‘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.’
