by Amelia Shaw
I walked around his body, slowly... watching him tense as I ran my fingers over his back. The massive muscles in his shoulders, his smooth, hot skin.
My fingertips found creases of scar tissue, evidence of the battles he’d fought.
“Don’t...” he whispered, tensing, but not stopping me in my explorations.
I could tell how hard he was trying to fight the need to stop me. How much he wanted me to just lay down on the bed and ignore him the way we’d done it last time.
I wasn’t doing that. Not today. He needed to be loved, worshipped, in every way I wanted to.
“Don’t what?” I whispered, stepped closer, wrapping my arms around his waist and pressing my breasts against his back. “Don’t love this body of yours? Don’t you want me to know how hard you fight? How strong you are? To admire how far you’ve come, to be here with me.” I pressed my lips to his back. “I love all of you. Don’t hide anything from me.”
He shuddered again and this time a soft moan filled the air around us.
I circled back around, smiling up at him as I dropped to my knees and began undoing the laces on his pants.
This part of him terrified me a little. Besides him, I hadn’t had any experience with this. I wanted to make sure, more than anything, that I was doing it right, in a way that pleased him. My stomach tightened and fear made adrenaline course along my legs. But there was something else in my belly. Excited butterflies that told me that he intrigued me just as much.
Because, I yearned to accumulate this knowledge for myself, and I was so glad I got to learn with him.
As his pants fell to the floor and his flesh sprung up to point at my face, heat flowed between my thighs. I curled my fingers into loose fists. I didn’t want to touch him right away. I wanted to stare, to take him in with my eyes.
Yes, definitely more than a little intrigued...
I glanced up at him. He was staring down at me, an intense look of concentration etched into every line on his face. He didn’t know what I was going to do, what I was going to say. It made him hesitant, unsure, and it made me feel more powerful than I expected to, especially dealing with a warrior like him.
“Can I...?” I asked, gesturing to him. I felt silly asking. I was sure more experienced girls didn’t, they just took what they wanted into their own hands. But I wanted to make sure. I didn’t want to scare him. I still wanted to be sensitive to his own inexperience. He wasn’t used to the overwhelming sense of love I felt for him—or wanted to make him feel in this moment.
“Can you... what?” he asked, his voice strangled.
My face that heated. I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t know how to put it in words. So, I just wrapped my hand around his length and bent my head to taste him.
A loud groan sounded in the air as I explored him with my hands and tongue. His texture, his taste, his everything. Though he was rock solid, his skin was soft and clearly sensitive. Each time I swirled my tongue on the under his tip, he sucked in air and a shudder ripped through his body.
I enjoyed a moment of feminine satisfaction, knowing I was pleasing my lover.
Then I was picked up and thrown onto the bed.
“Oof,” I said as I bounced on the mattress and my head landed on the pillow.
I laughed as he prowled over the top of me, his heat enveloping me.
“This was supposed to be my turn to explore you,” I pointed out, though I wanted him to know I was most definitely not complaining.
I smiled up at him and ran my hands up his strong arms.
He lay down on my body and thrust against me, showing me how aroused he was.
I gasped as an answering reaction rippled through my head.
He growled down at me. “I could take you right now. You’ve explored me enough.”
I giggled as I wrapped my arms and legs around him. “Then take me.”
He shook his head. “You’re not ready.”
I certainly felt ready, but when he pulled back, flicked his fingers to the side and my underwear disappeared, I laughed. I’d forgotten he hadn’t even begun to touch me yet. I had been so wrapped up in everything I felt during my exploration of him, I forgot about myself. I wondered if he felt the same way when we were together last time and it was he who was doing the exploring.
So maybe I wasn’t writhing with desire quite yet...
He pulled away and I put my arms out to him, wanting him down with me, back on top of me.
Instead, he pressed a lingering kiss to my lips, then moved south, placing kisses in a trail of where he decided to venture to.
To the tips of my breasts, to my aching belly, and lower.
He loved me as I’d tried to love him, until I was twisting and turning and crying out for him to finally join us together.
When he finally did, I welcomed him into my body with as much relief as it was perfect bliss. My arms wrapped around him. My fingers sunk into his skin. He let out a grunt of satisfaction and I did as well.
There was something about us being connected like this, something that insisted on it being right and true and absolutely pure.
Our bodies moved together in a primal, animalistic dance. His lips never left mine. At one point, there was a strong sensation in me to want to breathe but I didn’t want to break the kiss. His thrusts pushed me higher, invoking beautiful responses in every part of me.
I dug my nails into his back as he moved faster, his teeth biting into my shoulder as he grunted with his own desire.
I wrapped my legs around his back, holding him as tightly as possible as I reached my peak. When I did, I cried out, gasping out my pleasure as he flooded me with his.
His groan in my ear sent a fresh wave of ecstasy through my body as I heard his pleasure match my own.
When he stopped moving and rolled onto his side, I clung like a limpet on a rock, refusing to be separated from him. I was desperate. I craved his warmth, his body.
I met his gaze and smiled. “Thank you,” I murmured. I felt silly for thanking him, but it felt like the right thing to say. “That was so perfect.”
He didn’t respond with words, only tilted my head further up with his fingers and kissed me again. Softly. Sweetly.
Then he untangled our limbs so he could cuddle me properly on his chest. It was the only thing I was willing to loosen my grip on him for.
His heart beat a steady drum-like rhythm beneath my ear and I sighed with happiness. My eyelids drooped. A strong sense of safety wrapped around me and I allowed myself to close my eyes completely, even though I wasn’t ready to go to sleep just yet.
“I want this moment to last forever,” I said, like some sort of cliché in one of Bella’s romance novels. “Is there some sort of Fae magic you can weave to just stop time?”
He kissed the top of my head and stroked my hair. “That would be a great solution.”
We lay there for long moments, the only sounds in the air our breathing and sighs. He hadn’t answered my question about stopping time, which I understood. It was probably too intense a subject to bring up so early in our relationship anyway.
But I couldn’t help feeling disappointed, so I decided the best course of action would be to change the subject.
I propped myself up on my arm, determined to learn more about him. “Would you live in a Fae realm forever? If you could, I mean,” I asked, tilting my head to the side and pulling my hair over my shoulder. The sweat that had accumulated was doing its best to keep my hair matted together, leaving me hot and bothered and not in the good sense.
He frowned at me. “What do you mean, if I could?”
I stared at him, confused. Was he saying that was an option?
“Hang on. Are you telling me you choose to work for the warlocks, and are deliberately staying in the magical realm when you could live and work with the Fae?” I asked. I didn’t see how that was possible. “Why would anyone choose this realm over Faerie? I mean... the Fae realm is so beautiful.”
He shrugged, glancing
away. “This is my home.”
Again, it wasn’t an actual answer.
“But...” that doesn’t make sense! I took a breath and forced myself to slow down. To understand. “Explain it to me.”
He sighed. “You don’t need to ask me about my past, Ava,” he said, staring up at the ceiling. “It’s fine, it’s done.”
I squeezed his arm. “I want to know everything. Tell me.”
He finally met my gaze, his eyes shadowed with doubt and worry. “How much do you know about me already? I’m sure Mallory must have told you something.”
I nodded. No point lying. “She did. She said your mother was a witch, your father was a Fae. That your mother died at birth and you were raised by your aunt. A Council member... I think. Or something like that.”
Which was pretty much all I knew.
“That’s it?”
I grinned. “That and the fact that everyone thinks you’re super scary.”
“Because I’m an abomination,” Tavlor finished for me.
I propped myself up further next to him and whacked him on the arm. “You’re not! You’re a miracle! And the best combination of two people who are insanely powerful. If you were ever told those things as a child it was because the Council wanted to control you, make you think that you were inferior. And you know why they did that?”
He shook his head. “Tell me.”
I smiled. “Because you’re smarter, and more powerful than all of them. They’re jealous as anything, and why wouldn’t they be? You’ll live three times as long as them, and have more knowledge, and more power.” Stupid idiots. “They should have been nicer to you, because now we’re gonna beat them, and I certainly don’t feel sorry for them.”
Tavlor was nodding, but I realized in that moment that I was doing all the talking and that wasn’t going to help me find out more about him. I needed to take a breath and do some listening if I was going to understand him, if I was going to truly know who he was.
“Sorry, you were going to tell me about you, about your past, and I’m butting in,” I said quickly, my cheeks pinching a red color across my skin.
I always did this. In my house, between my sisters and my mother, it was jump in, or cease to exist.
“It’s fine... you’ve got the idea.”
“I don’t,” I insisted. “Tell me why you stay here, with people who don’t admire you. Respect you. Nothing. I just want to understand.”
He bowed his head. “I told you, it’s my home.”
I sighed and rolled onto my back, pulling the blankets up over us. But I waited, in case he was willing to give me something. I pressed my lips together, to keep myself from saying something I would later regret, for pushing him when he didn’t want to be pushed.
Finally, after so long I was almost asleep, he started. “I don’t have any affinity to the Fae people. I... don’t know my father. No-one has stepped forward to claim me. No-one seems to know who he is, or was. I don’t know why. Is he alive, dead? I have no idea.”
I opened my eyes and looked over to him. “So, you feel like an orphan.”
“I am an orphan. The only family I’ve ever known is my aunt, and her... cronies. The Witches who hated me, feared me...”
“What about your aunt?” I furrowed my brow.
He smiled, and this time I saw the most amount of warmth for a single person I’d ever seen on Tavlor’s face. “She loved me, the best she could,” he said. “She didn’t have any children of her own, and she loved her sister. So, I can’t complain about how she treated me. She was nice in a world full of hate.”
“So...” I tried putting everything together. “So, you feel like the only family you have is here, and since she was part of the Council, then you would have grown up respecting them. Wanting to be a part of their world...”
He nodded.
Damn...
I sighed. “I understand, I suppose,” I said, lifting a shoulder in a strange shrug since I was still lying on my back. “I just wish you could see yourself the way I see you, rather than the way they do. It’s not fair.”
Tavlor rolled onto his side so he could look straight at me. “Well, I could... if you wanted to open your mind up to me again.”
“Yes!” I twisted over and grinned at him. Why hadn’t I thought about that before?
He frowned. “You’re not afraid, at all, are you?”
“Why would I be?” I asked him.
There was a glimmer of something I didn’t catch that crossed his face. Relief? Wonder? Surprise? I wasn’t sure. It still made no sense to me and I lifted my brow, hoping he would get the point and understand I was asking him to continue.
“Most people would never allow such an intrusive spell because it reveals everything,” he said slowly. His eyes dropped to my lips and I sucked in a breath. How I longed for him to kiss me again. “Every thought and feeling.”
He waited, as though expecting me to go ‘oh, then I can’t let you.’
Instead, I shrugged. “Go for it. I’m not hiding anything.”
And I wasn’t.
If anything, this was the perfect way to show Tavlor just how much I felt for him.
From the moment I’d seen him, I’d been in awe of his beauty, our attraction, his strength and power.
I tilted my head towards him in invitation.
He leaned over and placed his palm on my forehead. I closed my eyes and relaxed, knowing that these sorts of spells could hurt if you fought them.
Tavlor’s words slipped into my mind effortlessly and I let him explore, uncaring about where he went or what he saw. There was a gentle coolness in my mind. I knew it was him. I knew he was trying to be careful, almost like he was afraid of what he was going to see. Like he didn’t quite trust me.
Not yet.
I wasn’t sure if I could influence what he would see inside my mind, but I let my memory wander back to the first time I’d seen him. How strong he’d looked, how tough. How male.
And how much I’d wanted him.
When Tavlor finally let go, I opened my eyes, only to find there were tears in his.
“Oh, my god, are you okay?” I reached over to cup his face. Had he seen something bad? I didn’t think I had any bad memories that involved him, but maybe something I considered innocent wasn’t actually innocent.
He shook his head. “You aren’t afraid of me.”
“No, of course not.”
“You’d... marry me if I asked you to.”
I swallowed, embarrassed he’d found that little nugget of information. “Well, I love you. So...”
He reached for me. “But that would mean children... abominations like me...”
I laughed, grabbing him and pulling him closer. “Beautiful, powerful, perfect children like you... Didn’t you learn anything while you were inside my head?”
He nodded and rolled us so he was once again on top of me, his heat pressing me into the mattress.
I reached up to him, stroking my fingers over his beloved face.
“What did you learn?” I asked, hoping he’d gotten more out of his exploration than revealing all my secrets.
He kissed my lips and whispered against my skin, “That I should never let you go.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. Hopefully that wasn’t a choice that would soon be taken out of his hands.
We’d find out.
Chapter 7.
TAVLOR AND I DIDN’T leave my bedroom for the rest of the day or through the night. Why would we?
We had a bathroom, we had magic to create food, and we had each another.
Nothing else mattered.
If my father had come looking for us, he didn’t knock on the door, or call out to us. Just because he couldn’t hear us and what we did, didn’t mean we couldn’t hear him. So, we were left alone in our blissful ignorance.
In a way, I was grateful. I didn’t want to have to worry about what was going to happen now. Would my evidence be enough to persuade the Council that I was innoc
ent? Would there be ramifications for Tavlor choosing to risk it all by helping me, not to mention my father and him protecting me?
I didn’t know, and every minute that passed where we didn’t get an answer was torture As such, I distracted myself with Tavlor, with learning as much about him as I could, about his past, about his body. It was the only thing that got me through the day.
The next morning, I was woken by the perfect sound.
“Good morning, beautiful.” Tavlor’s voice slid into my ear as he lay behind me.
I crawled out of sleep as slowly as I could, memorizing every second of this blissful time. The time before we had to go to the Council and find out what their next move was. The time before I found out if I had done the right thing by revealing my mother’s secrets to everyone.
My eyes popped open.
Damn. I was awake now.
I turned over and stared up at my lover. We were both naked, and it still felt a little strange to be so, at all, let alone with another person.
I’d never slept naked a night in my life.
But as his hand slipped over my breasts and came to rest naturally on my belly, I was sure I could get used to it.
“Good morning. Did you sleep well?” I asked, not exactly sure what post coital protocol was.
He smiled. “Better than I have in... well, years. Probably longer.”
I snuggled into him, wondering what had caused him to sleep so well. Our activities? My physical presence? Or the safety of the enchanted walls around us? Maybe a combination of everything?
“I’m glad,” I said as I pressed my face to his chest and listened to his heartbeat.
I closed my eyes for a moment and gave myself this chance to try and memorize everything. Once I got up, everything would be different. At least here, now, I could hold onto him, I could feel his heart beating and remind myself he was alive, he was safe.
I didn’t want to get up, but there was something pulling at me, telling me it was time to start the day. I couldn’t avoid the Council’s response. I didn’t want to avoid it. But at the same time, I was nervous.
There was a knock at the door.
“Ava,” my father called, “we need to leave in about half an hour.”