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Refining her strategy, she moved to him and dried his back and shoulders with long, caressing strokes of the towel. He stayed rigidly unmoving, but the cool silvery shimmer of his magic curled around her in response. Lifting his hair, she dried his neck beneath it, then draped the towel over his shoulders and used a smaller cloth to blot his hair. The inn had a set of House Aratron hair potions for guest use, so she put a dab of their oil in her palm, rubbed her hands together to warm it, then worked it into his scalp.
The tense line of his shoulders dropped, and he made a small sound of pleasure, then quickly swallowed. Enjoying herself, Nic massaged his scalp, working the oil through his hair, but also exploiting the pressure points to relax and seduce him. She would demonstrate her willingness if that was what he needed.
“Did you learn this in school, too?” he asked in a gruff voice.
“No, Maman taught me this. Whenever we had to wash my hair, she’d do this for me as a treat. I was the only one of my friends who didn’t loathe having her hair combed out.” Nic picked up a comb from the inn’s supply and drew it through his shining silver hair. The black streak grew all from one circle, a lone cluster of hairs dark as a moonless night. “How did this black streak happen?”
He grunted. “It’s the reverse. My hair used to be all black, but I messed up experimenting with moon magic one night and accidentally turned it all silver, except for that one spot.”
She shook her head at his recklessness. Truly, it was a wonder he hadn’t killed himself “experimenting” with such powerful magic, completely unsupervised. She finished combing out his hair, leaving it in a smooth sheet of silver almost as flawless as the mirrors. Then she discarded the damp towels and picked up another dry one and came around to his front. Patting the towel over his face, she stroked down to his thickly corded neck, amused by the wariness leaking into his relaxed expression. “What were you trying to do?”
He huffed a humorless laugh. “I’d read a spell that turned moonlight into a reflective shield, so I could go unseen. I didn’t execute it correctly and saturated myself instead.”
The wry admission made her smile. “Stand up.”
“Why?” Suspicion fully dominated his face now.
“I can’t reach your wounds very well with you sitting in a chair,” she pointed out, quite reasonably.
He made a humming sound, but stood, immediately turning his back to her.
She slipped around in front of him, stroking the towel over his chest and pretending she didn’t notice his erection tenting the towel around his hips. Drying his chest hair to a silvery shine, she followed the treasure trail down, happily anticipating what she knew she’d find.
He seized her wrists in an implacable grip, stopping her. Looking up at him through her lashes, she made her face a picture of innocence. “Problem?”
“This is not my back,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“No, it’s your front, and most delicious, too,” she purred, dropping the towel and splaying her fingers over his hard abdomen.
“Nic,” he said in a warning growl. “Stop this.”
“You don’t like me touching you?” She stroked her fingers over his skin. So soft, with all that delicious muscle beneath. Her magic bloomed at his nearness, rising to coil with his.
But Gabriel’s grip on her wrists only tightened. “I’m not having sex with you.”
She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his bare chest, moving to flick her tongue over one of his nipples. A groan of need rumbled through him. Then he jerked her wrists up, stretching her to her toes as he stared into her face, wizard-black eyes focused on her mouth.
“I mean it,” he informed her in a tense voice. “I won’t use you this way.”
She rubbed against him, almost in the right position to slide his length between her thighs—if not for that inconvenient towel. “It’s not using me if I’m willing. That’s my point.
Gabriel. Iamwilling.”
He closed his eyes as if in pain, inhaling deeply. Then he shook his head sharply and set her away from him. “I don’t think you know.”
Nic stared at him, stunned, and more than a little angry. “Are you telling me I don’t know my own mind?”Which, actually, is a valid point, given the Fascination…
Gabriel tightened the towel around his hips, heaving a sigh full of frustration—sexual and otherwise. “Maybe it’s me who doesn’t know. But I’m understanding more all the time of how this wizard–familiar power dynamic works. It’s clear that your Convocation Academy carefully taught you that it would be your role to serve me. The care and feeding of your wizard. Offering yourself for sex is part of that, isn’t it?”
She opened and closed her mouth, feeling like a stranded fish. “It seems like you’ve been taking care of me, too,” she said, grabbing onto that argument.
“Yes, because that’s what partners do,” he replied without missing a beat. “Thatis what I want from you, to answer your question, in case you’re too stubborn to acknowledge it. I won’t participate in anything else.”
“Don’t you want me?” she demanded, fists on hips. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she winced. She looked like a waif washed up on the beach. She should have staged her seduction much better. “Maybe after I bathe. I’ll put on something pretty and—”
He held up a hand to stop her. “Don’t bother because I’m not going to let you manipulate me.”
Her breath froze in her chest. Had she been trying to do that after all? She hadn’t been consciously using her wiles on him, but…If you want to have influence over your wizard master, then you will find sweetness gets you much farther than sarcastic words and dour moods.Maybe Gabriel was right that she’d absorbed more of the shoulds and shouldn’ts for familiars than she’d realized. “Gabriel,” she said, her voice hushed with horror at herself, “I didn’t mean to—”
