He gave a small frown.
I smiled, and touched the lines between his eyes that would have been frown lines by now, if he’d been able to wrinkle. “What I mean, Amatheon, is yes. Let’s do all that.”
“You mean I get my wish,” he said.
“Isn’t that what we used to do, grant people’s wishes,” I whispered, smiling.
“No,” he said, “we, none of us, ever granted wishes.”
“It was a joke,” I said.
“Oh, I’m…”
I put my finger on his lips and stopped him. “Let’s make the grass grow.”
He frowned.
“Fuck me,” I said, and removed my finger from his lips.
He smiled that bright smile that made him seem younger and more… human. “If that is what you wish.”
“Now who’s offering to grant wishes?”
“I will grant anything that is within my power to give you.”
I sat up and pressed my most intimate parts against his most intimate parts, and even through all our clothes, the sensation was amazing. He was so hard, so very hard, that it must have been a pleasure that was nearly pain.
“Give me this,” I said, and it was my voice that was hoarse now.
“Willingly. Let us get out of our clothes, and it will be done.”
I stared down at his face with that eager hardness pressing up through my jeans. It sounded like a plan to me.
CHAPTER 17
OUR CLOTHES FELL TO THE EARTH LIKE THE RAIN THAT HAD forgotten this land.
He lay back against that dry, parched earth, like a jewel laid upon a rough grey cloth. He had begun to glow before all his clothes had come off. When I brushed my hand over his bare arm, his skin glowed behind my fingers as if lightning flared underneath his skin, as if the lightest touch of my fingertips on even the most neutral parts of his body was almost too much. I wondered what he would do if I touched less neutral places.
I laid the very tips of two fingers against the swell of his upper chest. Light blossomed at my touch. His whole body glowed bright white, but around my fingers the light glowed orange and red like true flame. Where I touched him, his body ran hotter, and that red, hot heat followed my fingers down his body. I traced down his stomach, and just the touch sped his breathing, made him writhe against the dry earth. His eyes fluttered shut and his hands scrabbled at the bare earth, and all I had done was trail fingers across his stomach. I lost patience then, I wanted to see what he would do when I wrapped my hands around that most intimate part of him.
I think he expected me to at most trail my fingers across the long swollen bit of him, to give him some warning, but I didn’t.
I wrapped my hand around him and squeezed. He cried out. His upper body came up off the ground, and the feel of him in my hand closed my eyes, bowed my back, because he was so much harder than I’d imagined. So hard, so terribly hard, that he felt more like smooth, hard marble, except he was so very warm.
“Oh, don’t, don’t do that, Merry-girl, or I won’t last.”
“So hard,” I said, and my voice sounded breathy and hoarse.
“I know,” he whispered, “too hard. I will not last.”
“Then don’t last,” I said.
He frowned at me, eyes still wild. “What?”
“Then don’t last, for this first time, meet your need. You can prove your stamina next time.”
“Next time,” and he laughed. “I don’t believe in next times. All that’s real to me is you, here, now.”
He sat up and leaned in toward me. We weren’t touching now, just close.
“If I am not good enough, you won’t want me again.”
I leaned in toward him, putting our faces very close together.
“Did she judge you all on just one night?”
His eyes widened. “Yes,” he whispered.
“I don’t.”
He smiled. “Are you saying that Frost and Doyle were less than spectacular the first time?”
I had to smile. “No.”
“Then who?”
I shook my head. “Everyone was wonderful, some just got spectacular with practice.”
He drew back far enough to see my face clearly. “You mean that?”
“Yes.”
“They can’t all have been amazing.”
“If they weren’t, I’ll never tell.”
“You won’t tell,” he whispered.
I started to touch his face, but he pulled back just enough to be out of reach.
“Tell what?” I asked.
He gave me a look, a look eloquent with meaning.
“Oh,” I said, and smiled again, but it was a gentler smile. “No, Amatheon, I won’t tell.”
He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me in against him. His back was covered in the dry, powdery dirt. I expected it to be rough, but it wasn’t. It was smooth and fine like the softest talcum powder. It did not distract from the warm smoothness of his skin but seemed to add texture like icing spread over warm, rich cake.
I pulled back enough to show him my hands covered in the soft, dry powder.
“So soft.” I looked up at him.
“Does it feel as soft against other places as it does on my hands?”
He drew me close, and just before his lips touched me, he whispered, “Let’s find out.”
CHAPTER 18
WE ROLLED OURSELVES IN IT UNTIL WE LOOKED LIKE GREY ghosts. The shine of our magic was dimmed by it like Christmas lights shining through snow.
He pressed his hardness against the front of my body and the back of me. He was almost painfully hard, pressed between our bodies. He thrust against my stomach, my ass, but he would not enter me. He rubbed his body over me as if his manhood were another way to caress my skin. Even his balls were high and tight, and the few times he let me touch him there, he quivered, shivering with his need. My hand found that a second pulse lay in his groin, beating against the palm of my hand. He moved my hand away from him. He pressed and teased against me, doing a parody of position after position, but he would not enter me. He would not give himself to my hand or my mouth.
When he had covered us, nearly head to foot, in the soft, powdery dust and shown me the promise of his body, the strength of it, he pushed himself against and across my body, and I begged him to enter me.
“Please, Amatheon, please, no more teasing. Enter me, take me.”
“I thought you were going to be on top.” His voice was teasing and full of pleasure.
“Lie down for me and I’ll be on top.” I tried to push him to the ground, but he stayed on his knees and would not be forced to the ground.
His hair lay in rich coppery waves around his face, caressing his broad shoulders. Even the greyish-white of the dust could not dim the rich color of that hair. The multilayered colors of his eyes glowed like individual jewels, sapphire, emerald, ruby, amber, and amethyst. Even the black pupil seemed polished and shining with power.
When his hair had first broken free of the French braid, Amatheon had tried to stop, tried to pull away, as if his shoulder-length hair were something shameful. I had shown him with my gaze, with my hands, that he was beautiful, all of him.
By the time he knelt shimmering with power through his coating of dust, there was nothing left of that hurt. But still he denied me.
“Please, Amatheon, please, lie down for me, or take me.” If he’d had a shirt, I would have grabbed him by it, but what I tried to grab to help persuade him, he would not let me touch. He trapped my hands between his and said, “It has been forever since a woman, any woman, has begged for my touch.”
He pressed our hands against his chest and closed his eyes. His breath went out in a long sigh. “The land has been too long untended, Meredith, too long unloved. It fears it is too late and there is no life to awaken.”
“You are the land, Amatheon,” I said, “and you live. Yield to me and I will love you. Please, please, Amatheon, please let me love you.”
“You speak of love so easily, do you mean sex?”
I closed my eyes and laid my forehead against his hands where they still trapped mine.
“I am no longer certain what I mean. I think I would say almost anything, do almost anything, in this moment, if it would make you say yes.”