Page 36 of The Entanglement of Rival Wizards (Magic and Romance #1)

A crease forms above his nose. “I don’t tell Arasne anything about our project. And I won’t. I tell her what I’m working on, but only in terms of how it affects conjuration, and I keep it vague anyway. That’s why she’s being so persistent; I’m withholding, and—”

“Drive me home.”

That crease smooths flat. “Pardon?”

“You get chauffeured to and from school in that fancy private car. Right?”

His eyelashes flutter in bewilderment. “I—what?”

“Actually, it doesn’t matter; it’d just have been easier.

” I adjust my messenger bag and hand him his leather jacket from where it’s hooked over the back of his chair.

We’re leaving. Now. “But however you get from school to home, don’t.

Don’t do the home part, I mean. Your home. Instead, take me home. To my home.”

Fucking hell, I’m bad at this.

Thio accepts his coat from me and realization dawns in the parting of his lips.

It only takes a second for all the other emotions on his face—anger and shame and grief—to get packed away.

He steps closer to me, eyes glinting. “What are you trying to say, Sebastian?”

“I’m trying to say that I fucking want you. Right now. So take me home. I mean, not like to stay, but take me to my apartment and come in. For a bit. For—”

Aaaand that’s where my mouth chooses to finally shut up.

Thio’s eyes fix on mine with such intensity I’m worried when I look away, it’ll hurt.

I can smell his cologne. It’s muted after a day in the lab then this meeting, earthy freshness mingled with the smell of chalk from when he’d practiced a few runes.

Without saying a word, he steps back, gathers his stuff from the table, and angles for the hall.

“You coming?” he throws over his shoulder.

My sigh of relief is worryingly loud.

Orok’s got rawball practice this evening, so I let us into the apartment—and reactivate the security wards, fool me once—and the moment my bag hits the floor, I’m on Thio.

No decorum. No walls. No hesitating. I fucking need him after not having touched him since Monday.

And after… I need him, and I let that need overwhelm me, become a flash point.

Thio’s right there with me. We didn’t say a word the whole way here but he’s shaking now, the drop in adrenaline probably; he yelled at his family for me.

Fuck.

His hands clamp my head and hold me in place so his tongue can invade my mouth, and I fight back, shoving him against the closed door and biting down on his lip.

His moan is hoarse and desperate and has me scratching my hands up under his coat and shirt, seeking skin, ready to write sonnets to the rise of his stomach, the coarse hair leading up to the swell of his pecs, the pebbled mounds of his nipples.

I tug one of his lip rings between my teeth and he’s already half blissed out, but I pull back long enough to dig a vial out of my component belt and hold it up. “You trust me?”

Thio’s gasping, flushed, and he studies the vial. “What is—”

“Trust, Thio.”

His eyes narrow, then roll. “Gods help me. Yeah, yes, I trust you.”

“Good. Because it’s my turn.”

Then I’m sinking to the floor, unzipping his pants, and taking a quick sip of the vial.

It’s an emergency potion I carry in case of electrical outages. A big dose causes massive currents, can jumpstart pretty much anything.

But a dash of it across my tongue?

An instant sizzle flutters through my mouth and I swallow, stretching the magic down my throat in the barest coating of fizzing, jumping shocks.

He showed me no mercy Sunday night, and I return the favor now.

His dick’s bigger than mine, longer and thicker, and while that pings the barest dredges of my competitive side, I channel it into relaxing my throat and taking all of him.

That, coupled with the tingling, sparking sensation from the potion, has Thio’s head thunking back against the door.

“Holy shit, ” he whines, squirming, helplessly thrusting himself deeper into my mouth as his jaw gapes, fingers knotting in my hair, knocking my glasses askew.

I moan around him, wanton, self-indulgent, and pump my head, working him with my hand, too.

His taste, the salty musk of him, the scent of his cologne even here, like he sprays it on his naked body— fuck, my jeans are too tight and my coat is swelteringly hot, but I’m caught up in Thio’s broken sounds of need and the way he rolls his head forward to look at me.

My eyes tear and my vision blurs. He’s unraveling because of me, in me, those stripes on his cheeks gone to deep, vivid red, his pupils wide in his dark eyes.

He’s unfairly stunning, coming apart like this.

All the sharp lines of his features, all his harsh edges become cliffs I want to bungee jump off, see how far down I can fall before the rebound snaps me back up.

He’s the plummet and the catch and the rise again all in one, and kneeling at his feet, the world orients around him.

“Sebastian,” he wheezes, and I swirl my tongue in his slit, feeling the jumping shocks in the tip of my tongue so I know he’s feeling them here, too.

He hisses and shivers, his eyes glassy as they dart all over my face.

“Gods, you’re wicked. Fuck—your lips stretched around me like that. Shit. Gonna—”

I suck long and hard, head bobbing, and as he comes down my throat, I distantly wish we were back at the lab.

The soundproof walls would trap the noise he makes, a cracked cry that sticks against his tongue, a chewed-up Fuck, baby, yes, and I want nothing more than to be sure I’m the only one who hears it.

It’s mine, and I get where his possessiveness comes from.

This isn’t just messy.

It’s a full-on environmental disaster.

Geiger counters will pick up radiation here a century from now.

In the aftermath, I rest my forehead against his thigh and he slides his fingers through my hair.

“C’mere,” he whispers, and I’m hard and definitely want him, but I feel as wrung-out as he looks. I rest there, breathing, trying not to think, the last bits of the electric potion fading so my tongue’s left with ghost sparks and vibrations under the taste of him.

I shiver, head to toe, muscles bunching in my shoulders and straining across my back.

He helps me to my feet and gets me off into his hand. We’re both panting after I come, and I want to ask him to stay. To hold me until we fall asleep. To wake up at 2 A.M. and suck each other off again and fall back asleep sweaty and sated.

To talk about how bad it is that he told off Myrdin for me. Will he face any repercussions for that?

“I can pick you up Monday morning,” he gasps.

“Yeah?” I nip lazily at his mouth, palms flat on the door on either side of his head. “It’s on your way?”

He grins. “No.”

A kiss. Soft and so sweet it makes my toes curl.

I don’t have it in me to tell him to stop. That’s not what this is.

Gods.

What is this?

“Mm,” he moans against my lips. Then, pulling back, “I’ll be here at six on Monday.”

I give him an appalled look. “You sadist. Eight .”

His smirk is too satisfied. He did that on purpose. Jackass.

I get him a towel so we can clean up, and I realize as we do that neither of us took off our clothes, not even our coats. It really was utilitarian. Just a hookup.

Thio kisses me again, tongue dipping into my mouth one more time. “See you at eight,” he tells me, then he’s gone.

Halfway to school Monday, with traffic moving at a standstill beyond the tinted windows, I ignore his condescending smirk.

“If I’d picked you up at six—”

“Like you’ve ever gotten to school that early.”

“Rush hour traffic isn’t nearly as bad at—”

“ Thio .”

He grins. It seems to delight him to no end, the simple act of me saying his name.

I should go back to Elethior . Or Tourael. Scrub that line in, make sure we know where the boundaries are.

Eyes on me, he pulls a handful of items out of his pocket, does a quick spell, and a wall of black rises between us and the driver. The windows are already tinted, so we’re cocooned together.

My heart kicks up, body jumping—no, cannonballing on board with the light in Thio’s gaze, the way he tongues his lip ring.

“Your turn to use a spell for sex, huh?” I point out.

Thio smirks. “If you want it to be for that.”

“Your—um, driver,” I say. He can’t see us now, but—

Thio’s smile heats up. “Spell muffles sound, too. Plus, he’s paid very well by my family to not care about anything but the road.”

The reminder of who is funding this vehicle should be a bucket of cold water all over this energy. But it’s vindicating knowing the Touraels paid for this pretentious car, and I’m going to have sex with Thio in the back of it.

I’m on his lap before any lucid part of my brain can stop me.

This time, we’re both quick to strip off our jackets, and as the car continues its glacial crawl across the South Street Bridge, Thio and I devour each other like it’s been weeks instead of days.

Each touch doesn’t alleviate, it only exacerbates, fuel on fuel on fuel, burning me up until all I am is pure, unfiltered need.

Need to make him feel good.

Need to expunge these flames inside of me somehow; they’ll blister right through my chest if I don’t.

We end up in a sloppy sixty-nine, elbows and knees propped on the wide car seat, windows fogging, hips thrusting and moans staccato, racing each other and drawing each other out. It’s frantic and messy and perfect.

After we come within seconds of each other, I try to lay on the seat next to him only to topple inelegantly into the footwell.

Thio busts up laughing above me.

I swat his knee. “Dickhead. Help me up.”

He complies. I move to tuck myself away, but he does it for me, then takes care of himself before hauling me back to straddle his lap.

I’d first sat here out of brazen need, but now it’s an echo of him holding me in the lab and telling me about his mom, and every muscle previously relaxed by my orgasm wrenches tight.

Thio’s eyebrows flinch together, a wince.

He dusts his lips across my forehead. “We’re almost to school.”