by Godiva Glenn
Alethea hopped up. “Right. Well, let’s eat! Then it’ll be beach time.”
Blair sat under a large umbrella and watched Alethea tip-toeing along the water’s line. Occasionally she would bend over and retrieve a seashell. She wore a pink and yellow two-piece swimsuit, as it seemed impossible for small triangles of a typical bikini to support her breasts. He didn’t care what it was called. It was perfect.
The scene was surreal. A beautiful woman—his beautiful woman—against the stunning blue-green water and white sands. This was truly something he could never even have dreamed of before.
Nearby, Vevina was lying directly in the path of the waves, allowing the water to come up and cover her completely. The stunt had caused a bit of panic earlier, when everyone thought she would drown, but now it was reduced to Nikki sitting next to her and trying to find her own ‘inner water spirit.’ Pavel picked at the label of his beer and motioned to the women.
“You should probably be out there. Only creeps sit back and watch.”
Blair scoffed. “Wouldn’t that make you a creep?”
“No. I’m plotting.” He took a swig of beer. “I know Alethea is trying to set me up with Nikki, but I don’t know if Nikki knows that.”
“Really?”
“Why else would I be here? Women love to play matchmaker. I have to admit, Nikki is sweet. Gorgeous. Funny. Terrible at making sandwiches, but nobody’s perfect,” he joked.
“Then why aren’t you out there?”
“I don’t want to seem like I’m trying too hard. Plus, we’re the only guys since Joseph refuses to take even a minute’s break from standing around and looking surly.”
“If you want Nikki, it seems like you should do what it takes to get her.”
Pavel laughed and handed Blair the rest of his beer. “It’s not that simple. If Nikki wants to be picked up, sure, that’s what I do. But if she wants to have fun with the girls and not think about romance, then I’d be intruding. The seduction game is complicated. It’s like a minefield. Worth it, but not something to be rushed.”
He stood and sauntered over to the water. Both Nikki and Vevina looked pleased to have him join, but Blair only watched them for a moment before his attention returned to Alethea.
She’d said it was okay that they were moving fast. Pavel just said it shouldn’t be rushed. And his personal opinion, well, perhaps it didn’t matter since he wasn’t human. Still, he was tired of sitting, even if it was thoroughly entertaining to see Alethea prancing around in her swimsuit.
Uninterested in the beer, he twisted the glass bottle down into the sand as a makeshift holder. He rose from his chair and stretched. The sun was pleasant on his skin, though he was still adjusting to the strange sensation of a layer of sunscreen protecting him. He had a feeling he didn’t need it, but his protest had died on his lips once Alethea had started applying it to his arms. He crossed the warm sand and joined her, feeling the contrasting cool water rush over his feet. “If you want more shells, I bet Vevina could call them up. Her magic is much weaker on Earth, but she could try.”
“She said the same thing. But no, part of the fun is searching for them.” She bent over and scooped a handful of sand, then let the water rinse through her fingers to reveal a tiny white shell.
She took it back and walked it to the pile she had growing further up from the tide. When she returned, she took his hand and they walked deeper into the water until they were past the waves and up to their stomachs in water—or at least, she was. The water barely covered his thighs.
“This is nice,” he said.
“If you stand still, sometimes fish will bump into you.” She traced a finger over his bare chest. She’d been touching it as often as possible, and he had to admit that each time she did it was a jolt to his senses. “I’m torn between behaving appropriately in front of our friends and just jumping you right here.”
He took her hands in his and held them at her sides. They stood close enough that he could rest his chin on the top of her head, but instead he looked past her, to the horizon. “If you keep touching me like that, there may be little choice.”
“Like that? I haven’t touched anywhere scandalous.”
“My tree is connected to me deeper than you realize. It’s not ink on skin. It’s magic burned into my bones. It’s my inner nature.” He looked down at her. “And even if it wasn’t, you don’t have to be touching me there to get that sort of response. Especially when you’re wet and enticing.”
She raised on her toes and gave him a quick kiss, though it probably would have been longer had she not wobbled and lost her balance. He steadied her with his hands on her waist and drew her closer. She wiggled against him, her cheeks turning pink.
“I wasn’t trying to tease you like that.”
“But now you are.”
“Yes. Now, I definitely am.” She bit her lip and glanced back at the shore. “I don’t’ know what’s come over me, to be honest. I don’t usually have this drive. You just… stir something in me.”
“Does it bother you?”
“Bother isn’t the right word. More like… I keep saying it’s okay, but I still keep pausing and second-guessing it. It’s driving me a little crazy.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Maybe we should have a rule that we don’t discuss things right now. Just let it be.”
“Are you sure?” It sounded contradictory to everything about relationships.
“Very sure. No deep thoughts. Only relaxing.”
He suspected that rule wouldn’t last long but agreed by kissing her forehead. Taking a deep breath, he focused his thoughts on anything but Alethea to convince his blood it was needed elsewhere. Something nudged his leg and looking down he saw a shadow. “You were serious about the fish.”
“Of course. I’m not sure if they think legs are food or what.” She searched the water around them.
He took a step away from her and turned in a circle, absorbing the moment and the sensation of water surrounding him. It made him think back to the video Brook had shown him, and closing his eyes allowed him to hear the splashing water with more clarity, submersing him in what he realized was a dream come true. How easy it was to forget how new everything was around Alethea. He had to balance it all. “I’d like to learn how to swim,” he announced. “Can we do that?”
“I am probably a horrible teacher, but yes.”
Something moving in the corner of his vision made him turn. “I think Marie is trying to get your attention.”
Alethea looked over and her face fell. Marie was holding up a phone and pointing to it. Alethea started back to dry land. “Looks like Dad has just figured out where I am.”
The stars above twinkled faintly in the sky. This may have been the hardest part to get used to for Blair. In the light of day, it was easy to forget the sun because his focus was on everything the sun lit up. He noticed the simple colors of trees and plants and didn’t think twice about the star warming it all. At night, there wasn’t much to look at except the sky. Nothing else to ponder but the moon and stars.
And this was fine, really. Anything to take his mind off of something he couldn’t change.
Alethea had spoken to her father at length, and though she tried to keep spirits high afterward, clearly the mood had changed. They hadn’t spoken about it, however, because she’d immediately reminded him that such things weren’t vacation topics. That didn’t mean it was going away, only that it was being tucked aside for now. It gnawed at him if he allowed it to.
Thankfully, Nikki had made no such agreement with Alethea, and after a dinner filled with awkward silence and Alethea staring off into space, they’d gone for a walk. Alethea made Blair promise to wait for her in the hot tub, so here he was. Dutifully sitting in warm bubbles under a surprisingly cool breeze. She was right, it was refreshing and unexpected given how hot the sun burned during the day.
The glass door slid open and Alethea walked out, once again donning the pink and yello
w swimsuit. Her long curls were piled sky-high in a messy tumble that accentuated her lovely round cheeks. She stepped into the tub and he raised his arm, so she could snuggle close to him.
“This is exactly what I needed,” she breathed.
“Do you feel any better? Get anything resolved?”
She pulled his arm tight around her waist and played with his hand. “Nothing can be resolved until I’m back home. For now, I just want to continue with my goal.”
“And what is that goal, exactly?”
She made a frustrated sound. “That borders close to the line of things I don’t want to talk about.” She took a deep breath. “First, I suppose this is me soul searching. Trying to figure out what to do with my future. What being a princess means. How far I’ll go for my dad’s approval. How to get that approval without getting a lobotomy.”
With his free hand, he rubbed her thigh reassuringly. As he’d promised, he didn’t delve. He simply made a sound of understanding.
“Then second, I wanted this time away from the outside world to see how we work together. How we fit outside the few hours of a date. Normally that’s the sort of thing that would occur over time, over months, really. Except I don’t want to go public unless what we have contains depth.”
“And—” he stopped himself. He wanted to talk about it, but he’d promised. The more he thought of it, the more he hated the concept of promises. Trees didn’t make promises. In his thousands of years, he’d never made a promise. That made him take this one seriously, even if it seemed wholly a bad idea. He skirted the topic. “Are there particular things we should do for the second goal? Things that don’t require lengthy discussions and planning?”
She slid easily onto his lap. The water bubbled and splashed and made constant white noise, but she remained quiet. She simply stared at him. He stared back, unsure of what this meant or where it was going. This close he could study how beautiful she really was. Her skin nearly glowed in the moonlight, and her eyes were dark pools that seemed to swallow color entirely yet that didn’t make her any less intoxicating. Her lips were soft pink when free of lipstick, and equally as alluring without as with. The urge to lean forward, to close the gap between them and taste those lips, boiled close to the surface.
“I’ve only been with one other man,” she whispered.
It was so faint, he thought for a moment that he’d imagined it. But her face was already red, telling him that for some reason this information bothered her. “I don’t care. I’ve told you my past. I have no place to judge you, nor the desire to.”
“No, that’s not why I brought it up.” She licked her lips. “I just mean… I guess I just wanted to put that out there. Fooling around is one thing, but sex—real sex—I’ve only ever trusted one man with that.”
The regret on her face told him that it was misplaced trust. “I don’t want to hurt you. There’s no pressure. If anything I do feels like pressure, you can tell me to back off.”
She grinned and ran her fingers through the hair along his temple. “I’m sitting in your lap. If anyone’s applying pressure, it’s me. And that’s what I’m saying. I trust you. It doesn’t have to happen tonight, but I’m just stating that at this very moment, I’m ready for it to happen whenever.”
He kissed her then. With his hands on her waist pulling her closer, he did his best to help clear her head. She tasted like wine and sadness, so he knew that tonight would not be the right night to make love, but it was a good night to hold her close. A good night to make beautiful memories.
She rocked on his lap. It hadn’t taken much to get him hard, and she wasn’t shy about showing her enthusiasm about it. He loved that about her. From the first day when she’d kissed him out of the blue, he’d realized that she hid explosive passion. It started to dawn on him what she was battling. Impulse. Reckless behavior. She wanted to be free of consequence, if only for a few days. It’s not like she wanted chaos. She just wanted to be a woman, not a princess.
He knew something about needing freedom. His hands stroked up and down her smooth back as he inhaled her scent and tasted her lips. She squirmed, and her breasts flattened against his chest, making him hungry for more. Every sensation she triggered was pulling his sanity apart. Not tonight. Not tonight. Even if it killed him, he wasn’t going to bury himself in her tonight. Tomorrow, after she’d slept off the anger and frustration she had, then he’d have her. They could have their memory clean of anything toxic.
In the meanwhile, though...
He yanked her head back and listened to her breathing heavily into the cool night air. Licking her neck, he recalled the sweet taste of her pussy and how magnificent it was to have her thighs pressing against his cheeks while she squirmed and screamed. He bit the gentle slope of her shoulder, making her yelp with delight. His tongue traveled her skin until he found himself in her cleavage.
“I’m supposed to be making you unconscious with pleasure tonight, remember?”
He licked the exposed top of her breast. “Everything having to do with you brings me pleasure.”
“I was aiming for something a little more specific.”
“You can do whatever you’d like. But… would you let me do things to these?” The fabric was just thin enough that he could see the outline of her hard nipples and he edged his teeth over one.
She shivered and released a pleasured sound. “Define ‘things’ first.”
“I’d like to slide between them.”
“Slide...”
“I’d like to fuck them,” he clarified.
Her head snapped down and she met his gaze. “I, well...” She licked her lips, which were noticeably reddened from their kiss. “I’ve never done that.”
“Yes, then?”
“I’m curious to try.”
“I suspect it would work best outside of here,” he said glancing to the bedroom.
“Then what are we waiting for? “She rose from the water and held out her hand to him.
They entered the room but left the lights off so that the moon softly illuminated everything. He stood in wet shorts, aching to take them off but realizing it would be infinitely more satisfying to have Alethea handle that task. She had entered the room first and now stood by the bed, leaning against one of the posts with her thumbs hooked beneath the shoulder straps of her swimsuit.
“You first,” she said, her eyes trained on the visible protrusion of his erection.
“Help me with it.” He stroked himself through the wet fabric.
She pulled her straps for a moment then released them with a loud snap. An eager light came to her face and met him where he stood. “If you insist.”
Her fingers tucked into the waistband, but he held her wrists.
“No. Down on your knees.”
She scoffed, and a new expression appeared. Confusion. “Are you kidding?”
“No,” he said slowly. “I thought it was your aim to please me tonight. It was your demand, actually.”
“Right, but...”
Did I misunderstand? “Alethea?”
Her eyes darted around. He released her hands and she took a step back. “Princesses don’t do that. I’ve never done that.”
He searched her face for a sign that she was joking. “Is it a law?”
“No, of course it’s not.”
“Then you don’t want to do it.” Her resistance seemed strange, and it was disappointing, but he didn’t want to argue.
“I... I don’t know. I guess I just thought it was beneath me.”
He arched a brow. “You won’t consider it? I suppose you don’t have to...” He almost missed the red tone flooding her cheeks and the heavy-lidded gaze that swept his body. “But I would like it. I’d like it if you knelt before me.”
She gnawed her lower lip, considering his words. He took her hand and placed it on his hard shaft.
“I want to give this to you,” he growled. “I want to see your pink lips wrapped around it. Maybe I’ll even cum on your tongue so
you can taste me the way I’ve tasted you.”
She moved close, but her eyes remained hidden from him.
He lifted her chin with two fingers. “Do you want to?”
“I do,” she whispered.
“Then get on your knees, lovely.”
She lowered herself down excruciatingly slowly, slowly enough that he wondered if she’d change her mind, but she hadn’t. The moment she was settled, she pulled down his shorts and watched his thick erection spring free. Her hand wrapped around his base, her fingers wiggling to try and touch on either side, but she couldn’t, and this made her smile.
She darted a glance upward then back down to target. He could tell she was thinking hard. Maybe she was worried about doing this wrong, not pleasing him, but that wasn’t possible. He’d been thinking about her all day. She’d been teasing him and making him rock-hard, and he’d been having to meditate to keep from spilling at the mere brush of her skin against his.
“I don’t want to do it wrong.”
He stroked her hair. To him, it didn’t matter if she didn’t know what she was doing. He didn’t care about skill. He just wanted her touching him, licking him, sucking him. It would be enough. “I think the usual goal is to not bite it.”
She rolled her eyes.
“If it helps, I don’t mind if your teeth scrape a bit.” Granted, his new form had much more sensitive flesh, but he’d in the past been with fanged fae.
Alethea licked the side of his shaft, her pink tongue dragging torturously along his length. She repeated this action on the underside, then followed with a gentle kiss on his tip. The sensation was surreal. All he could do was stare, and when her lips parted to take him in, his own mouth fell open in anticipation.
And she did not disappoint. He slid along her tongue and those beautiful lips closed around his shaft, welcoming him. Burying his hands in her hair and holding it away from her face, he wondered if she’d let him guide her, just a little.
He applied the barest amount of pressure to bring her forward, to slide deeper, and she acquiesced. She went even farther, in fact, until it was too much, and she shook her head. His cock slipped free of her mouth, coated with her spit and bobbing eagerly.