by Sarra Cannon
“Two men at once is primer sex?” She eyed Thom whom, leaning against the headboard to her left, was staring down at his bulging crotch with abject fascination.
“I’m sure there are plenty of Sídhe whose first times’ happened with numerous people on their beds.” Heath picked up the end of her ponytail and twirled it around his fingers.
“That sounds more like an orgy than a gentle deflowering.”
“I guess it does, but in a lot of ways, it’s a lot more comfortable than being one on one with someone. Less responsibility.”
“Oh.” Perhaps that was why Heath was so comfortable with having Thom in the room. It was less about kink and more about doing what felt right, and she had to admit having Thom there as a buffer between her and Heath had taken the tension down a few notches. Being told what to do with Heath, and for him, took away her recalcitrance. “How many were on the bed your first time?”
He blew out a long breath. “Shit, who the hell can remember?”
“That many?” She gritted her teeth. She didn’t like the idea of so many people having seen her fairy nude—casual or not.
He shrugged. “It just wasn’t particularly memorable. At the time, it seemed like something I needed to get over with.” He let her hair fall to her shoulder. “Obviously, that’s an attitude I no longer have when it comes to sex.” He bent and drew her right nipple into his mouth, tonguing it to a hard, tender peak and eliciting answering cues from her pussy before letting go of it.
She pressed her thighs together once more. “What about you, Thom? How many?”
He was still staring down at his cock.
It was a very nice cock. Thick and long and evoking desire and terror all at once.
Heath sat up. “What the bloody hell?”
“Dunno.” Thom gingerly wrapped his fingers around the base and let out a hiss. “Balls are about to explode. Fucking hurts.”
“If you need to go handle business…” Simone wasn’t sure how to intimate that it was okay if he needed to go clear the pipes. If he was going to be without his mate or mates for a while, it seemed like a practical step.
“I’ll do that.” He didn’t move, though, just stared down at it with his brow furrowed.
She looked at Heath, whom seemed equally perplexed. “What background info am I missing? An erection would certainly be an expected consequence of what we just did.”
Heath had certainly been hard as a flagpole before he’d wriggled himself under the covers.
“Go on and tell her,” Thom said.
“All right. Hestia cursed him so he can only get an erection in very specific conditions.”
“Is this one of them?”
“Apparently.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Likely, that you may have to be in the room for him to be able to get it up for his own mates. I assure you, it’s not me who does it to him.”
“That’s appalling.”
“No less appalling than what I did to deserve it, I suppose,” Thom said.
“But, I can’t—”
Heath leaned in and put his mouth over hers. Kissed her. Nipped at her lips. Shushed her. “No, you’re right. You can’t. We’ll figure out how to fix it.”
“What’s the out clause for the curse?”
“Performing certain humiliating acts,” Thom said. He winced as he brought his fist up his shaft. “Shit. Many I would have done a long time ago if there’d been an outlet. Some of those things were forward-thinking, even for Hestia.”
“Such as what?”
“Suffice it to say, some things that are in direct opposition to my character.”
“He’s a Dom,” Heath explained. “What Hestia demands would require him to…not be.”
“I imagine that would be difficult.”
“Impossible,” Thom said through clenched teeth. “But when the time comes, I’ll try.”
He worked his fist up and down and came forcefully with a strained cry out. He put his head against the headboard and turned his gaze to the ceiling. “Fuck.”
“You’re just out of practice,” Heath said.
“I’m a laughingstock.”
“You’ll get better, certainly, in time for… Well, you know. Maybe she won’t mind so much if the first time isn’t…um…”
It took a moment for Simone to work out what the two were getting at. Of course Thom would have some stamina issues if he got off by his own hand in four pumps.
“I’ll help you.” The words came out of her mouth as if she really even knew what that would entail.
He raised both eyebrows.
“I mean, I’ll do what I can to help you, within reason. So you’re not embarrassed.”
“Thank you, but it really isn’t your responsibility.”
“But it obviously is. Your job is to take care of Heath—”
“And you.”
“Right. So, let me take care of you in the small way I can. I can even keep my back turned while you get your practice in.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“It’d be an awkward non-issue.”
He chuffed and nodded. “That sounds about right.” He padded to the bathroom, scooping his hands against his belly, and Heath pick up the ends of her hair again.
That indescribable tension returned. The fear of being left alone in a room with him. The fear she’d…lose herself to him somehow. She tried to swallow it down as if it were some tangible thing.
“He wouldn’t expect it from you, you know. He’d just suffer.” Heath’s blue gaze was so focused that she wouldn’t dare look away, but Gods, how she wanted to. Too intense.
“He shouldn’t have to suffer like that. Seems like he’s suffered for too long.”
“As did you. That’s why Siobhan’s so eager to help.”
She tipped her head back against the headboard. “Forgot about the damned motel. Need to get back so Siobhan can move on with her life. I’m sure she has better things to do.”
“Not particularly. Why are you in such a hurry to retreat to it?”
“I’m sure you guys have work to do. Going out and pursuing bad guys and stuff.”
“Are you so eager to rid yourself of me? To see my back retreating farther and farther away?”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what? You don’t want to be with me? An unfortunate thing, for certain, but I hope at some point you’ll come around to tolerating me.”
“Damn it, it’s not that.” She pounded the mattress and let out a sigh. “This doesn’t feel real to me, okay? You say you’re my husband, and all your crew agrees.”
“I am your husband.”
“That’s what I mean. You say that with such certainty.”
“Because it’s truth.”
“But, I don’t feel that.” She thumped her chest. “All I feel is fear and panic over this, because this is how weekend flings start, not lifetime relationships. We’re not inside a storybook. You aren’t some man who courted me and dated me who I decided to have a go with. You just swooped in and that was that.”
“So, it’s not an issue of you disliking me, but an issue of things moving too fast?”
“Try to see things from a human perspective if you can, Heath. Humans get maybe eighty or ninety years to squeeze in everything they’re going to do in their lives, and that’s all. We like to make sure the person we’re going to spend the rest of our lives with is someone we can tolerate long-term. Someone who understands our quirks and eccentricities. Someone…” Someone who could make her feel butterflies on occasion. She rested her hands over her unsettled belly.
He had the last thing down. But, the rest?
A man like him would probably become pretty stinking bored with her after twenty years, and then where would they be?
He stroked her chin and stared into her eyes. “I see.”
Thom returned to the bedside carrying his underwear. “Got a text. Dinner’ll be on the table in about five minutes.”<
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“Do you?” she whispered to Heath.
“I do. You may not believe me, but I do. You continuously misjudge me, Simone. You think I don’t understand, but I do.” He eased out from under the covers and strode to his pile of clothes. “I’ll show you I do.”
Chapter 13
They had their gear packed up and were on the road heading toward Albuquerque and the airport with Queen Contessa, her brother Jody, her aide Nadia, and one of their newcomers named Jeff when Heath’s phone vibrated. He plucked it from his pocket and read Siobhan’s name on the incoming call display.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her.
“Are you in a plane?”
“Heading toward one.”
“Good. Need you to do an apprehension. Some little quarter-breed fucktwat is raising hell in Ohio. You should be able to nab him on your own. Just keep Simone away from him. His abilities are of a…um, sexual nature.”
“In what way?”
“He can arouse people and make them think they want him. You should be immune because of your tussle with that incubus last year.”
“Got it. We’ll head that way, then. Send me a text with all the details.” He disconnected.
“What’s up?” Thom asked.
“Need to pick up a fucktwat in Ohio. Siobhan said it’s a one-man job, so don’t get your knickers in a twist over it.”
“Not wearing any today, so it’s hardly a concern.”
Nadia, in the backseat, groaned softly. Normally, Heath might have asked what was up with her, but he already knew.
He turned and caught Contessa in his gaze. She was doing all she could to not laugh aloud. Shared secrets were bloody awful things. It may even have been her idea to invite Thom along on her little field trip. For whatever reason, her brash and ballsy aide wasn’t the romantically aggressive sort, though Nadia was certainly aggressive in every other way. She may have been interested in Thom, but she hadn’t overtly signaled it yet. That likely suited Thom just fine at the moment as it gave him some time to deal with his curse. Still, having them all thrown together on a two-week mission would certainly spark certain confessions.
Simone unfastened her seatbelt and leaned up into the gap between the front seats. She whispered, “So, I’m going with you to Ohio?”
“Nope. Pains me to separate from you, even for a day, but I’ll handle this on my own. You head home, and one of the girls will pick you up from the airport.”
“Think I’ll get in your way? Is that what it is?”
“Not at all. I just don’t want to expose you to that sort of shit unnecessarily. You already think I’m a brute, so I feel no need to have you witness me doing my job. Besides, I thought you were ready to go home. Changed your mind?”
She took so long to answer that Heath turned in his eat to look at her head-on. She chewed her lip and stared down in the general vicinity of the gear shifter.
“What is it?”
“I don’t want to fly alone.”
Ah. He’d forgotten about that.
He drummed his fingers on the armrest and stared ahead at the highway. If her Sídhe magic were anything like her mother’s, she could open a fairy portal between New Mexico and North Carolina and walk between the two places in about half an hour, but as that wasn’t a gift he possessed, he couldn’t instruct her on how to use it. Her own mother would have to, or else Fergus. That is, if she didn’t figure it out on her own. Sídhe were generally self-aware when it came to their abilities—they were more or less born knowing what they were capable of and refined their handling of it as they grew older. Simone was only half-Sídhe, and further, her mother had done all she could to suppress Simone’s abilities. Heath didn’t know what she was capable of, and Simone likely didn’t either.
“All right. You stay with me, and we’ll fly back together.”
She nodded, sat back, and refastened her seatbelt.
“Just take it in stride,” Thom said. “You’ll be done with all this soon, and you won’t have to worry about her getting caught in the fray.”
“Aye.” Heath’s mouth may have answered in the affirmative, but his brain wasn’t so certain soon would be as early as any of them hoped.
— —
Heath peered around the corner of the park’s meeting building and fixed his quarry in his stare. He fondled the hilt of his knife and watched the man work.
The quarter-Sídhe sat on a bench, catcalling female joggers as they went by, and harassing any that responded in the negative. Siobhan had said that was his M.O. Eventually, he’d get bored with all the rejections, and he’d lash out. Heath was there to stop him before he did.
“Do you recognize him?” Simone whispered behind him.
“No, love. I often do recognize, or least know of, some of the half-Sídhe, but quarter and less—usually not. If I get a taste of his energy, I might be able to fill in the dots on his family tree, though.”
“But you couldn’t figure out mine.”
“Because of what your mum did.”
“Oh.”
He looked back in time to catch the flush on her cheeks, and smiled at her. He really wished she wasn’t so damned skittish—nervous around him—but at least she was talking and asking him questions. That was a good thing.
“Do you always use knives?” she asked.
“Depends on how close I have to get. I carry my sword if I can be discreet, but I’m more likely to use a knife.”
“Ever use a gun?”
“Occasionally. I am skillful and licensed to carry in most states. They’re generally too loud for discretion, so I try to only use those when getting in at close range would be too dangerous to me and the crew.”
“For full Sídhe, right?”
“Not necessarily. Even a quarter-Sídhe can be too dangerous if he has the right kind of people around him.”
“What, groupies? Acolytes?”
“Sometimes. Humans are in awe of magic and too often will believe what they’re told. Anything to be close to the source.”
“What’s your plan this time?”
“I usually start with talking. If that doesn’t do the trick, violence usually does.”
She sighed. She had to have known that admission was coming. “And when you get him, then what?”
“We’ll have to make a quick trip back to the fairy realm to deliver him.”
“Quick trip? To Ireland is what you call a quick trip?”
He shrugged. “Quick meaning we won’t stick around there long. Just enough time to pitch him to the palace guards. I would send you home from Norfolk before I went. I know the travel stresses you out.”
“Thank you.”
“Hardly an inconvenience.” He fixed his stare back on the harassing fucktwat and shoved off the wall. “I’m going to lure him around the corner so there aren’t any witnesses in case I have to use force. You might want to wait in the car.”
“Okay.” She started toward it.
“Simone?”
“Yes?”
“There’s some plasticuffs in my bag. White. Look like oversized zip ties. Side pocket. Can you dig them out for me?” He hoped if he gave her a small task to put her energy into, her stress level would taper off a bit. At the moment, it was in the stratosphere, and he’d bet every share of his Apple stock it was all his fault.
She nodded and continued around the path.
“Thank you, Princess.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Never.” He needed to keep saying it aloud so he’d remember how he was supposed to be treating her. Maybe one day they’d settle into a nice, quiet life where their biggest worry was keeping people from tracking sand into the motel office. He craved that almost as much as he craved her rare, voluntary touch.
Heath started toward the quarter-Sídhe and clasped his hands at his back. He affected a casual gait and smiled at the joggers who approached them. Only about half gave him a double take. There might have been more normally, but he probably looke
d almost typical at the moment with his clean hair and rare dearth of leather. The only cowhide he had on at the moment was what composed his boots, and they weren’t even his good boots. His motorcycle boots had blood on them for some reason he couldn’t remember. He’d left them at Hearth to deal with later. Perhaps Siobhan would take care of them while he was away.
He scoffed, even thinking it.
The quarter-Sídhe stood as Heath approached. He shifted his weight as if to flee, but Heath lifted his shirt and brandished the gun tucked into his waistband. “I take it you recognize me.”
“Hard not to. You’ve got power pouring off you like a transformer.”
Exactly what Heath had wanted. Usually, he tried to keep his power reined in so he’d be no more detectable than any other being on two legs, but occasionally being a bit ostentatious with his magic better suited his purposes. He let his shirt fall and gave a curt bow. “At your service, then.”
The quarter-Sídhe cocked his chin. “I bet you think you’re going to take me down on your own. Or do you have your crew of daft misfits with you?”
Heath narrowed his eyes. Daft misfits. “I’d like to know where you get your information from.” Heath wrapped his fingers around the knife hilt at his back. “Most don’t know about my hunters.”
He shrugged. “Word gets around between folks like me. We share tips. Teach each other how to stay off the radar screen.”
“And you thought harassing humans would keep you off it?”
He shrugged again. “Didn’t expect anyone to know what I was up to.”
“Be certain that’s a mistake you’ll never get to repeat.”
He waved a dismissive hand and brazenly ogled a jogger in pink tights. “Want some cock, honey? I’ve got a fat one for you.”
“Ew! No.” She sped up.
While Fucktwat was distracted by her retreating derriere, Heath put his hand to the back of his neck and siphoned off a little energy—just enough to make him collapse onto the bench.
Disgusting. Heath shook out his hand. The quarter-Sídhe’s energy had a taint about it that reminded Heath of much older fairies. The older they were, the harder it was for them to keep their energy from going sour—from going mean. Having the right mate helped, assuming she was strong enough to balance it. Heath suspected this particular fucktwat wouldn’t live long enough to meet his, if he even had one.