“Why do you want to know?”
Dain took a long moment before he replied and, the more she gazed up at him, the more her knees threatened to buckle out from under her. Now wouldn’t that be something? Aunt Aquaria would certainly lose her mind if she fell into Dain’s arms right there, where everyone could see them.
“I like to know about beautiful things.” A hint of a smile appeared on his lips, and that was enough for her heart to tighten inside her chest.
How could he be so damn charming? And why was she swooning over such cheesy lines? There was no denying it was about as cheesy as they come, but his delivery…
Now that didn’t even sport a whiff of cheese.
“There’s not much to know,” she finally replied with a shrug. “Just your average royal fae. Boring beyond measure.”
Galwyn was acutely aware of exactly how boring and uninteresting she was. Everyone—including her friends—thought the life of a royal was terribly exciting, but in Galwyn’s experience, it was quite the opposite. Lots of time indoors, attending lessons, reading history, and generally learning how to not embarrass the family. Not the stuff of legends, needless to say, especially for a guy like Dain.
“Oh, please.” He chuckled softly, and a dangerous edge appeared in his smile. “There’s nothing boring about fae royalty. Well, I don’t know how it is with the Murphy clan, but I can assure you there’s nothing boring about being an Oberon.”
Galwyn believed that wholeheartedly. “Is that why everyone’s looking at us right now?”
“Everyone?” He narrowed his eyes slightly, his smile widening some more, and Galwyn’s heart beat faster and faster. Her gaze was drawn to his full lips, and her heartbeat grew so loud she could barely hear her own thoughts. Before she knew it was happening, she imagined how it would feel to press her mouth against his.
“Maybe it’s just my aunt.”
She made a monumental effort to focus on his eyes instead of his lips, but maybe that wasn’t such a good idea after all. Every piece of this man seemed to have been designed with one purpose in mind—to drive her utterly and completely mad with desire. And it was working.
“What, you think Aquaria isn’t impressed with my dance moves?” he asked with a wink.
Then he spun her around so that her back was turned to her aunt. For the first time since pulling her into his arms, his gaze darted away from her as he winked at Aquaria, his expression turning into a blend of amusement and defiance. For good measure, he let the hand on Galwyn’s waist drift to her lower back. Nothing like Lord Rutherford’s gropiness, but enough of a suggestion to send Aunt Aquaria into a tizzy.
“Then again,” he said, returning his gaze to hers and sending chills skittering across her skin, “it’s not Aquaria I’m trying to impress.”
She racked her brain for something equally clever and witty to say but came up blank. It was impossible for her to think clearly with Dain’s hard muscles—and other things—pressing up against her body. Every step they took managed to draw them ever closer, and Galwyn didn’t mind that. At all.
Dain shifted his feet in a quick side-step, sending her body—and her head—into a small spin. He caught her a second after that, and all air left her lungs as she crashed against his chest. Her right hand landed over his beating heart, and this time she didn’t even try to look away from his lips. Allowing her gaze to linger there, her imagination unfurled its wings as she pictured herself going on tiptoes and…
Have you lost your mind, Galwyn?
The giant meltdown her aunt would have if she kissed Dain Oberon in front of every fae in Othercross would be epic. A meltdown for the ages, no doubt about it. But Kelly’s voice echoed in her brain, reminding her this was her life, not Aquaria’s and not her parents’. She’d spent her entire life living by others’ standards for her, and while a man such as Lord Rutherford might look good on paper as a partner for her, Galwyn was tired of being her family’s brain-dead puppet.
When Dain dipped her low to the ground, Galwyn caught sight of an upside-down Aquaria laughing heartily at a stupid joke some highbrow fae had made, seeming to have forgotten all about Galwyn and Dain. That wouldn’t last, of course, so Galwyn needed to act…and fast.
Once Dain had lifted her upright again, she dragged her teeth over her bottom lip, trying to muster enough courage to do what needed to be done, then took him by the hand.
“What do you say we get out of here?” The moment the words left her mouth, she knew she hadn’t intended it as a question. Trying on a seductive smile, she tucked a stray lock of brown hair behind one ear, looked him straight in the eye, and tried again, this time with more confidence. “Let’s get out of here.”
Before Dain could protest—as if he would—she dragged him across the dance floor toward one of the side exits. They slipped out of the hall and hurried down a stone corridor. The music and laughter from the reception drifted after them, and it didn’t take long before all those sounds became a muffled, distant, and wholly unimportant echo.
Once they’d put some distance between them and the party, Dain chuckled and tugged on her hand so she would stop. “Are you trying to kidnap me, Ms. Murphy? Or is something else on your—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Galwyn grabbed him by his silky black shirt and reeled him in. Much like she had imagined doing, she went up on her tiptoes and crushed her mouth against his. Her eyelids fluttered at the warm touch of his lips. His scent filtered into her brain and left her in a complete daze. The man smelled of fire, leather, and sin.
“This is what’s on my mind,” she whispered against his lips, relishing the way he had nestled his hands on her hips. His fingers dug into her flesh, his desire crackling under his skin like electricity, and she realized she had set something in motion which couldn’t be stopped. For the first time in her life, Galwyn had acted like a reckless and irresponsible fae.
And she was loving it.
Chapter Five
The last thing Dain expected was for Galwyn to be so forward. Not that he was going to complain about it. If she hadn’t dragged him out of the hall, he would’ve been the one doing it. Now, as their kiss deepened and their tongues became entangled, he couldn’t have been happier to be away from a crowd of onlookers.
Ten minutes earlier, he would have felt immense satisfaction if anyone had seen them making out, but his plans for revenge had taken a backseat to whatever was happening between him and Galwyn. In fact, he could barely remember why he’d been prowling Guildcrest Hall like a predator in the first place. In that moment, the only thing he truly cared about was exploring each nook and cranny of Galwyn’s delicious body, his need for revenge be damned.
“Come,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her farther down the corridor. After checking several locked doors, she laughed and took the lead.
“I think I know a place,” she said, hurrying toward a stairwell that led to the upper floors.
But instead of going up, she stopped in front of a small door underneath the stairs. Giving him a saucy smile, she pulled off her glasses and freed her hair from her ponytail, then despite the fact the door couldn’t have been more than three feet high, she didn’t hesitate to hunker down and crawl inside. Dain scratched the back of his neck for a moment, wondering how they would both fit in such a small space, much less get as acrobatic as he intended. Then a creamy, feminine hand reached out of the hole and beckoned him inside. He didn’t need to be asked twice.
Wedging himself in the dinky janitor’s closet was something of a feat, but as soon as she closed the little door behind them, the space expanded. Rows of wooden shelves materialized around them, stacks of fresh linens seemed to pop out of thin air, and a magic scent wafted through the air as the enchantment that had been put on the room unfurled around them.
He wouldn’t have minded being cramped inside a tiny room with Galwyn, but even he had to admit this improved space was better for what he had in mind. True to those thoughts, he spun her around and
pushed her back against a stack of perfectly folded sheets. The sheets tumbled to the floor like falling dominoes, but Dain paid them no heed—he just pressed himself against her, a scorching heat settling between his legs as his cock became impossibly hard.
His hands roamed down the sides of her body until he found the hem of her dress, and then his fingers slipped underneath the fabric. He brushed against her naked skin on the way up, only stopping when he reached her inner thighs. With a smooth motion, he turned his hand around and flattened his palm against her drenched panties, her wetness somehow making him even harder than he already was. Yes, there could be no doubt about it—Galwyn wanted this just as much as he did. And that was saying something, because he wanted her like he had never wanted anyone before.
“I have no idea what you’ve done to me,” he whispered, his hand pressing hard against her wetness, “but I’m loving every second of it.”
She responded with a quivering moan, her body melting against his. Her hands shot up to his chest, making quick work of the cord holding his frock coat closed, and she then started unbuttoning his shirt. Her knuckles brushed against his naked skin as she went, and she only stopped when he was naked from the waist up.
“I could say the same, you know?” she muttered, her words brimming with unbridled lust.
Biting that irresistible lower lip of hers, she freed his belt from its loops, but before she could continue, Dain took the lead again. He slipped the straps of her dress down her shoulders, and then he continued until the entire dress was a billowy, blue bunch around her ankles.
He swallowed hard, his eyes taking in every inch of Galwyn’s bare skin, and his right hand wandered up to between her shoulder blades. He unclasped her bra with a quick flick of his fingers, the cups sliding over her breasts to reveal two rosy nipples. He leaned into her without a moment’s hesitation.
Using his tongue as a whip, he unleashed the sweetest of punishments upon her right nipple. He sucked it into his mouth, wrapping his lips around it, and allowed her addictive flavor to float up to his mind, where it coiled itself around each and every one of his thoughts. He no longer thought of himself as a rational being, but as something driven entirely by lust and desire, by animal need. And, as far as he was concerned, that was just fine. When it came to Galwyn, he had no time for such frivolities as rationality.
“How can you taste this good?” he asked, his tongue wandering down the curve of her naked breast.
He kept on moving down, slowly kneeling in front of her. His tongue only stopped dancing over her body when it reached the elastic band of her panties. He bit down on it as smoothly as he could, then peeled it off of her body.
The moment her naked pussy came into sight, he immediately understood that it was useless to restrain his urges. So instead of trying to resist the pull of her body, he surrendered to it wholly. He dove straight into her, pushing his open mouth against her and running his tongue over the length of her inner lips. He went all the way up to her clit, sucked it into his mouth, and stroked it with his tongue with precise but gentle movements.
“Oh!” she gasped. “Oh, that feels…so…good!”
She brought one leg up and rested the back of her knee over his shoulder, improving his angle of attack. That only served to make his lust spiral down into something feverish and untamable, and he devoured her like a ravenous animal, doing it as if his own survival was on the line.
Threading her fingers into his hair, she held him in place as she thrust against his mouth. Soon enough her loud moans filled the magical closet. Tiny spasms ran across her hot flesh as she came in his mouth, her whole body trembling from ecstasy as it washed over her.
“More,” Dain growled as he rose to his feet, his heart beating so hard he wouldn’t have been surprised if it burst inside his chest. “I need more of you, and I need it right fucking now.”
“Then come here,” she growled back, hooking her fingers in the waistband of his leather pants and dragging them down.
He kicked off his shoes in a hurry and tossed his pants to the side, freeing his cock. Dain caught the hesitation in her eyes, the slight widening as she took in his girth, but her surprise immediately gave way to hunger.
She reached for him—tentative at first, then growing bolder—tightening her fingers around his length, and started flicking her wrist at a maddening pace. Just a few strokes from her delicate hand and Dain was more than ready to truly get started.
Wrapping his fingers on either side of her waist, they dug into her backside, then pulled her hips closer. She responded by draping her arms over his shoulders, then hopping up to snake her legs around him with a vice-like intensity.
“Take me, Dain,” she whispered, the sound of his name on her lips an elixir that sent him into a tizzy. “Take me right now.”
One interminably slow thrust and he was in.
Once fully buried in her wet warmth, he closed his eyes at the tightness of her inner walls pulsing around his hard cock. He rested his forehead against hers and began thrusting, the rocking motion of his hips transforming her little moans into full-blown screams of pure ecstasy.
He had no idea how long they were lost in that feverish embrace. All he knew was her body demanded his, and that he needed Galwyn as much as he needed air in his lungs, blood in his veins.
His initial gentle movements became wild and furious the moment the truth of that really sank in. He ravished her in a way he had never done before, and she answered the urgency of his body by crushing her sweet mouth against his and meeting every thrust with her own. As they kissed, she dragged her fingernails across his back hard enough to draw blood, but the pain didn’t even register.
“Come for me,” he panted into Galwyn’s ear.
As if on cue, her inner walls tightened around his cock with such intensity that he soon realized he wouldn’t last long. One more thrust and he came undone, groaning as a column of fire and pleasure rose up the length of his cock. His length throbbed uncontrollably as they both came, and that’s when a sudden realization hit him.
In that moment, it felt as though someone had hit him in the chest with a sledgehammer, the thought crossing his mind enough to ignite every nerve ending that he had. He had come to Othercross looking for revenge but, as it turned out, he’d found much more than he bargained for.
He’d found his mate.
Chapter Six
Galwyn tucked herself closer to Dain’s ridiculously chiseled chest, and worked to catch her breath. Nothing like this had ever happened to her. It’s not that it was her first time—her one previous fae boyfriend hadn’t wanted her as a mate, but he’d been happy enough to take her virginity—but the kind of breathless, urgent fire they had shared was shattering.
She’d never in her life behaved so…wantonly. It was the only word for it. She’d practically dragged him along, looking for a place to jump his bones. It was forward in a way that was completely new to her—and she liked it. This version of herself made more sense to her than the quiet young thing waiting idly to be handed off to some old geezer.
Staring at the underside of the stairs, breathless and sweaty on a pile of fresh linens, she couldn’t help but laugh. As she did, Dain squeezed her tighter in his arms and nuzzled close to her ear.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. It’s just…” The joy of it all welled up inside her, and she couldn’t find a way to express it. “They’re probably gonna have to wash these sheets again.”
She wriggled into them to prove her point, and Dain laughed with her. The feeling of it only added to her sense of delight. The vibrations in his chest thrummed into her, and she took real satisfaction in being able to make him laugh. Her friends often told her she was funny, but this was probably the first time she had actually felt it.
“Galwyn, that was…” He loosed his grip enough to glide a finger in the valley of her breasts and spread his palm across her abdomen. “Incredible.”
“Yeah.” She laced her fingers
with his. “I’m still recovering.”
“Me too,” he chuckled.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Her voice was soft but not tentative.
“Anything.”
“Why do you have a crown tattooed on your forehead?”
Dain absentmindedly brushed the inked area, his smile rueful. “Tradition, I suppose. You see, when our forefathers were banished from Othercross, they went their separate ways and established their own clans—Hellgrim, Ravencut, Frostfire, and Stormgulf. Since they were cast out, they weren’t given gold crowns, as is customary for fae lords, so in defiance, they had crowns tattooed on their foreheads. Each leader of the four clans has continued the tradition ever since.”
“Which clan do you lead?” she asked, unable to stop herself from reaching up to trace the intricate lines of his crown.
“Hellgrim.”
She winced. “Sounds…nice?”
His chuckle reverberated throughout her body in the most delightful manner. “It’s not so bad, though I will admit the heat can get a little oppressive occasionally. And don’t ask me about the sandstorms…”
They lay snuggled for several minutes, his hands helping themselves to her body. It was a far cry from the salacious wanderings of Lord Rutherford. After the frenzy of their passion, it was as if Dain was finding her for the first time. As he did, the gentle loll of his member against her thigh sent a thrill into her. Even having just been spent, he desired her. She bit her lip and wondered for a moment if she had enough time to have him again before anyone came looking for them. It was a dizzying prospect.
At last, his hand came to rest firmly across the bottom of her rib cage. The warmth of his touch melted into her, but there was something else there. Something unaccountable.
“Can you feel it too?” he murmured in her ear. There was a quiet, almost timid swell to his voice. A tiny buzz glimmered into her.
Fae Lord Avenged: Real Men of Othercross (Paranormal Fae Romance) Page 3