Breath of Magic by Teresa Medeiros
Tristan was thinking he might have to dive in after her, and was rather relishing the prospect when she emerged, shaking water out of her eyes like an exuberant seal.
She flashed him a grateful smile that made his heart thunder in his ears like a kettledrum. "I didn't think I'd ever be warm again."
Tristan wasn't warm. He was hot.
Arian heaved a contented sigh as she leaned her head back against the rim of the tub and closed her eyes. The candles bathed her with flickering light and perfumed the air with the intoxicating scent of jasmine. The steam coaxed out pearls of sweat along the column of her throat and drew her hair into taut ringlets. The water lapped at the pale globes of her breasts just as Tristan longed to do.
When Arian opened her eyes, her husband was dragging his sweater over his head.
Arian had never before seen a man without his shirt. No matter how scorching the summer day, how grueling the task at hand, no Puritan male would ever consider removing his shirt in her presence. 'Twould have been judged as unseemly as stripping naked in the village square.
She could hardly squeal in maidenly indignation while frolicking about in his bath like a wanton mermaid, but she found it wildly unfair that Tristan's brazen display should leave her feeling even more exposed than her nudity. Surely he could hear each violent throb of her heart, each curious catch of her breath as her gaze was drawn as if magnetized to the crisp, golden whorls of hair adorning his chest.
"Sweet Jesus," she muttered, fearing steam was now roiling from her flaming cheeks.
Her blush deepened when Tristan's hand dropped to the button at the mouth of his jeans. Arian jerked her panicked gaze to his face. His eyes captured hers, their smoky depths glittering with an unspoken challenge she'd heard from a priest's lips only a day ago.
Speak now or forever hold your peace.
As he lowered the zipper and peeled the faded denim from his flesh, Arian could not have choked so much as a croak past her parched lips, much less a virginal protest. Her husband had been blessed with the face of a fallen angel and the body of a pagan satyr. Her exhaustion imparted a dreamlike quality to the entire scenario – one of those naughty dreams where she would wake up drenched with sweat and quivering with delicious anticipation.
As Tristan slipped into the water like a sleek merman, she clenched her eyes shut, a violent wave of shyness forcing her to pretend she was still alone.
But her fantasy did not withstand the moist, hot brush of her husband's lips against her own. When she opened her eyes, he was drawing her into the cradle of his legs, turning her so that her back rested against his chest. The lean, hard angles of his body were utterly foreign, yet fit her soft curves like fingers in a velvet glove. The water enveloped them in a warm cocoon as he reached for the sandalwood-scented soap.
Arian had expected to be punished for running away, not pampered, but Tristan bathed her like a cherished child, beguiling her with a tenderness that was almost chaste.
Almost.
He scooped handfuls of water over her breasts, then ran the hard, slick bar of soap over and between them with hypnotic grace until her rigid nipples glistened.
He poured shampoo into her hair, massaged her scalp until it tingled, then rinsed out the foamy lather by coaxing her to brace her weight against his own and float in the buoyant water. Arian could have drifted in that heavenly state for an eternity, especially with Tristan nibbling at the delicate skin of her throat.
Gently urging her to her knees, he washed her back, belly, and thighs, kneading her weary muscles until she felt the lingering tension drain from her body, leaving her blissfully relaxed – a limp, melting creature, utterly acquiescent to his touch.
Arian tossed back her hair in mingled shock and delight when he rubbed the softening cake of soap between her legs, lavishing the same tender attention on each hidden cleft and hollow. Lost in a haze of sensual pleasure, she barely noticed when the soap dwindled to nothing and Tristan's hands took up the erotic dance.
He glided them up her soap-slickened sides to cup her breasts from behind and below. Nipping the back of her neck in an age-old sign of mastery, he rolled her turgid nipples between thumb and forefinger, stroking gently and tugging hard until she felt every caress of his fingertips deep in her womb. Her broken gasps escalated into pants. Her back arched and her rump rose in primitive invitation, almost as if her body were begging for something only he could give.
But instead of taking advantage of her mounting need, he buried his face in her throat and whispered: "It's all right, angel. This isn't a limo and we've got all night."
She turned her face toward his, blindly seeking, and he rewarded her with a hot, deep thrust of his tongue. "Does the tub have an extra gas tank?" she murmured.
She could feel his rakish smile against her cheek. "No. But I do."
He had somehow managed to work his muscular thighs between hers, so when he spread them, he spread her, too, exposing her throbbing core to every nuance of his touch. But he used only the middle finger of one hand to ignite that raw spark of pleasure sheltered by her nether curls, leaving the hollow below aching and unfulfilled.
As he intensified that exquisite friction, making her writhe with want, Arian struggled to remember that they were married. That all of this sensual decadence was perfectly legal and sanctioned by God. But it still seemed as if anything that felt this good must surely be a sin.
"Oh, please," she begged, teetering on the brink of ecstasy. She nearly sobbed aloud when her plea had the opposite effect. His finger slowed, stroking her with deliberate nonchalance.
"If I do, will you let me…?" He pressed his mouth to her ear, whispering a suggestion so dark and evocative it brought a blush stinging to her cheeks.
Both shocked and aroused, she thrashed her head from side to side, then nodded helplessly. She would have promised him her heart, her soul, her first-born child, if he would just cease his diabolical torment.
He urged her back to that brink, then teased her to an abrupt halt again. "And then can I…?"
Before he could even finish, she shouted, "Yes! Yes! But I don't think that's physically possible."
His chuckle was wickedness itself. "Oh, yeah? Just wait and see."
He leaned past her to flip on the whirlpool's jets. The warm water swirled and eddied around them as Tristan urged her nearer to one of the silver nozzles. Arian gasped as invisible tongues of water began to lick her throbbing flesh. When she might have recoiled, Tristan pressed himself against her from behind, the unyielding breadth of his big, warm body forcing her to sample every morsel of pleasure he would give her.
Arian could no longer tell where the water ended and Tristan's fingers began. They were both ravishing her with exquisite thoroughness, opening her like a flower to stroke forth the nectar within. She twitched with impending ecstasy, wondering if this was what it felt like to fornicate with a demon. To be enthralled by some powerful, invisible entity capable of stealing her mortal soul with his unholy kiss.
But Tristan was no demon. He was a warlock, weaving a spell of intolerable pleasure. When the first enchanting shudders wracked her body, he wrapped an arm around her waist and drove himself deep inside of her, filling a void she had never known was there.
Arian knew there was tightness and pain, but that pain was eclipsed by a pleasure so poignant, so intense, it seemed to sweep everything else out of its path. She moved against him in instinctive rhythm, her breath escaping in a strangled sob.
Tristan cradled Arian in his arms, binding her to his heart while he waited for her tender body to adjust to his crude invasion. He already knew he could be making a grave mistake. Arian wasn't the sort of woman to come equipped with a package of condoms and his wallet was in his office eighty-two floors below. But he'd never been skin-to-skin with any woman in his life and despised the thought of interrupting this indescribably sweet communion. And besides, Arian wasn't just any woman. She was his wife. Which he hoped excused, or at least explained, his da
Both reason and conscience deserted him when she wiggled against him with a soft little grunt. An answering groan tore from his throat as he accepted her unspoken invitation to plunge himself deep into her tight, silky depths, then to withdraw and do it all over again. As that ancient rhythm seized them both in its irresistible grip, he braced his hands against the rim of the tub on each side of her, letting those pulsing jets of water work their own sorcery against their mated flesh. Man's cry of surrender came a breath before his own as ecstasy thundered through them both, bewitching them with its raw and miraculous power.
He was doing it again. Taking care of her. Lifting her from the tub and depositing her on the plush rug. Choosing the thickest, fluffiest towel from the towel warmer and buffing her skin until it glowed. Arian sighed, drunk with languor. The water seemed to have soothed away any soreness she might have suffered, leaving an almost pleasurable tenderness in its place. She had even lost most of her shyness. Their nakedness, as husband and wife, somehow seemed both natural and right.
As Tristan dried her back, lingering at the rounded curves of her buttocks and the valley between them, she giggled. "We were in the bath so long, you'd think we'd be all withered up like prunes."
But when she turned around, her husband's wicked smile informed her plainly that that was not the case. She lowered her gaze, then desperately wished that she hadn't as her shyness returned with an almost audible thud.
"Oh, my!" she exclaimed. "You're not withered up at all!"
When he chose a fresh towel from the warmer, Arian thought he was going to cover himself. But instead he spread it on the carpet like a blanket of rose petals.
"Lie down," he commanded, a laughing glint in his eye.
Arian backed away. "Now, Tristan, I don't know what depravity you're contemplating…"
'You promised," he reminded her, his sensual mouth betraying the hint of a sulk.
Arian frowned. "I did?"
He nodded solemnly.
Arian searched her dazed brain for a clue, finally remembering that moment of weakness when she'd begged him to release her from her torment. "Oh!" she cried. "You can't mean to…?"
He did.
At first Arian thought there was nothing so terribly depraved about the provocative kisses he was scattering along her breasts and belly. But that was before his hands gently urged her thighs apart. Before his tousled, golden head disappeared between her legs. Ignoring her shy moan of dissent, that devilish tongue of his whipped her into a frenzy of delight.
When she once again lay limp, sated, and totally at his mercy, he lifted her in his arms. She wrapped her legs around his hips and laid her head against his shoulder as he carried her not to the bed, but the shower. They kissed endlessly beneath the twin shower heads, the hot water coursing over their entwined bodies generating clouds of steam.
It was there, sheltered by that billowing veil, that Arian found the courage to reciprocate some of that blinding pleasure Tristan had so selflessly given her.
When she turned him away from her, urging him to splay his hands against the frosted-glass door, he cocked a suspicious eyebrow, but did not protest. His protest came when she pressed her naked breasts to his back and reached around him to leisurely rub a fresh bar of soap over every inch of his magnificent body. Her eager hands celebrated the differences between them, discovering that his muscular thighs and calves were sprinkled with the same tawny down as his chest and arms. When the bar of soap slipped from her hand, leaving only her fingers to shyly stroke that part of him still stiffened with need for her, he threw his head back with a guttural groan.
God, how she loved this man, Arian thought fiercely. She would do anything for him. Let him do anything to her.
Driven by a primitive urge to prove her pledge, she set him free from his bondage and dropped to her knees before him.
As Tristan watched Arian's generous lips enfold him, he thought the sheer erotic beauty of it just might drive him insane with pleasure. He tangled his fingers in her hair, but could only bear a brief eternity of such exquisite torment before he was compelled to cup her buttocks in his powerful hands and take her hard and fast against the wall of the shower stall.
When the last sweet, shuddering aftershock had passed, he gathered her against him as if he would never let her go, and hoarsely whispered, "That, my darling, was magic."
29
When Copperfield burst into the bedroom the next day without bothering to knock, Tristan simply groaned, rolled to his stomach, and burrowed his head beneath his pillow. Arian sat bolt upright, blushing to the roots of her hair, and tried to jerk the satin sheet up to her nose. Unfortunately, most of its sinuous length was wrapped around Tristan's lean hips, and she barely succeeded in shielding her breasts.
"Good morning, Arian," Cop said cheerily, as if not the least bit surprised by her presence or her nudity.
"Good morning," she squeaked, still tugging vainly at the sheet.
He pried the pillow off Tristan's head. "Wake up, sleepyhead. This is no time to lollygag in bed all day."
Only one of Tristan's eyes was visible, but its bloodshot depths glared murder at him. "Didn't I fire you?"
"No. I quit."
"Then you're fired." He retrieved the pillow, but Cop snatched it right back, his bronze face glowing with excitement.
"I need you both in the lab right away. I think I've found the key to proving Arian's innocence."
That lured Tristan to a sitting position. He shot Arian a wary glance that only deepened her blush. He had already proved her innocence with devastating success – at least in one area.
Cop jerked his head toward the bathroom. "I'll wait in the living room while you two shower."
They both blushed at that, neither wanting to be the first to meet the other's eyes.
"That won't be necessary," Tristan growled. "Well be right there."
Peeling back the sheet, he threw his legs over the side of the bed and staggered into the bathroom, as unabashed in his nakedness as Michelangelo's David. Arian dragged the sheet over her head.
Cop beamed down at her shrouded form. "I really should have warned you. He's an awful grump until he's had his first eight cups of coffee."
The inner sanctum of Tristan's lab was exactly as Arian remembered it. White. Sterile. Deserted. She wryly noted that the hole she'd blasted in the floor with her amateur lightning bolt had been repaired.
She had forsaken the colorful suits Tristan had bought her when they were engaged in favor of black leggings and a black cowl sweater. If she was still on trial, then she wanted to look the part. The image of accused witch was complete, all the way down to the black cat nestled in the crook of her arm. Tristan's stormy glower warned her that he wasn't completely oblivious to her symbolism.
Cop thrust a cup of steaming coffee into Tristan's hand before shepherding them over to a long counter built to double as an impromptu conference table. Arian was only mildly surprised to find Sven admiring his reflection in the shiny countertop.
Tristan scowled at him. "Didn't I fire you?"
Sven snapped to attention, brushing back his silky mane. "Yes, sir."
"Good. Then you're hired."
Arian sat, depositing the sleeping kitten in her lap. Tristan nursed his coffee while Cop paced around the counter, obviously too excited to sit still. It was precisely that excess of nervous energy that made Arian suspect he must have had even less sleep than she and Tristan in the past forty-eight hours.
"When I got back to my loft the other night," he said, "I couldn't concentrate and I couldn't sleep. So I finally came back to the Tower and forced Montgomery to let me monitor his experiments on the amulet."
Tristan took another sip of the coffee. "That's what I get for not making you turn in your ID badge. I would have ordered Sven to toss you out on your ear, but he was too busy playing knight in shining armor to my runaway bride."
They all three glared at him and he
Copperfield slapped a thin folder down in front of him. "Here are Montgomery's results."
Tristan opened the folder and examined its contents. It didn't take long. His disgruntled expression revealed his frustration. "There's nothing here. The carbon dating on both the necklace and the broom yielded inconclusive results. My researchers in Massachusetts are being forced to sift through three centuries of obscure documents, most of them too fragile to be handled by human hands. There's absolutely nothing here to prove" – he spared Arian a cautious glance – "anything."
Cop leaned over his shoulder to tap the bottom of the page. "Except for this."
Tristan read, " The microprocessor was encased in an unidentified alloy…' " He cast Copperfield a helpless glance. "So?"
"Gordon Montgomery has memorized the chemical formulas of every alloy known to man. If he can't identify it, then it hasn't been discovered yet."
Tristan rose and began to pace in a counterclockwise circle. Arian grew dizzy each time his path bisected Copperfield's. She shifted in her chair, eliciting a sleepy grunt of protest from Lucifer.
"So you're suggesting this alloy could only be from the future," Tristan said.
"Precisely! And if Arthur Finch could travel to the future, then he could travel – "
'To the past," Tristan finished for him. They both wheeled around, meeting face-to-face.
Arian's heart began to whisper a melody of hope, but she still felt compelled to remind them of the theory's failings. "That doesn't explain how my mother could have stolen Warlock from Arthur Finch twenty years ago."
Copperfield held up a finger, riveting them all. "Not twenty years. Three hundred and twenty-eight years. Use your imagination, Tristan. It may be a little rusty, but I know you used to have one."
Tristan sank back into his chair, rubbing his unshaven chin.