Chapter 19
Reunited—and It Feels So… Questionable
Cha opened her eyes to the same view of the gilded orgy in the ceiling in the salon at the Citrine Palace, on her back on that not very comfortable sofa. For a much-too long moment, she thought that she’d simply fallen asleep there and dreamed the whole Azul reunion/fight.
“You mortals are distressingly fragile,” Azul commented, shattering that idea.
She rolled her head—hey, it didn’t hurt!
—and saw he sat beside her on the narrow sofa, as languid and warm and comforting as Katu would be.
Though considerably more dangerous. His violet eyes even gleamed with a feline glow.
Despite the tone of his callous words, he gazed on her with something like concern.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were close to fainting from your injuries, which you also didn’t tell me about? ”
“You weren’t giving me much opportunity to contribute to my end of the conversation,” she pointed out, levering up on her elbows. “I feel tons better now.”
“Because I healed you. Which I could’ve done much earlier if you hadn’t been so blasted stubborn and told me.” He planted a long-fingered hand between her breasts and pushed her firmly back down. “You’re not going anywhere yet.”
“I feel fine now,” she protested. “And, for the record, the fainting was a surprise to me, too. Besides, you knew I was hurt. You said something about my messed-up head.”
“I had intended that as metaphorical, not literal,” he said drily, tapping her sternum like a schoolteacher offering a reprimand. “What happened to you? I know Katu didn’t wreck on the ley-lines, despite your terrifying risk-taking, because he’s just fine.”
Ah, so he didn’t know about Sunshine. It suddenly occurred to her that, if he did find out, the repercussions could be ugly.
Somehow she didn’t think Azul would take it well that another fae had attempted—and, let’s face it, succeeded in—seducing and enchanting her.
And then trying to kill her as a second alternative.
Fae politics and all that. She didn’t want to start a war between Amethyst and Citrine, in case there wasn’t a cold one waging already. And it seemed she’d already caused an escalation with the agnicurna trade. But what would be a plausible lie?
He saw the calculation in her, narrowing his eyes to purple slits. “Don’t you dare lie to me, Arantxa Evermore.” His velvety tone held more than a warning. Was that a hint of compulsion? She certainly felt an urge to comply and obedience so wasn’t in her nature.
“You can’t command me just by weaponizing my full name,” she snapped. Could he?
“Can’t I?” he asked in that hypnotic voice.
“Well, you’d better not,” she instructed, realizing as she said it how silly that sounded, like a mouse telling Big Betty she’d better not step on her or she’d be sorry. “Or I’ll never forgive you. That’s a dealbreaker, Prince Azulejah.”
He flinched slightly at the use of his name. Ha! How do you like them apples? Not that threatening him with the end of the relationship they didn’t have and he didn’t want held much power, but she did have her lines in the sand.
“Apologies,” he said, inclining his head and surprising the fuck out of her. “What is an acceptable agreement? I will not use fae magic to coerce your behavior in any way. Yes?”
“Yes,” she answered, her flabbers more than a little gasted. Were they setting up guidelines for that relationship they didn’t have and he didn’t want?
“Agreed,” Azul said with a quirk of a smile, seeming to have read the thought in her.
She tried to lever up again. Azul kept her flat with one finger. He rarely demonstrated his superior strength, but he easily held her down.
“You’re not getting up until you tell me,” he said, this time conversationally.
“What happened to not coercing me?” she demanded, extra indignant for how silly she felt batting at the single finger overpowering her.
“No fae magic,” he corrected with a sensual smile that did very pleasant things to her anatomy. “I reserve the right to use other forms of persuasion.”
Uh oh. That didn’t bode well for her. That’s what she got for bargaining with the fae, even one she had a soft spot for. Maybe particularly that one. “What, you’re just going to keep me here, flat on my back for all eternity?”
“Mmm, what an intriguing offer,” he mused, voice sinking further into that erotic burr that undid her. “I didn’t know you wanted to be my human pet.”
“I don’t and it wasn’t an offer,” she protested, but she sounded as breathless as a virgin poised for her first fucking.
Funny, she felt like one, too. Being with him again, touching him, smelling his scent, like a juicy berry that had never existed as a fruit…
all of it dizzied her. She wanted him to kiss her again. And again.
“Wasn’t it?” His wings unfurled from nowhere, taking her breath at the sight.
They were the color of deepest lavender twilight at the base and along the bones that formed the hand-wing like a bat’s, but the soft as a feather membranes—she remembered the texture too well, her dreams haunted by the sensation—paled to lilac-tinged white at the tips.
They still dazzled her, so elegant and erotic at once.
They were beautiful.
“Wasn’t it, Arantxa?” Azul prompted, calling her attention back to his entrancing violet eyes and sensual lips.
Wasn’t it what?
Oh! An offer to stay on her back for all eternity.
No. No way. As enticing as the prospect seemed with his wings unfurled and his delicious body poised over hers and her own body humming with anticipation, she couldn’t lose herself to him.
You are nobody to him, she reminded herself fiercely. You heard him say so.
“No,” she got out in a reasonably firm tone, strengthened by her resolve not to be a ninny.
“Alas.” He tsked, then lowered one wing to stroke her cheek with the indigo claw at the tip.
He possessed remarkable dexterity with his wing-thumbs, as she well recalled, a memory that heated her further and only weakened her resolve to remain unmoved by him.
“I’m still not letting you up,” he continued, “until you tell me exactly how you got injured, in detail.”
“This is ridiculous,” she protested, bucking with renewed vigor.
He lowered the tips of both wings to the divots beneath her collarbones, caressing the skin there bared by the open collar of her shirt. “I don’t see bruises here,” he commented. “Does this hurt?”
Finding that her bucking attempts to escape had segued into pleading arches of her back and hips, in deep chagrin, Cha forced herself to hold still.
“No. Really I wasn’t all that injured and I feel fine now.
” Thanks to him, but one didn’t express gratitude to the fae any more than you bargained with them.
“Good.” He increased the pressure, not painfully, but nothing she could wriggle out from under. “Now, start talking.”
She clamped her lips shut and glared at him. This wasn’t just about protecting him from fae politics anymore. He didn’t get to boss her around. Other forms of persuasion or not.
“It’s like that then, is it?” he murmured, unbuttoning her shirt with one hand and exposing her breasts.
He cupped one, almost lovingly, making sounds of approval.
He brushed her already taut nipple with his thumb, making her shiver and bite back a moan of need.
Fuck but he was good at this. “Lovely Arantxa, you know you can’t resist me. ”
“Ha!” she spat at him, sounding like a kitten learning to hiss.
“Your arrogance exceeds even uhhhh…” She lost her indignant retort to a garbled moan as his lips found the sensitive spot under her jaw, the one he’d ruthlessly exploited before, the one that seemed to be directly connected to her pussy, currently sparkling with a vengeance for the worst possible guy in the world for her.
At the same time, he pinched her nipple and her mind went to static like an out-of-commission path box. “Azul…”
“Is that a ‘please, stop, let me tell you what happened?’” he asked, his lips trailing down her throat, which she happened to be arching in offer to his clever mouth.
Far from pushing him away, she was eagerly exploring his lean chest, his skin hot through the expensive silk.
She wanted to bite and scratch and claw at him in her frenzied need.
His shoulder happened to be near her mouth, so she sank her teeth lightly into him.
He hissed his pleasure, then raised his head, waiting for her blurry eyes to clear.
His were sharp, glittering with determination. “Or, don’t stop?”
“Don’t stop,” she breathed, not above begging now. “Please, Azul, I need you.”
He kissed her, once lightly, then again deeper, then sinking fully into her mouth, feeding her with the sweetness of his taste, the heat.
She could kiss him forever. His wing-thumbs caressed her collar bones, his hands teasing her breasts, and he sank down between her thighs, his wings draping around her like a scented, silken tent.
She wrapped her legs around his narrow hips, grinding against his exceptional erection.
So hot, she could come right then, like a teenager stealing a moment behind the barn, frantically rubbing against him, fully clothed or not.
She clutched at him, the orgasm right there…
He pulled away, removing that essential contact and she whimpered. “Noooo…”
Tsking, he grinned, shaking his head. “Not yet, kitten. You know what you need to tell me.”
Sunshine’s description hovered on Cha’s lips, ready to spill. But Azul would be pissed the moment she told him and then he’d stop. “Fuck me first. Then I promise to tell you.”
Azul’s smiled turned cagey. “I would think you’d know better than make promises to the likes of me.”
The likes of him. She’d missed him and, oh, how she craved him. But she’d also craved Sunshine and that hadn’t been in the least real. She should be much more careful than she was and yet—as always with Azul—she couldn’t seem to resist him.
“I would think I’d know better, too,” she told him with rare complete honesty, “but apparently I don’t.”
His expression softened, a different kind of hunger in it now. “Why did you come after me, Arantxa? I did everything I could to push you away.”
She framed his face with her hands, sliding her fingers into his hair, savoring the silken texture of the purple-black strands. “I’m stubborn like that,” she whispered. “Maybe I’m just another fae-addicted human, giddily chasing her one-night-stand lover for all-time.”
He gazed back at her with a gleam in his eyes she’d call wistful in a mortal man. “You’re not the only one addicted,” he replied, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him. Sliding a hand down her hip, he hummed a short melody and her pants and boots fell away, along with all of his clothes.
She gasped, both in surprise and at the erotic shock of being so suddenly in skin-to-skin contact with him.
He smiled, but not in amusement. It was a fierce smile, one that deepened in grim delight as he thrust into her and she sighed out her immense satisfaction.
He fit inside her, and along her, sending shimmering pleasure all through her as if she’d been drenched in warm honey.
Her heart turned over, raw and needy and soothed all at once.
“Azul,” she whispered, drawing her nails down his naked chest.
“Arantxa,” he whispered back, as if answering a question.
He moved, pushing deeper, then pulling back just enough to dive in harder again.
She was so aroused, so on edge—and let’s face it, had gone way too long without—that she began climaxing almost immediately.
He didn’t alter his pace, keeping a steady, relentless rhythm that prolonged the climax and frayed her rational thoughts even further.
Drowning in wave after wave of ecstasy, Cha could only cling to him and melt into mindlessness.
At least in that state she didn’t worry about any of it—couldn’t even remember what her worries had been.
There was only the two of them, melded together, differences forgotten and only their singular focus, to pleasure and be pleasured.
He knew exactly how to keep her at that peak, too, understanding her better than any other lover ever had.
And he enjoyed her more than any other lover ever had.
He never rushed to his own orgasm, instead milking hers, driving her to peak after peak, watching her with violet intensity, seeming to derive as much pleasure from eliciting hers as savoring his own.
Only after she fully dissolved, nothing left in her, did he allow himself release.
His wings clasped her close and he worked himself inside her in an uneven rhythm that became hard spasms. Throwing his head back, he bit out a curse in some other language, momentarily and entirely vulnerable.
Gone was the insouciant courtier, the arrogant gamesman, the brooding prince.
As he came apart, Cha experienced an unexpected tenderness for him.
She held his shuddering form, wondering if there was more here than sexual release. Azul seemed… deeply upset. About more than her being there, although that was part of it. Whatever was going on in this place, he was rattled. She’d been right to come; the rest didn’t matter, not like this.
He lifted his head and placed a tender kiss between her breasts, then met her gaze, the deep twilight shade of his eyes lambent and full of emotion. Opening his mouth, he seemed about to say something lovely. A declaration of feelings? You’re not the only one addicted.
He searched her face, sighed, and said. “You shouldn’t have come.”