the sheets are smooth—maybe iron them, or think I should dust off your condoms and arrange them in alphabetical order?’’

  ‘‘Is there a problem with how my condoms are arranged?’’ His back was still toward me, but he had moved on to the other dresser in the opposite corner of the room. Same deal there, match, snick, candle, flame. Rhythmic. Ritualistic.

  ‘‘Hello? Half-naked woman standing over here,’’ I said.

  The muscles of his shoulders twitched, but he still didn’t turn to look at me. ‘‘Give me a minute,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ll make it worth your wait. Promise.’’

  ‘‘I thought we said no promises.’’

  ‘‘You did.’’ He walked past me to the corner and lit a candle there with a new match. He pointedly avoided looking at me. Okay, this was getting weird, though I suppose no weirder than him being a part of a secret society of magic cops. He walked around me, gaze averted, and lit the last candle in the last corner of the room.

  ‘‘You’re really into candles, aren’t you?’’

  He put the matchbox down on the shelf next to the last candle he had lit. ‘‘Something like that,’’ he said. He turned off the overhead lamp and the room filled with a soft golden glow. This time when he turned, he was looking right at me, and the fire from the candles reflected the burning passion in his gaze.

  ‘‘Are you sure there isn’t something else you’d like to do?’’ I asked. ‘‘Maybe burn some incense? Wash a couple of windows? Fold some laundry?’’

  He stalked across the room and stopped in front of me, so close I could feel the heat off his body, even though we were not touching.

  ‘‘You talk too much,’’ he said.

  ‘‘That’s a great way to
get me in the mood.’’

  He stood there, still staring at me, and I thought about reaching out and grabbing him, but this looked an awful lot like a game of chicken and I was determined he touch me first, not the other way around.

  ‘‘I see you’re still wearing a shirt,’’ I said.

  He leaned back to make elbow room, and pulled his shirt off.

  Hells, he was a fine-looking man. Muscled, not gym-worked, but hard and flat. I wanted to touch him. I wanted to lick him up.

  He leaned back in again, but instead of pulling me into an embrace, he very gently pressed his fingers against the mark on my temple. ‘‘If the candlelight is too bright, tell me,’’ he said quietly.

  He wrapped his right arm around my waist and pulled me against him, and I got my hands on his back. He drew his finger in some quick pattern against my temple. I gasped at the hot race of mint that flowed into me, warming me, warming the magic in me, making me hot, trembling, hungry.

  I moaned, and opened eyes I did not know I had closed.

  ‘‘There is sensual pleasure in the weight of carrying magic,’’ he said. ‘‘Let me show you.’’

  ‘‘Yes,’’ I breathed. He bent his head and kissed me.

  My world exploded. His lips were warm, his tongue sliding into my mouth and slowly exploring the taste of me, as if I were something wonderful to savor. His fingers traced the whorls of magic on my palm, my wrist, the inside of my elbow, flicking across erogenous zones I never knew I had. His motions were sweet and almost painfully gentle. I squirmed and pulled away from his lips, unable to bear the sensation overload. I leaned my head against his chest, breathing hard as he traced up my arm, then drew heat and the sweet slide of mint across my shoulder and collarbone. His finger caught under my chin and he lifted my head. I wanted him to get out of his pants. I wanted to be out of mine. But I did not want him to stop doing exactly what he was doing. He pressed his leg between mine, and shifted so that his right hand was firmly against my back. He dipped his head and kissed the marks on my neck, sending another shiver of need through me.

  I moaned.

  He sucked, his tongue exploring the lines of magic that flowed up the curve of my neck.

  I closed my eyes, moaned again as his tongue drew up the side of my jaw. Warmth and need spread through me, flickering like fire from my nerves, pulsing through the lines of magic.

  He bit—not too hard, not hard enough—and I gasped. I wanted more. I wanted him to never let go.

  His mouth drew up my cheekbone and I trembled. Though I was shaking, I ran my hands up his back, his neck. I slipped my other hand down to his belt line. I wanted to feel him. The fire building in me was too hot. He breathed across my cheek, and I could not move.

  His fingers teased the lines of magic on the tip of my shoulder, tugging magic up to the surface of my skin so that I felt tight with it, tight with the need for release. He traced the pattern again, his fingers dipping down my cheek, down along the bare, soft skin of my neck. I arched back so I could feel him, feel more of him. I wanted him to release me from this hungry, joyful need.

  ‘‘Let go,’’ he said over the pounding roar in my head. ‘‘I’ve got you.’’

  I opened my eyes and he kissed my temple, his tongue tracing a pattern there.

  Magic welled in me, rising like a tide I could not stop. It filled me, stretched me, rising to his touch, rising to meet him, to wrap around him, drown him, consume him.

  No. I struggled not to lose control of the magic. I struggled to hold it still, breathing deeply to try to clear my mind. If I lost control of the magic, Zayvion could be killed.

  But his tongue teased and encouraged. He kissed his way back down my cheek, bit at the thin lines of magic that curved across my collarbone and fingered to the edge of my breast. I shuddered.

  I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t hold this much magic; no one could. My body ached with the weight of the magic filling me, magic Zayvion tugged, stroked, sucked, and drew upon in rhythm with his hands and tongue.

  We kissed.

  ‘‘Let go,’’ he whispered against my lips.

  I opened my eyes. I couldn’t hold on. To the magic, or the need.

  I opened my mouth to beg him to give me a minute to catch my breath, or maybe to tell him I wanted this, this abandon of control more than anything in my life. But I didn’t have time. I didn’t have thought. I didn’t have breath. Just one more second and I would explode.

  The candles in the room dimmed and I groaned.

  Zayvion’s hands glowed with the yellow light of the candles. He mumbled a spell in a language I had never heard before. He released the spell, plunging deep into the magic I could no longer contain.

  I yelled out, burning with pleasure, throbbing with the joy of him deep inside the power that coursed through me. The world was reduced to textures: soft, silk, the watery touch of air. Reduced to colors: Zayvion’s eyes burning tiger-bright, his hands lost in a glow up to his elbows that cast his dark skin in gold light and ink shadows, the room a night sky around us, the deep brown earth holding us strong. Reduced to smells and tastes: sharp garlic and the mild cheeses of our dinner, the pine-sweet musk of Zayvion’s sweat, the honey of melting candle wax.

  Magic poured out of me, filling the room, and I poured out with it.

  This, this was the way I wanted to die, pouring out, losing myself to the glory and power of magic, Zayvion strong and hard inside me, becoming part of the world, and then becoming all of the world.

  But I was still human enough, still me enough, to want more—to want to take Zayvion on this ride with me.

  I didn’t have to cast a spell, didn’t have to concentrate. I wasn’t just a woman with magic anymore. I was magic. What I desired, magic became. And I desired Zayvion to experience this joy.

  I poured magic into him. Zay groaned and breathed hard, his eyes half closed. We stood, holding each other tight. We still hadn’t finished undressing, but that didn’t matter. How could the mere pleasure of flesh compare with this, with me feeling him inside my whole body?

  Zay groaned again, and I knew he could feel this, feel me around him, feel magic pouring hot and fast into him.

  ‘‘Come with me,’’ I said, or maybe I only thought it. ‘‘We can be everything.’’

  I kissed him, and he kissed me back, hungrily.

  Zay drank me down, and I poured out magic, whipping magic around us like ribbons in the wind, spooling from my fingers, from deep within the earth, from deep within me, into him.

  And still it didn’t fill him.

  I pulled back enough to look in his eyes. They still burned bright, but there was something else behind that. A darkness as calm and deep and endless as the night sky. I could pour as much magic as I wanted into him. He was a lightning rod, a man who could Ground me and the magic I sent into him, and pour it back to the earth from which it came.

  ‘‘Oh,’’ I said. This was so much more than I thought, he was so much more.