Kindling the Moon (Arcadia Bell #1)(49)

“Your sexual fluids, not mine.”

For the love of God, would he please stop saying that?

“Don’t find me attractive?” he challenged playfully. “Not young and hip enough for you?”

“I … uh …” My heart hammered. “Jupe told me that you thought I was too young for you.”

He stepped forward again, dragging the open book along the edge of the desk. “Hmm … I don’t recall saying that.”

“Memory loss is the first sign of aging.”

“I’m not the one with memory problems, am I?”

I laughed nervously.

“Come here.”

“No.”

“Come here … please?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

I took a hesitant step toward him.

“Closer.”

Again.

“Closer,” he commanded in a low voice.

Screw it, I thought, and complied, this time boldly positioning myself so close, a piece of paper couldn’t slide between us. I lifted my face toward him, daring. He put two fingers on the side of my chin and gently tilted my face sideways and down to the desk.

“Here’s the spell. It’s in Latin,” he said in an even, professional tone.

I glanced down at the book, eyes scanning over the page but not reading. His hand came into view as he pointed to the incantation words, tapping on the page.

“Yep,” I said, discreetly licking my lips.

“You need to be thinking about that memory you’re missing when I say the spell.”

“All right.”

“As for the mutual arousal, a kiss would be easiest,” he suggested. “Have you ever kissed a demon?”

“Yeah …” A couple, actually. Same as kissing a human, in my experience. Humans dated and married Earthbounds every day, with or without the human half of the pair realizing exactly whom they were dating. As I said before, Human-Earthbound unions produced human children, so unless their demon mate had an exceptional knack that was impossible to ignore, they could live out their entire lives thinking that they were in love with another human. Myself, I dated an Earthbound once; before anything juicy happened between us, I found out that his knack was the ability to seduce. Umm, no thanks. At least the guy had been honest about it. I remembered this, then told Lon the first honest thing that came to mind, “I’ve kissed an Earthbound, but I’ve never kissed a man with a mustache.”

Lon found this extremely amusing, and we both fought back laughter. A quick joy spread over me. It was so pleasant to be enjoying his mood, no grunting or growling or trying to guess what his motives were. And it was exhilarating, being so close to him; my heart kicked wildly inside my chest.

Then he stopped smiling, and his eyes slowly blinked and drooped lower. He gingerly brushed my hair away from my face with the tips of his fingers.

I craned my neck to meet him halfway. Warmth flooded between my thighs before our mouths even made contact.

His lips were much softer than I expected, and he tasted like valrivia smoke. I don’t remember closing my eyes, but I must have. His mustache grazed my skin, but I quickly became accustomed to it; either that, or I was distracted by the way his tongue filled my mouth and rolled with mine in slow waves. Or the way goose bumps rushed over my arms. Or maybe even how warm his skin felt under my fingers as they mysteriously found their way under his T-shirt to trace the line of golden hair that ran down his stomach.

Somewhere in the back of my head I knew we’d long ago accomplished our goal, but I was genuinely surprised when my knees gave out, and a small moan escaped my mouth as I slipped away from him. He made a quick grab and steadied me, hands circling my waist. That had never happened to me before, and I sure as hell didn’t want him to know that, but he probably sensed my surprise so it didn’t really matter.

By that point, I’d forgotten all about the memory spell. He began kissing me again, then forced himself back with a groan and spun me around to face away from him. He pinned me between his chest and the desk, slinging an arm around my shoulders to hold me tight as his erection pressed against my lower back.

He pushed my hair away from my shoulders and settled his chin in the crook of my neck.

“So …” he whispered huskily in my ear, “we’ve discovered that you can arouse me.” He demonstrated this fact by pressing harder against me, just in case I’d forgotten. “However, we don’t know about you. And there is the small matter of Heka.”

His free hand moved to the button of my jeans, which he deftly maneuvered open with a quick flick. My zipper followed. Then his hand slid into my jeans, under my panties, and kept going until his fingers slid unexpectedly and we both breathed in sharply. When he found the right spot, I moaned, and he made a small noise of happy discovery. He flattened two stroking fingers against my sensitive flesh. My hips couldn’t make up their mind whether they wanted to move forward on his fingers or backward to arch against him, so they alternated repetitively between the two.

Then he unexpectedly broke away, deserting his efforts between my legs and withdrawing his hand. I moaned again, this time in disappointment.

He cleared his throat. “All right. Ready?”

“Oh, yes,” I chirped with great enthusiasm, temporarily mistaken about what I was agreeing to. My brain was having trouble adjusting.