Death Masks

She looked over her shoulder at me, eyes black and burning with hunger. She tried for my hand again, driven beyond words now. I had to control her head again, fingers knotted into her hair while my free hand got the interfering clothes out of the way. She let out mewling sounds of raw need, until I pulled her hips back against me, feeling my way, and in a rush of fire and silk felt my hardness press into her.

Her eyes flew open wide, out of focus, and she cried out, moving against me, meeting my motion with her own. I had a fleeting thought of slowing down. I didn’t. Neither of us wanted that. I took her that way, my mouth on her ear, her throat, one hand in her hair, her hands stretched out over her, body straining back to meet mine.

God, she was beautiful.

She screamed and started shuddering, and it was all I could do not to explode. I fought away the inevitable for a little time more. Susan sagged down after a moment, until with my hands, with my mouth, with the thrusts of my body, I kindled the quiet moans once again to cries of need. She screamed again, the motions of her body swift, liquid, desperate, and there wasn’t any way I could keep her from driving me over the brink with her.

Our cries mingled together as we intertwined. The strain of muscles and bodies and hungers overwhelmed me.

Pleasure like fire consumed us both and burned my thoughts to ash.

Time drifted by and did not touch us.

When I recovered my senses, I found myself on the floor. Susan lay on her stomach beneath me, her still-bound arms laid out above her head. Not much time had passed. Both of us were still short of breath. I shivered, and felt myself still inside her. I didn’t remember releasing the spell that held the bonds up to the ceiling, but I must have done it. I moved my head to kiss her shoulder, her cheek, very softly.

Her eyes blinked slowly open, human again, though her pupils were dilated until they all but hid the dark brown of her irises. She didn’t focus them. She smiled and made a soft sound, somewhere between a moan and a cat’s purr. I stared at her for a moment, until I realized that the designs on her face had gone dark again, and had begun to fade away. As I watched over the next few moments, they vanished completely.

"I love you," she whispered.

"I love you."

"Wanted that."

"Me too," I said.

"Dangerous. Harry, you could have been hurt. I might have-"

I leaned down and kissed the corner of her mouth, silencing her. "You didn’t. It’s okay."

She shivered, but nodded. "So tired."

I felt like nothing more than dropping off to sleep, but instead I got to my feet. Susan let out a soft sound, half pleasure and half protest. I gathered her up and put her on the couch. I touched the rope, willing it to release her, and it slid away from her skin, coiling itself into neat loops in my hand. I pulled a blanket from the back of the couch and folded it over her. "Sleep," I said. "Get some rest."

"You should-"

"I will. Promise. But – I don’t think it would be a good idea to go to sleep near you."

Susan nodded wearily. "You’re right. I’m sorry."

"It’s okay," I said.

"Should call Martin."

"The phone won’t call out," I said. "Not until the defenses go down."

I didn’t think her voice sounded particularly disappointed as she snuggled down a bit more onto my couch. "Oh," she said. "We’ll have to wait it out then."

"Yeah," I said. I stroked her hair. "Susan-"

She touched my hand with hers, and closed her eyes. "It’s all right. I told you, I’d never be able to separate the hungers with you. It – it was a release. Took some of the pressure off me. I wanted it. Needed it."

"Did I hurt you?"

She made a purring sound without opening her eyes. "Maybe a little. I didn’t mind."

I shivered and said, "You’re okay?"

She nodded slowly. "As I can be. Get some rest, Harry."

"Yeah," I said. I touched her hair again, and then shuffled into my bedroom. I didn’t shut the door. I put my pillows at the foot of my bed, so that I could see the couch when I lay down. I watched her face, graced by pale candlelight, until my eyes closed.

She was so lovely.

I wished that she were with me.

Chapter Twenty-six

I opened my eyes a while later, and saw Susan standing in the living room, her eyes closed. She was crouched, her hands held before her as if grasping an invisible basketball. As I watched, she moved, arms and legs gliding through gentle, circular motions. Tai chi. It was a meditative form of exercise that had originally come from martial arts. Lots of people who practiced tai chi didn’t realize that the movements they followed were beautiful, slow-motion renditions of bone-breaking throws and joint locks.

I had a feeling Susan knew. She wore her T-shirt and a pair of my running shorts. She moved with the graceful simplicity of a natural talent honed by training.

A turn showed me her face, her expression set in peaceful concentration. I spent a minute watching her in silence, cataloging my own aches and pains.

She suddenly smiled, without opening her eyes, and said, "Don’t start drooling, Harry."

"My house. I can drool as much as I want."

"What was that rope you used?" she asked, still going through her routine. "I’ve broken handcuffs before. Magic?"

Shoptalk. I had hoped for some other kind of discussion. Or maybe I’d been nervous about it. Work talk held a certain appeal for me, too. It was safe. "Faerie make," I said. "Has hair from a unicorn’s mane woven through it."

"Really?"

I shrugged. "That’s what Fix said. I imagine he knows."

"Would be handy to have around if the Denarians showed up again, don’t you think?"

"Not unless they came here," I told her. "It’s set to this place. Take it out of here and it wouldn’t work."

"Why not?"

"Because I’m not that good yet," I said. "It’s easy to make something that works at home. Takes a lot more know-how than I have to take an enchantment on the road." I got out of bed and got moving. The clock said that it wasn’t yet ten in the morning. I hopped in and out of the shower, dressed, slapped a comb through my hair, and decided that the rakish, unshaven look was in.

By the time I got back out into the living room, Susan was dressed in the leather pants again and only four or five candles were still lit. The defensive barriers were winding down. "What happened after Martin took off from the hotel?" I asked.

Susan slouched into a chair. "I tried to get him to stop. He wouldn’t. We fought about it and he put a gun in my face."