my fingers through his hair, knotting my fingers in it, and kissed that gorgeous jaw, tasting his skin. I was burning up.
He yanked the straps of my dress down my shoulders, trapping my arms, and buried his face in my bare breasts. I gasped and arched my back. His lips found my nipple. I closed my eyes, savoring each delicious moment. His teeth grazed the sensitive bundle of nerves, his hot tongue tasted me, and he sucked, sending a tiny electric shock through me. I moaned. I wanted to make love to him, and I wanted it to be amazing, so he would stay with me forever.
“Angelo mio,” Alessandro whispered, his words ragged and rough. “So beautiful.”
I opened my eyes and saw the edge of my feathers glowing as his magic roiled around us. I was sitting on a counter, gloriously half naked, and my wings were out, spread wide above my shoulders, each luminescent feather deep green at the base then brightening, like the water of the Aegean growing lighter as one rose from a deep dive, turning emerald, then grass-green, then turquoise until finally at the tips, they shone with radiant gold.
My wings were out.
Reality punched me with a cold hard fist. I jerked away and shoved him back.
“What is it?” Alessandro spun, alert, looking for threats.
My magic was all around him. I had lost it. It made sense now. Why else would he suddenly want to make love to me in the hallway and then kiss me like his life depended on it? Oh my God, what had I done?
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry . . .”
“What are you sorry about?”
“We have to go.” Panic clawed at me, ripping me apart from the inside. I’d destroyed his life. “I have to drain you. We have to . . .”
“I don’t have to drain.”
“You don’t understand. I didn’t mean to. We have to fix it.”
He grabbed my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “Look at me. Look me in the eyes. Your witchery doesn’t work on me. I’m already obsessed with you.”
He was too far gone. He was saying nonsense. “Of course you are.”
I turned around. Where the hell did it go? “It’s okay, it will be okay, I’ll fix this.”
“What are you looking for?”
“My clutch. I have chalk in it.” Even if I drew a circle, it would take forever to drain him. He was a ridiculously powerful Prime. I could run out of magic before he did, and then it wouldn’t work.
“What should I do?” he asked. “Should I stay right here, out of the way, and not go anywhere? Would it make you happy?”
“Yes, stand right here and don’t move. It will make me very happy.”
“Don’t move. Got it.”
He grabbed his jacket off the tiled floor and walked out. My magic wailed in mourning.
I was alone in the bathroom. Sitting on the sink counter. The sound of rushing water came from the pipes.
He had walked away from me. No person I’d beguiled could’ve done that.
This was too much. I couldn’t process it.
I looked at myself in the mirror. My neck was red. Lipstick smears stretched across my skin from my lips.
In the distance a loud chime announced the end of the intermission. I pulled my dress back up over my breasts, jumped off, and frantically looked for my clutch. I’d put a compact and lipstick into it, and I had to make myself presentable again.
I slipped out of the bathroom. My neck was back to a neutral color, my hair was fixed, and my lipstick tinted my lips and nothing else. Alessandro was fully dressed. We rushed down the hallway to the foyer.
“This did not happen,” I told him.
“Oh, it happened. Stopping felt like the hardest fucking thing I had to do in my life. Fighting Benedict now would be a breeze.”
“No, it didn’t happen and we’re not talking about this.”
“We are going to talk about it. Tonight. My room, your room, wherever we can find some privacy.”
Privacy was the last thing we needed.
We reached the end of the hallway. The second performance was about to start. Alessandro walked me to the table. Cristal was at her table with another glass of champagne.
“I was getting ready to send out a search party,” Linus said.
“That’s all right,” Alessandro told him, “we found our way back.”
Pairs of acrobats in silver suits took to the trapeze to the sound of haunting music. The soprano stepped onto the stage. She was about my mother’s age, a beautiful black woman