“God, Rachel, you are such a tease,” he said, and then he leaned in. His mouth was demanding, rough as he let go of my wrists and grasped the back of my head, crushing himself to me. The line he held sang in me, lighting my synapses in a cascading flash that spilled from my lips down to my groin, and I relished it, even as I despised what he was doing.

I’d fucking had it with men making inappropriate passes at me.

My hands pushed against the books, and we shifted forward, our kiss never breaking as he found the back of the tall chair and stopped. I never could have done it if he hadn’t let me, but I wasn’t gouging his eyes out, and since what he was doing to me felt really good, he probably figured I was his.

He was still holding my head, and his tongue was making inroads, causing my pulse to pound. A small sound of desire slipped from me, and Al let go of my face, lifting me up so I could wrap my legs around his body, feeling him against me. My hands were in his hair as I drank him in, taking the line through him, learning the paths that the energy took from him to me. God, it felt good, this careful exploration, and I shivered. I knew he was doing the same, and it only made me angrier.

Al broke from me, and we both gasped. “Itchy witch,” he said, looking me up and down as he held me to him. “My God. You are…Damn. You have no idea how long it’s been.”

I smiled, my arms around his neck and my fingers running through the hair on the nape of his neck. “I don’t think so, Algaliarept,” I murmured, leaning in and playing with the corner of his mouth with my own. “I’m not a tease. I needed to know to…hurt you.”

He sucked in his breath, but it was too late. My legs tightened around him, and I pressed his face to mine. My thoughts dove into his, finding the path among his synapses that he’d first burned eons ago to safely bring a ley line into him. Punching through his thin film of surprise, I grasped the ley line…and I pulled.

“No!” he shrieked, realizing his mistake.

My back arched as the power flooded in, painful and delicious. I could hear Al cry out, but it was as if I swam in glory itself, and I pulled him to me, closer, wanting more, arcing it through me back to the line, burning clean and bright, lighting the smut in me with pure fire from the gods.

The soft pop of displaced air almost went unnoticed as my soul chimed, tuned to the ley line I was drowning Al in, but a faint whisper of self-preservation caused me to open my eyes. Everything was bathed in a silvery white light. Everything, that is, but the flat foot in the purple slipper headed for me.