when they could be skin to skin. Alex cried out again, his come spurting hot and vital between them, not neat or pleasing—necessary. And Simon bent his head and licked it off Alex’s chest as his body still quivered in orgasm.
Alex moaned, wrapping his legs around Simon’s hips as aftershocks rocked them both, and finally, finally, Simon had to collapse, sweating in the chill of the room, onto Alex’s flushed body.
For a moment, breathing was his maximum achievement.
Then it was taking Alex’s mouth with his own, claiming him, hard and irrevocably, falling into this kiss like he’d fallen down the rabbit hole of Alex’s strange life and with just as little care for the consequences.
It was love Alex or die a slow, sad death from not having the one person who would make his life wonderful.
Who wouldn’t make that jump?
Alex moaned into his kiss again, and Simon grunted, sliding out of Alex’s body. He caught the condom before it spilled, and disposed of it with a wad of tissues in the can under the bed stand and then turned to cuddle this surprising package of man and wonder who had finally given himself to Simon’s care.
SOMETIMES one of the sweetest parts of lovemaking was the aftercare.
Not this time because the lovemaking itself had been so intense, so real between them—no drifting thoughts, just their bodies, learning the ins and outs (heh!) of an act that could be one of the loveliest forms of expression that humans were allowed—but the aftercare was close.
Alex rested his head on Simon’s shoulder, and they played with each other’s fingers, lacing and unlacing them, talking quietly.
“It was okay?”
“God, yes.”
“Want to do it again?”
“Heh… not right now but, you know, when I see if I can walk again.”
“Heh. Want to top next time?”
Alex looked at him in surprise. “Yes? Can I? I mean, I’m pretty sure I can, but, you know. Younger, smaller—”
“Oh, who cares,” Simon said with a laugh. “It’s about what feels good, and I like both!”
Alex smiled—but not self-consciously. “Good. I… I want to do all the things. Everything. With you.” He bit his lip. “Nobody else.”
“Good,” Simon murmured, kissing his temple. “Me neither.”
“You’ve dated a lot of spectacular people. Not including Audra, who, I guess, you weren’t dating,” Alex added, looking away.
“I like flash,” Simon admitted. Then he smiled in contentment. “Doesn’t get much flashier than a witch, you know. I mean, I like to be interested in my lover. I don’t think I’m going to get bored of you. Of your circle of friends. Of what you can do.” He frowned for a minute. “I mean, what can you do? You’ve apparently been practicing for—what?”
“Eighteen months,” Alex said. “Ever since Helen just sort of willed Jordan the cottage and we all got pulled into it.”
“And you can send your neighborhood into hell and cause a rift in space and time. Not bad.”
Alex laughed, squeezing his hand and bringing it to his lips. “We were doing good with it before then. We found a job for Josh, because he really hated his researching gig, and he swears he’d be a shitty teacher. So we cast a spell to find him a job, and the next day he was chatting up someone in line at the discount liquor store. And he’s a history major, right? And he starts rattling off the history of wines in California, and he’s talking to a wine distributor, and voila! He’s got a job as a wine salesman to most of Northern California.”
Simon pursed his lips. “That’s fortunate, but—”
“I know. It could still be coincidence,” Alex said, nodding. “But it sort of gave us impetus. We started doing things for our friends. A spell for Kate’s bestie who couldn’t seem to find a good boyfriend—and now she’s engaged. A spell for Cully’s drama friends who are trying to get parts. And sometimes you can see that the spell just gives them sort of a lift—the confidence—but sometimes it’s eerie. One of Cully’s drama friends was going up for a part against someone he always loses parts to, and the day of the auditions, half the actors get sent to the wrong place to try out. Cully’s friend was one of the ones who went to the right place, but his rival, who was really mean to Cully, by the way, ended up getting sent somewhere else. Boom!”
“He gets the audition,” Simon finished.
“Yup.” Alex smiled. “And we’ve tried to be really respectful of it. Once, we accidentally accepted a