My face heats. “You never granted that one.”
“Are you sure about that?”
My skin goes cold as his words sink in. “You … you granted it?”
“I did,” the Bargainer says, his eyes moving to my lips.
He’d agreed to be mine. My brain is exploding at that.
I glance at my bracelet. “But the beads never showed up …”
“They wouldn’t, since you were already paying them off. We both were.”
My breath catches, and a lump forms in my throat. “What do you mean?” I barely get the words out.
“A favor as large as the one you requested requires steep payment,” the Bargainer continues. “Do you think my magic would allow you to buy yourself a mate so easily? That kind of favor requires a good dose of heartbreak and years of waiting—seven years, to be precise.”
Seven years.
Oh God.
The Bargainer’s magic is subtle, if you aren’t looking for it, you’ll never notice it.
That entire time I’d tried and failed to move on, all that time I’d resented the Bargainer, it had all been part of the wish.
“Every day after your last wish, I worked myself raw trying to get close to you,” Des says. “And every day I was stopped by my very own magic, which had turned on me.
I’m shaking my head because I can’t speak. The binding verse I’d spoken out of sheer desperation. As that final evening seven years ago replays itself out in my head, I watch it from a new perspective—Desmond’s. I inhale sharply when I realize how the events unfolded according to him.
He’d been bound to my wish just as much as I’d been. I’d never realized he couldn’t just stop his own bargains.
“Then one day,” Des continues, “the magic’s hold on me loosened. I tried to approach you like I had a thousand times before, and this time, the magic didn’t stop me.” His silver eyes shine as he looks down at me. “Finally, after the longest seven years of my life, I was able to come back to my love, my mate. The sweet siren that loved my darkness, and my bargains, and my company when I was no one and nothing more than Desmond Flynn. The woman that took fate into her own hands when she spoke those ancient vows and declared herself mine.”
A sly grin lifts first one side of his mouth, then the other. “Callie, I love you. I’ve loved you from the beginning. And I will love you long after the last star dies. I will love you until the end of darkness itself.”
“You love me,” I say, letting that sink in.
“I love you, Callypso Lillis,” he repeats.
And then … I smile. My heart feels like it’s going to burst.
“Do you … want to be with me?” I ask, suddenly shy. Part of me is still in disbelief.
Des pulls me in close. “Callie, this may be oversharing, but I’m getting the sense that you want that at the moment …”
My smile widens. “I do.”
His eyes move over my face. “I want to wake up every morning to you, cherub, and I want to marry the shit out of you, and then I want to have lots and lots of babies with you. If, that is, you will have me.”
I stare at Des, with his white blond hair and striking silver eyes. It’s all laid bare, his love, his excitement, his yearning. Des, who saved my life, who is looking at me like I’m his moon and his stars.
For once the King of the Night is not in control of the situation. He doesn’t hold any of the cards, but he has shown me his hand. And his hand is everything I ever wanted.
And now he’s asking me to make the decision of whether or not I still want that man in my life.
I wanted him seven years ago, and all that time between then and now I continued to want him, even when I knew it was impossible. Even when I hated him I wanted him. I wanted him yesterday, I want him today, I want him tomorrow, and the day after. I want him for the rest of my life.
I always have.
“I’ll be yours, if you’ll be mine,” I say.
Des smiles so bright that it reaches every corner of his face. I’m almost bowled over by it. “I’ll always be yours, cherub.”
And it’s pure reaction, but I begin to grin back at him, even as a happy tear slips out.
My heart is breaking, and it’s reforming, and my whole body is lit up from the inside out.
Des clasps my cheeks. “And mountains may rise and fall, and the sun might wither away, and the sea claim the land and swallow the sky. But you will always be mine.” He runs his knuckles over my cheekbone. “And the stars might fall from the heavens, and night might cloak the earth, but until darkness dies, I will always be yours.”
Chapter 24
I blink several times once Des finishes speaking. “That was—”
“My land’s version of a vow.” He still hasn’t dropped his hands from where they cradle my face. “I’ve wanted to say those words to you for years.” He leans his forehead against mine. “Humans aren’t the only ones with archaic lovers’ vows.”
And then Des kisses me.
A kiss to end all kisses. Love is another sort of subtle magic. It can bring people together and tear lives apart. It can wash away sorrow, it can forgive.
It can redeem.
Des’s wings wrap around us until we’re in our own little world. “Truth or dare?” he whispers.
“Truth,” I say.
“Do you love me?” he asks. I swear once he asks, he holds his breath. But maybe I’m imagining things.
“I’ve never stopped.”
For a moment, he closes his eyes, taking in my admission. When he opens them again, they’re full of so many emotions, and I know what happens next.
His hand drifts up from my chest and cradles my neck. He gazes at me like I’m some archaic deity he worships.
“Desmond.”
His eyes move to my lips, and ever so slowly, he lowers his head. I meet him halfway, our mouths colliding. Both his hands move to either side of my face, tangling in my hair.
I don’t try to stop the siren from taking the lead as soon as I give in. My skin glows brighter, and I wrap my arms around him, pulling him in close.
He breaks away, trailing kisses along the underside of my jaw, my neck, the juncture between my collarbones.
I make a small noise at the back of my throat, and I feel his smile along my skin. His hair tickles my flesh where it touches me, and the Bargainer’s lips … they’re moving lower, towards the valley between my breasts.
We’re not stopping with just kisses. Not tonight.
His breath fans out along my skin, and I arch into him. He pulls away long enough to remove my shirt, then my bra. Tossing the garments aside, he spends several seconds gazing at my exposed torso. The look in his eyes is hungry.
He’s never seen me naked before—and I’ve never seen him naked before, for that matter. The realization is shocking, considering all we’ve done.
Reaching behind his back, Des shrugs his own shirt off, and I marvel at his sculpted pecs, his toned arms, his rock hard stomach. I skim my fingers over each of his abs, for the first time ever feeling like I have a right to touch him. He looks carved from marble, his skin taut over thick ropes of muscle. Not bulky like Eli is, but every bit as chiseled.
Soulmates.
He is mine, and I am his.
I’m almost dizzy with joy. Have I ever been this happy in my entire life?
The Bargainer scoops me up and carries me down the hall and into his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind us.
He lays me out on his bed, then lowers himself over me, his narrow hips nestled between my thighs. Even just that contact has me moving against him, impatient for more.
But unlike me, Des seems to have limitless patience, his gaze moving to my bare chest. His hand cups my breast, his thumb movi
ng in circles around my nipple until it hardens. He bends down to it, his lips replacing his fingers. His tongue moves over it, and I arch into him.
Jesus, he’s going to make me come before we’re even fully undressed.
My hands move over the muscles of his back, my fingers clutching him close.
His mouth trails down my stomach, his hands sliding down either side of me. The Bargainer glances at me through his lashes when he hits the waistband of my jeans.
“Take them off,” I breathe.
He doesn’t do anything for a second, and I get the impression he’s savoring this moment. Then he moves back up and kisses me. While he does this, I feel the brush of his magic. A moment later, my pants unzip themselves and slide off.
I can’t help it, I break off the kiss to laugh.
The man himself grins down at me, but the humor in his expression fades into something far more wicked.
His face is inches from mine, his hair hanging down around his face.
“My mate,” I say wondrously.
“Your mate,” he repeats.
Even this is almost too much. My heart and my body can’t take so many good sensations all at once. I feel like I’m going to come apart, and when I finally put myself back together again, I won’t be the same Callie I once was.
I feel the breath of his magic again, and this time it’s his pants that slide off. I only have a couple seconds to appreciate his black boxer briefs before they drag themselves off as well.
I’ve imagined this so many times, yet my mind has never done him justice. Every curve of muscle that wraps around his thighs, the defined V that points to his very large cock, the way his waist tapers in and fluidly transitions to his narrow hips and sculpted ass—it’s better than anything my mind could conjure.
He lets me drink him in for a moment, and then he drapes himself back over me, his erection pressed firmly against my leg.
I’m glowing as brightly as I ever do. Normally I have to withhold some of my powers when I make love, otherwise my glamour can turn innocent words into commands that control my partner—and I like my sex consensual, thanks.
But with the Bargainer, I don’t have to worry about that; he can’t fall under my spell the way other men can. The sensation of being myself fully and completely—something I’ve never felt with anyone else—is liberating.
His hand touches my lacy panties. “These have to go.” The second the words are spoken, I feel an invisible hand tugging them off of me.
There’s no longer anything funny about the magic. Not when the Bargainer—Desmond—is staring at me with a promise in his eyes.
He kisses my lips, softly, gently, then positions himself. I can feel him at my entrance.
He pulls away from my lips, his eyes moving over my face. Again, I get the impression he’s memorizing the moment. As he watches, he pushes into me.
My pelvis rises to meet his, and inch by inch, he slides inside me. My lips part in silence surprise, our eyes locked together. All those years of waiting, of hoping, of despairing, it all led to this moment.
Perfection.
A shiver racks his body when he’s fully seated in me. “Want to stay here … forever.”
My throat works as my hands move over his shoulders, then slip around his back. I want him to stay right here too, the two of us wrapped up in each other.
He slides almost all the way out before thrusting into me hard. I moan at the sensation, the sound unearthly.
The smile he flashes me is pure sin. “I like making my sweet siren moan.”
He moves in and out of me, his strokes powerful.
God, he’s staggering to look at. His brows are stitched together, his lips parted, and with each thrust his abs flex. The sight of him doing this to me is itself nearly enough to get me off.
He lowers himself, his slick chest meeting mine, and his hands comb the hair away from my face.
He pulls me even closer, his cheeks brushing mine. His pace slow and tender.
Making love. That’s what this is. He’s being gentle, romancing me even after he’s received my love and found himself between my legs.
This is how it might always be.
Nights like this that stretch on and on into the future. My heart hurts at the possibility. True love—it always seemed just beyond my reach. I only ever believed in it because I had acutely felt its absence all those years we spent apart.
For so long I thought something was wrong with me emotionally. That I couldn’t love fully, that I couldn’t be myself. That I was weak. Here in this man’s arms, I realize for the first time in a long time that I’m not broken. Not even close.
I’m his mate.
He’s mine.
My hands slide up his corded back, then run along his arms, drinking in each one of his sculpted muscles.
The Bargainer bends down and nips at my breast, and suddenly I’m right there on the edge of an orgasm that’s been building long before Des even entered me.
As if he can sense how close I am, Desmond deepens each thrust, his eyes riveted to me. He dips down and kisses me roughly.
“I like this look on you, cherub,” he says. “And knowing I’m responsible for it.”
My arms tighten around him, pulling him closer as my eyes close and my mouth parts.
“Don’t you dare close your eyes,” he says. “I want to see everything I do to you.”
A burst of magic courses through me, forcing my eyes open.
“Desmond,” is all I have time to say before my orgasm rips through me.
I cry out, the sound its own sort of melody. My skin shimmers, its glow reflected in Desmond’s eyes.
The Bargainer’s thrusts become faster until his body stills. And then, with a groan, an orgasm racks his body, forcing him into me harder and deeper than before.
As soon as he finishes, he rolls next to me and gathers me into his arms. He holds me tightly to him, like he can’t bear even an inch of our skin apart. His skin is still slick with sweat, and mine is slowly dimming as the last remnants of my orgasm are replaced by a satiated exhaustion. He smells like me, and I smell like him.
He looks at me, wearing a wondrous expression. His eyes are happy, so unbearably happy.
“My siren,” he says. “My mate. The years I’ve waited for you.”
I can’t stop the grin that spreads along my face lying in the Bargainer’s arms. For the first time in my life my world has felt unequivocally right.
One of Des’s fingers traces my lips, his gaze transfixed on me.
“Why didn’t you say anything that first day you came back to me?” I ask curiously. That could’ve saved us so much angst.
He huffs out a laugh. “If only, cherub. I wanted to, but you hadn’t seen me in seven years, were currently in a relationship, and pretty much wanted to flay my ass alive. My options were limited.”
I smile a little at that.
He pulls me closer. “Ah, I would give my kingdom for that smile alone.”
I could bathe in Des’s words. Words that normally taunt and tease and coax. Words that have seduced me over and over again. Tonight they’re the sweetest serenade.
I run my fingers over his sleeve of tattoos. “What do all these mean?” There’s a rose melting into tears. There are angels and smoke and scales that morph into an eye. All of it twists and turns down his shoulder and arm. It’s beautiful and macabre.
Des strokes my hair, his eyes still full of uncharacteristic softness. It’s a strange look on the normally terrifying Bargainer. It’s a look I never want to leave his face.
He hesitates before answering. “I got them when I was a part of the Angels of Small Death,” he finally says. “A brotherhood of sorts.”
That has me craning my neck to peer at him.
“You were in a gang?” I ask, putting together what he isn’t saying.
He smiles wryly. “Semantics. We policed the streets when the Kingdom of Night was … under different leadership.” He glances down at his sleeve, a frown forming. “It was a long time ago.”
He really was a thug before he was ever a king. I don’t know what exactly to make of it, except it seems somewhat fitting.
Fitting and petrifying.
“I thought you were a king,” I say.
“I am a king.”
“I thought you were always a king,” I clarify.
“Disappointed?” he asks. His body stiffens, on edge.
I never realized just how much my words affect him.
I trace the lines of the weeping rose. “Not at all.” I like the idea that this man didn’t grow up in a castle. “I don’t think I could’ve dealt with an entitled Desmond Flynn.”
A blatant lie. I would’ve taken Des just about any way he came—I had taken Des without fully understanding his past.
But to know that he ruled the streets in the Otherworld like he ruled the streets here … It makes me appreciate who he is all the more. There’s undoubtedly a sad story behind his past. Just like mine.
I hug him closer. “Tell me another secret,” I say.
I can hear the smile in his voice when he speaks. “The night I first met you, I couldn’t get you out of my head …”
I fall off to sleep to a soundtrack of the Bargainer’s most intimate secrets.
In the early hours of morning, Des wakes me up. Rolling over me, he begins kissing me, his lips demanding.
I feel him hard against me, ready to go.
I moan a little, the siren in me already waking up. “Again?” I say, opening my arms to him even as I speak. “Aren’t you even a little tired?”
I already throb from the two previous times tonight that he’s woken me up. But in spite of myself, I smile like a cat that’s licked up all the cream, utterly pleased.
Rhapsodic (The Bargainer Book 1) Page 27