Free Magic Gone Wild by Judi Fennell Page B

nightmare he’d encountered since arriving here.
    “I’m trying to!” She made another kissing noise, and two giant flames—one red, one blue—shot up the middle. “No! Not red-blue! Res -cue! Res- cue !”
    It was no use. The more flustered she got, the more her magic went haywire.
    Zane ducked. They did not need a bunch of hay appearing out of nowhere—Jesus. Now she had him thinking crazy things, too.
    And then she started fiddling with her fingers again. Puckering her lips.
    Yeah, that hadn’t worked out so well. So Zane did the first thing he could think of. He tugged her to him and kissed her.
    Those flames licking at the brambles were child’s play compared to the ones between him and Vana. One touch of his lips and Vana practically went boneless against him, melting into the kiss so that he had to catch her, which only made the heat between them that much hotter. With every one of her pliant curves fused against him, this kiss packed more of a punch than the attic and kitchen ones combined.
    He wrapped one arm around her waist and cupped her cheek with the other, then threaded it through the hair that had been driving him crazy, no, nuts, no, insane— whatever —the hair that had been begging him to run his fingers through it ever since he’d set eyes on her. And oh, how happy those fingers were to oblige.
    She moaned when his lips shifted slightly, and the sound raced right through him, conjuring images of harem-girl fantasies and hot, sweaty desert nights.
    Zane traced the seam of her lips with his tongue and slipped inside when she parted them on another moan.
    And then he moaned, too. God, she tasted amazing. The mint from the tea mingled with her very own flavor, and Zane wanted more. He stroked his tongue over hers, flicked it along her teeth, and crushed her against him, changing the angle so he could savor more of her. Could feel more of her. Could want—
    “Uh, guys? Yoo-hoo. Lovebirds? How many fires are you planning to start out here anyway?”
    Hell. Merlin.
    Zane took one last kiss and pulled his lips from hers. She had a half smile on her face, and he felt one cross his own. He’d put that smile there.
    “Yeah, yeah, you do good work,” muttered Merlin. “Have her weak at the knees for you, Casanova, dontcha? You put that fire out, but you guys started two more over there. Whatcha gonna do about them?” Merlin added a squawk on the end of that, just in case Zane hadn’t been paying attention.
    Oh shit. “Vana.” Zane had to shake her a little. “Vana, the fire.”
    Her eyes opened, a dark pewter this time, and, honestly, they took his breath away. She took his breath away.
    “Fire?”
    He knew the moment reality flooded back in.
    “Holy smokes!”
    “I wouldn’t exactly say there’s anything holy about them, Van,” said Merlin from his branch, preening his now-teal feathers. “Unless you’ve got some holy water to douse them with.”
    “Oh dear.” She started to link her hands in front of her, but Zane knew what that would lead to, so he grabbed them instead.
    “Vana, you can do this.” He said it softly, and she lost a little of her deer-in-the-headlights look. “You can. Just concentrate.”
    She was concentrating—on his mouth. And Zane was vain enough to enjoy it.
    Then the fire crackled behind her. “Come on, honey, you can do this.”
    She licked her lips. Zane was aroused enough to enjoy that.
    “I don’t think so, Zane. What if I make them worse?”
    Merlin flew above them, the beads on his extra-long tail feathers bouncing over their noses as he skimmed above their heads to land on an old trellis that looked like it’d been there since Peter’s time. “Uh, Van? I don’t think you could do any worse than this wind.”
    Zane looked behind her where a sudden hot summer breeze was swirling the flames upward. The bird had a point. Kissing her had worked on the first one. The key was to not let it get out of control.
    The fire crackled again as it ate