Chapter 30 Horses and Promises
Horses and Promises
“The horse I rode in on,” he finally repeated. “I’ve never ridden a horse, but it hardly seems fair to blame the poor creature for my bad behavior.”
She sniffed, somewhat mollified that he’d acknowledged that his behavior had been bad. “It’s an expression.” One she hadn’t thought of since her childhood. “I was angry.”
“Was?” He turned on his side, running a hand down the length of her body and draping one wing over her to cover her like a blanket.
“Am,” she corrected stiffly, trying to pretend he wasn’t melting her. How could she continue to be so vulnerable to him when he’d admitted she meant nothing to him?
“You deserve to be angry,” he said on a sigh.
“I’ve treated you very badly. Something I tried not to do, but in this I also failed.
I should never have succumbed to the temptation to touch you.
The first time. Every time.” His hand continued to travel over her, eliciting an almost painful arousal, intensified by her turbulent emotions. “Don’t cry, Arantxa.”
Fuck her life. “I’m not. I never cry over men. None of you are worth it.”
He tsked. “Even though you can lie freely, that doesn’t mean you should.” He brushed the short curls from the back of her neck and pressed his lips under her ear, making her shiver. She had to bite back the traitorous moan of need. “Don’t cry over fae either, Arantxa darling.”
That only made her chest tighten with grief, strange and potent combination with the desire she was trying to stifle. “Don’t call me that,” she choked out.
“Why not?”
She sighed and it came out as a kind of sob. “Because it’s not true.”
“But you believe I can’t lie.”
Stilling, she contemplated that. Then scrubbed away her tears—how the mighty had fallen; she put it down to hunger—and turned to face him.
She could see a little more in the dark than she’d thought.
Or his eyes were like a cat’s, collecting and reflecting light, luminous as a summer twilight sky. “You can lie.”
“Give the human a cookie.”
“How?” she demanded. “I thought all fae were incapable of lying.”
“Because humans know everything about fae?”
“Well, no,” she admitted. “But there are certain ironclad rules that are common knowledge.” She paused, waiting for a response. “See what I did there?”
“Oh yes, but you’re not in the least funny.”
She tapped his lips with a forefinger. “Another lie. This is an amazing discovery.”
Before she could withdraw her finger, he caught it again, more gently this time, and held her hand while he drew her finger into his mouth.
The sensual suction took her arousal up several notches and simultaneously soothed her ragged emotions.
“Azul…” she breathed, feeling helpless to say more, to express anything at all.
“Arantxa darling,” he answered and folded her hand inside his, giving her lips the kiss instead.
She sank into the kiss. She couldn’t help herself.
Never had been able to where he was concerned, not since that first time she spotted him on the side of the road, wearing that ridiculous wedding outfit and still managing to look like sex on a stick.
“Are you trying to seduce me?” she asked between kisses.
“Do I have to?” he sounded amused. “Perhaps you’re taking advantage of me. After all, I am your captive at the moment.”
“I’m the one wearing your collar.”
He slipped a finger under the collar and tugged, sending lightning through her veins and her heart thrumming with following thunder. “It does seem to have a remarkable effect on you. Perhaps I’ve discovered a method for tamin the wild beast.”
“Maybe temporarily,” she allowed. “For sex purposes only.”
“Maybe I should take you away somewhere only I can see you and keep you in that collar and nothing else,” he murmured.
“For sex purposes only.” His wing fingers parted her legs as he tugged more sharply on the collar, making her gasp.
He seemed to have enough magic inside the cubby to vanish her clothes, because she was naked again.
“As long as you fuck me senseless,” she agreed recklessly.
“Is that a bargain, human pet?” he asked, stroking her clit relentlessly.
“Not valid,” she panted. “I’m under duress.”
“True,” he mused, draping her leg over his hip and driving his impressive cock into her. “So wet and wild for me.”
“Yes.” She clutched at him, as crazed as she’d ever been, desperate in her need.
He stroked within her in steady calm, holding the collar and kissing her deeply.
“If I thought it would work to keep you safe, I would,” he told her.
“That’s why I marked you. Partly to pretend you could be mine always, but mostly to protect you.
And it still didn’t work. You’re too wild and free and I cannot bear to cage you even for your own protection.
I love you far too much, Arantxa darling. ”
“You… you what?” she gasped, her mind whirling with the hovering climax and the words she’d never expected to hear from him.
“You heard me,” he almost snarled. “Remember it, because it’s the only time you ever will.”
He pulled hard on the collar and simultaneously thrust ferociously into her, his wing fingers pressing against her lower back to hold her in place while others pinched her clit.
She came apart, frenzied in the shattering orgasm, mind and heart kaleidoscoping with confused realizations.
Thrashing in his hold, in the forever comfort of his tenting wings, she unraveled.
But, even in the midst of dissolving like so much fluff on the wind, his words stuck in her mind.
It’s the only time you ever will.
*
Cha must have fallen asleep again because the wrenching transition into Obsidian woke her. “Oh, thank the stars,” she muttered before she even opened her eyes.
“Now may I be released?” Azul asked, more of a demand than a request, sounding fully alert, not a trace of muzziness in his voice.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” she asked in return. “When you’re not enchanted into it,” she hastily amended and not without a little chagrin.
“Fae are different,” he answered.
He sounded cool and remote again and not at all like the man who’d whispered fierce declarations and ravished her until she didn’t know her own name. And it’s the only time you ever will. She shivered in that way that her superstitious mother always said meant someone had walked on your grave.
“Well, I knew that,” she joked, stroking a hand down his wing.
He moved her hand away. “Out?” he asked pointedly. “We are in Obsidian now, as you intended.”
Well, she was starving and thirsty enough to drink a lake.
“Since you ask so nicely,” she answered in a sweetly cheerful tone, hoping to point out his rude behavior by contrast. He didn’t reply so that was wasted effort.
Hmph. It wouldn’t have worked on her either.
She triggered the mechanism to open it and, with a rush of wings, Azul was up and out.
“No, that’s all right, I don’t need a hand up,” she called, lacing the words with extra sarcasm.
She was still naked, she realized. And the collar was gone.
She touched her throat in strange foreboding.
“Thanks for taking the collar off,” she said, clambering out. “What are you going to do, now that—”
She peered around in the dimness.
Azul was gone.