Totally Spellbound (24 page)

But he was different now. Older.
Centuries past the boy he’d been. And this woman that he held now,
what she had just given him, was so much more than he’d ever had
with Marian.

And this relationship was just
beginning.

Or so he hoped.

“Robin?” There was a thread of fear in
Megan’s voice, and she started to pull away.

He kept one arm wrapped around her and
stroked her hair. “Is it always that intense for you?”

He made sure his question was very
gentle, non-threatening. He tried to keep his fears and doubts in
check.

“Sex?” she asked.

He nodded.

A tear landed on his chest. Then she
wiped it off, smearing the wetness.

“It’s always—strange for me,” she
said. “I usually feel so distant.”

“And this time?” His worries suddenly
changed. Had the intensity only been there for him?

“This time,” she said, and her voice
trembled. “This time, I almost lost myself.”

She said that as if it were a bad
thing. He made himself take a deep breath before saying anything
more.

“Do you regret it?” he finally
asked.

“Do you?”

She wasn’t going to answer. This was
one of the places in which she’d been hurt. She’d felt mutual
passion—maybe too young to understand that young men have stronger
sexual urges than young girls—and had gotten attached when the
young man hadn’t.

He shifted slightly inside her, then
smiled at her. “I don’t have any regrets.”

Her answering smile was radiant. “I’m
not sure anything could surpass that first time.”

He felt her joy—or maybe it was his
own. He couldn’t tell. They were still linked, and he was aroused
all over again.

He kissed her, and she kissed
back—this woman loved to be kissed—and he rolled all the way over
so that she was on top of him.

She sat up, his hands resting on her
hips, guiding her gently.

The magic started all over
again—

And that was when some idiot pounded
on the door.

Megan was off him in half a second,
scrambling for her robe, before she realized that she wasn’t in her
condo. That knock made her feel like a high school girl caught
necking by her parents.

She threw open the closet door and
found a terry cloth robe provided by the hotel. As she yanked the
robe off the hanger, she turned.

Rob hadn’t moved. And he was as
aroused as he had been a moment ago.

How had she attracted such a handsome
man? She still couldn’t believe that.

He smiled, and patted the bed beside
him. “It’s okay, Megan. They can leave.”

She shook her head. “I’m supposed to
be watching Kyle.”

“Kyle’s got John and the Fates.
They’ll take good care of him, just like they did
before.”

She pulled the robe on, suddenly
embarrassed by the whole thing. He could see her naked. He could
see every single flaw.

The knock came again. “Megan! You
okay?”

It was Travers.

The flush in her face traveled down
her neck into her chest. She hadn’t blushed that deeply since she
was in middle school.

“Coming, Trav,” she said, and then bit
her lower lip.

Rob laughed. “That was a few minutes
earlier.”

“This is serious,” she said. “That’s
my brother. He’ll be mad.”

Rob’s smile faded. “Let
him.”

“But I’m supposed to be—”

“I think he’s mature enough to
understand,” Rob said. “After all, we interrupted him and
Zoe.”

That was true, and even more
embarrassing. Megan shook her head. “They’re engaged. We just met
last night.”

“I don’t think they’ve known each
other very long either,” Rob said. “It usually doesn’t take mages
long to recognize their true love.”

Megan put a hand in front of her face.
Everything was moving too quickly for her.

“Meg!” Travers shouted
again.

Then she heard a key card in the door.
She hurried into the hallway, and yelled, “Trav, it’s okay,” but by
the time she’d finished the sentence, he had entered the suite, Zoe
behind him.

He let the door swing closed behind
him. “You’re flushed.”

“Travers.” Zoe grabbed his
arm.

“Are you all right?” Travers asked.
“Did you get too much sun?”

“Travers.” Zoe tugged on his
arm.

Megan was mortified. Even more
mortified than she had been when she had interrupted them. Or more
specifically, when Rob had interrupted them.

“You don’t look well,” Travers
said.

She didn’t feel well, at least not
now. Before she had felt spectacular, like a completely different
woman, and now, she had no words for the sense of loss that was
overcoming her.

“Travers.” Zoe tugged again. “I think
we should leave.”

“I’m not leaving. Something’s happened
to Meg—”

“I happened to Meg.” Robin came out of
the bedroom. He had found another robe. It barely fit across his
chest, and it left his legs bare.

They were sexy legs, athlete’s legs.
And his feet were perfectly shaped.

She really hadn’t taken the time to
look at him, and she should have. He was so gorgeous.

“You?” Travers strangled the word out.
“You took advantage of my sister?”

That got Megan’s attention back on the
situation. She turned toward her brother.

His blue eyes were blazing, his skin
pale. He looked ready for battle.

“Trav,” Megan said. “Calm
down.”

“Calm down when this pervert seduced
you? You barely know each other.”

“He kissed me,” Megan said.

“It looks like a lot more than kissing
happened here.” Travers put his fists against his hips.

“Travers, stop,” Zoe said.

“She’s my sister. She doesn’t need
anyone to take advantage of her.”

“He didn’t take advantage,” Megan
said.

“You may think that,” Travers said,
“but he’s old enough to be your—great-great … ancestor.”

“So?” Megan asked.

“So older guys,
younger girls. That’s always a bad combo, Meg. You
know
that.”

Zoe let go of Travers’ arm and crossed
her own.

“What about older women and younger
men?” she asked. Her question was deceptively calm. “Is that a bad
combo?”

“We’re different, Zoe, and you know
it,” Travers snapped.

“Explain to me how,” Zoe said. “I’d
really like to know.”

“We’re in love.”

“Who says we’re not?” Rob
asked.

Megan shivered. That
feeling earlier. Had that been love? She had thought so in the
middle of it all, but she’d learned so often that what she thought
was permanent, others thought was ephemeral.

Travers glared at Rob. “I say. You
haven’t known her long enough.”

“How long have you known Zoe?” Rob
asked.

Travers let his fists drop from his
hips. Zoe stood back, a skeptical expression on her
face.

Megan moved between her brother and
Rob.

Her lover.

“You know, this isn’t going to get any
of us anywhere,” she said, dropping into her psychologist persona.
“Robin and I are consenting adults. And I most certainly consented.
In fact, I was consenting again when you came barging in the door,
and I must say that I’ll consent any time in the future if each
time is as absolutely spectacular as this first time.”

Travers blinked once, looked at Megan,
then at Rob, and then closed his eyes. Then he rubbed his thumb and
forefinger on the bridge of his nose, and said in a pained voice,
“Waaay too much information.”

“Yeah,” Megan snapped. “Like seeing
you and your fiancé in full—whatever that was. We’re even
now.”

Zoe grinned. “I do like
you.”

“Then tell my brother I’m not
thirteen.”

Travers opened his eyes. They were
still blazing blue. He didn’t look at Megan. He looked at
Rob.

“But you see, that’s
the problem. She is thirteen inside. She doesn’t understand men for
all her fancy education. She gets too involved and then gets hurt,
and you—you have a history, and probably thousands of women,
and
my sister isn’t somebody who can be
loved and left
. You got that? Because she
deserves better.”

Megan’s breath caught.

“You have quite the protector,” Rob
said softly.

“I tried to tell you I didn’t need
one,” Megan said.

Rob put a hand on her shoulder and
pulled her against him. His body felt solid against her
back.

“Zoe’s been teaching me spells,”
Travers said. “I may not be as old as you or as famous as you, but
I can take you on if I have to—”

“Travers,” Megan said again. “I
consented.”

“And he’ll hurt you,” Travers said.
“They always do.”

“Have a little faith in me,” Megan
said, but those tears were threatening again. He was right. They
always hurt her. Everyone seemed to, even without meaning to. “I
know what I’m doing.”

“And so do I,” Rob said. “I love your
sister.”

Megan felt her heart flutter. She felt
cocooned in emotion—the same emotion that had touched her when she
and Rob were in bed.

“You don’t know her well enough,”
Travers snapped.

“I think you should stop now,” Zoe
said. “You probably don’t want to say much more.”

“She’s my sister. He’s some
thousand-year-old legend.”

“Eight hundred years,” Rob said
tightly.

“I thought you said age doesn’t
matter,” Zoe said.

“She’s my
sister
,” Travers
repeated.

“When he doesn’t have an argument,”
Megan said as calmly as she could, “he gets louder. I think he
doesn’t want to think about me and Rob naked. I certainly think he
doesn’t want to think about me and Rob having fun while naked. And
I absolutely think that he doesn’t want to think about us having
fun naked again any time soon. So he’s going to do what he can to
stop it—”

“Jeez, Meg, give it a rest,” Travers
said. Then he cursed and stomped into the living room. “I hate it
when you’re right. I’m going to have to wash out my brain
now.”

Because she was mad beneath her
professional calm, she said, “Not until I tell you exactly what we
did.”

He let out a yelp and
flopped onto the couch, his hands over his ears. Zoe gave her a
sideways grin, then went into the living room to comfort her
fiancé.

Rob stood perfectly still for a
moment, and then he chuckled.

“You’re really quite brilliant, you
know,” he said.

“Well, I have to be to make up for my
brother,” Megan said. “He’s an ass.”

“He loves you.”

She nodded.

“He’s seen you hurt
before.”

Those tears again. Dammit. Would they
always be there, right below the surface?

Rob turned her toward him, put a
finger under her chin, and lifted her face to his. Then he kissed
her. He meant it as a calming kiss—she could sense that—but it went
beyond that. The passion that had been interrupted moments before
returned, as strong as ever—

“I’d tell you to get a
room,” Travers said, “but you already have one. Still, can
this…utterly disturbing moment wait for, say, half an hour? We were
supposed to talk with you about the wheel.”

“We waited for you,” Megan said,
deliberately wrapping her arms around Robin. She was still mad at
her brother, and she didn’t care what he saw.

“Well, yeah, you have a point.”
Travers sounded nervous, but Megan wasn’t about to turn around and
look at him.

Instead, Rob was the one who broke out
of the embrace.

“We do need to discuss the wheel,” he
said.

Megan frowned at him. “You’re the one
who didn’t want to be involved,” she said.

“And you’re the one who pissed off
Zeus,” Rob said.

“Zeus?” Zoe sounded scared. “How did
you make him angry?”

“We have no idea whether I did or
not,” Megan said.

“She promised to help the Interim
Fates,” Rob said to Zoe.

Zoe’s eyes were wide. “Help them with
what?”

Megan sighed and pulled
her robe tighter. “They have an emotionally abusive, controlling
father who doesn’t care about them at all. They’ve been thrust into
a job that they have no training for, and they’re expected to
perform well. They have no abilities to take care of themselves,
let alone others, and they’re frightened. Someone has to help
them.”