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“You would have heard me complaining if they had.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So you would have no objections if we continued said escapades in the bath?”
“Why would you want to do that when I apparently resemble a prune?”
He grinned. “Did I ever mention that I’m rather fond of prunes?”
I laughed and held his glass as he stepped into the bath and sat down at the opposite end, his long legs stretching out to either side of mine. I handed him back his champagne, and he took a sip.
“What,” he said, his eyes twinkling with devilry, “would you give me if I said I knew of a way to block whatever tracer magic the Raziq have placed on that book?”
“Ah,” I said, putting my glass down on the bath ledge. “For that, I might just be willing to be late for work.”
“How late?” he asked, the devilry vying with desire.
I shifted position and slid up his wet, warm body, my hands on either side of him. “Very, very late,” I murmured, as my lips met his.
For the longest time there was no more talking, only enjoying. When I finally straddled him, pushing him slowly—teasingly—deep into my body, we both groaned in delight. I began to move, slowly at first, then with mounting urgency, until desire burned, and all I wanted to do was reach that peak and shatter into a million pieces.
Then I did, and he did, and it was glorious. Oh, so glorious.
I rested my head against his shoulder for several minutes, breathing heavily and feeling completely—wonderfully—boneless.
Then he sighed, took my face between his palms, and kissed me gently. “You need to construct a void.”
I blinked. “What?”
“For the book,” he said patiently. “You will need to construct a magical void. It’s a zone that can be built around an object to render any outsourced magic emanating from that object useless.”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“You can’t, but Ilianna could. She is more powerful than you suspect.”
I looked at him. “You’ve only met her once, and then only for a couple of minutes.”
“Which is more than enough time to get a sense of her capabilities.” He paused. “Where is the book now?”
“Somewhere safe,” I said, frowning at his questions. For someone who professed to have no interest in the book, he sure wanted to know a lot about it.
He smiled and tucked a damp strand of hair behind my ear. “As much as I hate to say this, if you get out of this bath right now, you might still make it to work on time.”
“Only if I don’t take you home first. And I thought that was the whole point of me meeting you at the airport.”
“No, the whole point of you meeting me at the airport was me wanting to ravish you. And now I have.” He gave me another one of those devilish grins. “Of course, I wouldn’t complain if you did escort me home, but I rather suspect I’d drag you upstairs and make you even later.”
“A tempting prospect, but one I suspect would piss off Tao and Ilianna.”
“And Ilianna is not a woman I would like pissed off at me,” he agreed.
I laughed, kissed him quickly, then grabbed a towel and headed off to dry and dress.
I caught a cab to work, calling Ilianna in the process to ask if she’d drop in sometime during the shift. As it turned out, I was late for work, but only by a few minutes. The place was packed, so I slipped upstairs to dump my spare clothes and change into my work gear, then headed back down to once again help out where I was needed. By six the crowd had eased somewhat, so I headed up to the office to catch up on the paperwork.
Azriel found me there.
“The Raziq may know of this place,” he said, his arms crossed and his expression as stony as I’d ever seen it. “It is not wise to remain here for long.”
I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my temples wearily. Staring at the computer screen trying to make sense of the accounting was not a sensible thing to do after so little sleep. And the last thing I wanted was a confrontation with Azriel. “I can’t turn my life around just because they may or may not know about this place. I won’t go home, but I refuse to abandon everything and everyone in my life.”
