Bedeviled

by Maureen Child

  He smiled, that gorgeous mouth of his curving at the edges, his eyes softening as he watched her. “You are a wonder to me, Maggie Donovan. Though I’d felt our connection before, I didn’t expect this. You talk too much, eat incessantly and argue even when you know it will do no good. You were an irritation to me at first, and now you are simply essential.”

  Hard to believe that he’d gotten to know her so well in such a short period of time. But then, he’d been watching her all her life, hadn’t he? He’d known her for freaking ever, and she—

  “Irritation?” She planted both hands on her hips and gave him a look designed to fry his Faery ass. “Well, thanks very much.” Then the rest of what he’d said settled in, and everything in her melted.

  “Oh, God.” Essential? How many big, strong men were willing to say that to a woman? To admit to a need that deep? How many women were ever lucky enough to hear that from the man they . . . Nope. Not going there. She stopped herself from even thinking the L-word. She couldn’t drag that into the middle of this now. Weren’t things unsettled and confusing enough?

  His gaze moved over her face like a caress. He lifted one hand to smooth her hair, then traced his fingertips down along the curve of her jaw. Smiling a bit, he swiped his thumb down her nose and rubbed his fingers together to get rid of the dust he’d just cleaned off her skin. “I find I think of you far too often,” he said, “and not only for what you can do for Otherworld.”

  She blew out a breath and took in another one, drawing the scent of him deep within. Maggie’s insides were jumping, and her heartbeat was crashing like thunder in her chest.

  She’d been so sure last night that the only way to survive what was coming was to separate herself—emotionally, at least—from Culhane. Now she realized in a blast of understanding just how dumb that decision had been. She couldn’t do this without him. More—she didn’t want to. He’d become such a part of her life, she couldn’t imagine him not there anymore.

  And wouldn’t you know she’d be having this über-romantic moment when she looked like the dregs of hell? Here she stood, staring up into the eyes of the Fae she lo—never mind—covered with dust and grime and . . . Oh, who cared?

  “I woke up today determined to avoid you,” she admitted, and saw his lips quirk. “I figured the best way for me to handle what I feel when I’m around you was just not to be around you.” Maggie sighed and felt her own surrender in the action. “There’s so much going on that I thought keeping you out of my head and my heart would make it easier to deal with all the other shit. But I was wrong. Keeping you in my head makes it easier.”

  “And your heart?” he asked, his voice a hush.

  “You’re already there. I don’t think I can get you out now.”

  “Good. As I don’t want you to.” He cupped her face in his palms, and heat slid down and through her, rushing like a river cresting its banks. His thumbs stroked her cheekbones; his gaze met hers. “I, too, thought to keep myself from you. To somehow look at you and see only the future of Otherworld. But you’re more, Maggie Donovan. You’re my future as well, Goddess help us both.”

  Maggie held her breath as he leaned in closer, closer. His breath brushed her face; his warmth radiated out to her, wrapping itself around her, drawing her in. She moved in, no longer interested in avoiding him, ignoring him. He was all she wanted. She wanted to feel the magic of his kiss again, feel the heat and the need and the passion. When his lips covered hers, sensation coursed through her, pumping thick and hot and delicious. Everything in her swelled as if every cell within was blossoming.

  His mouth moved on hers, deepening the kiss, parting her lips with his tongue, and Maggie moaned, giving as she took. Her slight hitch of sound made him tighten his hold on her, yanking her hard and flush against his body. Maggie did what she could to get even closer. Clinging to him, she lifted both legs, wrapped them around his hips and clung even harder, exposing her jeans-clad core to his rigid body.

  She was so ready for this. Tiny explosions of want and greed sizzled inside her, and she ground her hips against his as if she could fight her way through their clothes. Feel his skin, his body against hers, inside hers.

  Maggie tore her mouth from his, desperate for air. Her head fell back, and his mouth came down on her throat. He whispered in a language she didn’t understand as he kissed and nibbled and licked until she thought she would lose what was left of her mind.

  Why hadn’t she done this before? Why had they waited? Torturing themselves and each other with the waiting? There was so much to be discovered. To be felt. Experienced. And she wanted it all. Now. Now, before her world dissolved again, or something else disgusting and cruel showed up to try to kill her. God, she didn’t want to die without knowing what it was to be with Culhane.

  “You’re everything,” he whispered, locking his lips on the pulse beat at the base of her throat. “All and more, it’s you, Maggie. You and only you.”

  His voice was a caress that sighed through her mind, her heart. Time came to a stop. There was no world beyond this room, beyond this man. Her warrior.

  He slid one hand between them to the waistband of her worn jeans. Quickly he undid the button and pulled the zipper down. Maggie gasped as his fingertips smoothed over her skin in a touch that was both featherlight and full of fire.

  Her legs slipped from his hips even as she locked her arms around his neck. His gaze held on hers, he watched her as his hand slid farther down her body. His long, clever fingers dipped beneath the wispy elastic band of her panties and reached for her heat.

  Maggie swayed into him when he cupped her, her skin humming, her body rocking into his touch. God, she felt as though she’d been waiting all of her life for this moment. For this man. He stroked the hard, sensitive bud at the very heart of her and Maggie whimpered a little, her fingers clutching at his shoulders. Then he dipped his hand lower still, and pushed one finger and then another into her wet heat. “Oh, God, Culhane!”

  She’d never known anything like this. A simple, intimate touch from him was so much more than she could have expected. His breath on her face was warm and sweet. His touch was like fire, searing her skin, burning her bones, driving heat deep inside her to pool in her belly and spill through her veins.

  He stroked her, in and out, his touch driving her toward a climax that hovered tantalizingly just out of reach. She stared into his eyes and could hardly see him through the haze of need nearly blinding her. But he watched her with such wonder, such tenderness, she gave herself up to the moment and ordered her whirling mind to be silent.

  This was about feeling, experiencing, knowing what it was to have his hands on her at last. Her blood was hot, too hot for her veins, and she felt as if it were boiling just underneath her skin. Every breath she managed to drag into her lungs was charged with lust and need.

  Culhane dropped his head and took her mouth in another out-of-control kiss, devouring her, allowing himself to be devoured in turn. Her hips rocked into his hand. His fingers continued to stroke and delve, drawing her closer and closer to the edge of a precipice. Maggie couldn’t breathe and didn’t care. All she wanted was this. His hands on her body. His mouth on hers.

  “Shatter for me,” he whispered against her lips. “Let me give that to you.”

  She was shattering. She felt it as her body trembled on the brink of something amazing. It was too much, she thought. She couldn’t possibly survive if he kept this up. But how could she even think of asking him to stop? Then he rubbed that one spot that was the center of the storm raging within her, and her body erupted into a wild, frantic orgasm that spiraled on and on and on. Maggie shuddered and surrendered to what only Culhane could give her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Seconds, minutes, hours, hell, days could have passed before Maggie’s body stopped pulsing like a broken neon light.

  God, she thought, if a kiss and a stroking could create that kind of orgasm, what would a full-body one be like? It might actually kill her, sh
e decided wistfully, and wondered idly if this was the planet-shifting thing Nora had talked about.

  Maggie dropped her forehead to Culhane’s shoulder, struggling for air, thinking that oxygen was really overrated, anyway. A moment later, though, she lifted her head again and, smiling, looked up into his eyes. The instant their gazes locked, everything changed.

  She gasped and tightened her grip on Culhane as images spilled from his mind to hers. Shattering, splintering slices of color and shape twisting into faces, places that sped by so quickly, Maggie couldn’t identify them all. He stared at her, clearly as amazed at what was happening as she felt.

  “Ah, blast. Do you see?” he asked, his voice hardly more than a strained whisper.

  “I do, Culhane. What’s—” She broke off when one crystal-clear image solidified in her mind: a blond woman who could only be Mab, jumping to her feet from a silver, jewel-encrusted throne, throwing her head back and screaming in raw fury. Then the image blinked off as if Maggie had hit the power button on a TV.

  “Damn me to Ifreann.” Culhane reacted instantly. He took a step back and away from Maggie. “I shouldn’t have touched you so intimately. This is why I’ve held back from you, Maggie. To keep Mab from finding you before it was time.” He shoved one hand through his thick hair and stalked a wide circle around her, his movements jerky, his steps long and hurried.

  Maggie had gone from warm and fuzzy to tense in a split second, and she was reeling from the shift. She zipped up her jeans and watched him as her lover dissolved into the fierce Fae warrior she knew so well.

  “There’s a connection between us. Mab and me, I mean,” he told her, speaking quickly now, words tumbling over one another as he rushed to explain. To make her see.

  Maggie watched his face as she spun in a tight circle, keeping her gaze locked on Culhane. His features were etched with worry, his eyes flashing with a knowledge as old as time.

  “Because of that connection to Mab she can feel what I’m feeling. Sense, if she’s a mind to, what I’m doing. She rarely uses this gift, since nothing in this world or any other matters to Mab more than herself.” Disgusted, he stopped dead, stared at Maggie and said, “I knew that if you and I came together, the bond between us would be enough to alert Mab. Now she knows, senses what I feel for you, and knows I’m no longer her man.” He scraped one hand across his jaw, the back of his neck.

  Maggie rubbed her hands up and down her arms, half expecting the Faery queen to burst into the living room with a flaming sword. “What does this mean, though?”

  “She hasn’t known about you—you personally—until this. She’s been aware of the Fae power being stolen, going missing, but she had no idea that it was you who’d claimed it or that you’re training to use it.”

  Maggie swallowed hard, nerves tangling in the pit of her stomach as she realized what Culhane was saying. Even the pale wash of sunlight sliding into the room seemed somehow dimmer, and the air felt so much colder. “Now she knows.”

  “Yes.” He reached for her, then folded his fingers into fists to keep himself from touching her again. “She knows. And knowing will make her move. She won’t wait until we’re ready, Maggie. I’d hoped to delay this. To give you more time to feel your way into your new world, but the time is over. Ended. Mab will decide the time and place now, and it won’t be in our favor.” Jaw tight, eyes hard as flint, he said, “Maggie, you must—”

  He jerked his head up and around, as if sensing something that Maggie couldn’t feel.

  “Culhane, what is it?”

  “No!” He shouted the word until it echoed off the walls and ceilings and speared into Maggie’s heart like a dagger. He fired one last, frantic glance at her.

  Then, in a blink, he was gone.

  Apparently they were out of time.

  “I’ll watch out for the kid,” Bezel told her a half hour later. “And the damn witch.”

  “Thanks.” She spared the ugly little man a quick smile that she didn’t feel. Since Culhane had disappeared, Maggie’d been able to think of only one thing: getting to Otherworld and settling this. If she just hung around, waiting for Mab to make her move, she’d be forced to meet the queen on her own turf. And no way would that turn out well. Maggie would be no better off than poor Joe had been what felt like a lifetime ago—Creature Chow.

  So she’d come up with her own plan—one she hoped like hell had a chance of working. She’d taken a shower, washed her hair and changed her clothes, because frankly, if she was going to die, she wasn’t going to do it covered in dirt and dust.

  So she wore a long-sleeved red T-shirt, faded blue jeans and a pair of boots she hadn’t worn since the last time Claire had conned her into hiking in the woods. They were sturdy and heavy, and hopefully would do more damage in a good kick than her tennis shoes would.

  Standing in the backyard now, beneath the tree Bezel had claimed for his own, Maggie took a long look around. Chrysanthemums blooming in the flower bed, Sheba snoring on the patio, a fence that needed painting and a lawn that needed mowing. It was all so normal. So everyday. God, she wanted to come back to it.

  She wanted to be here for Christmas so she could string around the house the damned lights that were always a tangled mess. She wanted to be here in the spring to see if the stupid bulbs Nora had insisted on planting upside down actually bloomed. She wanted to go to the art show in Laguna this summer and maybe sell some of her paintings.

  Hell. She just wanted to be here.

  “Hey!” Bezel kicked her and jolted her out of the little pity party she was throwing for herself. “This is no time to go all weepy. If Mab pulled Culhane out of here like you said, then he’s locked up tight. The bitch queen of the universe isn’t gonna let him get near enough to you to help, so you’re gonna be on your own.”

  “I know.” God, she hoped she wasn’t going to throw up.

  “I’d help, but pixie magic ain’t gonna be enough against Mab, anyway.”

  Surprised and a little touched by the offer, Maggie smiled. “Who are you, and what have you done with Bezel?” She paused and added, “Seriously, thanks for the thought.”

  “Plus, I don’t want to get your nasty human blood all over this suit Fontana made me.” He flicked a long finger over his lapel. “She’d kill me.”

  “And you’re back to normal.” Good. Better. A nice pixie would only make her as weepy as he’d already called her. Didn’t really need that right now. What she needed was a bazooka. A tank, maybe. Oh, and a happy little battalion of soldiers to stand between her and the queen.

  But since she wasn’t going to get what she needed, she’d do what she had to instead. “Okay, I can do this.” Nodding to herself, she called up her concentration, fought for focus past the mind-numbing fear, then closed her eyes and sketched out a circle in the air.

  Within that circle color swirled and a warm breeze rushed out to ruffle her hair. Maggie took a deep breath to steady herself, then looked at Bezel. “Did I get it right?”

  He glanced inside the golden, shimmering circle, then back at her. “Yeah. You did. Too bad you’re gonna be meat right when you’re starting to get the hang of this.”

  Maggie gave him a withering smile. “These little chats of ours always help so much.”

  “Quit stalling,” he sniped, and stabbed one finger at the portal.

  “Right. Okay, then. Wish me luck.” Maggie took one more glance around the yard—hoping it wasn’t her last—and stepped into the portal.

  Just before the circle closed behind her, she thought she heard Bezel say, “Luck, kid. You’re gonna need it.”

  Finn was there waiting when Maggie stepped out of the portal and into Sanctuary. He didn’t even look surprised to see her, which made her wonder if maybe he’d been keeping an eye on her, too. Didn’t matter really, either way.

  “Culhane’s gone,” she said.

  “I know. Mab’s on a tear, but she can’t get to you while you’re here. As I told you before, I am the only one with power in Sa
nctuary. See?” Finn pointed to a wide shelf that lay bare but for one small bubble of gold dust that swirled in a tiny tornado, trapped behind a barrier Maggie couldn’t see.

  “That’s your power,” the wizard said. “Stripped from you the moment you stepped into Sanctuary. It won’t return to you until you leave.”

  “Good.” She stared up at the power that had so changed her life and found she didn’t really hate it as much as she’d thought she would. “That’s part of the reason I’m here.”

  “Really?” His eyebrows quirked as if he were intrigued, but Maggie spoke again before he could ask her for more information.

  “Do you know where she took Culhane?”