Romance-sweet

“There…oh, Bruce…yes. Right there. Oh God, Bruce. Oh-h-h-h.”

“Oh yeah. Amber, Amber, baby, come with me, come with me baby. I love you so much.”

Sweat slicked from a marathon love session Amber grasped her husband’s buttocks, squeezing and kneading his well-formed posterior while her vagina clenched around his cock.

Lifting her thighs to draw him deeper inside of her she hissed as the pleasure of an orgasm rode threw her.

The satiny smooth slide of his chest against her breasts sent a thrill of desire and sheer bliss from top to toes. How she loved to feel him nestled between her thighs and the pleasant weight of his body on top of hers. The romance novels she kept hidden between her mattress and box spring had nothing on what she shared with Bruce. Bruce Curtis was the only man for her. She knew it in kindergarten on the playground when he snuck that quick little kiss on her cheek—something she’d be appalled by if some boy did it to one of her daughters!

She knew it in junior high when he asked her to her first dance. There was no doubt in high school when Regina, aka Queenie, Taehlor formed their girl band, the Four Cups that this was the only man she could and would ever want to be with. He was the inspiration for every love song she ever wrote and the hero of every one of her romance novels.

And that was before she sampled sex. Only sex with Bruce wasn’t just sex. It was the pinnacle of existence. The be all and end all of what life was about. She didn’t need to try out other men to know Bruce was all she’d ever want. He was her forever guy.

Even their first time, the night of her eighteenth birthday—just so the consummation of their love was all legit and legal—was sublime. Of course, it hurt a little bit that first time. In Bruce’s case the theory of big feet and big hands meaning a big other part held quite firm.

Amber giggled to herself. Bruce was definitely…firm…in all the right places. She couldn’t remember a time he wasn’t in her life and they weren’t in love.

Amber climaxed again and this time Bruce came with her. The couple joined in a shuddering climax.

“Who would have thought after this many years making love you would still get better and better?”

Amber threaded her fingers through the now sparse, gray hair on her husband’s head.

Sparse?

Gray?

Wait…they had been on a beach. Making love in a secluded alcove. It was the night after the Four Cups’ show in Hawaii that coincided with their anniversary, before a sell out crowd. They’d done four encores that lasted almost as long as the main show. She and Bruce stole away moments after the show ended.

So why did he now look so old?

Amber turned to look at her husband again and sighed in relief. There he was, a buff twenty-something with a killer smile. A woman hadn’t been born who didn’t turn to look at that fine physique of his. He ran every morning, lifted weights every day and they made love every night.

 

“She went this way. Get her!” Feet pounded past her hiding place and kept going.

Annanya hid under the skimmer, flat on her back with no clearance between her breasts and the transport.

Since she would be stuck there for a few minutes at least, she looked at the open panel right above her head. There was sparking damage from a short so she reached up and began to rewire the ship.

Running into Cabre with Nasha had been trouble, but when her friends started in on mocking the wingless wonder, nothing could stop them. They fashioned a pair of wings out of garbage and were trying to pin them on her when she struggled away from Cabre’s cronies and hid under the skimmer.

She froze when she heard footsteps return. “Sir, have you seen a wingless woman here?”

A deep voice almost made her jump out of her skin. She hadn’t thought there was anyone in the repair bay. “No. Nothing so exotic as that.”

Cabre’s voice was tight, “Sorry to disturb you, sir. I will look elsewhere.”

“That would be wise. The owner is fussy about those who surround his skimmer.”

She could see Cabre’s feet as his heels snapped together and he departed the repair bay. The other feet did not go anywhere.

“Miss? You can’t have much room under there and the skimmer can’t fly right now, so you are stuck unless you choose to come out and converse with me.” The boot tips were pointed at her and she couldn’t help but admire the deep burgundy gleam of the polish.

“Just give me a minute to finish these repairs and I will be right out, sir.” Since Cabre had addressed him as sir, it was a safe bet that she was under the skimmer of a noble.

The last couplings were managed with the wire cutters and crimping pliers she kept in her corset. Some girls packed it with tissues, she put tools in.

Annanya sealed the panel and scooted slowly out from under the skimmer. She was sure that she had grime on her cheeks and hands, but when she saw the owner of the skimmer her stomach dropped to her tailbone. “Your Highness.”

She scrambled to her feet and gave a curtsey with her short skirt. Her tights were bagging at the knees, her corset was bulging with tools and her blouse was a silvery grey. She was not at her best to meet royalty.

He touched her chin and lifted it so she was looking into his unbelievably blue eyes. “You recognized me.”

“Of course, Your Highness. I read the news and follow the flickers.” She shoved her white blonde hair out of her eyes. It had escaped from her braid once again.

“What is your name, little mechanic?”

She blushed. “Annanya Fennor.”

“It is odd to see one of your kind this far from the city. How is it that you come to be so far from the Orion Rest embassy?”

“I was raised here, your highness. I was found as an infant and taken in by the Fennors. They tried to find anyone who knew who or what I was and were unsuccessful. So, they raised me with their own.”

“I see. Unusual circumstance for an unusual woman.”

“If I may ask, sir? What are you doing here?”

He grinned, sending her heart tripping at nine times its normal rate. He was handsome, with his golden hair waving from his forehead to that chiselled chin and those devastating eyes. She could have fallen in love with just his looks if he hadn’t also been a philanthropist and polite, even to her in her wingless condition.

“My shuttle had a malfunction over your fair town and I decided to land before I killed myself. I didn’t know that there was a festival going on, or I would have gone to the magistrate to arrange the repairs.”

She smiled softly, dazed by his presence before she realized what he was talking about. “Well, your skimmer is fixed, but there was a problem with rodent infestation. You may want to watch where you park it.”

He was chuckling while he spoke, “You fixed it while you were hiding under it?”

“I needed to have something to do with myself and I had all my tools with me.” She patted the corset that was standard wear for a proper lady, but hers was stained with grease.

Almost on its own accord, his gaze slid over to Ian. Even in his weakened state, the warlock looked handsome. In his sleep, he was almost tolerable, too, since he wasn’t firing off mean comments.

For the first time ever, Kale really studied the man, noting the way his hair was so dark it was almost raven. How his nose was slightly off center, showing that it had been broken and not properly set at one time. Strangely enough, it only made Ian look better. As if there was some vulnerability behind all those shields of hate.

Ian’s lips were parted and Kale realized that they were soft and…kissable. That was if Kale didn’t have to worry about Ian biting him in the process.

Kale’s gaze swept down the warlock’s body. Even though Ian wore a heavy black jacket and the car was dark, Kale could still make out the muscular build of the man. Lust shot through Kale as he wondered what it would feel like to be pinned under that hard body or how it would be to hear Ian’s raspy voice issuing orders as he fucked Kale senseless.

A soft giggle snapped Kale out of his X-rated thoughts. Sucking in a huge breath, he tore his gaze away from Ian and looked at Lilith. She gave him a fangy grin and Kale knew he’d been busted while basically drooling over Ian.

What the fuck?

He hated Ian…right? The guy had no redeeming qualities about him. He made a point of making everybody dislike him and he didn’t hide the fact that he embraced dark magic.

Yet, he saved all of them from Tarick and Ian had been nothing but loyal to their coven since he joined.

Lilith leaned in and whispered, “It’s about time you noticed.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kale denied, playing dumb.

“Why do you think he insisted on coming on this trip?”

“To get away from the rest of the coven and the Drone clan,” Kale whispered back.

“You can really be dense sometimes. I guess Blaine must be the smart twin as well as the cute one. Ian came to protect you.”

Too shocked to reply, Kale rolled that one in his head for a while. Then he recalled all the times Ian had made a point to be on the same team as Kale when they’d been home. How he’d always gone out of his way to seek out Kale’s company, even if it was to deliver a few scathing comments.

“I thought Ian said he didn’t ever want to be with anybody else since his mate was killed by vampires,” Kale replied, still keeping his voice low.

“That’s what he thought, too, until he met you.”

Kale studied the demon carefully, looking for any signs that she was teasing. For once, her face was deadly serious. He shook his head, still unable to wrap his mind around the new development. “You have to be mistaken. I’m the last kind of guy Ian would ever fall for. In fact, I’m quite certain he hates me.”

Or more to the point, Kale had been certain. After this conversation, he didn’t know what to believe anymore.

He continued to argue, almost desperate to prove her wrong. “Ian could never want me.”

“Why not? You’re everything he wished he could have been.”

Kale’s stomach lurched at those words. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Somehow, even though you went through the same torture at the hands of the Ninth, you kept your soul, where Ian thinks he lost his. That’s where you have to prove him wrong.”

“I don’t follow.”

Lilith grabbed Kale’s hand. “You have to show Ian that he’s wrong. That he still has a soul and that he’s worth saving.”

The desperation in her voice tugged at Kale and before he realized it, he nodded to her.

He turned away from the man, walking toward the window and staring outside. The sun shone through a perfectly clear sky and the forest stretched out for miles beyond the slope of the hill the castle stood upon. He wondered if his friends, who, unknowingly, weren’t his friends, were out there, walking blindly toward the king’s settlement. What would his orders have been had he not ended up in this situation? He would expect to fight the king’s Earth-side forces, thinking them weak and unprepared. He would not know about the civilians living here. And he would not know about his memory being erased.

He sighed. It was pointless to consider. According to Blaze, he would have an opportunity if he chose to help the king’s forces.

What he would find if he went back worried him even more than the possibility of experiencing the same sickness and pain from his illness before. Would Aver really send him back to get his memory erased? The thought sent his stomach into knots. What if Lote and Blaze were wrong? It did not help their case that they still hadn’t told him what they suspect might happen.

He looked over his shoulder at the magician, who lay in bed again with a new pair of pants on, but no shirt, eyes shut so lightly that Herman could see his red tinged lashes flutter ever so often as he breathed deeply in sleep. Blaze’s toned stomach moved slightly with each breath, and another, stronger rush of desire flooded through Herman.

Herman breathed deeply, his warm breath fogging the window, trying to calm down and sort out the conflicting thoughts and emotions that accompanied them. Blaze wanted him for this mission. Was that the only reason he had kept so close to Herman? And after what happened last night…

The sound of the windowsill cracking beneath clenched fingers made him stop, and he took a step back in surprise and dismay. Part of the sill had broken off. Rough, finger shaped holes were present in the wood.

“Hmm? What happened?” Blaze jolted awake and sat up in bed, head cocked.

Herman wanted to hide the evidence, but his knee nearly gave out as he tried to bend and pick up the pieces that had fallen to the floor. He didn’t know which was worse, the fact that it had happened or the fact that he had been thinking of Blaze when it did. It was another sign of the effect the magician had on him and he resented it, especially considering Blaze might just be using him as a means to an end.

But he had saved his life…

“Herman?” The redhead sat up, taking in what had happened. “Oh, the window,” he sighed. “Um, I guess just put the pieces with what’s left of the desk.” He met Herman’s eyes, holding his gaze and studying him such that Herman could not bring himself to look away.

He hated the effect Blaze had on him. His eyes slid over the magician’s face, his jaw, his lips, his body…

It was obscene. He couldn’t let himself be influenced that way. He wanted, no, needed, to know what would happen if he tried to go back, but even more than that, he needed to know what Blaze’s motivations were. He was sick of uncertainty and of repressing his emotions and desires. Perhaps Blaze was right and this mission would be an opportunity. An opportunity for what, he wasn’t sure, but it would elucidate things, that he felt sure of. He needed to take matters into his own hands.

“I’ll do it,” he said, swallowing hard.

Blaze broke into one of his huge smiles. “I’m glad. I promise you it won’t hurt, and none of your friends will be hurt.” A twinge of sadness flashed through him when Blaze said that, but the magician smiled on, oblivious. “It’s a good decision.”