“I’m in,” I say. “We do this together.”
Reverence lifts his features, but something eclipses that—heartbreak masked beneath a deep layer of understanding. “So you came back to be near them.”
If I ask, he’ll let me stay here until my sisters win, until I can bring them home. But I don’t want only to stay here in this mystical and brutal land. I want so much more, because I’m just that greedy, and just that mad for this Fae.
“That’s not all.” My feet carry me across the grass until I stand before him, absorbing the turbulence of his gaze, open and raw and mine. “I came here for you.”
36
“For me,” he echoes.
I nod and duck my head. I feel so much, too much to cage in, and so my heart climbs up my throat, and it tumbles off the edge. “Because I don’t care about being mates, or not having a sensory bond, or everyone snubbing us, or dying while you’ll live forever. We have now, and I want now, because that’s real. It’s always been real since I met you in that forge, and that’s not gonna change, and being linked has nothing to do with it. And I don’t know what’ll happen with my sisters, but we can find a way to help them. And together, we can find a way to help this wild survive without sacrificing mortals. And we don’t have to be apart in order to unite our worlds, because we’ll find a way around that, too. It’s a lot to face, so we’ll be really fucking busy, but there’s a crossway somewhere, a connection between all these things—there has to be. So I need to be here, and I want to be here, and I want to make this place a home with you, because I love you. I love you so much. I love—”
A pair of strong hands snatch my waist and haul me forward. Our bodies slam together, and his mouth swoops down, sinking into mine. On a cry, I fling myself into the kiss. My mouth parts with his, splitting and welcoming the hot lash of his tongue.
Cerulean’s groan traverses across my lips. Our mouths tilt and clutch, his tongue pitching in and out, incinerating my thoughts to ash. Wetness pools between my legs. My fingers itch to rip his clothes off and feel his hips snapping between my thighs. I’m not the only one getting stirred up, but Cerulean breaks away, then clasps the sides of my face.
“I love you,” he intones. “How I love you. I’ve loved you since you brought light into that forge and reached your fingers through that cage.” He shakes his head. “But I don’t deserve this.”
“Tough shit,” I purr. “You’ve got me.”
“You came back to be with me.”
My dress grazes his shirt, my pulse a berserker in my wrists. As for my body, it’s nowhere near satiated, but now that I have a second to process… “And to make a bargain.”
Cerulean twitches, his blue lips tipping into a grin. “Hmm. We’re having a dire influence on each other. State your terms.”
“We live here in this tower, in this wildlife park. We’ll serve the animals, you’ll show me your culture, minus the orgies but definitely including the food, and I’ll tell you more about mine. And you’ll play the flute for me every night, and after we’ve fucked ourselves into exhaustion—and I do mean, exhaustion—we’ll fall asleep and wake up together.” My voice wobbles, and my eyes blur, and I keep going. “But I get to travel home as often as I want, to visit my father, to do what I’ve been doing.”
To take care of my sanctuary friends. To rescue them from trade poachers. To find a way to fix that shit, as well as this schism between my people and his kin.
His musical thumbs trace my cheeks. “Oh, my mutinous one. You of all people should know, you don’t need to make a bargain for that.”
I know I don’t, because my choice is my right. I just wanted hear him say it.
“Though if you allow it,” Cerulean adds, “I’d like to join you on those trips whenever Moth can mind the park on her own. I want to see your world through your eyes.”
I squint, parsing through his reply. “No glamour on anyone but yourself.”
“Done.”
“Deal.”
“Except it doesn’t need to be a deal. You don’t need to compromise. …” Cerulean trails off, his eyes broadening. “Compromise,” he repeats to himself, then bows his head and chuckles with incredulity. “I’m an eternal fool.”
“What?” I press. “What is it?”
He meets my baffled gaze. “The choice. Your choice to remain human doesn’t mean I’ll outlive you. As mates we have the power to make a compromise, neither living eternally, nor living briefly.”
Awe floods my senses. “An extended life? How?”
“Magic.”
“Knock it off,” I snap, batting his shoulder.
“Very well, then. A bargain for a bargain.” Cerulean gathers me to him. “Under the vicious stars, an Owl crossed paths with a Lark.”
I peer at him, unsure where he’s taking this. “And the Lark said, ‘We may fly separately, but let our direction be the same.’”
Fables eternal. He’s right.
The Horizon that Never Lies told me the truth, yet the Pegasi claimed interpreting and living out that truth was in my power. It’s our decision, a balance between equals. Mates without the sensory connection, but with a passion that defies our species. Cerulean and me, growing old together, because that’s who we are. That’s who we’ve become.
We’re mortality and magic. We’re lovers and mates.
We’re human and Fae. We’re happy.
“We’ll age slowly,” Cerulean says. “Very slowly.”
“Meaning?” I ask, combing through his hair.
He steals my wrist and brings it to his lips. “Is it possible you’re willing to tolerate me for a handful of centuries?”
It takes me a moment to recover from that. I pretend to mull it over, enjoying Cerulean’s peevish expression when I dither for too long. Yeah, he’s one spoiled Fae.
Fine, I’ll take pity on him. “Only a handful? Reckon I’ll manage.”
“Cruel human,” he scolds, his hands burning a path to my ass, cupping me hard and plastering me to him. “Now, then. You mentioned something about fucking one another into exhaustion.” Those dark lips slant. “Surely, we can do better than that.”
Hot damn. “You wouldn’t tease a girl, would you?”
With an evil grin, he hauls me off the ground. I yelp, laughing and stringing my limbs around him as his wings flap wide. They’re somewhat healed, new feathers germinating over the screens.
It’s enough to propel us. Cerulean vaults us above the wildlife park, his wings riding the wind and shooting us toward the tower. His arms band around my rear, keeping me safe.
The balmy air tangles our hair. I feel the elevation encircle my calves but don’t pay it mind. While strapped around him, I snatch his lips midflight and sense his eyes closing, because he knows the way without sight. Our mouths contort, tongues striking and retreating, tasting one another’s sighs.
He blows through a curtain, his boots hit the floor, and I scramble down, my lips refusing to leave his. We stumble across the unidentified room. Cerulean braces one palm on my cheek and grips my hip with the other, his mouth burrowing into mine. A swift gust hints that his wings have retracted into his back, seeping into his clothes and slipping between his shoulders.
In the kiss, I feel the strength of his angular jaw. Our feet scuff the floor, our hectic fingers fumbling with his coat. Impatient, I pry myself from the clamp of his lips and yank the garment down his arms. He sheds the rest of it, the material slapping the ground.
I take a quick gander around the space. The smooth stone walls, the central fire basin, the arched windows and fluttering curtains, the turret ceiling covered in scales of ivy, the hanging planters that drizzle ropes of greenery, and the bed’s wooden frame and creamy linens, with bolts of cloth looping overhead.
His room. We’re in his room, in the tower’s highest level.
Mounted on the opposite wall from the bed is an old plume with toasty stripes of buff and tan. It’s the feather of a mortal bird, plucked from a human’s mask,
from when the wearer was a tyke.
My head snaps toward Cerulean. He grins wickedly. “You weren’t looking.”
Nine years ago, I took a feather from him, and the Horizon swallowed it.
Nine years ago, he took one from me, and this frame preserved it. He could have used the plume to ask the Horizon about me, but he didn’t, because…it was all he had left of us. I don’t need to ask. I see it plain on his face.
I kiss that face senseless and back him toward the bed. Our pants echo in this space, in this empty tower, where no one is around because Moth hustled the occupants away. I hadn’t seen Tímien at the spire, either.
It’s just me and Cerulean. It’s just us, which means we can be as loud as we want.
Our foreheads meet, our husky breaths clashing. His fingers shimmy the cloak from my shoulders, cast it aside, and hook under the straps of my dress. The cotton whispers from my skin, caressing my hips before puddling at my feet.
“Falleck,” he murmurs. “Beautiful.”
I grab the ridiculously deep V of his shirt, which hangs to his navel, and give a sharp pull. The material rips, the sound shearing through the room. Cerulean flashes a row of chiseled canines and peels off the shirt, baring that wiry, sexy torso. My mouth waters at the sight of his dusky pink nipples and tapered abdomen.
“Pretty,” I reply, then plant my hands against his pecs and shove.
Cerulean’s back hits the mattress. I prowl over him in my knickers while he crawls backward, our hooded gazes locked. The pillows jostle, and the curtains flare. With him prone beneath me, I thumb off the ear caps, exposing the bony shells.
I pin his elbows, tilt my head, and lick the rim of a single, pointed ear. His joints go taut, whipcord muscles straining. An indecipherable sound whooshes out of him, which multiplies into a string of hard moans as I dab my tongue into the crevice and over the lobe. Then I suck on the apex of his ear.
“Fuck,” he blows out, his accent thickening.
I kiss the helpless lilt from his lips, sampling the tang of it. But that’s not gonna do. I need more of him, more of his taste.
“Don’t move,” I warn before slithering down his chest. My open mouth plies his nipples, nips his stomach, and pecks his hipbones. Masculine intakes pump from his lungs, shallow and gravely, especially when my digits work the clasp of his trousers. Based on his fists, he wants to help but obeys my request.
I make slow, teasing work of the trousers, dragging them from his limbs and whipping them aside. Sprawled naked, he’s the most delicious, dangerous creature I’ve ever seen. Slender clavicles. Iron scars that dapple his arms. Rosy patches of arousal that suffuse his complexion. The pulse thudding at his neck. And the sprigs of hair between his hips.
Cerulean’s firm length rises from the nexus of his body, flushed and emitting heat. I catch his spellbound gaze, the pupils glossed in onyx. With a saucy beam, I lower my head and slide my tongue up his shaft.
He clamors something in his language, the crystalline words tickling my spine. And Fables, he tastes like salt and sex, like magic and lust and love. I’ve wanted to snack on him like this since our first time in the park, on that mossy rock.
I trace his cock from the stem to the crown, swirling my tongue around him. Cerulean’s body quakes, his exhalations rapid and rippling at the edges. My mouth pushes him to the brink, licking the slit, teasing the radius of his flesh. I’m relentless, punishing him for everything, forgiving him for everything, taking what I want and giving back.
My lips part and cinch around his prick. His hips nudge forward, so I press them down, fastening him in place. I work the shaft, sucking on the crest and then taking the rest of him in. With shallow bobs of my head, each pull draws out his moans, coaxing them into the air.
I give him a thorough tongue-lashing, drinking in his essence, harassing him with the cadence and depth of my mouth. Cerulean may fight to keep still. He might resist the temptation to clasp my skull and enhance the sensations, but he doesn’t hold back audibly. His groans solidify into moans, the erotic mess of noise stroking between my legs.
Wetness builds there, my body feverish for more, so much more. I want it so badly that I lose control and grasp his backside, pinning Cerulean down while my lips tug on him, taking his length as deep as I can. His limbs tense, and his breathing tenses, and he mutters something else in that foreign Fae tongue.
And then he’s convulsing, shouting to the rafters. And I consume him. And he’s mine, all mine.
And I have scant time to gloat or relish the sweetness of him on my palate, because his palms span my rear. The world spins. Cerulean flips us over, his naked waist dropping between my thighs and spreading them wide.
My drawers and the band harnessing my breasts vanish. The skimpy material shreds and sweeps from the bed, leaving me as bare as he is. Our bodies align, his weight burrowing me into the linens, my nipples pitting into his chest.
His wings snap from his upper back. A canopy of plumes flanks us, extending beyond the bed, closing us in, hiding us.
My head whips back as Cerulean’s mouth latches on to my neck, sucking on the pulse point with abandon. I squirm, my nails filing down his back and covering his ass. My thigh cuff glints, my leg propped onto his hip as I hitch my knees around him.
Cerulean murmurs things I can’t hear, his mouth coasting to my breasts. He laps at one nipple, each swipe sending tremors down my spine. My body arches, my skin sparking to life as he switches to the other breast. He rolls his tongue, laves at the peak and then fuses his lips around the bud, catching it in the cavern of his mouth.
Moisture seeps from my center, drenching me to the core. I stutter out a moan, my ankles linking around his waist, because I can’t wait, can’t take it, can’t stand it.
He knows it, and he likes it. That’s why he makes me wait, which is fucking rude, and—
“Uhh,” I whimper as his prick juts between my legs, dabbing at the wetness with a short swing of his hips.
All thoughts melt, narrowing to the place where his groin circles, nudging my walls open, stretching them. My thighs spread farther. I begin to throb, delicious pain pounding at the spot he hits but never enters.
I whimper, and whimper, and whimper to the punching rhythm of his body. Cerulean bends over and croons in my ear, “That’s it, my precious Lark. Show me where it hurts.”
“Cerulean,” I plead, growl, chant. “Mine.”
He hums, “Yours. All yours.”
He suspends himself above me, flattens his palms on either of side of my head—and thrusts fully into the cleft. His prick swoops inside, into the vent of my limbs, filling the slick clutch of my body.
My inner flesh seals around his cock, soaking us both. Our gazes hold as we jolt across the sheets. He glides my arms high and threads our fingers atop the bed. His hips piston in and out, our moans accelerating with the hectic plunge of his length.
I bow my head to his, bringing our eyes closer. Our jaws fall, our mouths brushing and unleashing cries of pleasure. The intimacy pushes my limits, because this is what it’s like to make love roughly, to fuck sweetly.
It’s not the same love as when we were tykes, but I don’t want it to be, and neither does he. This bond is disorderly and complicated. It’s jagged around the edges, a patchwork of grudges, bargains, devotion, and friendship. It’s a mishmash of laughter and comfort, confessions and desires. It’s a selfish and selfless journey. It’s vulnerable and empowering.
It’s us at our worst and best.
I wriggle my hips, and Cerulean catches on. He yields to my weight as I roll us over again, his wings accommodating the movement, broadening across the rumpled linens. And there he is. My dark, vicious creature.
I straddle him and buck forward. My waist swats back and forth, riding his shaft, whipping him into me. Each wave sends pleasure blasting through my veins. He seizes my hips and increases the pace, our shadows blending over the stone walls. It goes on like this until I’m whining, aggravated, and mindless.
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Cerulean sits upright, so that we’re level, face to face. I weave my hands behind his nape, and he kisses my shoulder, and our mouths fall against one another. His cock slings out and in, his thrusts punctuated by our groans. He palms my ass and lunges up into me, stroking, probing, again, again, again.
Just. Like. That.
We pitch to the ceiling, charging at each other, his pelvis thumping into my body, and then, and then, and then.
Mortal and Fae cries weld into a knot. We grasp each other, tighten, and let it fly.
Our bodies churn, contracting where we’re joined. The wind soars into the room, thrashing its way through the curtains. I come with a holler, and he comes with a shout. Release spasms through us and pours from our tongues into the night.
Together, we crash to the bed, collapsing in a boneless heap. And then we’re laughing. We’re laughing and sweaty and worn. And far from done.
The gale calms down, folding itself into a gentle breeze that stirs the bedsheets. We slump over, so that he nestles between my thighs. His thumb smooths over the pulp of scars covering my knees, and I do the same with the iron marks branding his arms.
Perspiration coats our skin. My chest inflates against his, sucking in deep gusts of oxygen. I brush a damp forelock from his head and play with that single reed of blue, my fingers sketching the quill. He streaks his mouth over mine, getting me riled up in seconds.
We whisper the hours away. We touch and explore. We learn one another’s weak spots, powerful spots, sweet spots, and loud spots.
He twists his words, and I don’t fall for it. I flirt, and he seduces.
I’m young, but it’s been a long time since I felt that way. He’s ancient, but it’s been even longer since he felt it, too. We’ve got a chunk of years to make up for and a handful of centuries in which to do it.
He cradles my hand in his and tells me, “I want you to fill this room with everything that’s you. I want this tower to be yours as much as mine, if you want that, too.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I say.
Kiss the Fae (Dark Fables: Vicious Faeries Book 1) Page 36