No More Masquerade

by Angel Payne

I turned and stared at the most magnificent yacht I had ever seen. It was huge, modern, sleek, seemingly built for speed and luxury. The decks shined. The upholstery of the seats was a rich Caribbean blue.

  In matching lettering across the transom, I read:

  Fairy Queen

  “He’s here.” I rasped it as every nerve ending of my body and every chamber of my soul seemed to pop back open, alive and free—and terrified. My legs shook harder. My fingers trembled.

  Despite that, Michael guided me toward the gangway before giving me another hug of encouragement. “I’m not going to be far,” he affirmed before letting me go and turning me back toward the yacht.

  Part of me yearned to run all the way up but I held on to my dignity, walking to the top then knocking on the door there. Then waiting. Then waiting.

  Then knocking again.

  Just walking aboard was the nautical equivalent of entering someone’s house uninvited. Not cool. So I knocked again. The third time would either be a charm or a kiss-off. I breathed deep, telling myself I quite possibly would have to face the latter—along with the thousands of questions that would remain unanswered with it.

  That was when I heard the rustling of someone approaching. My fingers fidgeted at the strap of my purse. Everything below my waist froze. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to pass out again. There was still time to leave.

  You don’t want to leave.

  Yes, I do.

  And there he was.

  Now I really couldn’t breathe. He filled the portal, looking rugged and wild as the sea itself. His hair cascaded past his nape, attempting to hit his collar bones. And he had a beard. It was shaggy and messy yet oddly hot, an ideal match for the clothes that looked straight out of an ad for the Bahamas. His barely-buttoned white shirt hung over baggy khaki shorts. He was dark and barefoot and glorious—and all he did was stare. I stared right back.

  I had no idea how much time passed. I was aware of everything and nothing at once. He looked so damn good. He smelled even better, natural and salty and windy.

  “It—it is you.” I finally croaked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I—can’t believe it.”

  “How did you find me?”

  The question whacked me like a sack of bricks. I stumbled back, shaking my head. “How did I—” A choke fell out. “That’s it, Killian? Not ‘hello’? Not ‘I’ve missed you’? My name is Claire. Do you remember that part?” I threw up my hands against the vexation, anger, disappointment, and pain. “This was a mistake, wasn’t it? A big one. You,”—I fluctuated between wanting to punch his balls and kiss his rugged lips—“you ass! How long have you been here, looking out across that water and—” The words clutched in my throat, wrenched as tight as the ropes tethering this monstrosity to the pier. One half of me gave the order to slice the lines free and simply let his sorry ass float away forever. The other zinged and pounded and saw the world once more in the Technicolor only he could bring. “Dammit!” I finally sputtered. “I should go. I really should have left well enough—”

  His sudden lunge caught me off guard. In less than a heartbeat, he covered the space between us and hauled me into his beautiful arms. For a moment, I thought he’d grabbed me so hard that we’d fallen over and were drowning together. No. It was the consuming perfection of his eyes instead, dragging me under as he gazed long and hard at me.

  “Oh, God.” My heavy sob spilled out. I’d dreamed of this for so long, and had just as easily dismissed it as a fantasy that would never come true again. The reality was even better—especially when I saw the tears that shimmered in Kil’s own eyes.

  His jaw clenched. I could see it even beneath his beard. He dragged a hand up to my face, bracing my jaw in the broad L of his fingers, before slamming his lips to mine.

  Yes. Yes.

  Sweet reunion.

  Perfect bliss.

  The answer to so many questions. The start of so many more.

  But all of that could wait. It had to. Right now, I had the answer to my dilemma.

  I needed this. Just this.

  Just him.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on for dear life. My mind still worked at comprehending that he was actually here, wrapped around me, groaning against me, twining his mouth deeper with mine. I kissed him with so much emotion, I wasn’t sure I would ever resurface—or ever wanted to. The ache in my soul was so deep, forged from these months of loneliness and grief, turning me into a thirsty, needy creature for as much of him as I could get. Not knowing if he was safe had been the worst of it all, so the reality of holding him in my arms was the nirvana I craved the most. And oh yes, it was better than anything I’d fabricated on those endless nights. So much better.

  We separated but I couldn’t let him go. To be honest…I lost my shit. There was no pretty sidestepping around the description. I fell apart with gobby, sloppy thoroughness that felt like heaven and hell in one incredible, horrible moment. I’d sworn that if I ever saw him again, I’d be strong, noble, and resilient. I’d never cave to weepy, weak, and—and I went there without passing Go or collecting my two hundred bucks. I sobbed until I couldn’t speak. I wept tears that somehow kept regenerating, replenished by four months’ worth of pain and worry and darkness. All the moments of imagining him sick in some ditch without medical treatment, wondering if I’d given up on him. The wide-awake midnights, wondering if he was simply naked with another woman. The times I thought he might have died and was laying on a slab in some morgue, an unclaimed John Doe.

  I cried and cried then cried some more. He held me until his shirt was soaked and I was exhausted. I was embarrassed by the time I hiccupped to a finish but the anger kicked in with perfect timing, refueling my engines to chew his ass to ribbons about where he’d been for the past sixteen weeks. But some things hadn’t changed—like the man’s ability to read every nuance of my moods, even just seconds in.

  “God. Claire.” I had no idea how he turned the coarse rasp into a command and a plea at once. It possessed me as magically as his hands, now sliding into my hair and gripping the sides of my head. “I’m fucked up, okay?”

  “No shit.” I copied his move until practically twisting his hair in my grip. “And I don’t care.”

  His eyes squeezed shut. His face contorted. “Dammit. Claire.”

  Before he tumbled any farther down into his mental sludge pit, I pulled away one of my hands to grab one of his. Pulled it into the space between my breasts. Pressed it there hard. “Do you feel that, Killian? It’s truly beating for the first time in four months.”

  I had much more to say. So much more to demand. A million questions that demanded answers. But nothing else surfaced beyond that…and I didn’t want it to. Not right now, standing here in the intensity of his presence, the power of his hold, and the dark magic in his eyes…

  A moan, high and urgent, tumbled out of me. I’d missed him so badly. My body hadn’t stopped being perfectly tuned to his. It was a basic, primal truth. I needed him. Every drop of my blood, beat of my pulse, and throb between my legs confirmed it.

  Yes. Yes.

  I clutched the back of his head, curling my fingers into his hair and urging his mouth tighter onto mine.

  Killian didn’t need another hint. He groaned and slipped his tongue between my lips, tasting the recesses of my mouth with deep plunges of passion. “Fuck,” he finally uttered, his lips still on mine. “I’ve missed you. So damn much.”

  The strain in his voice twisted at my heart. “I’m right here,” I whispered. “Right here, baby. Needing you…so badly. Oh, Killian…please…” I was past the bridge of needy and now at the shore of begging but it didn’t matter. I had no idea what lie ahead but I sure as hell knew about the path behind, and I couldn’t return to it.

  As we kissed again, more urgently and desperately, I scrambled a hand into the few buttons keeping his shirt together. They all came free except one, which I finally ignored in my quest to savor every beaut
iful muscle of his torso again. The moment my hand glided along his waistline, he groaned and fully mashed our mouths, filling my senses with the force of his hungry desire.

  The world spun and turned as if my senses were hitched to one of the seagulls riding the wind above. Everything was upended again when he swept his hands beneath both my knees and hiked my legs around his waist. Still claiming my lips in constant kisses, he turned back onto the yacht and carried me down a small set of stairs. We continued through the teak wood passage inside, passing several doors before he kicked one open, revealing a large master suite. The plush bed remained undisturbed, as if he hadn’t ever used the space before this moment.

  We tumbled together into the center of the bed, where he quickly covered my body with his. I reveled in his weight on me, surrounding me with the same panther-perfect heat as his touch, his smell, his kisses, his presence. He was familiar yet new, a mystery yet my home, the lover who electrified just as much of me now as he did when we’d first discovered each other in this way.

  For a few moments, he seemed to return to that moment, too. His mouth brushed me softly, as if it were the start of our first kiss all over again. He was chaste and warm and worshipping, roaming his gaze across my face, stroking my hair back from my cheeks and tucking the strands behind my ears.

  “You cut your hair. It’s much shorter than it was.”

  His observation sped my pulse with an adolescent thrill. He’d noticed my new haircut.

  “You haven’t.” I pouted and tugged on his long strands. “You look like surfer Jesus.”

  A chuckle shook his whole body. “Oh, I’m not Jesus.”

  “Thank God, because it’s awful.”

  He laughed a little harder. Dipped his head and kissed me with the same intent. I answered him with the same insistence of lust and longing. Our mouths twisted more frantically into each other as our hands searched for buttons, zippers, or any mooring that could be undone, baring more skin to each other by the second.

  I finally pulled the last button on his shirt free. He helped me shove it away, finally ditching the thing on the floor. Next I went for his khaki shorts, thankfully secured with simple ties and Velcro. I was a little stunned the fastenings had held all of him in. As his cock surged into my grip, there was no denying how much certain parts of him had really missed me. We smiled together as he swelled against my fingers, the strong veins standing out against the stiff skin, leading to a head already wet with silken drops of desire.

  His smirk vanished the moment I started stroking him. His eyes flared as he bent his head to watch my busy hands service him. “Damn,” he gritted, just before sinking his mouth to my neck. He bit and kissed and suckled my heated skin while pumping his hips in and out of my fist.

  Before long, he set his own hands to work. I arched back, tingling all over, as his long, powerful fingers dragged beneath my dress, finding my panties soaked and definitely in the way. With a deep grunt, he yanked them down, letting me kick them off after they bunched at my calves. As I started to close my leg back in, he caught it by the ankle, kissing it before spreading it back out.

  “Keep it there,” he commanded. “This one, too.” He pushed my other leg wide. The motions lured my dress toward my waist, helping his effort to drag the whole thing up and off.

  Only my bra was left. He didn’t bother opening it. With illicit urgency, he just pushed the cups off my breasts, serving to push up my flesh into his hungry mouth. He feasted on me like a starved man, abrading my nipples and areolas with the scratchy whiskers of that awful, delicious beard. Hmmm. I instantly started rethinking the merits of the new look while sinking my fingers into his hair, tugging as hard on his strands as he did with his teeth on my nipple. We wrestled and clawed, bit and hissed, touched and tasted…and needed. God, the need. The need…

  “Killian!”

  “I know, baby.” It was a gorgeous combination of growl and groan.

  “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

  They weren’t the words that should’ve been on my lips—we needed to be sitting on this bed and talking, not writhing—but perhaps this passion was the perfect foyer into that difficult room. The flash before we confronted the full forest fire.

  I sawed my legs back and forth on the outside of his hips, working at instilling some ideas about a new focus for his mouth, but he kept up the torture on my breasts, shifting so he got that godforsaken beard along the sensitive underside of both mounds. I’d be red and sore when this was over, and every scuff would be well worth the pain.

  I finally summoned the strength to speak again. “Need…you,” I told him. “Please!”

  He slid up to scrape my ear with his teeth. “Need me where?” he demanded. “Tell me. You know how I like to hear it. Every detail, baby.”

  “Mmmm.” I ran my hands along the coiled muscles of his shoulders. The man hadn’t lost an ounce of his definition. He even felt a little bulkier. I suspected ocean swims, and heartily approved. “I need you…inside me. With your cock. Make love to me, Killian. Please.”

  After what seemed like an eternity—who was I kidding; it had been an eternity—he lined up his erect length at my entrance. After his first nudge, we both moaned. I was tight but I was also wet, open, and more than ready.

  With one lunge, he slid into my body.

  Our mouths re-fused, the connection absorbing his groans and my pleas for more, more. When he tore away to get air, I verbalized the need.

  “Faster. Please, Killian! Harder!”

  I should have known my begging would be useless. He took his damn time about letting his cock plunge to every corner inside me, twisting the knot inside my pussy tighter while rolling his hips in the way that drove me insane with need all over again. Our bodies greeted each other with shivers and shudders as timeless as the sea outside, moving together in a synchronicity that bordered on magic. Considering how badly I’d been craving him, I was stunned I lasted even a dozen strokes before coming apart beneath him.

  He barely gave me anytime for recovery before ramping me back up with wickedly wonderful bites, licks, and teases. As I sighed and gasped with need, his rhythm intensified. He pulled my legs higher, cupping my ass as he pounded harder into me. His face, etched with lines of pain and passion I hadn’t seen outside the frescoes of Italian chapels, locked against my neck as his orgasm thundered through his body…and into mine.

  Everything turned shockingly quiet as he gave the last of his hot release to me, his body slackening…and his voice descending to a bare, almost frightened, whisper.

  “I love you, my fairy queen. Nothing will ever change that.”

  I didn’t respond. It was the most ridiculous impression to gather, but I wasn’t certain he intended for me to hear the confession. But of course he had…right? Every cell of my spirit recognized it as the truth. Despite everything that had happened, I’d never doubted he loved me—and he sure as hell knew how much I still meant it. But a belly-deep instinct held me back from voicing the words. Not now. Not now.

  Perhaps I already sensed what he’d do next.

  With his body barely free from mine, Kil flipped to his back, whooshed out a heavy breath, and threw an elbow across his face. Two long beats like that were all he needed before surging from the bed entirely and clearing the three steps into the bathroom. As awkward silence and I kept each other company, he thumped the door shut then locked it. I heard water running but it wasn’t a shower, so I didn’t get the impression he’d be in there for long. Suddenly feeling like an intruder, I righted my bra then scrambled to the end of the bed, pawing through the sheets and blankets for my clothes. Pulling up my stretched panties felt weird and tawdry—and I couldn’t shake the feeling that in spite of everything feeling so right for the last hour, it was about to go all wrong again.

  “Breathe, girlfriend,” I whispered. “You’re jumping to conclusions.”

  Just because he’s been right here, in the same damn city as you for months, and has never once tried to reach o
ut? Just because you pulled a surprise party on his deck and the two of you decided to let animal attraction talk before reason and logic? Just because you decided an hour with your body could magically fix all the shit in his head—and now you’re getting the vibe otherwise?

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  He reappeared, water still dripping from parts of his beard. I felt awful for noticing his cock was still at half mast, ready and willing to be talked into more of the “fun” we’d just had. But his face dampened the desire right out of me. “Fun” seemed exactly the category he’d just filed this into—something in the same range as eating a supersized ice cream then taking three rides on the roller coaster. He looked wholly satisfied—and supremely ill.

  “What?” I asked, not diluting the shiver in my voice. If he didn’t have an idea of what this had meant to me before, he did now. “What is it, Killian?”

  “Claire.” He made no move to leave the doorway. Despite the tender threads in his voice, he braced his elbows to both sides of the portal at shoulder height. “Look, this was…great. But—”

  “Stop.” I let my dress fall to the bed. “And just save the ‘buts’ for a few minutes, okay? I know we did this backwards, that we need to talk. But at least we’re both here now, and we can—”

  “You need to leave.” It had to be a world’s record. From post-coital poet to naked dictator ass inside of three seconds. “I’m sorry, but you must.”

  I blinked. “Since you got straight to the point, I will too. What. The. Hell?”

  His jaw hardened. A tic pushed at the plane between his lips and cheek. “You remember what I said, right? Up on deck?”

  “Of course I remember,” I snapped. “Fucked up. You. Bosom buddies. Got it. Guess that asshole’s been really good to you, since you’ve been in the same damn city as me since—when was that again—”

  “Long enough,” he muttered.

  “‘Long enough’,” I taunted. “Great. That’s just great. Hope you and fucked up have been having a blast down here for ‘long enough’, catching some waves, creating my image in every artistic medium except M&M’s collages and not thinking how much a simple phone call would’ve meant to me!”