A Wish, A Kiss, All Amiss Ch. 04

"Where?" His smirk was infuriating; she widened her eyes at him only to be met with even more glaringly white teeth.

"You know where."

"Here?" He dragged his fingers up her arm, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

"No!"

His fingers continued their journey to her shoulder and up her neck; she tilted her head backward. "Here, then?"

She let out a loud frustrated moan.

The long fingers, then, wandered down the valley between her breasts like they had all the time in the world and lingered at the base of the two globes as wetness gathered between her legs, and that was when Rosaline grabbed his hand and placed the palm of it on her round breast, her nipple straining hard against his palm. But he did not move.

"Are you happy with yourself?" She would whack that smile off of his face if she was not so turned on right now.

"Almost."

"Almost?" She gasped the word when his hand shifted, creating a sweet friction against the tip of her breast.

"Tell me why you are leaving."

She shook her head, and his hand left her immediately.

"Gabriel!" she protested with desperate eyes, almost stomping her feet. Almost.

"How about asking me a little nicer?"

"More nicely." Her voice came as a whisper.

"You just can't help it, can you?" With a smile, the asshole returned both of his hands to her, finally, cupping her breasts, kneading softly. She arched her back into him with a satisfied sigh.

Then she melted in his hands.

He lowered his head to set his mouth to her nipple. The tip puckered and grew hard under his hot lips. He rolled it with the tip of his tongue while she moaned his name, her fingers tangled in his soft dark hair, keeping his mouth there to wring pleasure.

"Let me try to help you," He said, lifting his head, his eyes betraying all the desire, before pinching one nipple in his fingers. Her response was a glottal moan, not knowing what he had asked. Not caring. He stroked one hand down the length of her body, coming to a stop at the waistband of her shorts.

"Say yes, Rosaline."

What was his question?

A single nod of consent, and his hand was there, sliding past her waistband, large and warm, covering the apex of her sex, where pleasure formed in the state of liquid. His finger hovered above her wet slit, warm and teasing, drawing lazy circles; the pressure was not nearly enough.

It was too sobering.

"No, wait," she said, pushing Gabriel on the shoulder as sense came back to her. He stilled his movements, then retracted his hand from her sex, making her already regret her next words.

She saw concern in his eyes, her heart pounding in her throat. Maybe he would leave after this. Maybe he would not want to mess with a virgin after all.

Maybe that would be for the best.

"I've never done this before," she whispered, eyes cast down. His erection still big and hard in between their half-naked bodies.

He exhaled, but it did not sound like frustration or irritation. It sounded like relief. Was he relieved that he did not have to deal with a virgin?

Of course he would be relieved. He only thought that he wanted her because of that wish, and now that he knew she was a virgin, her wish stopped working.

Her eyes went back to his. He smiled, the kind that brought out the wrinkles around his eyes. "I know."

Was it that obvious?

When she could not decide between being shocked or mortified, he ran a hand down the side of her cheek and began again, "I mean it doesn't surprise me."

She looked into his smiling eyes then, soft and warm; something was gone from their depth.

"Are you leaving now?" she asked quietly.

He blinked, processing her question, then his eyebrows threaded together. "Why would I do that?"

"This is my own fault."

"What?"

She looked away. The pile of his clothes was still sitting in the sink, a sad wet bunch.

"I accidentally wished for you to kiss me, but I can't control it once I make my wish, and it always...hurt people. Hurt me."

When he looked as confused as a three-year-old in a university lecture, she continued after letting out a breath, "You don't have to do this—have sex with a virgin—especially when said virgin mind controlled you, and you can't tell the difference between your own ideas and her planted wishes."

If Rosaline had not been so close to him, she would not have seen his jaw drop, but the movement was so fleeting that when he spoke again, he was back in control.

"Are you done?"

She ignored his question.

"I'm leaving anyway. I thought we could have one night, but I don't know what I was thinking, inviting you in and asking you to take off your clothes, and I should've never told you that I liked you, because I made you think you like me—"

He silenced her thoughts with a drugging kiss until she could not help but moan into him and wrap her arms around his neck again.

He broke the kiss and spoke against her lips before pulling away to seek her eyes. "You can't take it back now that you've told me."

He pushed that insistent stray hair away from her face. "Listen, I want you. If you're a virgin, I want you; if you're not, I want you." He pushed himself closer to her and lowered his voice. "I want you more than I want anything right now."

She averted her gaze from his heated one and saw his cock standing hard and proud between them. If her cheeks had been burning before from his heated words, then they were now unequivocally aflame.

"If you think for one second that I only kissed you because of your wish, then you are not as smart as your mouth."

"You don't have to insult me," she said.

"You deserve it for thinking that." His tone was soft and not at all insulting.

She shook her head. "I indulged myself in your attention."

He closed his eyes at her words, then tipped his head heavenward.

"Just tell me why you're leaving," he said at last, his voice even and calm.

Considering his demand, she let out a long breath, wrapping her arms around herself, and Gabriel's gaze fell to her now-squeezed breasts as his breath hitched.

She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth and licked the upper one.

"Put it on before I haul you off to the bedroom," he said, handing her the t-shirt. "Temptress."

She did what she was told and followed Gabriel to the living room. He plopped himself down on the couch and pulled her to sit on his towel-wrapped lap, securing her with one arm around her waist.

"Explain."

"The people that were looking for me found me. I can't stay."

He closed his eyes. "With more words, if you please."

She took a long breath and felt Gabriel's fingers gently stroking her side.

"The day we met, I got a text message from them."

"You got a text message?"

She nodded. "They call themselves The Order, they are a secret society formed by the powerful people in the world, and they are asking me to work for them again."

"You've done that before?"

She shifted on his lap, and he ran a hand down the side of her arm.

She nodded again. "Briefly. When they first found me."

"Then why not work with them again?"

She laughed bitterly at the ridiculous question. "Gabriel, no one works with them. We all work for them."

Gabriel grunted and said, "Fair enough, go on."

"My father left us when I was eighteen"—she felt his fingers tighten around her—"it's OK."

"I'm sorry," he whispered against her shoulder, and she shook her head.

"My mother broke down; there was no explanation, he simply left, and she couldn't—"

Rosaline remembered coming home to find her mother sitting in front of the door, waiting for her father to return, all smiles and anticipation. Then the reality would creep into her mother, consuming her, possessing her to howl with desperation and pain. Rosaline imagined that was what purgatory felt like. Not hell, but endless limbo of hollowness.

"—She couldn't cope. So I thought with my powers..."

Shame and regret consumed the end of the sentence.

Gabriel tilted her head to face him and placed a light, chaste kiss on her lips.

She wriggled herself free from his hold, and he let go. "I thought I could fix her.

"I thought if she didn't even know him, then she would not be in so much pain. I thought if she could forget him, then the pain would not exist." She spoke into the vacuum.

"So she did."

She closed her eyes and gently shook her head as if to rid herself of the memory, but she knew better than to mess with the past.

"But that was when The Order first approached me. They monitored strange cases in psychiatric institutes for people like me."

Gabriel pressed his lips into a thin line.

"They told me they'd train me to control my powers and that I was not alone; then suddenly my four-year university tuition was paid in full. My rent was returned to me. And they promised me I could see my mother and that they would help me find my father." She paused and swallowed.

"So I started working for them; it was harmless in the beginning, easy simple tasks, but it got serious, they'd give me a task, send me to dinner functions, place me at fundraising events with a specific wish that I have to make to a specific person.

"It was not right. So I disappeared, hid myself," she said, offering him a feeble smile.

Gabriel looked into her eyes, his hands tightly holding on to her.

"I never actually learned to control it." She looked at her hands. "I don't know what happens once the wish is made."

He shook his head and stroked her cheek. His voice was a tender caress on her distant memory. "Let me help you."

*****

Gabriel crushed her to his chest until he thought he could not breathe. Keeping her there, tightly against his heart, was the only way he knew at the moment to keep his sanity.

He knew most of what happened between her and The Order from the dossier they had on her, but hearing her story told from her lips was more than he could bear. He wondered if they had met before at one of those fundraising events to which The Order sent her, wondered if they had exchanged a pleasantry. After all, were birds trapped in the same cage not bound to meet?

As he held her on his lap, soft and warm and sad, all he cared about was to help her, to make her happy. Happy. He used to think it was such a simple concept: if only he had his freedom, he would be happy.

"It's OK," she whispered against his chest, her arms coming around to hug him.

Then he realized she was the one to give him the strength.

"We will figure something out," he said.

She slowly shook her head.

"How? You do know you are not actually that influential," she asked.

"I know people."

She narrowed her gaze on him.

"You think I sold this many books without having to know people?"

"So you're saying a bunch of literary agents can help me."

"Book deals don't grow on trees."

"Most people work for their book deals."

He ran his tongue along his front teeth and said, "I'm not most people."

She gave him a noncommittal grunt.

"What does that mean?" he asked with a lowered voice.

"Nothing." She turned her head away from him with a snap.

The movement knocked her momentarily off balance and he tightened his grip on her while she wriggled her hips and propped a hand to his chest to keep herself steady. Her hand softened. And when she looked at him again, it was with rosy cheeks and wetted lips.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, tucking that strand of hair behind her ear.

"Nothing."

"In a Shakespearean sense?"

"You know, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," she said.

"Is it just a cigar now?" He let go of her, extracting his arms and hands from her body.

"Not anymore," she said, and he laughed.

"Then tell me what you want," he said as he felt his cock stir.

She shook her head again, a maddening crimson on her pretty face.

"Where is your smart mouth when you need it?"

She scowled.

"I don't need it. I don't need you," she said. "I've survived thirty years on my own."

And with that, she grasped the hem of her top, pulled it over her head and sent it flying to the floor. She cupped one of her breasts with her own hand. The softness of her breast spilled over her lithe fingers and between them, her nipple budding, teasing and taunting at Gabriel.

She dared him with her heated gaze when her other hand slithered down her torso past the waistband of her shorts and—a moan. He closed his eyes at that noise—those noises. She was rocking her hips against his hard cock, her thumb stroking the tip of her nipple.

"I would be happy to aid in whatever you're trying to achieve here," he growled. "All you need to do is ask. Politely."

She shot him a look, dared him. "If only you had the powers."

He had no power; he laughed, placing both hands on her busy ones to still them.

"Let me."

He guided her to stand up and pulled down her shorts; the fabric dropped to the floor like it was never meant to be covering her shapely thighs and curvy hips and pink panties.

Then the woman blushed. "This is not exactly sexy..."

Shifting to the edge of the couch, he positioned her between his thighs and pulled her head down to kiss away her doubts. He would make her believe that she was the perfect woman even if it killed him.

"You're all I want," he said against her forehead and placed his hands on either side of her hips, stroking the seam of the thin cotton fabric mindlessly.

"May I?" he asked, hooking his fingers into the materials.

"Yes." It came like a breathy moan. He wanted to make her say that a hundred times before the night was over.

As he rolled down her panties, he took in the soft hair that sat at the center of her, covering the core of her pleasure; then her hand came into view, blocking his enjoyment.

"No, Miss I've-Survived-Thirty-Years-On-My-Own, let me look at you." He pried her hand away and replaced it with his own.

Her slit was soft, warm and wet. For him.

He bit back a groan. He had not groaned like a teenage boy since he was, well, a teenage boy, and if it continued at this rate, he would come like a teenage boy.

Pacing himself, he exhaled deeply. She stood in front of him like a goddess caught amidst carnal pleasures: cheeks flushed, lips parted, eyes trained on him, her nipples budding at the tips of her rounded breasts, soft curves of her waist leading down to the oval of her hips.

He flexed his three fingers that covered her slit. "Do you like it here?"

She nodded, biting on her lower lip. His long fingers picked up a steady pace, stroking, pressing, coaxing the rush of wetness and her uneven breaths.

He moved his hand up closer to her clit. "Or here—?"

"Yes!"

"I see we found a better spot. Shall we try a different movement?" He then started drawing small circles with his fingers. His other hand stole up the side of her body and found her tight nipple, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger.

"Gabriel!" Her arms came onto his shoulders to steady herself.

"Yes?" he drawled. "I thought you could do this by yourself."

"Yes," she said, trying to sound indignant.

"That's the wrong kind of yes I'm working for here." He slowed down his movement to tease her, but she started rocking herself against his fingers to maintain the friction, using him to bring herself pleasure, punishing him.

He exhaled harshly, calming himself down. If he touched his hard cock now, it would be over before it began, so he lifted her and laid her on the couch, pushing her thighs apart and knelt between them, hovering above her naked form.

Her back arched, arms thrown up, she was an erotic offering, his to take. Her eyes behind the thick lashes reveled in desire and lust. Her neck extended; the soft curls of lush locks spilled on the cushion. And those pink full lips the source of his demise.

Impatient, she started squirming from his lack of action. He smiled as a warm and fuzzy feeling flooded him and lowered himself to steal a kiss.

Then he felt her hands on his hip, working to loosen the towel, seducing him to give in to her, to give up control; he broke the kiss and caught her wrists.

"No, Temptress."

He watched a myriad of emotions chase through her eyes before she closed them and whispered, "Because you don't want me."

"The fact that you think that's a possibility is the heart of the problem." He pulled away, running a hand down her cheek, wanting to reassure her.

His hand traveled down to play at her nipple, rolling the tight bud, and his other hand joined the maneuver, mirroring the teasing on the other side; she let out a loud gasp and flexed her hips towards his long, straining length, seeking relief.

When he spoke again, there was gravel in his dark voice. "When I do fuck you, I want you to think of nothing but how hard my cock aches for you, and there will be absolutely no room for anything else between you and me."

She whimpered.

Sliding his hand farther down, caressing the curvature of her hips and relishing the softness and smooth skin, it dipped lower to cover her pussy, stroking with a maddening cadence that was matched by her grinding hips.

He ran a finger up and down the slit, coating it with her wet desire, and when she parted her warm thighs, tempting and inviting him, he parted her slit and slid a finger in her.

His stomach muscles flexed and his cock jerked at the warmth and the wetness as she sheathed his finger tightly, engulfing him. He considered reneging on his decision and fucking her right now, but his pride and something else held him back, convincing himself that she deserved more than an impromptu one-night-stand with someone that would trade her freedom in to gain his.

"More," she moaned her command.

"So polite." He let his thumb brush the bundle of nerves, the source of her pleasure. She twisted and writhed to produce more contact.

"Gabriel!" It sounded like a moan, but knowing her, he would venture to guess that it was more like a curse.

"I did say to ask politely."

"Gabriel," she whined on a swallow. "Harder."

Polite or not, he could not resist her. Letting out a growl from deep within his throat, he increased the pace of his fingers. He maintained consistent pressure on her clit with his thumb while seeking the ridged patch in her with his other finger, and she tensed her tight inner muscles and rocked her hips upwards.

With a light tap at the patch, she screamed his name and shot off from the couch. Gabriel felt her wetness trickle down the curve of his finger, melting his control.

He was reaching to loosen the knot of the towel with his free hand when he felt the towel being torn from him, and before he could stop her, Rosaline took his hard length in her hand. He sucked in a sharp breath as her thumb brushed the tip of it, lingering at the dimple.

She began matching the rhythm of his fingers in her pussy to her wrist, stroking him, tugging at his cock. The sighs and moans of their pleasure coupled with the little suction noises drowned out the thundering rain.

He increased his pressure on her clit and picked up the pacing inside of her. His hips flexed when she mirrored his movements on his cock. His free hand came up to flick her nipple. She went over the edge, shattering under his hand and convulsing around his finger.

But he barely had time to admire her rapture when his own release took hold of him; he covered her small hand with his large one and with her hand in his, he brought himself to climax, spilling his seed on her flushed body.

He leaned down for a searing kiss before squeezing himself next to her on the couch, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her close.

"Stay," Gabriel said against her soft hair, his release glistening on her stomach.

"I'm not your dog." She lifted her head to look at him, and he would not forget that smile.

"Your smart mouth is working again, Minx?" He lifted an eyebrow.