Lust

by Charlotte Featherstone

  Their gazes met, and the hunger she saw in his eyes frightened her. Was he recalling that night in the maze as well, when she was bared to him? For it was all she could think of. Yet he had deceived her—from the very beginning. Crom was not wrong in that. Thane had lied to her, but why?

  “Why?” she asked on a confused whisper. “Out of all the women in the world, why did you choose this mortal?”

  “Because fate drove me to you.”

  He watched her response with his unblinking gaze. Fate. Was he her fate? She knew now, unequivocally, what he was. But she did not understand who he was to be to her.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “You don’t know? Crom did not tell you?”

  She swallowed hard. She did know what he wanted. What did any Dark Fey desire?

  “Every one hundred years, seven women are born who possess the virtues.”

  She paled and tried to back away, but his gaze held her steady—pinned to the spot on the floor before him.

  “You are the virtue of chastity. And I am here to claim you as mine.”

  And why was it so important to him? What did it matter to him? Was it merely her virtue that interested him? Her chasteness called to the base Unseelie needs inside him. Was that it? Was she merely something to corrupt?

  His lashes lowered, hiding the expression of his eyes. Somehow she knew he heard her silent question, and he refused to answer her. But she knew it anyway. It was not her he desired. But her virtue.

  “You are wrong. It may have been your virtue that called to me, but it has always just been you that has brought me back—time and time again.”

  She could not allow herself to weaken. She couldn’t. Even though she felt her body softening, her resolve wavering.

  “Have you stolen me from my family, then, and taken me to your court?” she asked, trying to be brave.

  His lips curved in amusement. “No. Not yet.”

  She didn’t know whether to be relived or alarmed by his response. “Not yet” implied that he would. The thought of being separated from her family made her ill.

  “You are still safely in London. Your father is with my king, and your sisters are with my brethren. Unharmed, of course.”

  He slouched farther into his chair, his pose at once indolent yet arousing. She could not cease staring at him. At how beautiful he was. How alluring and sensual. He seemed to know her thoughts, for he spread his body out farther, allowing her an unobstructed view of him.

  “You do not seem overly distressed to learn that I am a Dark Faery.”

  Cocking her head, she stared at him. “I should have known. Your beauty, your gracefulness, it belies anything human. But you are not golden, you are dark, comfortable amongst shadows and at home in the night.”

  “No doubt you have heard stories of us—many of which are exaggerated—”

  “Crom says that the Unseelie destroy,” she blurted out. “That you’re not to be trusted. That the Dark Fey only want to seduce, then discard.”

  His beautiful face twisted into a mask of rage. “That Seelie bastard would say anything to get you away from me and my court. Has it ever crossed your mind that he’s lying to you?”

  No. It hadn’t. She had taken everything for the truth. Seelie were the good fey. They were golden and lively, and truth was their domain. The Dark Fey were sensual, debauched fey, delighting in war and games and darkness. Sin and lies were the foundation of their court. Crom had no reason to lie.

  “It is not only the Unseelie who destroy,” he said quietly. “There can be cruelty in the light. Danger in the sun. Hatred masked as joy and gaiety. Never underestimate the sinister beauty of the Seelie.”

  She could not refute his claims. There had always been something about Crom that had not sat well with her. A smoothness that was artificial. A coolness that was reflected in his eyes.

  In Thane’s eyes she saw heat. Desire. And an openness she had never witnessed in Crom’s violet eyes.

  “I will not hurt you,” he whispered, his voice harsh in the quiet. “You can sense that much, can’t you?”

  “I do not trust myself to believe anything that you are,” she replied quietly. “You’ve proven that I am a poor judge, that I’m not as chaste as a virtue ought to be. No, I cannot trust myself to believe in anything that you might profess…”

  “Because I am a Dark Fey,” he finished for her.

  She could not look away from him. His beauty was otherworldly, but he looked so much like a man. With Crom, she had known he was a Seelie. But Thane…no, she could not quite believe it. Perhaps it was because he had made her body respond as a woman’s does to a handsome man. A human, she corrected. Thane was fey. Not human. And therefore her arousal for him was an abomination.

  This was the Dark Fey Crom had warned her about at the Seftons’. He’d somehow known about Thane. Were the Dark Fey truly as dangerous as Crom had led her to believe? Would Thane truly hurt her as Crom had suggested?

  What motive did the Seelie have to lure her from Thane? Jealousy? Of course that was it. He wanted her for his own court. But he didn’t want her. The woman she was becoming. He wanted her virtue, wanted to place her on a pedestal.

  “You’re curious,” he stated flatly. “Please. Inspect me. See for yourself if I am not just like any other male.”

  She flushed and looked away. “Of course I am not curious.” She could not trust herself. Even though she did have the very great desire to inspect him, she could not risk being close to him. Touching him. He was far more dangerous to her than Crom and the other Seelie ever could be. She had begun to pin her hopes on him, to open her heart to him, only to discover his deceit. She’d been betrayed.

  “No? Are you not wondering, even now, what the difference is between a fey male and mortal man?”

  She was, but how did he know?

  “Turn your eyes upon me.”

  It was a command that brooked no opposition. She did the unthinkable. Straightened her body until she was looking fully upon him. When he had her full attention, he pulled the lace jabot from around his throat and draped it over the arm of the chair. Then his long fingers began working on the buttons of his shirt, which he opened to his navel.

  “You are not a man,” Chastity breathed, trying to remind herself of that fact that this was a dangerous faery sitting before her. One she could not trust. One she must escape from.

  “Am I not?” he purred, then he tugged the shirt out from his britches, pulling the white linen over his head. Chastity gasped at the sight before her. The width of his chest, the bulge of muscle in his arms.

  Behind him the moon shone through the window, and his body seemed to absorb the moonbeams that glimmered through the filth-covered panes of glass. The effect was stunning.

  “That night in the maze, when I had my hands on you, and my mouth on your breast, did I not feel like a man? Did you not yearn for me like a woman does a man?”

  She would not answer him. Couldn’t.

  “And the other times, when I was with you. Did I not make you feel pleasure?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, ashamed of her actions and what she had allowed herself to believe. “I am asking myself why you did it.”

  “Because I desire you.” His eyes never left her face.

  “It was for your own amusement, then? Corrupt the virtuous Chastity and laugh at her when she succumbs?”

  “Nothing like that,” he growled. “My desire was never feigned. My interest never fleeting. I want you. In my world. As my mate.”

  “So you saw me in Glastonbury and that was it? You decided you love me?”

  She saw the flicker of wariness in his eyes. Then they narrowed. “I desired you. Wanted you in my bed, beneath me. To assume I loved you then would be an insult to us both. I have never loved a woman, not a fey…or a mortal.”

  Something in her splintered. While she had desired him, she realized now that she had also cared for him. The first stirring of love had been blooming inside he
r, and he had felt lust. Nothing more.

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  She sniffed, stiffening her posture. “No, you do not.”

  “If I were to confess my love right now, you would ridicule me. Deride me. I know you would not believe me.”

  “Lust and love are two very different things.”

  “Believe me, no one knows that more than I. Come, trust me. Regardless of what Crom says, or what your heart is telling you, you can believe in that. I would never, ever willingly hurt you.”

  “You already have.”

  Cocking his head to the side, he studied her. “Then allow me to make amends.”

  He sat back in the chair, opening his arms, allowing her to study him fully. She found herself mesmerized by his fey glamour, and helplessly, she stepped forward, till her gown brushed his silk-covered knees and she could smell the bared skin of his chest. He smelled of her perfume and of the woods at night. He compelled her…enthralled her…

  “You made me want you,” she accused. “You used your faery magic to make me desire you.”

  “No, I did not work a spell to enchant you. You came to me of your own volition. And every time after that, it was your will that brought me to you.”

  “You deceived me,” she whispered, unable to blink or tear her gaze from him. She was hurting. She did not want what she had felt, this newfound desire, the sense of freedom and liberation to give in to her buried needs to have been based on magic. She had wanted more. Something real.

  “No, I did not.”

  “Then I have deceived myself into believing that you are something that you aren’t.”

  “You knew me as a man. I am built just like a man, Chastity. See for yourself.”

  Her gaze slipped down as she heard the fastening of his britches. Slowly he opened the flap, and she pressed her eyes shut, hiding the vision. “Please don’t.”

  “Such innocence,” he whispered. “I wonder at it, even though I have seen you naked. Have felt your breasts and the honey of your quim.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  He sat forward and skimmed his finger down the filmy skirts of her gown. “You are only afraid to admit the truth to yourself. It is easier to deny what you want because I am a fey. You hide behind that truth because you do not have to accept that you have been tempted by something you cannot understand. That someone has broken past your defenses, your virtue, to glimpse the woman beneath the innocent veneer—and that someone was a faery.”

  She shook her head, refusing to believe him.

  “But what are dreams?” he murmured quietly, sending her skin prickling in awareness. “What of that voice inside you? The one that speaks to you, the one that I answer? What man could know of that? No, it has taken a fey to finally awaken you, to make you respond. You could never have done so with a mortal man.”

  “They were only silly dreams,” she said, denying everything he was saying.

  “Were they really? Close your eyes,” he commanded.

  Suddenly memories of a garden came rushing back. Thane was there, so was a dog. He was between her legs, touching her… Oh, God, his lips were moving over her, and she felt it, the heat and moistness of his tongue, the feel of him probing, circling, the exquisite pleasure that shot through her body.

  “You remember now?” he asked. “Was that only a dream?”

  “Why now?” she cried on a broken sob. Why now were these thoughts coming back to her?

  “Because I have given you back the memories.” She watched as he sat back in his chair, studying her. “It was not the right time to reveal myself, then. You were afraid of what was inside you. You feared me. And I never wanted your fear. Only your passion.”

  “You stole my memories.”

  His eyes darkened and he lowered his lashes, shielding them from her. “You were not yet ready for the truth.”

  “I’m not now, either,” she hissed. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  “There is nothing to understand. It is simple. You belong to me.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You belong to the fey.”

  “Perhaps,” she retorted, intending to wound and hurt the way she was at that very moment. “But not to the Unseelie.”

  She turned to walk away, but he reached for her, his eyes black and glistening as he grasped her wrist, pulling her closer so that she was caged between his thighs. “You claim to know me so very well, but do you even know who you really are?” he whispered silkily in her ear.

  “Of course I do. I am Chastity Ann Lennox,” she snapped as she tried to free herself from his hold. But then the strangest noise came from him. It was part growl, part purr, and she stilled, forced her gaze to meet his.

  “You should not have told me, muirneach, for I cannot control what I am.”

  Something grave had happened between them. She felt it. Her body giving way, her thoughts swaying and leaving her. She was no longer in control.

  “Neither am I,” he whispered as he pulled her closer, his mouth brushing along her jaw. “I am ruled by my Unseelie blood, by the power you have just handed me. By the si—” He stopped, breathed heavily against her. “By the dark need inside me.”

  “The dreams, they were real,” she whispered, giving voice to her fears as she tried to make sense of everything. “Everything was true. You used your fey magic to come to me, to enter my dreams.”

  “Yes. But not without your help. Without that little voice inside you giving you the thoughts, I would not have been able to.”

  “You forced me.”

  “No, never.” His lips brushed her jaw, across her ear. “You let me in. Accepted me. You listened to the voice inside you. It told you that you wanted me. Wanted to let go of the virtue. Even now that voice speaks to you.”

  “It’s your magic making me believe it.”

  “No, it is not. It is your true self.”

  “Please,” she whispered desperately, “release your hold on me.”

  “I cannot. My body burns for a taste of you. My blood…it courses through me, seeking what has been denied me.”

  Struggling in his hold, Chastity tried ineffectively to free herself. But Thane was too strong and determined to keep her where he wanted her.

  “You fear me, but I am the same as I always was. Before you knew who I really am, there was no fear. Come,” he encouraged. Reaching for her hand, he drew her closer and forced her palm onto his chest. “Discover that there is nothing so terrible about me.”

  “Everything about you is otherworldly. How could you believe that I could look at you, touch you, and think you simply a man?”

  His eyes shuttered, and she felt his heart thump slow and steady beneath her palm. “Then if you cannot think of me as a man, discover me as a fey.”

  Thane watched with hooded eyes as Chastity’s gaze roved over his body. Allowing his fey glamour full rein, he sat back in his chair, capturing Chastity’s hips with his thighs. His body burned. His sin was so close to coming out and claiming her.

  But this moment was crucial. He knew that. This was the moment when Chastity would either accept him for what he was, or run from him. Either way she would be his. He already had power over her. She had given him her name. That alone could compel her to do his wishes. But he did not want spells and magic. He wanted her desire to be her own. He knew he was keeping things from her. But he would tell her later. After he had made love to her. After he had made her see that his desire was real, and that beneath the passion there was the first stirring of love.

  He’d never thought to have it. But there it was, lurking deep inside him. Somehow it was happening. He was falling in love with Chastity.

  Slowly her palm moved over his chest, and the smell of her skin, the scent of her sex covering her fingers coated him. He had come to her as an essence in a bottle, but he much preferred this, her perfume covering him.

  He said nothing, just allowed his head to tip back against the chair and permi
tted her hand to discover him. Gods, her hands felt good, and his heart sped up, his body heating. This night was so important—for both of them. He couldn’t allow his sin, or anything else, to botch it up.

  “You’re warm,” she murmured. “Your flesh is much hotter than ours.”

  Yes. They were warmer blooded, the fey, than mortals. Especially the Unseelie.

  “Your heart. It beats so slowly.”

  His was beating much faster than normal as her fingers crept up to his neck. Gods, her scent. He wanted to reach out and lick her fingers. To taste her.

  “Your skin. It’s…incandescent.”

  “The moonlight,” he murmured as he closed his eyes. “Nighttime is our element. Our powers are at their strongest and our true glamour is revealed in its glow.”

  Trembling fingers moved over his chin, her fingertips grazed his lips and he could not resist the lure of brushing his tongue along her fingertips, tasting her sex on her own fingers. Imagining what it would be like to part her and swipe his tongue along the pink silk of her quim.

  She gasped, surprised, but she did not pull away. Instead, she continued her study of him, and he allowed it. Allowed himself the pleasure of sitting back and enjoying her touch, which burned into him. Lust for the moment was satisfied. Purring inside him, but soon his sin would deprive him of this simple pleasure. It would want more, would want her complete surrender. Thane wanted that, too, but the sin in him wanted to go about it in a different manner. The Dark Fey in him wanted to seduce, to have her utterly consumed with him before he claimed. Lust wanted only to fuck.

  All night he had been battling his sin, and he was winning. But for how much longer, he had no idea.

  Her fingertips grazed over his lashes, then moved up to his forehead and over to his hair. The feel of her fingernails scraping his scalp, raking through his hair, was heaven, and he could not hide the purr of satisfaction. His skin tightened in goose bumps at the feel her fingers tightening…holding.

  The bond between them was established once more, and he was pulled into her. He could see in her mind her desires. But he wanted her to see his. His mouth on her, his face buried in her cunt as she raked her fingers through his hair, holding him to her. He wanted to sit in his chair and have her come to him, to lie down naked at his feet in surrender. Yes, he wanted that from her. Her complete submission.