Read Online Blood Magick by Nora Roberts - Free Book Online Page B

amusing them both by tossing bits of sandwich for Bugs to snatch out of the air as handily as he did the bugs from which he’d earned his name.
    Considering the practical again, he let the dog out, kept his mind linked with Bugs so he’d know if the little hound headed back to the stables after the practical was seen to.
    But Bugs pranced right back to the kitchen door, sat, and waited until Fin opened it for him.
    “All right then, it seems you’re spending the night. And that being the case, it’s God’s truth you could use a shower even more than I. You carry the stables with you, little friend. Let’s take care of that.”
    In the bath, the shower nearly had Bugs scrambling off, but Fin was quick. And laughing, carted the dog in with him. “It’s just water. Though we’re going to add soap all around.”
    Bugs trembled, lapped at the spray coming out of the many jets, wiggled against Fin’s bare chest when Fin rubbed in some of the liquid soap.
    “There you see, not so bad now is it?” He stroked gently to soothe as well as clean. “Not so bad at all.”
    He gestured toward the ceiling. Lights streamed, soft colors, music flowed in, soft and lilting. He set the dog down, gave himself the pleasure of the hot jets while the dog lapped at the wet tiles.
    Fin was quick, but not quite quick enough to dry the dog before Bugs shook himself, shooting drops all over the bath. His own laugh echoed in the room as the little dog shot him a look of satisfaction.
    With that mess sorted out, he moved into the bedroom, tossed down one of the big pillows that grouped on the sofa in his sitting area. But the dog, fully at home now, jumped onto the big, high bed, stretched out like a potentate at his ease.
    “Well, at least you’re clean.”
    He climbed in himself, decided on a book rather than TV to ease him toward sleep.
    By the time Fin turned off the light, Bugs was quietly snoring. Fin found the sound of it a small comfort, and wondered how pathetic it was when a snoring dog eased the lonely.
    In the dark, with the fire down to glowing embers, he thought of Branna.
    She turned to him, her hair a black curtain, all silk spilling over her bare shoulders. The fire flickered now, gold flames that turned her eyes to silver with that gold dancing in them.
    And she smiled.
    “You yearn for me.”
    “Day and night.”
    “And here you want me, in your big bed, in your fancy house.”
    “I want you anywhere. Everywhere. You torture me, Branna.”
    “Do I?” She laughed, but the sound wasn’t cruel. It was warm as a kiss. “Not I, Finbar, not I alone. We torture each other.” She trailed a finger down his chest. “You’re stronger than you were. As am I. Do you wonder, would we be stronger together?”
    “How can I think, how can I wonder, when I’m so full of you?”
    He took her hair in his hands, pulled her to him. And God, oh God, the taste of her after so long, after a lifetime, was like life after death.
    He rolled over, pressing her under him, going deeper into the wonder of it. Her breasts, fuller, softer, sweeter than he remembered, and her heart drumming under his hands as she arched up to him.
    A blur and storm of the senses—the feel of her skin, silk like her hair and warm, so warm, chasing away all the cold. The shape of her, the lovely curves, the sound of her breathing his name, moving, moving under him, chasing away all the lonely.
    His blood beat for her; his own heart pounded as she tangled her hands in his hair as she used to, as she ran them down his back. Gripped his hips, arched up. Opened.
    He plunged in. The light exploded, white, gold, sparking like fire—all the world afire. Wind whipped in a torrent to send that fire into a roar. For an instant, one breath, the pleasure struck.
    Then came the lightning. Then came the dark.
    He stood with her in the storm, her hand gripped in his.
    “I don’t know this place,” she said.
    “Nor do I. But . . .” Something, something he knew,