by Holley Trent
Someone to throw pills down the throat of.
Someone to patronize.
Asher may have kept Keith alive for a lot of years in Cuba and had seen him at his worst, but he wasn’t the person whose thoughts and emotions were leaching into his. Asher wasn’t the one whose arousal spilled over and made Keith’s body burn with intense heat and made his cock hard.
No, that was Mallory.
She had no idea what she was doing to him, and there was nothing Keith could do to stop it.
They’d known she was his—his family. They must have, or they wouldn’t have been so fucking giggly at each mention of her name around him.
Keith hadn’t even wanted to think about pursuing her until her duty to him had ended. Until they’d put some space between that helpless part of his life and his independent one.
Until she didn’t see him as that weak man who’d been a victim of his own stupidity.
Too late.
“Are you?” Keith shouted, his rage crackling inside him and building in the tips of his fingers. He balled his hands into fists to keep the sparks at bay. “Or are you not?”
Asher smoothed his shiny, smooth hair back from his face and bound it carefully with the elastic he kept around his wrist.
He’d started wearing his hair out more since they’d emerged from the rock. They didn’t depend on Asher to forage for food and keep constant watch over their dwelling, so he was more flamboyant with his appearance. Like a fucking peacock.
But it worked somehow, apparently. He got Mallory wet, anyway.
“Would you be upset if I was?” Asher asked.
Upset may have been too mild a word. Devastated would fit better, or wrecked.
Absolutely wrecked, because what woman would want him when they could have steady, earnest Asher?
“Tell me,” Asher said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Keith snapped.
“It does matter,” Asher said. Always so kind, always so earnest. “Aren’t we friends? I’d like to know if the things I do hurt you.” He squatted in front of the chair and laced his fingers together.
There went that damned earnest look again, and Keith suddenly understood why Rhiannon wanted to kill him. He was just so fucking good.
Letting out a breath, he closed his eyes and tuned in to the activity around them. That was why he was there in that apartment, after all. He was a buffer between Elliott and his father. The best Keith could tell was that Dan was nowhere close. He was probably at the mansion being a pain in Nan’s ass.
He dragged his mental net back in, catching wisps of thoughts and feelings from the people in the building. The bakers downstairs—those, he compartmentalized and tuned out. Elliott and Erin in the living room. Elliott’s head was a fucking mess. A chaotic jumble. Too much fear in there.
He’d be okay, though. He had to get used to being around people who cared about him.
And then there was Mallory.
She wasn’t much better than her brother at locking down her mind. Keith tried to bestow her with the same respect he did with every other telepath in the community and tune out her private musings, but ignoring her was impossible. He caught tendrils of her ponderings. A word here and there. Whispers of her anxiety.
Why’s she anxious?
He started to move toward the door, but Asher put his hands up to the chair and stopped him, laughing. “You’d rather run me over than answer?”
“I honestly wasn’t thinking about you.”
Asher’s smile drew in. “I see.”
“Don’t be so sensitive about it. I only mean I didn’t do it on purpose. I was distracted.”
“Apparently. I’m still waiting for you to answer my queries. They were simple enough, in my opinion.”
“Yes, we’re friends,” Keith said reluctantly.
“If that’s so, then why would you be upset about me finding happiness in some part of my life?”
Keith wasn’t entirely sure if that was something he could answer without devolving to a place of complete pettiness. There was no kind way to say, “Good for you for being happy, but I’d prefer if it were me.”
Smiling, Asher pushed himself upright with the aid of the wheelchair arms. “At a loss for words?”
“No, I can come up with some words. It’s just that you won’t like them.”
“Ah.” Asher nodded slowly. “Tell me anyway. You’ve always been straight with me.”
“If that’s what you want, fine.”
“I want it.”
“I’m pissed.”
“Newsflash.”
“Shut up.” Keith closed his eyes and took a breath. Thinking was a bit easier since Mallory’s mood had improved somewhat. He was still catching bits and pieces of her thoughts. Something about her brother’s thinness. Something about donuts. “Maybe I’m shocked that Mallory would be receptive to you.”
“I’m trying not to be offended.”
“It’s up to you whether or not you should be. I’m telling you what I think, just like you told me to.”
“Are you interested in her? I mean, in a way beyond her being your nurse?”
She wasn’t going to be Keith’s nurse for much longer. He’d already told Lora to make the termination arrangements, but obviously, Lora wasn’t around. She was supposed to get Mallory transferred over to the clinic. He didn’t need Mallory’s help anymore. At least, not the kind she’d been giving him.
He swallowed thickly and reopened his eyes.
Asher, leaning so close, tickled him with his breathing. He raised an eyebrow speculatively.
“Is she good in bed?” Keith asked. Crass. Crude. Meant to stun Asher into defensiveness.
Asher backed up a bit and canted his head. “You’re appalling.”
Keith shrugged and lifted his spasming right thigh a bit with his hands before letting it drop back to the seat. Annoying shit. Uncomfortable, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Yep. I guess I am.”
“You know I won’t answer, then.”
“If you do, you’re not who I thought you were.”
“So why’d you ask?”
“To see if you were actually fucking her. You are. You obviously are. I had a couple of virgins, too, once upon a time. Different circumstances, obviously. Back then I had fully functioning legs and the lack of inhibition that comes with youth.”
“And was it good?” Asher tossed back at him. He returned to his previous stance with his hands pressed to the chair arms.
“You think I won’t answer? If so, you’ve pegged me wrong. I can barely remember who the girls were now, if that tells you anything, but they suited my needs at the time. Lusty eighteen-year-old Afótama prince. Who’d tell me no?”
“I’m sure you got everything you wanted. After all, you do now.”
“Do I?” He plucked Asher’s fingers, hoping he’d go away, but Asher never went away when Keith wanted him to. Asher was one of the few people in his life who disregarded Keith’s orders as a matter of course.
“I’m sure you do.” Laughing, he pressed Keith’s cheeks between his hands and planted a sloppy kiss on his lips, with a teasing “Mwah!”
He’d probably meant to make Keith roll his eyes and groan, but instead, Keith found himself grabbing Asher by the collar and holding him at his eye level as though he was going to deliver the warning the fairy deserved, but it was as though his brain had fallen out of gear while going seventy down a highway. Cause and effect muddled. He didn’t know what the appropriate response was.
He only knew that Asher’s mouth tasted sweet and that his lips were soft.
Balm, probably.
Honey-flavored like mead.
He was pulling Asher closer—whether to sniff or to taste again, he didn’t know. He only knew he hadn’t had enough of that, and he was going to get what he wanted.
“You’re going to…kiss me back, I imagine?” Asher rasped.
Keith didn’t know if what he wanted to do could be called so much as a
kiss. Kissing implied sensuality, not hunger, and Keith was hungry.
Asher pulled in a sharp breath through his nose when Keith’s tongue touched his lips, his head recoiling a few centimeters before returning.
He held very still as Keith licked the flavor off his lush mouth, his arrhythmic breathing an aural aphrodisiac that had Keith pulling the fairy closer and crushing his mouth against his.
Asher wriggled his tongue listlessly against the underside of Keith’s as he worked his knee beside Keith’s hip and bent closer to Keith.
So passive.
Briefly, Keith pondered how a man like that could have seduced a woman as assertive as Mallory, but didn’t linger on the thought very long because Asher was lifting Keith’s free hand to the crotch of his jeans and pressing it tightly against the bulge.
Hard as a rock and shameless about it.
“Gods,” Asher whispered into his mouth. “Touch me.”
The request was so plaintive that Keith did touch him. He molded his hand against the underside of the protrusion and let Asher thrust greedily against it.
“It’s like a sickness.” Asher fidgeted desperately with the cover of his fly. “Needing the release. Being aroused all the time. I thought it was just Mallory, but—” He stuffed Keith’s hand into his briefs and hissed at Keith’s ensuing grip of his shaft. “Maybe there’s something wrong with me.”
“Maybe.” Keith tightened his grip experimentally, squeezing his fist up to the head of Asher’s cock and pressing his thumb to the tip. He’d never touched another man in that way before and wondered if he should feel conflicted about the fact he was.
But maybe it didn’t really matter.
Maybe a fuck was a fuck, no matter who he was doing it with.
Asher’s belly shuddered spasmodically as Keith gave his dick slow, careful tugs. He pressed his hands to the back of the chair and turned his face to the ceiling. “If I’d known…this is what it felt like…”
Keith pulled his hand out and gave his fingers and palm a lick. “You would have what?”
Asher jerked his shoulders up and then moaned quietly at the return of Keith’s touch. “I don’t know. I didn’t care before. Didn’t have these urges before. If I had, would you have helped me?”
That would have certainly have put their relationship on an entirely different trajectory, and Keith didn’t know what to think about that, either. He yanked Asher’s pants down in the front to get a better angle and a better view of the thing he was touching.
It throbbed in Keith’s hand, heavy, and the head slick with natural lubrication. Somehow tempting. Looking at it—touching it—made Keith want to see the rest of Asher because in all those years they’d been alone, he never had. Asher had always dressed and bathed outside the rock.
For some reason, he wanted to put his mouth on it. He wanted to feel the satin against his tongue and lick the salt off Asher until the other man yelped with need.
Keith wanted to make his eyes water from pleasure. He wanted Asher’s muscles limp, hair sweaty, and toes curling. Keith wanted him stripped naked on the bed or anywhere else he could get him as long as he knew who was in charge.
He tightened his grip around Asher’s shaft and pulled, and Asher moved along with it.
His jaw hung open, lower lip quivering, fingers flexing at his sides.
“Really doesn’t matter to you, does it? My hand. Her hand. You don’t care, do you?” Keith tugged him harder and faster, letting the meat of his palm slap against Asher’s belly with each tug. “Does it matter who gets you off, Asher? Are you picky at all?”
Asher didn’t respond. He just worked himself between Keith’s spread knees and put his hands on his shoulders. He was a fairy. Even inexperienced, his instincts would guide him toward pleasure and completion. That was likely why Asher didn’t notice when Mallory stepped into the room. Swearing under her breath, she evidently sussed out the situation in an instant and closed the door softly behind her.
Keith kept his eyes on her as he encouraged Asher in quiet murmurs to keep fucking his fist just like that.
Asher didn’t notice until too late that she was right beside him, arms crossed over her chest, dark eyes narrowed into foreboding slits. He stopped thrusting then, but his body had already initiated its launch sequence.
He came in forceful spurts all over Keith’s hand and onto his shirt, and tried to tuck himself away before he’d even taken the time to clean up.
Keith was still holding onto him, though, giving Mallory a returning cool stare to the one she had fixed on him.
“Mallory, this isn’t what it looks like,” Asher said. He swatted at Keith’s hand, and Keith let go of him. Asher was getting soft, anyway, and sticky. Keith liked him better hard.
Her eyes widened briefly, and she let out a tittering laugh. “Is that so? What do you think it looks like to me?”
Asher breathed a frustrated groan and tucked himself away. “I’m sure it looked like he was masturbating me.”
She leaned her head to one side and raised her brows. “Was he not?”
“Well, technically he was, but I didn’t ask him to.”
Keith laughed and rubbed his sticky hands on Asher’s shirt. The fool was still standing there between Keith’s legs as though he was frozen in place.
Maybe he was.
Keith wasn’t entirely sure what the limits of his magic were. That seemed like something he should have tested sooner. He would have ensured weeks ago that Mallory couldn’t go anywhere near Asher.
“Call it medicinal,” Keith said, grinning, and Mallory’s eyes narrowed again.
“For who?” she spat. “Him? Or you?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“You know precisely what I’m insinuating. You’re a spiteful, petty bastard, and I’ve fucking had it with your negativity. Find someone else to nurse you.”
He shrugged. “Gladly.”
“And you…” She whipped toward Asher and let out another one of those titters. “Well, I guess that answers that question.”
Asher’s face was white as a sheet. “What question?”
“I guess it doesn’t matter. I should have known better than to hope for something good to come out of this mess. I should have known to trust logic instead of this… This… Ugh!” She threw up her hands, turned on her heel, and huffed from the room.
The door slammed behind her.
Asher, being the predictable sort he was, took off after her. When it didn’t appear he was going to stop at the door, Keith said calmly, “You’ve got cum on your clothes. Maybe you should wait a few minutes.”
Asher drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly through his teeth, and then yanked his shirt over his head. He balled it up, tucked it under his arm, and hurried out to the living area.
“Where’d Mallory go?” Keith heard him ask.
“Don’t know,” Heath said. “She said she’d be back in a while. She looked annoyed. Did she get a call or something?”
Asher didn’t respond.
The front door slammed, and after some curious murmurs, everyone went back to their former tasks.
Keith sat in the dim room, drumming his fingertips against his armrests, grinding his teeth.
He didn’t know what to make of what had happened.
Didn’t know if he wanted to make anything of it.
What he did know was that when Mallory had left and Asher chased after her, they’d solidified his suspicion that that wasn’t for him. He’d had it right as an eighteen-year-old who sought out fleeting connections and who never fucked anyone he knew well.
“So that’s what I’ll do,” he muttered and moved toward the bathroom.
If that was how he could prevent that feeling of betrayal from happening every time the people who’d seen him at his worst walked away, he’d do it.
They’d all be better off in the long run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Executive Mansion, Norseton
Lora
Lora woke sweating and clawing at the thing muffling her face. She flailed her arms and legs about, shouting until firm arms encircled her, and then she was rocking. Back and forth. Back and forth.
“It’s all right,” Jody whispered. “Hopefully we won’t have to drug you like that again. I hate that we had to knock you out so completely to get you home.”
“Gods,” she said with a cringe, realizing that the thing over her face was just a blanket. “Are we there?”
Jody nudged the blanket down from her face, and she immediately closed her eyes against the bright light. He kissed her forehead. “We’re in the library in the mansion.”
“I take it we’re not alone, then.”
There was a clearing of a throat nearby—warm and husky. Probably Nadia.
From a bit closer came a sigh that was full of Tess.
“The whole family is here?” Oh no.
“No,” Jody said. “Just Nadia and Tess on the other end of the sofa with April, plus Nan, Maggie, and Ótama are here.”
“That may as well be everyone,” Lora said sourly. She didn’t want to face them after the way she’d run, and why she’d had to run, but she owed them so much. The least she could do was open her eyes and face them.
She sat up straighter and fixed the blanket around her.
Muriel was sitting on the edge of her desk, reddish-gray eyebrows raised, fingers twined atop her lap. “Hate to confine you any further,” she said. “But we think it’s probably best if you hunkered down here until we figure out what’s what.”
“The choices were either here or in the bunker,” Tess said, “and we figured you’d want to be closer to the action.”
“Maybe this is worse,” Lora murmured, rubbing her eyes. “Being so close to everything and not being able to engage.”
“Yeah, that’s definitely only a problem for you,” Nadia said. “Personally, I’d love a vacation. I’d spend the next few weeks on my ass at the beach, eating barbecue sandwiches, and staring at Food Network with Jeff and a couple of fairies.”
Lora gave the room a quick scan to see if anyone else had caught that blip in the fairy headcount, but no one seemed fazed—not even Muriel. Lora didn’t really understand how Nadia’s trio knitted into Heath and Simone’s very passionate marriage, but then again, she hadn’t asked. She wasn’t convinced anyone could really understand fairy magic except the fairies themselves and the people sleeping with them.