“I want you, too.” Adrian’s breath was harder now, his chest starting to heave. Cinnamon flavored the air with jasmine now, and clove and sandalwood and more as his lips whispered over her neck and collarbones. Even as he pressed those soft, hot lips to her skin, she could feel him hauling his energy back – more in control than she had ever felt him.
“You’re controlling your magic,” she spoke, hating it but also grateful.
“I made a mistake at the party, acting on rash impulse.” Adrian kissed her neck gently, though his breathing was hard now. “Adam and Dusk are right. I harmed you. I won’t let it happen again.”
“But I want it to.” Layla breathed, arching in his arms as he kissed his way up her neck – feeling his strong, warm body pressed against hers. “I want it to unleash. For us to unleash together. I want to feel it, to ride it… to have it. Together.”
“Layla… you don’t know what you’re asking…”
Adrian’s heart was beating fast against her body, his breath ragged in his chest as he kissed her neck again. She could feel him struggling for control as he wrapped his arms tighter around her. Another roll of thunder moved through the heavy clouds. The rain was chill on Layla’s skin, Adrian’s energy so hot. With a growl, he heaved his hands up under her thighs, hauling her thighs up over his and pressing his body even closer to hers in the saddle.
She could feel the tip of him, so hard and hot, straining against his breeches and pressing through her skirt. With another deep growl, Adrian swiped the fabric of the skirt aside and tilted his pelvis, hauling her thighs up around his waist so Layla’s boots were on the saddle as he pulled her hips in tight with his hands. His hardness found her, delved into her lace panties as if it would rip them apart and Layla cried out, shuddering hard as her bourbon-citrus scent surged from her, her veins racing with delicious heat.
Adrian cried out also, his head thrown back as his power roared around her now like the rain had caught fire. Crushing her close with one hand cradling her head and the other gripping her low back, Adrian trapped her to his powerful body. Losing his careful control, his energy roared out, scalding in the thunder and rain. Chain lightning ripped across the sky and a wind whipped, shedding golden leaves all around them. Layla gasped as Adrian pressed himself hard at her opening; her body all but bared to him and his barely contained. Controlling her by her hair, Adrian made her look down and meet his gaze as he pressed up deep, straining the small amount of fabric between them.
A hurricane of energy poured down around Layla as she stared into Adrian’s amazing, vivid eyes. He gazed down at her with an incredible look, his eyes simmering a bright aqua-gold through the downpour. Water sluiced down his lovely face, highlighting his elegant cheekbones and black hair like diamonds on obsidian. His scalding hands were gripped firmly on her hair and back; steam whipped into vapor all around them from their burning hot magics. Emptying from the black sky and from Adrian, power roared through the shedding curtains of rain. As lightning flashed and thunder boomed, Layla felt her own heat flood out also – every drop of rain upon her skin another opportunity to shed her furious tensions and let her true passion flow free.
Layla felt Adrian surge; she felt an incredible power unfurl from him like some massive spread of wings all around her, scalding and roaring and bright. In the rain and cold, Layla felt her own power expand in response to Adrian’s – filling the forest. Rolling out from her body, her magics expanded with an enormous heat – dancing with Adrian’s; matching it coil for coil and scale for scale in a simmering mirage of vapor and wind and lightning all around them.
“God, I feel you, Layla…” Adrian’s lips were so close; a hot breath from hers in the downpour.
“I feel you, too, Adrian…” Layla breathed, arching, reaching for him.
“I want you…” He breathed back, his arms tightening around her. Crushing her deliciously with all that enormous power and renegade heat. Rocking his hips, he thrust up; making Layla’s spine bow with pleasure and a ruined sound of ecstasy, her eyelashes fluttering as she trembled deep inside – nothing separating them now but fabric.
“Then take me,” she breathed back. “Please… this heat. We’ve postponed this too long. I can’t wait any longer.”
With a dark growl, Adrian abandoned his restraint – completely. His power roared, surging out so thick and fast around Layla that she screamed with pleasure; driving so deep inside her body that she convulsed with it. A wave of aqua and crimson flames burst upon the air with a nimbus of golden ones, her magic and his twined together in a massive coil of muscle and barbs and power.
And then they were kissing, lips hard upon lips, hands hard upon each other.
They drove into each other, they twisted; they coiled. Every kiss deeper, every gripping of hands more unrestrained. In the pouring rain, Layla’s heat was devouring, rabid for him. Adrian’s voracious power thrust through her in a mad drive as he ripped his breeches open. But the whinny of a horse up on the ridge made their heads turn. Surging, panting, Layla looked up to see Dusk on his grey mare in the downpour, his face a mixture of shock and fury as he watched her and Adrian down below. As their gazes connected, Layla felt a wall of crystal energy slammed up between them. And then Dusk’s expression changed. As if he’d gone dead inside and all that was left was a beautiful shell – lovely as a diamond and just as hard.
Adam reined his horse up next to Dusk on the ridge, his hunter-green eyes bled dark. There was something furious in the set of Adam’s tall, lean body also. Something so tight that Layla blinked as she palmed rain from her face, Adrian still holding her close.
“Having a good fuck?” Adam called out as he palmed his wet hair back with a laugh.
“Dammit, Adam!” Adrian laughed back, breathless.
But Layla knew Adrian had missed the coldness in Adam’s eyes as he reached up, wiping rain from his face so he could see, his lungs heaving as his heart hammered as hard as Layla’s. Adrian was smiling with reckless delight; the same smile Layla had seen the day they’d met. It was the smile she would have done anything for – luminous. His gaze returned to Layla and he growled a hot sigh, setting his forehead to hers. But they could both feel it; the storm was passing. Even now, the thunder was distant as the sky lightened. Adrian used one hand to surreptitiously zip his breeches, though he growled into Layla’s neck as he did it. She shuddered, aching, needing him to finish it.
But Dusk and Adam were still at the top of the ridge. As Layla looked up, Dusk turned his horse and clicked his tongue – moving on over the ridge and out of sight beyond the trees. Adam watched him go, then turned back, reaching up to wipe rain from his short blond beard.
“Everyone’s gone back to the barn, Adrian!” Adam called down. “They’ve called the hunt. Some of the clan are planning a party tonight, but they wanted to check with you. Otherwise, I really would have left you two alone.”
Though his words were glib, Adam’s smile said otherwise. Something in his energy was hard-edged, and though Layla couldn’t smell his scent from this distance, she watched his eyes go ferociously dark as the cousins grinned at each other. Layla glanced from one to the other, suddenly feeling like those grins were snarls. But there were no magical pyrotechnics like before, and though Adrian’s energy was still flowing wide around her, enormous, it seemed smooth now and didn’t rush up the slope to fight with Adam.
“We’re coming.” Adrian called back. “No thanks to you!”
“No problem, asshole.” Adam laughed as he flicked water out of his hair and beard again. “Really though, rain sucks. You guys coming back?”
“Go on! We’ll be back soon.”
“Sure you will.”
Adam gave another dark grin then turned his horse, disappearing the way Dusk had gone. Turning to Layla, Adrian cradled her with a low growl. But the storm was over, only a patter of rain sparkling down from the golden leaves now as the sun began to strike through the clouds. Their moment had been broken and the power with it, though curls of vapor still breathed up around their bodies on the chill autumn air. Adrian heaved a sigh of content frustration and Layla matched it, winding her arms up around his neck and gazing into his amazing eyes.
“To be continued?” Adrian smiled down at her, sexy and utterly delightful.
