by Lora Leigh
His mother nodded. “I understand. Bring her back soon, okay?”
Sean smiled and kissed his mom on the cheek. “I’ll try.”
He stood up and held out a hand to Brynn, and felt a surge of fierce, possessive triumph when she took it.
“We’re out of here, boys,” he told his brothers. “Cleanup is on you tonight.”
They didn’t offer more than token protests, which made Sean suspicious, until he realized that they were on their best behavior for Brynn. Funny the effect she had on the O’Malley men.
Brynn leaned down and gave his mom a quick hug before they left, and Sean had to swallow over the lump in his throat. He didn’t speak again until they were in the car, buckling up.
“Thank you for that. We needed to sort out the house chores, and my mom was thrilled to meet you,” he said, looking down at the steering wheel, out the windshield—anywhere but at Brynn.
“She’s amazing,” Brynn said softly. “You were lucky to grow up with her and such a big family. My mom died when I was young, and I never knew my dad.”
“No siblings?”
“No. Just me.” Her face was tense in the pale glow of the streetlights. “My family tends to stop procreating after the one daughter.”
“I’d offer you a couple of brothers, but I think they’d like it a little bit too much,” he said, hoping to make her smile. “Believe me, I tried to sell them, give them away, and even pay people to take them when I was a kid.”
Her peal of laughter was his reward. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah. Once, I put up a sign in the yard that said, For sale: 4 used brothers. Cheap. Except I spelled it wrong, C-H-E-E-P, and my stupid brothers followed me around making bird noises and pounding on me for a week.” He grinned at the memory, and Brynn stared at him in disbelief.
“Boys have an interesting idea of fun, don’t they?”
He thought back to how he’d gotten revenge for the bird noises, and how long it had taken him to find four rotten eggs, and he started laughing and put the car in gear. “Oh, yeah. Definitely interesting.”
NINE
They talked about everything and nothing, sitting on Brynn’s front porch, and when the time came for her to go to the fountain, Sean insisted on walking there with her. Brynn changed into jeans and a sweatshirt; easy on-and-off clothes.
“I don’t like this,” Sean grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets as they walked. “It’s not safe. Anybody could bother you, or hurt you, or even eat you. What if some creature passing by happens to be hungry? You can’t protect yourself as a swan.”
She slanted a glance at him. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your concern, but I’ve been doing this awhile, and my ancestors before me for a thousand years, or so the legend goes. Do you think we would have lasted ten days, let alone ten centuries, if the moon didn’t extend her protection?”
He blew out a breath and nodded. “Of course. Moon magic. I should have figured that out.”
“She doesn’t want anything to happen to her pet singers, after all,” Brynn said bitterly.
“How does that work?”
“I’m not sure. It’s not like laser beams shoot out of my wings or something. From the best we can figure out, the moon’s magic shields us and gives off a ‘you can look, but don’t touch’ vibe. It almost always works when I’m getting dressed and undressed, too, actually, which is why I was so surprised that you saw me. So far, nobody has ever tried to hurt me.”
They turned the corner to Fountain Square, and Brynn’s shoulders slumped. The last thing she wanted to do was spend the next several hours floating mindlessly in the fountain, singing, but the curse was already taking hold. She could feel the tingles in her arms and legs that preceded the change.
“Sean, I—”
Her thoughts scattered when she looked up at him. His eyes were glowing hot red-orange, and her first reaction was to be wary, but her second reaction was far more primal and erotic. She turned toward him like a flower seeking the sun, wanting nothing more than to be warmed by his heat; captured by his fire, when she’d been so cold for so long.
“Beautiful,” she whispered, staring into his extraordinary eyes.
“Yes. You are,” he said roughly, and then he wrapped his strong arms around her and captured her mouth with his own.
His kiss was a revelation. He claimed her with a powerful masculine dominance that weakened her knees and stole her breath from her body. His tongue pushed at the seam of her lips and she opened for him, moaning when he delved inside and plundered, taking what he wanted like a pirate come to claim his spoils. She clutched at his shoulders, dizzily wondering if she would collapse if he let her go, but he held her even more tightly.
He was relentless—demanding. He tasted like the apple pie from dinner; cinnamon had suddenly become her favorite spice. She kissed him back, taking as well as giving, riding the day’s emotional roller coaster up and up and then over the crest of heat and sensation. If they hadn’t been in the middle of Fountain Square, she would have started taking clothes off—his or hers, it didn’t matter—and then—
Fountain Square.
The curse.
She pulled away, though everything in her rebelled against it. Her breathing was too shaky to form words for several seconds, so she rested her forehead on Sean’s chest and drew in a long, deep breath.
“Never before. I’ve never forgotten myself and the curse like that, not even for a second. Sean, you’re—”
“I’m the man who wants you in his life,” he rasped, and she felt a moment of sharp pleasure that the kisses had affected him as much as they had her, but the curse’s demand increased, overwhelming everything else, as it always had.
Brynn’s eyes burned, and she was shocked to realize she was fighting back tears of loss and longing. Longing for the normal life she could never have.
“I never cry,” she said, but it was too late. The warm wash of sadness overflowed, and she tried to turn away from Sean, but pushing against his hard, muscular chest was like pushing against the marble statue.
“Don’t cry,” he said, and his voice was almost frantic. “Damn me for a fool. Brynn, I’m sorry. I should have asked your permission or—”
“Let. Me. Go,” she said urgently, and he released her, clenching his hands into fists at his sides.
She ran for “her” bench, tearing her clothes and shoes off, but she barely had time to reach her backpack before the transformation took her. The moon was jealous of her songbird, and evidently Brynn had delayed the moment for too long.
She stood, naked and shivering, while the brief agony of the shift took her, and the last sight she saw through her human eyes was Sean, pain stark in the grim lines of his face as he watched her.
Once she was a swan, she didn’t care about anything except reaching the water and beginning her song, but the wisp of human consciousness that floated in the back of her brain thought that both song and water were especially icy that night; cold as the deep reaches of a solitary heart.
* * *
Sean shoved Brynn’s clothes in her backpack and then tossed it on the marble bench and sat next to it, all the while cursing himself for being an overbearing buffoon. He’d rather face a raging fire without any of his safety gear than ever be forced to see Brynn crying again. His chest ached, and he didn’t like it one bit. How could her tears have so much power over him that they reduced him to helplessness?
He should have asked, or warned her, or something. Anything. Except—she’d been kissing him back. Her sweet mouth had dueled with his, and she’d held tightly to him with the same ferocity he’d felt as he kissed her.
Claimed her.
Claimed? He jumped up off the bench, suddenly unable to sit still. Where had that thought come from? He’d only just met her and hardly knew anything about her. It was definitely not time to think about claiming.
His gaze arrowed to the elegant black swan floating serenely in the waters of the fountain, raising her
head toward the moon, and a fierce wave of protectiveness swept through him. Claiming might be a good word, after all. There were other words that he’d thought of, too, when he’d looked into her silvery blue eyes.
Holding. Touching. Keeping.
Mine.
The otherworldly sound of her song wove through the strands of his consciousness, tantalizing and seducing, and it took him a few beats to realize that he’d never heard a swan actually sing before. It must be a side effect of the magic. There were no words, of course, but Brynn—as a swan—was singing; her song was an ethereal, plaintive melody that tugged at his heart and wound its way into his soul.
He wanted to keep her. The shock of the discovery rocked him back on his heels so hard that Sean didn’t pay much attention to the tall man in the long black coat until he’d walked to the edge of the fountain and stretched out a hand toward Brynn.
“Get the hell away from that swan,” he told the intruder, his voice cold and deadly.
The man turned to face Sean, who recognized him instantly and prepared for a difficult and possibly fatal disagreement.
“Luke Oliver,” Sean said. “I heard you were running for sheriff. Shouldn’t you be off somewhere kissing hands and shaking babies?”
Oliver bared his teeth in something that might have been called a smile. “I never shake babies in Bordertown. Who knows what they might transform into?”
Sean didn’t think the man whom everyone called the Dark Wizard of Bordertown had said transform by coincidence. The fire demon inside him wanted to blast the wizard, but he fought back against the rage that was jacking up his body temperature to a dangerous level.
“You’ll be leaving the swan alone,” Sean said evenly, as he advanced on Oliver.
Oliver raised his eyebrows and then laughed. “You’re as fiery as your grandmother was, aren’t you?”
Sean abruptly stopped. “You knew my grandmother? Which one?”
None of the boys had ever met his dad’s parents. They lived deep in Demon Rift and had disowned their son for marrying a human. His mom’s mother had lived in Bordertown but had died several years before.
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I knew her. I met your grandparents once, when I was traveling through the Firelands,” Oliver said, his face shadowed with memory. “She wanted to singe my ass for me when I accidentally walked through the edge of her garden.”
The corners of the wizard’s mouth turned up in a wry grin. “And I mean singe literally, as I’m sure you know, fire demon.”
Sean folded his arms across his chest, wariness replacing anger, but he didn’t bother trying to lie. “So. You know. What do you want?”
Oliver studied him. “I don’t want anything. I damn sure don’t want to be sheriff. I have no interest in telling Bordertown about your heritage, if that’s what you mean.”
Something in Sean relaxed. “You mean you don’t think a fire demon is behind the arson?”
“No, I do not,” Oliver said grimly. “But when I find out who is, he won’t be long for this world—or for any of the three realms.”
The remaining traces of Sean’s wariness vanished, replaced by a feeling of kinship. “If I don’t find him first.”
Oliver nodded and then headed off to wherever it was that wizards went at midnight. When he reached the edge of the square, he stopped and looked back at Sean.
“I was wrong. I do want something from you, O’Malley.”
Sean tensed. “Of course you do. That’s the way of life, isn’t it? What is it?”
“Be good to Brynn,” Oliver said. “I’ve known her since she was a baby, and I wouldn’t be . . . kind . . . to someone who hurt her.”
“Neither would I,” Sean said, and the words were both a promise and a threat.
TEN
Brynn hopped up and out of the fountain, transforming back to human as she moved, and headed straight for Sean. He sat, unmoving, on the same bench where she’d dropped her clothes, and even in swan form she’d known that he’d stayed and watched over her the entire time. She was naked, but she didn’t care. She needed to touch him, hold him, reassure him that it hadn’t been his presumption that had caused her tears, but his passion.
“You stayed,” she said, her voice breaking. “You stayed.”
He leapt up and strode toward her, holding out his arms, and she flew into them.
“Nobody has ever stayed,” she whispered. “Nobody but Scruffy, and I kept him, and now I think I have to keep you, too, because—because—”
But she didn’t have time to find or articulate any reasons. Sean lifted her off her feet and fiercely captured her mouth again, branding her with his savage possession.
“Put your clothes on so I can take you somewhere and take them off again,” he said, and his deep voice was a steely command coated in velvety seduction.
She laughed at his words and trembled at his touch, but within minutes she was dressed and they were sprinting toward her tiny house. She unlocked her door with shaking fingers, and then he was kicking the door shut, locking it, and stalking toward her with an almost feral determination.
“I’ll be having you now,” he said, his Irish lilt singing out in the words, sensuous and rich.
Her breath caught in her throat, and she raised a hand to her chest, backing away almost instinctively. He was too big, too male, too dominant. She’d never be able to control this man, and she prided herself on a life lived entirely under her control.
“You can’t just tell someone you’ll be having her,” she said breathlessly.
He threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, my beautiful one. I will, and I did, and if you want me to leave, you’d better tell me right now, or my next move will be to rip those clothes from your body and taste every gleaming inch of your lovely skin.”
He stopped moving and stood, completely still, like a predator deciding whether to pounce. “Will you be telling me to leave, then, Brynn my lovely?”
Brynn hesitated for a single heartbeat, but deep in her heart she knew that she’d already made her decision. She’d made it when she’d found him waiting for her.
“No. I don’t want you to leave, because I’ll be having you, too.”
* * *
Triumph soared through Sean, and he didn’t give her a chance to change her mind. He grasped her luscious ass and lifted her up, groaning as she instinctively lifted her legs around his hips, pressing her body against his straining cock, exactly where he needed her to be.
“Where?” He gritted out the word from between clenched teeth.
She pointed toward a short hallway and then started kissing and nibbling his neck as he walked. His vision blurred and the door to her bedroom seemed to be limned in red-gold light. He knew his eyes must be changing, and he knew he should care, should stop, should give a fiddler’s damn about keeping her from seeing them, but all he could think of was getting his hands on her skin and his mouth on her sweet, round breasts.
“I want you,” she whispered, and his cock twitched, growing even harder, until he wondered desperately if he’d even be able to work his way out of his pants.
He kissed her, deep, hard, and long, and then he set her down on her feet and pulled her shirt over her head in one swift motion.
“Finally,” he said, covering her breasts with his hands and blowing out a deep breath. “I don’t mean to sound crude, but I’ve wanted to get my hands on these since I first saw you.”
She laughed, and the sound was high and wild and breathless. “Imagine that. A man who likes breasts. How surprising.”
“Oh, but yours are spectacular,” he said, leaning down to surround one taut nipple with his lips.
He sucked, hard, and she cried out, digging her fingers into his shoulders.
“Oh, Sean, yes,” she said, and the words were kindling to his flame.
He tossed her on the bed, stripped off his clothes, and stared down at her, indulging his need to see every inch of her body, but she was still too covered up. He
didn’t like it.
“The pants. Take them off,” he said roughly.
Her eyes widened, but she complied, and then she was beautifully, gloriously naked, and his hungry need for her burned into a conflagration. She was exactly what the lonely, lost part of his soul had been craving for so long, and she was here, and she was his.
He wasn’t ever going to let her go.
* * *
Brynn blushed as he stared down at her, but she also reveled in the powerful desire that blazed from his fascinating, glowing eyes. She held up her arms, wordlessly enticing him to come to her, as she let her gaze wander down his hard, muscular body. His powerful chest narrowed down to the carved muscle of his abdomen, and an intriguing trail of silky hair seemed to point the way to his large, jutting erection. He was aggressively, proudly male, and he’d come to claim her like a conquering hero from a fairy tale.
Brynn, who spent every third night of her life as a living, breathing participant in a fairy tale, wondered if she’d finally become the princess instead of merely the swan. Sean was no Prince Charming, though. He was too rough—too alpha—to ever be considered charming. More a pirate than a prince. But now he was hers, unpolished edges and all.
He joined her on the bed, pulling her into his arms. She dared to touch her tongue to the edge of his ear, and he rewarded her with a long, heartfelt groan. He caught her mouth with his, invading and possessing, while his busy, clever hands stroked her sides, her bottom, and her breasts, until he drove her to the brink of insanity. Creamy heat rushed to the juncture between her thighs, and her nipples tightened until they ached from the sizzling electricity of his touch.
“Sean. I want you. Touch me everywhere,” she demanded, and he lifted his head and flashed a wickedly seductive smile.
“Oh, I will, lass. Before dawn paints the sky, I will touch and taste every bit of you,” he promised. Her pirate had surprised her again by turning poet.
He kissed her again and again, until she was drowning in need and want and sensation, and then he shifted slightly so his hand could reach between their bodies. He caressed her exactly where she needed and wanted him to, and she cried out from the sensation.