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And the other part of her plan—the more important part, when it came right down to it—that was going even better. She’d made a point of avoiding Callan in the days after the party, knowing how much it would build the tension. He’d been on her mind a lot, though. She’d kissed a lot of men over the years, always with an ulterior motive, but Callan was the first one that she’d actuallyenjoyedkissing. Sure, there was usually the burst of triumph, the smug knowledge that her manipulation was working as intended, but there had been more than that with Callan. His lips against hers, his arms around her, drawing her close, even the charming way his breath had caught with surprise and delight—she found her mind straying back to the memory again and again. In a different life, maybe there would be someone she could kiss like that without there being some elaborate scheme to blame… what was happening to her? Was she going soft, or something? It was a good thing this was her last operation, if that was the case.
She’d felt a shimmer of the same curious feeling again when she saw him in the lecture hall, right in the middle of his row with that slightly aloof but undeniably warm smile on his face. It had been all she could do to stop her gaze from straying back to him over and over as she gave her lecture. She’d made a point of staying back after the lecture, confident that he’d do the same, and though she hadn’t expected it, she’d found herself in his arms again, pressed against the warmth of his chest as the kiss deepened, her breath quickening, her heartbeat picking up…
“This weekend,” he said quickly, breaking the kiss. “Have lunch with me.”
“We can’t,” she said flatly, trying to get control of her racing heartbeat, trying to tell herself she was still in control of the situation. “The full moon party was one thing, but going on a date on campus?”
“Not a date, then,” he countered. “A one-on-one study session. There are dozens of rooms in the library nobody ever goes to—and if anyone asks, you’re tutoring me. I’ve done it half a dozen times with other teachers, nobody will think twice about it. Everyone knows I’m from an insula without any background information about the others.”
Inota knew she should turn him down. It was clear that he wanted her—that much had been made abundantly clear by the kiss, not to mention the way he was looking at her. To really seal the deal, she knew it would be good to let him stew a little longer. But she found herself nodding agreement, and confirming a time and place. And when she reached her quarters that afternoon, she frowned at the ceiling for a long time, not liking how long it was taking for her pulse to settle. This was about manipulatinghisfeelings, not developing her own. Maybe there was a positive spin she could put on this. Maybe feeling a little something for him might help strengthen her lies. Every decent liar knew that the most believable lie had a little truth mixed into it.
The truth, she reminded herself firmly, was that Callan was her enemy, just like every other dragon in this school. That didn’t mean she couldn’t find him attractive… so long as she didn’t let her surprisingly vocal libido drown out what was important, here.
She arrived early for their date that weekend, holding her head high as she strode through the quiet library. Just as Callan had predicted, the library staff barely looked up when she asked for clarification on which study room he had booked. She followed the librarian’s directions through the stacks of books and down several flights of spiral stairs, down into the very depths of the earth. It sent a shudder down her spine to know how deep below the earth’s surface she was. Dragons really did love digging themselves caves, didn’t they? It made her skin crawl, but she didn’t let her discomfort show. As far as anyone here knew, she was just as comfortable as the next dragon with having thousands of tons of stone pressing down on her as though she’d been entombed alive…
Thankfully, a distraction quickly arrived when she reached the floor the librarian had directed her to. Down here, the air was thick and dense with the kind of silence that fell in places nobody had spoken aloud in years. She’d have been surprised if anyone had been down here in months, if not longer—every bookshelf she walked past looked like it hadn’t been disturbed since it was first installed. Callan really had found the most private place in the whole university, hadn’t he? They’d have had more chance of being disturbed if they’d gone to a different insula entirely.
She found the study room and let herself inside—then couldn’t stop the gasp of surprise that escaped her. She hadn’t been expecting much. Upstairs, the study rooms were small spaces, not much more than a reasonably sized table with a handful of chairs stacked in one corner. Soundproofed spaces for group work that wouldn’t disturb people in the rest of the library. What she hadn’t expected was to see the table decked out with what looked like a multi-course lunch, complete with a beautiful tablecloth and a bottle of wine. Her gaze quickly moved from the spread to Callan, who was sitting in a chair pretending to be deeply immersed in the book he was reading, a faint smile playing around his lips.
Alright, she thought, squaring her shoulders. Alright, he was charming. She’d give him that.
“Indoor picnic, hm?” She nodded at the basket at the edge of the table. “Good thinking, on an insula like this one.”
“I might have gone a little overboard,” he admitted with one of those charming self-effacing smiles of his. “But I thought if we have to sneak around, we might as well sneak around in style.”
She laughed, telling herself it was all part of the act. She was playing a character, right? A character called Kaya, a character who was guest-lecturing at a university, a character who had fallen for the charms of a student, a character who had been further charmed by the effort he’d gone to set up a romantic lunch for the two of them. It was perfectly reasonable for her to settle in at the table to eat, to talk and laugh with him, feeling the time beginning to slip by the way it had that night on the beach when they’d talked for hours on end without even realizing how long they’d been there together. Before she knew it, the bottle of wine was almost finished, and she was midway through telling him a story that had taken place back on Hammerfall that she absolutely hadn’t intended to tell. Catching herself, she bit her lip, taking another sip of her wine to cover her discomfort. Callan was looking at her closely.
“You don’t talk much about your past, do you?”
She looked up. “What do you mean?”
“It’s not a criticism. Nothing wrong with keeping your cards close to your chest. I’ve just noticed you tend to tell stories about other people, rather than about yourself.”
Of course she did, she thought faintly. Any story she told about herself would likely reveal that she was a mage, not a dragon… and a fairly bizarre example of a mage, at that. Some of the stories she told about ‘friends’ were actually about her, some of them were works of fiction, some of them were mostly true. It was important to at least appear to be sharing details of your life with people—it made them more comfortable sharing their own stories. But she hadn’t anticipated that Callan would take such a keen interest.
“My past isn’t an especially cheerful subject,” she said now, lowering her gaze as she chose a new tactic. “We’re having a nice time, no need to spoil it with all that.” This had worked in the past. Hint at some vast sadness in her past, allow her marks to comfort her, dodge the need to actually identify what the vast sadness was. Sure enough, when she looked back up at Callan, his expression was grave and sorrowful. He cared, she realized faintly, feeling an unfamiliar clenching in her stomach. He really did care about her. He’d read between the carefully constructed lines of the stories she was telling, he’d begun to draw his own conclusions about the difficult past she was hinting at… the empathy on his face, the concern for her, it was all too real.
Suddenly, what she was doing felt monstrous. Inota rose to her feet, clearing her throat as she felt the entirely unexpected sting of tears behind her eyes. What was going on with her? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d shed a tear without it being a performance for someone else’s benefit. Callan was on his feet too, murmuring her false name as he moved around the table to her, and before she could run from the room as she’d intended, she felt his warm arms close around her.
This was a mistake, she knew that. She ought to tear herself away from him, tell him that this was a mistake, leave the library and try to regroup. The point of this little session had been to maintain his interest in her, nothing more. The plan had been to let a few scraps of tantalizing information slip, then leave him wanting more. But above all, the plan had been to remain in control of the situation. Right now, she was anything but in control, pressing her face against his shoulder as his warm arms held her up. At least the tears seemed to be retreating, that awful twisting in her gut replaced by something else. Something low and warm in her belly, something that made her linger just a little when she pulled back to look up into his face.
It was impossible to say who initiated the kiss, this time… all she knew was that suddenly, his lips were on hers and they were clinging to each other with a new urgency, a new fire in the contact between their bodies. She was acutely aware of how alone they were down here, of the undisturbed dust on the bookshelves outside, of the near-certainty that nobody would disturb them, and that knowledge only served to intensify the heat between them. She could feel Callan’s breathing picking up the way it had when he’d kissed her in the lecture hall. Should she break away, like she had back then? That was the plan, right? Build his desire up, then leave him wanting more. But she realized with an uneasy jolt that it wasn’t just Callan who was breathing hard. His hands were roaming across her body, caressing her back through the thin, clinging fabric of the dress she’d chosen, and the warmth of his hands was sending tingles across her skin.
She didn’t want to break away. Right now, she couldn’t have broken away if she’d tried. And why should she? A strange, reckless joy was burning in her as she deepened the kiss, her hands balling into fists around the lapel of his shirt as she yanked him closer, demanding more of him. Why shouldn’t she take some joy from a world that had given her nothing but cruelty? How many unpleasant, unattractive men had she seduced over the years, forcing down her revulsion long enough to take what she wanted from them and flee? Now, for the first time, she actually had a mark that she found attractive… what was wrong with enjoying the experience for once?
Before she knew it, she was unbuttoning his shirt, fingers flying impatiently. Ever obliging, he quickly shrugged the offending garment off, and she tossed it over her shoulder, flattening her palms appreciatively against his bare chest. For a man who spent most of his time buried in books, he was certainly well-built. His frame was lithe but muscular, and his skin was deliciously warm under her roaming fingers. But her impatience was still burning. She wanted more of him, more of this. More contact, more pressure, more. She kissed a trail along his jawline to breathe an instruction in his ear, felt him choke back a groan as he hastened to obey… and she grinned as she felt him all but tear her dress from her body.
So he wasn’t quite as cool, calm and collected as he pretended. Just as she’d suspected.
There was no question of going back now. The world outside of this room had shrunk into an abstract, hypothetical concept, one that she had little interest in when Callan’s breath was hot against her throat and his hands were roaming freely over her exposed skin. As far as she was concerned, this room was the beginning and end of the universe, and everything she cared about was within it. At some point, almost without her noticing, her hands had started work on Callan’s belt, and before long they were both utterly naked, their clothes in discarded, haphazard piles around the study room. That didn’t matter. None of that mattered. Only Callan’s hands on her, his lips on her throat, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses to all of the sensitive skin that lay between her ears and her collarbones… and then down further, further, Inota stumbling a few steps backwards until her back was pressed against the stone wall of the study room, much cooler than her bare skin. But the shock of contact was nothing compared to the shock of pleasure as he teased at the raised peak of one of her nipples with the tip of his tongue. The cry she let out was louder than she’d intended, but now his hands were on her hips and he was moving lower, his breath skating across her stomach as he lowered himself to his knees.
She pressed her head back against the stone wall when she felt his breath ghost against her sex, almost overwhelmed by the anticipation of what was coming. His hands stroked up and down her bare thighs as he leaned in closer, breathing her in, clearly paying close attention to the needy whimpers she couldn’t hold in. And then his lips and tongue were parting her folds, exploring her sex with a heady mixture of desire and reverence, and Inota gave up all semblance of being in control here. She buried her hands in his thick, dark hair, urging him deeper, her back pressed into the wall and her breath heaving in her chest as every touch of his lips and tongue sent fresh waves of pleasure rolling through her. She felt her back arch with every movement, every fresh touch, every time his tongue caressed the swollen bud of her clitoris or delved more deeply inside her. She could feel it building, that distant, impossible peak, rising up in her body like an irresistible wave—but there was an urge left unsatisfied, an itch left unscratched, and she found herself tugging him urgently upwards, gasping his name in a hoarse, desperate voice that was almost unrecognizable.
In the brief reprieve, she felt a jolt of fear rock through her that she’d let more than just her defenses slip—what if she’d lost control of her magic, too? She refocused, feeling the familiar weight of her necklace as she did, and as Callan kissed his way back up her body, she exhaled with relief to know that he wouldn’t be looking into the face of a stranger when he did. He kissed her again, demanding, searing, the taste of her still sweet on his lips, and she could feel his manhood between their bodies, hear his breath catch a little every time she pressed herself against him enough to exert a little pressure on that much-neglected area… smiling against his lips, she reached down to caress his cock, satisfied by the gasp he couldn’t hold back and the involuntary thrust of his hips.
But then it was her turn to be surprised as his arms tightened around her and lifted her effortlessly from the ground. He pressed her back against the wall and she wrapped her thighs around his waist to hold herself steady, both of them breathing hard with the shared urgency of their goal. He buried his face in her throat and groaned as she lined up their bodies, and she couldn’t hold back her own wanton moan as she felt the full, hard length of him finally slide to the hilt inside her. He drew back again and thrust himself into her again, cautiously at first, before the impatient drumming of her fists against his shoulders urged him on.
This felt—this felttoogood, some part of her whispered. Something had to be going on here, something beyond basic animal sensation. The connection between them, the electricity, the tension… the way every time pleasure arced through her, it seemed to be mirrored precisely in him… what it felt like was magic, if she thought about it. But she couldn’t think about it. All she could do was abandon herself to the force of it, to the storm of sensation and pleasure that every thrust of his hips was driving through her body. Every muscle in her body seemed to flex and coil in response, drawing him deeper, grinding them together as she gasped his name against his throat… and then, as sudden and immediate as a lightning strike, she felt the point of no return come and go, and she was stifling a scream against the sweat-damp skin of his throat as she felt her orgasm crash through her, obliterating everything in its wake. Callan’s body was shuddering in the grip of his own climax, too, and he pulled back to seize her lips in a fierce, possessive, passionate kiss that lingered on into the slow, dreamy aftermath of their climax.
