by Anna Durand
I scrubbed my hands on my thighs to wipe away the clamminess.
Nevan did not look at me, though one finger tapped on his thigh. "Continue."
His imperious tone bristled, but I recognized he was trying to appear unaffected because he was, in fact, very affected by my announcement.
"My family is in this world," I said. "I can't abandon them, but I want to be with you. I want us to have a relationship, like normal people."
"We are not normal."
"Yeah, but we can follow some normal customs." I grasped his hand, stilling his nervous finger. "This is called compromise, Nevan. If you want to be with me, you have to give a little."
His hand clinched mine. "All right. Compromise."
I let out the breath I'd been holding.
Angling sideways on the bench, he pulled me onto his lap. "You will spend every other night with me, in my home."
"Weekends only."
"I'll agree, as long as I spend the weeknights with you in your apartment."
"No." I rapped a finger on his chest. "That's living together."
Both hands on my hips, he tipped them into his burgeoning arousal. "I enjoy bargaining with you."
"I can tell." I wagged my finger at him. "Behave."
"Make your final offer."
"Weekends at your place. On weeknights, you can stay with me if I ask you to." I leaned in until my nose bumped his. "Agreed?"
His gaze seared into mine and a single word rolled of his tongue with sensuous promise. "Agreed."
"Thank you. Now please take me home and make love to me."
"My home or yours?"
"Don't care. Just take me."
He whisked us away. We emerged in my bedroom, where the closed curtains kept the room in twilight, even at midday.
"Tell me," he said, toying with the rivet on my jeans, "would you like to experience my full glory?"
The question rocked me. "Yes."
"I've never made love to a woman before."
"What?" I made an unladylike face. "You've been with lots of women — including me."
"I have enjoyed carnal relations with many females." He unhooked the rivet and eased the zipper down, the sound alone making my sex pulse. "I made love to none of them, because I loved none. Until you."
His hand stole inside my jeans, gliding inside my panties to palm my mound. One finger parted my folds and traced circles around the bundle of nerves at the apex of my thighs. I sucked in a breath.
"I am yours alone," he rasped, his breaths heavy. "Are you mine?"
"You know I am."
"Mmm," he murmured against my throat. "Will you be mine once I become king of the sylphs?"
Drunk on lust, I needed a few seconds to process what he'd said. As the meaning and import of it sank in, I caught his head in both my hands and forced him to look at me. "When you what?"
He moved his hand to cup my breast, and suddenly my bra felt constrictive. "The tribunal asked me to assume the mantle. I will ascend to the throne in a ceremony three days hence."
"Three days?" I tugged his face closer, peering into his eyes. "Will they let a king consort with a mere mortal?"
"I agreed to their proposal with one condition. They must accept you."
"And they said yippee, sure thing?"
"Not precisely." He raked his thumb over my rigid nipple. "But they acquiesced to my terms."
"Wow." I ran my hands down his neck, over his shoulders, fondling the muscles of his chest through his shirt. "I'm sleeping with a king."
His lips curved in a mischievous smile. "Shall I undress you slowly?"
That devious finger of his, wedged inside my panties, rubbed with strong, but mercilessly unhurried, strokes. His lips swept back and forth across my cheek, as I writhed in his hold, grinding my hips into him.
"Dammit, Nevan, vanish our clothes."
"Anything you wish, my sweet mortal goddess."
Our clothes dissolved. Cool air kissed my skin, tormenting my taut nipples. His hand dived lower and his thumb flicked across my nub, as his fingers explored my opening.
I moaned. Loudly.
He zipped us onto the bed, his hard body on top of mine. "It's time to show you all of what I can do."
31
His kiss was deep and all-consuming, rich with hunger yet softened with tenderness. A contradiction, just like him. Warrior and jovial sylph. Bone-melting passion and aching gentleness. Eyes closed, I surrendered to anything he gave me.
Inch by breathtaking inch, he slid his swollen shaft inside me, penetrating my throbbing core. I arched into him and panted, "Faster."
His mouth consumed my protests. I clamped my arms around him as his shaft filled me to the hilt. He froze mid kiss, our tongues entangled. I clawed at his back, strapped my legs around his, and thrashed beneath him.
"Always eager," he growled. "I love your passion."
He drove into me, pounding into me with reckless desire, and I bowed up into each thrust, desperate to take him into me as far as possible. Locked in a fiery kiss, we were joined on every level. Even our powers were drawn to each other, the magics twirling around each other in a supernatural tango, colliding and separating in rhythm with our love-making. Through my eyelids, I spied a rainbow of lights exploding and sparkling around us, and I opened my eyes to see a constellation of fairy lights dancing around and above us, their sparks wafting through the air.
Even gravity seemed to give way to our passion and a lightness overtook me, a sense of weightlessness that amplified my arousal. His arms slipped under my body to bolster me as a climax of explosive power shattered me.
My cry wrenched our lips apart. I threw my head back to scream again, the ecstasy crashing through me again and again. At last sated, I clung to him as he plunged into me once, twice, and on the third thrust found his release. His own cry was half groan, half shout.
I shut my eyes, for fear I'd do something idiotic like weep. I'd never felt this close to anyone — and it wasn't only from the mind-blowing sex.
"Damn." My voice was breathless, my body tingling. "I hope that was your full glory, because anything more might kill me."
"Look down, love."
"Why?"
"Please, once, do as I ask without questions. You won't regret it."
I pried my lids apart, turned my head, and gasped. I belted my limbs around him. No way was I letting go.
We floated atop a white cloud outlined with silvery gray. The literal air bed hung suspended high above the earth, so far up I could glimpse Lake Superior, which lay twenty miles from my apartment complex. The building was tiny from this vantage, like a child's toy.
"Loosen your grip," Nevan said, his voice tight, "before I lose mine."
I struggled to make myself relax. "Better not drop me."
"Never. I meant I'd lose my grip on the magic that's holding us up here." He pecked a kiss on my lips. "Thank you for loosening up."
"You mean just now, or in general?" I gingerly stretched out one foot and tapped my big toe on the cloud. It billowed around my foot. "This isn't solid."
"It is and it isn't." He swept his fingers through the gaseous bedding, swirling it with ease. "And to answer your question, I meant both. If you hadn't loosened your grip, I might've sent us both plummeting to the ground. But I'm also grateful you let go of your emotions."
The cloud captured all my attention. "What do you mean it is and it isn't solid?"
"It's magic, my love. You'll have to get used to the contradictions."
"Will the cloud support me?"
His smile was as cryptic as his words. "It will and it won't. Go on and try it out. I won't let you fall."
I hesitated, then lowered one leg onto the cloud. My limb sank in a little, but somehow the cloud buoyed it. I let me other leg relax onto the billowy bed. Neva
n's arms slackened around me and my whole body sank onto the cloud. It felt like the best waterbed ever, without the sloshing.
Nevan moved to roll off me. I stopped him with my arms around his back.
He gave me an odd look, a mixture of confusion and amazement. "Aren't I — how do you phrase it? — squishing you?"
"A little, but I like it."
"What would you have me do then?" He palmed one breast. "I am at your command."
"Make love to me again. And again." I swished my hand through the cloud. "And maybe again after that."
He laughed, the full-throated kind rife with such joy I couldn't help joining in. When our laughter faded away, he took my face in his free hand and stared into my eyes. "Are you sure you wish to have a relationship with me?"
"I hate to break it to you, but we're already having one."
His other hand kneaded my breast, his thumb raking over my nipple. "You know what I mean. Life with me will not be simple."
"You've got yourself a handful too."
Thunder rumbled in the distance. I glanced left, spying a storm cloud on the horizon. Lightning lanced up from the cloud top, straight out into space.
I slapped his behind. "Is that you? The thunderstorm?"
"Possibly. It won't be severe, nothing but a light show with some much-needed rain. This is my power. And you fuel it."
"Oh. That's, um, sweet. I think."
"Sweet is not the compliment I'm seeking at this moment." He ducked his head to capture my nipple in his mouth, giving it quick pull. "Would you care to amend your statement?"
"Arrogant sylph."
"I'll accept that."
By the time we came down, from the skies and from our next round of full-glory sex, the sun had dipped below the horizon. Lightning coruscated across the sky, the bolts slender and white-hot.
In my bed again, we snuggled under the covers. Nevan's thunderstorm produced a soft, steady rain that pattered on the roof.
From here on, our lives were merged and time itself could not sever the unbreakable magic of our love. Me and my sylph warrior, on a journey with no itinerary, because we'd make it up as we went along. With my ear to his chest, I counted the time between lightning bolts and thunder by the clock of his heartbeats.
However fast or slow the clock ticked, for me, he had nothing but time.
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The Mortal Falls
Copyright © 2017 by Lisa A. Shiel
All rights reserved.
The characters and events in this book are fictional. No portion of this book may be copied, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, including recording, photocopying, or inclusion in any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher and author, except for brief excerpts quoted in published reviews.
ISBN: 978-1-934631-88-1 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978-1-934631-89-8 (ebook)
Manufactured in the United States.
Jacobsville Books
www.JacobsvilleBooks.com
Publisher's Cataloging-in-Publication Data
provided by Five Rainbows Cataloging Services
Names: Durand, Anna.
Title: The mortal falls / Anna Durand.
Description: Lake Linden, MI : Jacobsville Books, 2017. | Series: Undercover elementals, bk. 1.
Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-934631-88-1 (pbk.) | ISBN 978-1-934631-89-8 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Magic--Fiction. | Spirits--Fiction. | Fairies--Fiction. | Shapeshifting--Fiction. | Paranormal romance stories. | Love stories. | BISAC: FICTION / Romance / Paranormal / General. | FICTION / Romance / Paranormal / Shifters. | FICTION / Romance / General. | GSAFD: Love stories. | Occult fiction. | Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3604.U724 M67 2017 (print) | LCC PS3604.U724 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23.