One might think that after eight days living out of the Harley’s saddlebags, Liv would look a little worse for wear. But then one wouldn’t know Liv. Her ash-blond hair gleamed and bounced as if it hadn’t been under a helmet all day. Half her saddlebag space had probably been allocated to clean lingerie, which may have explained the slow progress of their trip so far.
Hell, no. That was just another excuse. Sexy undergarments were all well and fine, but the only “excuse” for the sex was the fact that it was just the two of them, riding the Harley along empty roads, which even back home was “excuse” enough to pull off for sex. Out here? With no one to stop them, no obligations calling, nothing but endless days of endless riding on endless roads? Yeah, there’d been a lot of sex. Which was fucking awesome but also meant, if they kept it up, they’d have to ride straight through the last few days on the trail with no stops for sex—or hikes or swims or anything else that had made this an amazing trip.
Still, the lingerie was a nice bonus. Very nice. Today it was a pink-and-black set that he didn’t think he’d seen before, though he really had to take a better look to be sure. He tilted his head and watched her breasts bounce over the black lace and . . .
Fuck.
His gaze traveled over the swell of her hips, down her long legs to the boots. She’d tugged them back on after shucking her jeans. Sexy little motorcycle boots, with heels, that somehow didn’t impede her hiking through deep forest. Or keep her from bouncing on that rock, dressed only in those heels and that very tiny bra and panties that barely covered anything at all.
Fuck.
“You go on,” he said, starting to undo his belt. “I’ll just be up here. Amusing myself. Since it’s the only amusement I’m likely to get today.”
“Poor baby. Unfortunately, self-amusement is against the rules. Remember?”
“Drunk. Remember? Whatever I agreed to—”
“It was your rule.”
Fuck.
He was about to respond when he heard something in the forest. It sounded like . . .
A baby?
The sound stopped. It’d been just a single cry, as if to say, I’m awake now.
He listened for fellow hikers but heard only the normal sounds of the forest. Maybe that’s all it’d been. The cry of a bird or animal, and Liv saying, “Poor baby,” had put the association into his head.
“—would allow a slight amendment to the rules,” he heard Liv saying. “Self-amusement is allowable, given that the other is permitted to observe.”
“What?” He turned back fast, the cry half-forgotten . . . and then completely forgotten as he saw her standing on that rock, naked but for the boots.
She kicked off one boot. “That’s a no, then?”
“Wait. What? You were saying . . .”
“Self-amusement is allowable, given that the other is permitted to observe.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “Permitted or required?”
She pursed her lips in mock thought. “Required would be better. Party A is required to self-amuse in front of Party B, who is required to watch. Fair enough?”
“Hell, yeah.”
He finished undoing his belt.
“Also,” she said, “there should be a penalty invoked if Party B decides to void the contract during the execution of the exception. How about, if watching you convinces me to surrender, I have to . . .”
She made a suggestion. One hell of a suggestion, which meant he was about to put on one hell of a performance.
“Agreed?” she said.
He grinned in answer.
“Good,” she said. “Now, anytime you want to invoke the self-amusement exception, you need to tell me. Verbal notification is required.”
“Fine. In case you can’t tell . . .” He gestured at his open zipper. “I am officially invoking—”
She jumped backward off the rock and plunged toward the water.
Fuck.
Liv
There is a moment, as you jump from a ledge over a swimming hole, when you may wish to reflect on that decision. That moment is not after you’ve actually made the leap.
In my defense, I didn’t dive into the uncharted waters. I knew better. I just jumped. And the waters weren’t entirely uncharted—we’d poked around before climbing to the overhang, and I knew the water was more than a few feet deep. What I did not properly measure was the height of the overhanging rock. It was high. Really high, as I only fully appreciated once I’d stepped off it.
I hit the water with my knees bent, hoping that would help absorb the impact of hitting the bottom. Except I didn’t hit the bottom. I kept plummeting, down to an unreasonable depth considering this was a small body of water on a mountainside.
When it became clear I wasn’t going to strike bottom anytime soon, I stopped my descent with a few strong strokes. Then I looked up and saw darkness. Complete darkness.
A twinge of panic darted through me. I shoved it back. I hadn’t fallen that far, and no matter how much Ricky had been grumbling, he wasn’t going to let me swim alone.
I started swimming upward. When the view above didn’t lighten, I squelched a fresh lick of panic. Just keep going and—
My head broke the surface, and I gulped air. But everything stayed dark. Pitch black, no sign of the late afternoon sunshine I’d enjoyed a few minutes ago.
Then I caught a voice. A young woman’s, her laugh carrying a note I recognized as well as my own. Not surprisingly, given it was my own, in a way.
I’d fallen into a vision of Matilda.
“Gotcha,” a man’s voice said. Then, “Cach,” and a splash as Matilda laughed. A moment later, another splash, as if Matilda had dived and resurfaced.
“If you want me to kiss you, I need to be able to catch you,” the man said.
“No, if you want to kiss me, you need to be able to catch me.”
The man swore in Welsh again. Everything he said would be in Welsh—I just heard English. As for the man, I knew his voice as well as hers.
“Gwynn,” I murmured, and my chest constricted as I heard other voices, these from much more recent memories. Too recent.
“This isn’t true, Olivia. You know it isn’t. You dream of some fairy prince and say I’m him?” A brusque laugh. “I didn’t expect you to fall for romantic nonsense like that—”
“You aren’t my fairy prince, Gabriel,” I said, barely forcing the words out. “Not by any stretch of the imagination. You aren’t Gwynn, and I’m not Matilda.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and banished the voices. All the voices.
Sorry, Matilda. Sorry, Gwynn. I don’t want to hear either of you right now. Probably not for a very long time.
To my surprise, the vision went silent. Everything stayed dark, though, and when I strained to listen, I caught the sound of water lapping against rock, the noise echoing as if I was in a chamber.
Or an underwater cave.
I swam carefully, one hand always in front of me. Sure enough, after a few strokes, my fingertips grazed rock. I felt around. Yep, definitely rock. And if I couldn’t see daylight, that meant the exit was underwater. The problem with that? Finding it when everything was, well, dark.
“Ricky!” I shouted. My voice bounced around the cavern, meaning there was little chance he’d hear me, even less that I’d hear him.
Time to find the exit.
I dove and made my way methodically around the cave, feeling along the wall. Every time I came up for air, I called for Ricky, just in case, but I suspected my voice wasn’t leaving this cavern.
I kept hunting until—
There! My fingers found the rough edge of what seemed like a passage out. I surfaced for a deeper breath, and then down I went, feeling my way into that gap, hoping it was an actual passage and not just a nook in the rock. Soon I could see light ahead, shimmering through the water.
I swam faster. A muffled sound came, almost like . . . music? As I broke through the surface, I heard the tinkling of bells. The sun had faded, t
he sky glowing with a weirdly yellow light, as if warning of a coming storm.
“Ricky?” I called, and again, my voice echoed, but what I heard was not Ricky but Arawn.
I called again. And again I heard that other name, his other name. Arawn, Lord of the Hunt. Arawn, Lord of the Otherworld.
I shivered and kept swimming. I could make out the shore ahead, but it seemed to waver, like I was looking at it from underwater. That yellowish light pulsed, and the bells tinkled. My hands touched down on the shore, and I felt rock. Warm rock as if warmed by the sun. I lifted my head over the ledge and—
I was looking at a distant golden castle, that yellow light shining from it, the tinkling bells coming from it. I gripped the ledge and started heaving myself up. To my side, deep in the dark water, I caught a flash of skin.
“Ricky?” I said, and heard, Arawn?
The figure swam up toward me. I saw flowing blond hair and exhaled in relief. I pulled myself up onto the ledge, turned to face the water, and said, “You need to see this,” and heard my words come out in Welsh.
The figure swam up, still almost hidden in the shadowy dark water. I leaned out to extend my hand. Another hand broke the surface. Pale and slender. A woman’s hand, wrapping around my ankle and dragging me into the water.
Ricky
“Liv!”
Ricky stood on the rock over the swimming hole. He’d undressed as fast as he could, but she should have surfaced by now. As he squinted down at the dark water, though, he couldn’t see as much as a ripple.
He bent his knees to jump and then locked them.
Sure, land on top of her when she’s coming back up.
He jogged down the sloping path and cut through the brush for a shortcut. And, yeah, running through brush and bramble while naked wasn’t the most pleasant experience, but the scrapes and jabs didn’t bother him.
He made it to the swimming hole and stood on the grassy shore, hunting in vain for ripples.
I’ve lost her.
Again.
That was Arawn, being as unhelpful as always, the voice deep in his head, like a long-dormant memory surfacing. Which it was. Old fears resurrected whenever Liv disappeared even for a split second. His heart would pound with Arawn’s terror and self-condemnation, the memory of losing Matilda to the fire.
The fact that Liv’s visions meant she routinely disappeared really didn’t help.
One last booming shout of “Liv!” Then he leaped into the water and dove. He started under the overhanging rocks, but when he went down from there, he just kept descending until that alarm in his brain sounded, like an oxygen gauge hitting the half-full mark. Surface or you won’t make it back.
He swam up and broke through, gasping for air and looking about as his heart pounded.
Stop and think. If Liv was hurt, she’d float, not sink like a rock to the bottom.
The swimming hole wasn’t manmade, which meant it had plenty of nooks and crannies where she could have gotten caught.
Or where she could be hiding.
He shouted for her again, and when she didn’t reply, he knew “hiding” wasn’t the answer. She’d have heard the panic in his voice and come out.
He swam toward the first hollow and dove to check it out. Then on to the next.
She had to be here. She’d hit her head or something, and he had to find her. If Liv got hurt, Gabriel would kill him.
Okay, kill might be an exaggeration. It’d be the cold death of exile to the wasteland of people Gabriel didn’t give a shit about, which encompassed most of the population. Ricky had been inching out of that wasteland, proving he was more than just the biker kid Liv hooked up with. Which would change if Gabriel discovered they’d had a close call on this trip.
Arawn failing again. Failing Matilda. Failing Gwynn.
Ricky dove. He was twisting around when he saw a flash of pale skin, like a fish darting by.
Liv.
She must have been hiding underwater when he’d shouted, not realizing he’d been frantically searching. Just another round of hide-and-seek, their favorite game. Well, second favorite. Chase always came first for Ricky, a true son of the Hunt.
He reached to grab her, but she zipped behind him. Her hand cupped his ass, fingers tickling across it. He grinned, a little too broadly, swallowing water. He swam up just enough to break the surface for air, careful not to move so fast she’d think he wasn’t enjoying the attention. That attention continued, fingers on his ass and then on his thighs, tracing between his legs and . . .
Fuck, yeah. He closed his eyes as she lightly caressed him, her fingers almost tickling. A bit of a tease, and then those fingers would wrap around him, firmly, knowing what he liked. An extended tease this time, though, and he let her have it, enjoying the soft caresses. When that stopped, he waited for that firmer grip.
Instead he heard her break the surface behind him, coming up for air, but when he turned, he caught only a flash of skin as she dove.
He followed that pale streak. She stayed deep, swimming beneath him and then coming up, right in front, and what wrapped around him this time? Not her fingers.
He chuckled. Well, that was unexpected. Not unwanted, though.
Hell, yeah. Definitely not unwanted.
She continued to tease him, now with lips and tongue, sliding over him and then away, and he resisted the urge to encourage her to stay a little longer. She was playing, and this was perfectly fine as an appetizer.
Her lips moved over him, pulling him in deep.
Yeah, perfectly fine.
When she swam away, he waited patiently. He heard her break the surface, louder now. Then she chuckled, and there was a splash as she dove under.
He saw her clearer as she swam around him at waist level. Her fingers found his thigh again, less tickling, more caressing. They continued on until . . .
That was better. Her fingers wrapping firmly around him, expertly moving, making his eyes roll back as he hissed a breath.
Hand still on him, Liv surfaced, grinning. “Well, hello there.”
He grabbed her around the waist, pulling her into a hard kiss . . . while forgetting that he kinda needed his arms moving to stay afloat. They went under, Liv laughing and sputtering, her hand breaking contact as they resurfaced.
“Smooth as always,” he said, making a face.
“Enthusiastic is better than smooth.” She swam back to him and traced her fingers across his stomach. “Shall I continue?”
“Hell, yeah.”
She smiled as her fingers wrapped around him.
“You can continue the other part, too,” he said. “If you want.”
“Other part?”
“The underwater blow job?”
Her hand stopped moving. “I . . . wasn’t . . .” She paused and then let out a whoop of laughter. “Oh-ho. It seems someone was enjoying the attentions of the resident water fae. No wonder you were ready for action when I swam up.”
“What?”
His expression made her laugh again, and her hand closed on him, lighter now, more teasing, but not as light as earlier. This was Liv-teasing. Not the stuff he’d had a few minutes ago.
Shit.
“Resident water fae?” he said carefully.
“Something grabbed my foot and yanked me out of an underwater cavern. You got a whole other kind of yanking. I’m jealous.”
He had to laugh and relaxed, letting himself enjoy her ministrations again. The fact she’d resumed them should suggest she wasn’t the least bit upset that he’d been inadvertently enjoying another’s ministrations, but he had to consider the possibility. This was Liv, though, not the kind of woman who’d give him shit for enjoying something he’d mistakenly thought came from her.
“So, underwater blowjob,” she said. “I’ll have to try that.”
“Feel free. Anytime. Now would be awesome.”
A chuckle. “True, and I will . . . but first, I believe we have a mystery to solve.”
“It can wait.�
�
“Mmm, no, I don’t think it can. Let’s see. If I stop doing this”—her hand fell away—“and move out of the way like this”—she swam backward—“will our mysterious water nymph return?”
She swam a little farther. “Head this way so you can get your footing.”
He followed, and when she motioned for him to stop, his foot hit the rocky bottom just as a pale shape swam past.
“Uh . . . ,” he said.
“I see.”
The fae swam around his hips. Her fingers reached out again to caress his thighs.
“You want me to catch her?”
“Well, you could try, but I think it makes more sense to let her settle in. Distract herself. Unless you’d rather she didn’t.”
“Would you rather she didn’t?”
Liv grinned. “If I did, I wouldn’t be suggesting it. But if you’re uncomfortable with this particular game, just say so.”
The fae’s fingers moved between his legs and found what they were searching for.
“I wouldn’t say uncomfortable,” he murmured.
Liv’s grin grew. “Then enjoy. And since I canceled the earlier performance, this one seems like a fine substitute.”
He slitted his eyes and groaned softly, doing exactly as ordered and enjoying. When the fae’s lips went around him, he opened one eye to check Liv, saying, “She’s—”
“Oh, I can see. Not well, but enough to know exactly what she’s doing. Is it good?”
“Good enough.”
“Excellent.” She said that genuinely, no hint of discomfort, of unease, and while she watched him, he watched her, pupils dilated, teeth biting her lip.
Fuck, yeah.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to replicate the don’t-need-to-breathe part,” Liv said. “Damn. I may be outmatched.”
“Nah. She’s a bit of a light touch. Having you watching, though, definitely elevates the experience.”
“Kinda hot?”
“Fucking hot.”
“Good. Mind if I take a better look? For study purposes. So I can properly replicate the experience.”
“Go for it.”
Liv slipped under the water. She was careful, but the fae broke free and swam off, gone in a flash.
Portents Page 18