Most Ardently

by Sheena Austin et al.

  She was staring out the front window.

  “Can you still see him out there?” I asked.

  “I’m not entirely certain. Or rather, yes, I can see him—but I think I can see others, as well.” She began pointing at the creek line. “If you look right in the middle, you can see where he’s crouched down.”

  “I see him,” I said, stepping up to stand close behind her and peer out the window over her shoulder.

  “If you look to his left and his right, you can almost make out the others outlined against the snow. Maybe six or seven?”

  This close to her, her smell was nearly overwhelming, and I had to take a step back. “That would make sense. That’s about how many I saw following me at various times.”

  She turned to face me, her eyes wide. “You had an entire pack of those things after you? That’s awful. They’re awful. Monstrous.”

  I padded toward the loveseat again, then realized it was the only comfortable seating in the room. “Do you want to take the sofa?” I asked abruptly.

  She turned from her observation of the elves lurking outside her property line and frowned at me. “I don’t want my back to the window,” she said, “but I also want you to sit wherever is best for your leg.”

  I waved a hand dismissively. “My leg’s fine. One more shift and it will be completely healed and strong again. Also, I don’t think the fae can come any closer than they are right now to your cabin.”

  She chewed her bottom lip again, and I found myself staring at her mouth. I tore my eyes away and inhaled to try to calm myself down—but that just brought me another wave of her smell. I couldn’t choose between trying to block it out and reveling in it.

  I took the same seat that I had earlier. This time, however, Darcy came and sat on the far arm of the small sofa. At some point, she had kicked off her boots, and now she put her small, socked feet in the middle of the cushion next to me. She leaned her elbows on her knees and held her chin in her hands. “There. Now I can see both you and the creepy elf army outside my window. She paused, frowning. “Those are not, by the way, the kind of Christmas elves I prefer.”

  I snickered, and she grinned with me. I was glad she was able to find some humor in the situation.

  Outside the window, the creepy elves hunkered down in the snow, waiting. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet, but the clouds were darkening outside. If any other creature had been stalking me, I would’ve welcomed the storm as a diversion. But the Winter Court elves thrived in weather like this.

  The snow began falling in bigger, fatter flakes. Pretty soon, our view of our opponents would be obscured by the snowfall.

  “Talk to me.” Darcy’s tone had turned commanding.

  I nodded and ran my hands in my hair. “I assume you want to know what he meant out there, right?”

  She leaned forward even farther and gazed directly into my eyes as she said, “I want to know what he meant when he said that it didn’t matter how much I fucked you, you still belonged to him.”

  Okay, there was something about her absolute directness—the sound of the word fuck coming from her—that was unbelievably hot. I swallowed, audibly, I feared.

  “It has to do with the idea of claiming someone or something,” I began.

  “And that’s done through sex?”

  “Sex is one method of claiming. Not all supernaturals are able to claim, and even those who are don’t claim everyone they have sex with.” I was finding it easier to talk about all of this in theoretical terms. Supernaturals and people, not you and me.

  “I’m just a human. Why would that thing out there think I could claim you?” A crease appeared in between her eyebrows as she worked through the possibilities. “Or does it think that you’re claiming me?”

  Well. That had shifted to you and me pretty quickly.

  “No, it definitely thinks you’re claiming me.”

  “Why?”

  Now I was the one chewing on my bottom lip, trying to figure out how to say what I knew I needed to tell her. This woman had saved me, nursed me through a fever, kept the local law enforcement officer from seeing me, and protected me from the hunter elves chasing me.

  And that was only in the first twelve hours.

  The least I can do was repay her with absolute honesty.

  “Last night in the clearing where you found me, did you feel or see anything out in the woods when you announced that they belong to you in whatever was hunting me wasn’t welcome?”

  She shook her head. “I mean, it seemed like something was out in the woods, and I felt—I don’t know, maybe a little shivery? But otherwise? No.”

  “And a few minutes ago, when you told the hunter out there that he was not welcome on your land?”

  “No.” She drew the word out into a couple of long syllables. “Should I have?”

  “I did.”

  She stared at me, letting all the implications sink in. She was smart, and even if she didn’t want to believe that she might have a supernatural power, I saw the moment when that possibility finally hit her. She froze, her mouth falling open and her gaze locking on mine.

  “Are you saying that you think I am...”

  I finished her sentence for her as I nodded. “Some kind of paranormal being.”

  12. Darcy

  I COULD CLAIM BENNET Austen, kitsune, fox-shifter as my own.

  If I fuck him.

  Under the circumstances, those certainly should not have been my first two thoughts. And yet, they were—and more than that, they sent a hot wave of desire coursing through me that almost made my eyes roll back in my head.

  Dammit, Darcy. Pay attention to the issues at hand.

  I tried to focus back in on Bennet’s words, instead of just staring at his mouth and imagining leaning even closer and kissing him as he spoke.

  “Right now, they’re counting on the fact that I will have to leave your land eventually. And when I do, they’ll be able to resume their hunt for me.”

  I frowned. “Okay. I’m not saying I believe you that I’m some kind of supernatural creature, because obviously, I’m not. But just for argument’s sake, if I were... Is there some way I could protect you?”

  Now he was the one whose cheeks were a flaming red. “Well. You could claim me.”

  “Would that help you?”

  He’d been looking out the window at the snow swirling around us, but his gaze snapped back up to meet mine. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “Then explain it to me.”

  “Claiming is more than just sex. It’s like a mating ritual.”

  “How would it protect you?”

  “As far as I can tell, that’s what the Winter Queen is doing to the ones she captures,” Bennet said. “She claims them, mates with them, and then holds their power within herself. In a true claiming, the power is fed back to the claimed mate in a kind of loop.”

  “Huh.” I stood and moved over to the window again. I couldn’t see to the creek any longer. “So how did I claim the land? I assume that’s what’s keeping them off my property?”

  As it grew ever darker outside, I watched Bennet’s reflection in the window.

  He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. I’ve only ever heard of something similar in...” His voice trailed off and an expression of sheer horror stole across his features.

  “Tell me.”

  He frowned as he made eye contact in the glass. “Among the fae queens.”

  “Fae? Like those monsters out there?”

  “Sort of. Those are the warriors. Think of them like...worker ants, or bees,” he said. “Their form is completely different from their queen’s.”

  “And what have you heard of them?”

  “Well, that they’re beautiful, for one.”

  “Anything more relevant?”

  “That they are so tightly bound to their territory that they cannot leave.”

  Bound to their territory... “Like they claimed it?”

 
; “Yeah.” His voice had dropped to a whisper.

  “Then if I’m like them,” I began, “and I claimed my land last night...”

  “You might not be able to leave your property again.”

  I glanced out the window again, still unable to see anything other than the snow, which was beginning to fall at an angle as the storm picked up power. “Well, we can’t drive off the property in this weather. And the elves have the nearest boundary blocked. So we can’t test that theory right now.” I turned to face Bennet. “And I’m going to assume that’s not the case. I refuse to be trapped in my own house.”

  He nodded. “It’s possible that you’re just part fae. And that could mean you don’t have the same limitations they do.”

  “Okay. The issue of leaving here aside, what could this mating ritual do to protect you?”

  “The queen wouldn’t be able to claim me for herself. The hunters could still take me to her, but the worst she could do would be to kill me. She couldn’t drain me and use my powers.”

  “How is she using these powers?”

  His mouth twisted. “I wasn’t able to figure that out before her hunters started tracking me. All I know is that she has plans to take over the other Fae Courts, too, and is using stolen power to do it.”

  I stared at him for a long time. He was gorgeous, he was interesting, and he was in danger.

  I was drawn to him. And I could save him.

  This is stupid, Darcy. Don’t do it.

  “So,” I said. “Wanna have sex?”

  13. Bennet

  I DIDN’T HEAR THAT right.

  I couldn’t have.

  “Why?”

  She frowned at me like it was the stupidest questions she’d ever heard. In some ways, I suppose it was. She was beautiful, just her smell gave me a hard-on, and she was offering to have sex with me. And not just any sex—the kind that could literally save my life.

  Still, I needed to know. “I mean, I realize it would keep the Fae Queen from using my power, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with you.”

  She pushed away from where she’d been standing by the window—her back to it, I noticed, despite her pronouncement earlier that she wanted to face the window.

  Standing up straight, even though she wasn’t a tall woman, she suddenly seemed to take up much more space, as if her entire aura had spread out to fill the room.

  And as I looked at her, her eyes snapping, I saw the same blue light flicker around her that I had seen in the clearing and again along the property line at the creek.

  “They hunted on my land, tried to kill you without my permission. That’s unacceptable.” The power echoed through her words, spinning around me, and I had the first glimpse of what claiming-sex with her might be like.

  This woman wielded her magic unconsciously, powerfully.

  What would it be like to be connected to it? To her?

  Amazing, that inner voice of mine breathed.

  And then she took a breath and a step forward, and her power receded back into her, as she became merely Darcy again.

  “And, besides all that,” she said, her voice turning almost tentative, “I think you’re incredibly attractive. I know we don’t know each other very well, but I like you.” She shrugged. “I’m drawn to you. And this just feels right.”

  I had to agree with her about that. I wondered for the first time if the constant push I had felt to travel ever higher into the mountains as I ran from the fae hunters could also have been a pull from Darcy—or from something drawing us together.

  I was never going to say no.

  It was in my best interest to accept her offer.

  So when she held her hand out to me, her gaze capturing mine, I reached out and took it. I allowed her to draw me out of my seat, and I followed her into the bedroom, where just the night before, I been far too feverish to even consider sex.

  But I was certainly considering it now, and I was so hard my cock ached.

  Beside her bed, she stopped to face me, taking both my hands in hers.

  “Are you absolutely certain about this?” I asked.

  “I want this,” she said. “I want you.” She took a step in toward me and went up on her tiptoes to brush her lips against mine.

  I’d been careful to be sure of her consent, to make certain that this was what she really wanted. Now, as her lips touched mine, it was as if a spark jumped between us, turning the heat I felt into a raging flame.

  I scooped her up in my arms, crushing her to my chest. She wrapped her arms around my neck, returning my kisses as fervently as I returned hers. With my tongue, I nudged her lips until they opened, then swept my tongue through her mouth, tasting her, that wintery green sweetness, the flavor of the scent that now surrounded me heady and intoxicating.

  As our tongues tangled together, she moaned into my mouth and pushed herself closer to me. I picked her up off the floor and placed her gently on the bed, moving to cover her, even as I held myself up on my elbows to keep from crushing her.

  She met every move I made enthusiastically. She wrapped her legs around my waist, pulling me in closer to her. Even through our clothes, I could feel the heat pouring off her, could smell her desire.

  I kissed down her neck, then across her chest, reaching into her tank top to pull out one creamy, beautiful breast. As I licked my tongue across the hard nub of her nipple, she arched her back toward me. And as I sucked on one breast, I ran my thumb in circles over the other nipple.

  I switched sides, teasing and biting gently until with a groan, she pushed at the T-shirt I wore. She pulled it off me and I reveled in the feel of her hands sliding up and down my chest, around my back, and then pulling me down to kiss her again so that her breasts smashed hard against my chest, and we touched everywhere there was bare skin.

  When I finally pulled away and sat back on my heels, she watched me, her eyes almost glowing.

  Good. That would come in handy later.

  But first, I wanted to taste every part of her.

  I reached up to her waist, gathering the elastic of her pajama pants and panties in my grasp and tugging them down. She pulled one slim leg out at a time, then wrapped it back around behind me.

  “Do we need to do something in particular?” she asked. “For the claiming, I mean.”

  “Almost certainly,” I managed to rasp out, “but not yet.”

  With those words, I slid down the bed and buried my face between her legs.

  With a long slow lick from bottom to top, I opened her lips, savoring the taste of her. When I reached her clit, I circled it with my tongue, not quite touching it, until she was panting. She was hot, and slick, and when I slid a finger inside her she bucked against my hand.

  Finally, I let my tongue slide directly against her clit, loving the feel of her contracting around my finger, and the taste of her against my tongue, as I slipped a second finger into the hot center of her being.

  As I matched the rhythm of my hand and my tongue, she began to rock against me, faster and harder, until the wet heat of her shuddered around and against me and she cried out.

  The sight and sound and taste and smell of her as she came made me harder than ever.

  With a kiss against her clit, I withdrew my fingers and moved to lie on my side next to her.

  I watched her eyes as she came back to herself, until she rolled over on her side to face me. “Now what?” she asked.

  “Now,” I said, “it’s up to you. How do you want to claim me?”

  14. Darcy

  “HOW DO YOU WANT TO claim me?”

  His words sent an arrow of desire shooting through me when mere seconds before I would have said that I was entirely spent.

  How did I want to claim him? I sat up and pushed against his shoulder. Obediently, he rolled to his back.

  “I want to begin to claim you like this,” I said, kissing his mouth, then his chin, and from there in a straight line down his chest to the line of golden hair glinting along his flat
stomach. When I kissed his belly button, his cock jerked under the pants I’d given him to wear. I slipped my mouth around the head outside the fabric.

  Although I could feel him straining against it, I didn’t like the feel of the fabric in my mouth, so I moved it out of my way, carefully drawing his pants down and off.

  Bennet moved my pillows behind him, propping himself up just enough so he could watch me. I couldn’t take it as far as he had, but it didn’t seem fair not to at least run my tongue around the tip of his cock once, twice, and on the third time, he drew in a shuddering breath. As he did, I bent over to take him as deep into my mouth as I could.

  “Dear God,” he moaned. I smiled around him.

  He started to move against me, thrusting himself into my mouth, but I only allowed that for a few seconds. Somehow, I knew that this—as amazingly hot as it might be—would not be enough to claim him.

  I drew him out of my mouth and said, “Not today.”

  “No,” he agreed. “That’s not enough.”

  I slid back up beside him, until I was leaning my head on my fist, propping myself up on one elbow.

  “I have condoms in the drawer next to you,” I said. He reached over into my bedside table and pulled one out, handing it to me.

  “Will this affect the claiming at all?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” He frowned, opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it again, and then finally spoke. “Shifters don’t get human diseases,” he said. “The same process that healed my broken leg clears diseases out of our cells when we shift.”

  I stared at him for a moment, trying to decide what to do.

  “I am absolutely willing to use a condom,” he said. His eyes narrowed. “Especially if you’re at all worried about pregnancy.”

  I shook my head. That wasn’t the issue. “I have an IUD.”

  I didn’t know this guy, not really, even though I felt like I did. And as much as I wanted to help him, I didn’t want to take any more risks than I had to.

  “Use the condom,” I decided. If the claiming didn’t work, we could always try again. I grinned at the thought as Bennet tore open the wrapper and unrolled the condom over himself.