by Zoe Chant
Hugh put his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunching a little. He still didn’t quite look at her.
“I didn’t show you in order to explain why Gaze wants me.” There was a rough catch in his voice. “I showed you so that you’ll understand why I can’t…Ivy, you must know the big thing about unicorns. What all the legends and myths say.”
For a moment, she thought he was still talking about his horn. Then it struck her. The other thing about unicorns.
The reason why he’d put his head in her lap.
“You like virgins,” she said, and immediately wished the fake grass would swallow her up. “Um. That came out wrong.”
“It’s not so much a matter of liking virgins.” A faint flush stained his sharp cheekbones. “But being around anyone who isn’t chaste gives me a screaming headache. Even people who have been celibate for decades still make me flinch a little. Virgins are the only people I can touch without pain.”
She digested this for a moment. “You can touch Hope, right?”
“And this is really not where I was expecting this conversation to go,” he muttered. “Yes, Ivy. Your little sister is definitely still a virgin. Anyone else whose sex life you’d like to enquire about?”
“Um.” She was certain she was red as a brick. “Yours. If you…how do you…?”
“I don’t.”
All that masculine beauty, and he was just as untouched as she was?
“Ever?” Ivy said in disbelief.
“Ever.” He met her eyes at last, and the raw, desperate hunger in them stole the breath from her lungs. “I want you, Ivy. So badly that it’s all I can do not to take you up against a wall here and now. But I can’t. I’d lose my unicorn.”
She blinked. “Is that supposed to be a metaphor?”
“No. If I—if I made love to you, it would kill my unicorn. Literally.”
She stared at him.
He let out a harsh bark of laughter, raking both hands through his hair. “And my bloody suicidal beast just said, It would be worth it.”
“Let me get this straight,” Ivy said slowly. “If we have sex, you’d never be able to shift again?”
“Worse than that,” he said in a low voice. “I’d lose my powers. Lose my ability to heal. Hell, I might even lose the connection to you. I don’t know. But I do know I wouldn’t be a shifter anymore.”
“Wait. Wait.” Ivy held up her hands, her mind reeling. “I need a minute.”
She paced from fake tree to fake tree, struggling to wrap her head around everything that he’d told her. What he was, what he’d risked to show her, what he still risked just by being near her…
“Okay,” she said, turning back to Hugh with her hands on her hips. “So what about anal?”
Chapter 10
He’d heard her wrong.
“Sorry,” Hugh said. “Would you repeat that?”
“Anal.” Ivy had gone bright red from throat to forehead, but she enunciated the word with exaggerated care. “Could we have anal sex?”
He hadn’t heard her wrong.
“I mean, I’m just trying to work out all the rules here,” Ivy continued, when he failed to respond. “Does anal count as sex as far as your unicorn is concerned?”
“Yes,” he said, in a somewhat strangled tone. “Yes, that…that would definitely count.”
“Okay. What about oral?”
He couldn’t help his gaze dropping to her full lips, moist and pink. How would she look, splayed out before him, her secret folds equally swollen and inviting…
He cleared his throat. “Y-Yes. That would count too.”
“I guess it’s still, um, penetration.” Ivy tapped her lips, her eyebrows drawing down. “What about—“
He held up a hand, stopping her before she could start describing any more intimate acts. His trousers were already getting uncomfortably tight.
“Ivy, it’s not a matter of whether any Tab A has been inserted into a particular Slot B,” he said. “How can I put this delicately…lesbian couples give me headaches. And I’ve met a few married women who didn’t set off my unicorn. Married women with children. And, I can only assume, extremely incompetent—not to mention inconsiderate—husbands.”
From her blank look, she wasn’t following.
Oh God. He was far too English to be having this conversation.
Prude, his unicorn commented, with a distinct undercurrent of amusement.
He sighed. “Orgasms,” he said bluntly. “It’s orgasms.”
“Oh shit, so I give you headaches!” Ivy exclaimed…and went an even darker shade of red.
“Ah, solo activities don’t count,” he said, his own face heating. “Otherwise, let’s face it, there wouldn’t be any unicorn shifters past the age of puberty.”
His unicorn was now openly snickering at his discomfort. He turned away from Ivy, partly to hide his embarrassment, but more because her curves made it very difficult to keep a discussion of sex purely on a clinical level.
“It’s got nothing to do with any old-fashioned notions of purity or innocence.” It was easier to talk with his back to her, though he was still sharply aware of her presence. “I’m sensitive to the ebbs and flows of energy in a human body, it’s how I’m able to heal. And sharing pleasure with another person creates an energy so strong, it’s overwhelming to my senses. My unicorn can’t handle it.”
“I think I get it,” she said. “It’s like you’re a microphone tuned to pick up the slightest whisper. And then suddenly someone yells into you at the top of their lungs.”
He nodded. “And if I felt that sort of energy myself, it would burn me out entirely. Like too much current through a fuse.”
She was silent for a long moment. Then he heard her boots crunch on the fake grass, coming up behind him. Her arms slid around his waist.
“It’s just a hug,” she whispered. She rested her forehead against his back, keeping her own torso at a chaste distance. “That’s all. Because I think you’ve needed one for a long, long time, Hugh.”
He closed his eyes, encircled by her gentle embrace. There was nothing sexual in it. Just the wordless comfort of human closeness, freely offered, asking nothing in return.
Of course she’d known how desperately he needed that simple contact. She knew even better than him what it was to go without touch.
Heal her. His unicorn looked at him from the depths of his soul, compassion and sorrow mingling in its sapphire gaze. As she heals you.
He let out his breath in a long sigh. He turned in her arms, putting his own around her. He felt her breath catch as he pulled her close against his side. He buried his face in her dark hair, as she’d hidden hers in his mane earlier.
“Ivy,” he whispered.
She clung to him, holding on as fiercely as he did to her. Her warmth pressed against him, the curves of her breasts against his chest sending fire through his blood. He couldn’t help digging his fingers into her generous hips, pulling them harder against his own.
“Hugh,” Ivy gasped into his shoulder, as the exquisite softness of her belly pressed against his rigid length. “I’m pretty sure this is no longer just a hug.”
“I can’t stop myself around you.” Hugh drew his head back a little, far enough to see her face. “But you can. Stop me, Ivy.”
She drew in a breath, parting her lips—but he pressed one finger against them, forestalling her words.
“But not yet,” he said.
He gently drew his finger down over her bottom lip, her breath hitching as he followed that lush, pillowy curve. Her eyes were all pupil, wide and dazed with desire. His fingertips skimmed the line of her jaw, cupping her face.
“Hugh,” she breathed, as he bent down to her.
“Not yet,” he repeated, and closed his mouth over hers.
Soft, so soft, softer than he could ever have imagined. But there was strength there too, in the way she pressed up against him, giving him back as much as he gave her. She opened to him but claimed him in
return, her tongue wonderfully bold against his.
Her hands came up to tangle in his hair. The light scratch of her nails made him groan into her mouth, his hips jerking helplessly with every crook of her fingers. He pressed harder against her, near-blind with the need to be closer to her. Closer, deeper, claiming every inch.
Her back hit a wall. He growled in satisfaction, trapping her body against his, her mouth under his own. He was drunk on the sweet taste of her, on the needy little noises she made deep in her throat. He wanted to hear her make more of them. He wanted to make her scream out her pleasure, wanted to hear her say-
“Stop,” she gasped against his mouth.
That single word was a choke chain around his neck, dragging him back from the brink. He broke off the kiss, though every part of him cried out in protest. Chest heaving for breath, he leaned his forehead against hers.
She released his hair, her hands drifting down to rest on his shoulders. He could feel her body trembling with barely restrained desire, as much as his own was. Gradually, their racing hearts slowed.
Ivy sighed. “I hope you have a very, very cold shower.”
“Frigid,” he murmured. “I’m not even sure it can go hot.”
She let out a brief, shaky laugh. “I call first dibs.”
She pushed at his chest. He drew away, but only far enough to look into her face. Gently, he traced her flushed, swollen lips.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
She smiled at him, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “For stopping?”
Dipping his head, he brushed her mouth with his own. Lightly. Tenderly. Just once.
“No,” he said, releasing her at last. “For starting.”
Chapter 11
After the world’s longest ice-cold shower, some deep breathing, and a lot of yelling at her inner wyvern, Ivy was finally ready to face Hugh again.
And mate him, her wyvern agreed.
Ivy groaned out loud, wishing that she could shake her animal. NO. We’ve been over this five times. He can’t. We’re not going to make it any harder for him.
Don’t need to. Her animal’s eyes gleamed wickedly. He felt hard enough already.
Ivy shook her head, squashing the dirty beast back down to the bottom of her mind. It was a good thing Hugh and she hadn’t attempted telepathic communication, she decided. His unicorn would probably vaporize on the spot if exposed to her wyvern.
She finished buttoning up her epically unsexy flannel pajamas, which she’d settled on as the least enticing items of clothing she owned. Just to be safe, she threw her ratty, shapeless old dressing gown over the top, and pulled on her thickest pair of work gloves.
She examined herself carefully in the mirror. Excellent. She looked like a homeless person inexplicably prepared for a spot of arc welding. Nothing about her even hinted at sex.
Well, apart from her mouth, which still looked thoroughly ravaged. And the heightened color in her cheeks. And her fever-bright, half-stunned eyes, the eyes of someone who had just been kissed near-senseless…
She gave her arm a sharp pinch through her layers of clothing, hauling herself back from that dangerously intoxicating memory. She had to have more self-control. It couldn’t happen again.
One kiss is more than you ever thought you’d have, she reminded herself as she slipped out of the guest room. And he risked everything to give it to you. Remember that.
She headed down the corridor to Hugh’s room. The door was half-open, and she couldn’t hear running water. He must have finished his own shower.
“Hugh?” she said, knocking on the door frame as she entered. “I think we need to—“
And what she thought they needed to do radically altered in her mind, because he was wearing a towel.
He’d clearly just finished his shower. His white hair stuck up in tousled spikes, while his bare torso gleamed with moisture. The towel wrapped around his waist barely came midway down his lean, muscled thighs.
He’d frozen, his hand white-knuckled on his towel. He stared at her as if she’d entered wearing a lacy negligee rather than mismatched tartan flannel.
She should turn and run. She should apologize. She should at least close her eyes.
Instead she blurted out, stupidly, “You’ve got tattoos.”
Hugh’s throat worked convulsively. “Yes.”
Ivy took a step forward, fascinated despite herself. It was the last thing she would ever have expected, from his upper-class accent and sophisticated manner. But he was inked from chest to elbow like a dockhand.
An intricate black snake twisted around a staff in the center of his chest. Twining vines spread out across his pecs and looped over his shoulders. They curled down his arms in elegant spirals, emphasizing the hard swells of his biceps.
The design was beautiful, but oddly unbalanced. His left arm was a riot of springtime foliage, each tiny leaf exquisitely detailed. But on his right arm, the vines were mostly bare. Only a few dry, dead leaves clung to them, as if a winter wind had swept the rest away.
Hugh turned away, revealing more vines and leaves inked across his shoulder blades. Ivy knew that she shouldn’t stare, but she couldn’t tear herself away. He was a living piece of art, even more breath-taking than she could ever have imagined.
He opened his wardrobe, the leaves twining around his left arm seeming to stir as his muscles flexed. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“Why?” They must have taken hours upon hours of agony—it was difficult to permanently tattoo shifters, what with their rapid healing. She couldn’t imagine going through all that, only to keep the end result secret.
He turned back a little to give her one of his sharp, humorless smiles. “Because people would ask what they mean.”
Her fingertips longed to trace the inked lines. To follow the curving black paths over his gleaming skin, spiraling tantalizingly close to his taut nipples before sweeping up toward his collarbones, over his muscled shoulders, around and down…
As he pulled a pair of trousers out of the wardrobe, Ivy abruptly became aware of just how long she’d been staring at him. Face heating, she turned on her heel, staring fixedly at the wall as cloth rustled behind her.
Our mate is naked now, her wyvern pointed out helpfully.
Ivy squeezed her eyes shut. “So, uh, guess I shouldn’t ask what they mean, huh?”
He was silent for a long moment, so long that she very nearly turned around to look at him. Then, “Come here,” he said.
She turned, and sucked in a startled breath. He’d pulled on a pair of soft jogging pants, but his torso was still bare. He met her eyes steadily, his own dark and still. She couldn’t interpret his expression.
“Come here,” he repeated, holding out his hand. “Lie down with me, and I’ll tell you about my tattoos.”
She knew she shouldn't, but she couldn’t help going to him. Gently, he drew her down onto the bed, tucking her under his arm.
“Is this a good idea?” she murmured, as her head settled onto his bare shoulder
He stroked her hair back from her neck. “How many layers of clothing are you wearing?”
She had to stop and think about that one. “Six. Including two pairs of underwear.”
His chuckle vibrated through her chest. “Then I think we’re safe.”
His arousal was obvious, but his arms were gentle, holding her without asking for more. The sweetness of the embrace brought strange tears to the corners of her eyes. She blinked them away, ignoring the longing pooling between her own thighs.
“Tell me about your tattoos,” she whispered.
He tapped the center of his chest. “I got the Staff of Asclepius during my final year of medical school. A cliché, I know. In my defense, I was blind drunk at the time.”
She traced the twisting snake with a gloved finger. “I thought the symbol for a doctor had two snakes. And wings.”
“That’s a caduceus, the Rod of Hermes. It’s the symbol used by U.S. Army medics, but it doesn’t actually
have any traditional association with medicine.” He snorted. “If you come back with one of those tattooed on your body at Oxford, be prepared for excessive mockery from your more well-educated colleagues. I was drunk, but not that drunk.”
She giggled, and then stopped abruptly as what he’d just said percolated through her brain. “Wait. You studied medicine at Oxford University? And you’re a paramedic?”
His shoulder tensed under her cheek. “I never finished my training. I got the degree, but I quit six weeks into my hospital residency.”
“Really? Why?”
“My headaches,” he said in a low voice. “University was bad enough, being surrounded by hordes of horny students, but the hospital was even worse. So many people, in such a small space…I could barely function. I tried to work despite the migraines, but even when I forced myself to touch patients, there were too many I couldn’t heal. I’m best with things like wounds and burns, life-threatening injuries. In hospital, there were too many people I couldn’t help.”
I can’t cure cancer, he’d said before.
Ivy caught his hand in her own, drawing it up to her mouth. Softly, she kissed his knuckles, and the joints of his strong, clever fingers.
“Tell me more about your tattoos,” she said, releasing him again. “You can’t have got them all when you were drunk.”
He let out a soft huff of laugher. “No. Though I was badly hung-over when I got these put on.” He indicated the intricate vines curling along his collarbones. “It was a few months after I’d dropped out. I was something of a mess. Living at home, searching for a purpose. After the third time my father hid a hooker under my bed—”
“What?”
“It’s a long story. Suffice it to say that he’s a terrible human being. Anyway, I stormed out, drove randomly half the night, and ended up here in in Brighton. Spent two days getting shit-faced at the Full Moon pub and generally feeling sorry for myself. Then on the third day Rose marched over to me, said that there was someone I needed to meet, and introduced me to Fire Commander Ash. While, let me add, I was still completely plastered. Worst job interview ever.”