Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Meg
It’s the horrible sound of the rooster crowing that
wakes me the next morning. It sounds like the damn thing is right outside my
door. I try to burrow under the pillow to escape the dreadful racket, but
there’s something attached to my pillow, and it won’t move an inch. An arm
wraps itself more tightly around my waist and pulls me closer.
“Damn it,” I curse as I try to get out of bed. I’m tangled
in a quilt, and it’s difficult to orient myself. I’m definitely not where I
should be. Where the hell am I? Oh, yes. A bit of the evening before comes
back. I’m on the little cot in the barn, but I quickly find myself on my ass in
the middle of the cold, dirt floor.
“It’s too early, lover.” Cian’s Irish brogue is even thicker
when he’s drowsy. His hand comes out seeking me once more, but he doesn’t open
his eyes. “Get back in bed. We’ll eat the rooster for dinner tonight, I
promise.”
This is exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid. “You aren’t
supposed to be in my bed, damn it!”
I give my clothes a once-over, grateful I appear to have
retained enough I’m fairly certain I didn’t do anything I shouldn’t have. The
princess gown I’d worn to the party is draped over the lone chair in the corner
of the room. I have on the thin shift that went beneath it, and my undies are
right where they’re supposed to be.
All good signs.
Still, I’m not sure how I ended up in bed with Cian when I
promised myself I wouldn’t. And there’s a gold band on my left ring finger that
wasn’t there the day before.
Cian rubs his eyes, yawns, and stretches his big body. He,
on the other hand, doesn’t appear to be wearing anything. His glorious frame is
on full display. “You told me you refused to sleep in the big bed. You told me
you needed independence, and the only way you could have that was to live in
abject poverty, with not a single comfort to your name.”
“I doubt I put it quite like that,” I complain.
I remember last night, up to a point. There had been dancing
and singing. I met Flanna’s family and all the rest of the brownies. I laughed
and said that we eat brownies on the human plane. And then I spent the better
part of an hour explaining that I won’t be coming after Flanna’s grandchildren.
Sweets might not be a big part of Fae life, but ale sure is. It was the ale
that did it. It had been slightly sweet and had a hell of a kick. Every time I
finished a mug, someone put another in my hands.
Cian scratches his belly. It shouldn’t be sexy, but it is.
His gray eyes open fully for the first time. “No. You took a lot longer to
explain it. It was quite the lecture. There was something about making your own
way and roaring because you’re a woman. I didn’t understand it at all, and I
consider myself a smart man. The only part I really got was when you told me we
had to live here.”
Cian shows no ill effects from the enormous amount of ale he
downed. He had to have doubled my intake. The boy can drink.
“No, I said I needed to live here,” I correct. Now
I remember that I kissed Cian. I was slightly drunk, and everyone urged us to
kiss. I meant to placate them with a little peck, but Cian dipped my back over
his arm and overwhelmed me. His tongue slipped into my mouth and had its way
with mine. He rubbed his body against me, and I felt every inch of his intent.
He got me so hot I might have done him right there.
I need to stay away from him. He’s always touching me. The
night before, he held my hand or had his arm around my waist all of the time.
There hadn’t been a single moment I wasn’t aware of him.
Cian’s face is sweet as he sits up and crosses his legs. He
pays no mind to his nudity or to his morning friend. “I know. You think living
here will prove something to Beck. I don’t think so, but I’m willing to go
along with what you want. Can we get a bigger bed, though? It was cramped last
night. I have no idea how we’re going to fuck on that.”
He didn’t hear a word I said last night. “We’re not. Cian,
we need to talk.”
“I can do that,” he promises with a sober look on his face.
I can’t take my eyes off his enormous erection. It lays
almost flat against his belly. “How do you expect me to hold a serious
conversation with you like that?”
He shrugs. “You’re my wife. It’s my permanent state around
you. It would probably go away if you jumped on top of me and bounced around
for a while. Well, it wouldn’t go away for long.”
Getting to my feet, I turn away from the too-tempting sight.
My second husband is proving even more troublesome than the first. I need to
get properly dressed and get my day started. Perhaps then I’ll be better
equipped to handle Cian. My day clothes are still in the cottage. I’ll take
some time to collect myself and then see to the farm.
“I’m going to get dressed. You… I don’t know. Just take care
of that,” I say, avoiding the delicious sight of him as I stumble out of the
room.
I expect to step out into the leftover destruction from the
night before, but the yard is pristine once more, without a sign of what went
on. The gathering was huge, with everyone in the village showing up to dance
and drink. I was introduced to sidhe, brownies, trolls, gnomes, and
some dwarves down from the mountains. They toasted Cian’s health and the twins’
marriage. Everyone spoke of Beck with great fondness, and I learned a lot about
my wayward husband. He saved many of the people of the village at great cost to
himself. For years after the civil war, he worked hard to build a sanctuary for
the refugees from his home plane.
It would have been easy for the king to settle on the
Vampire plane. The Dellacourts are a wealthy family who would have taken in
Beck and Cian. He could have lived in luxury, and no one would have blamed him.
Instead, at seventeen, he decided to establish a village on a safe plane to
give his people a home.
Beck is their protector. Without him, the Fae would have
dispersed and more than likely had trouble surviving on their own. Cian gave
his brother all the credit for founding their own small kingdom. He explained
that he simply followed his brother’s lead. Beck was the one to take charge in
those dark years after losing their parents. Hearing the love and admiration
for Beck did nothing to ease the ache in my heart that he can’t love me.
I walk slowly, not minding the early morning chill. It’s
really beautiful here. A gentle mist comes up from the pond, giving the world
some softness. The cows contentedly eat grass in the distance. The sky is a
soft watercolor of blues, pinks, and oranges. It’s similar to my plane, but it
feels so different. Even the air here is gauzy and sweet. The whole world seems
quiet and still. A wistful thought steals over me.
I could be happy here.
I take a deep breath and continue on toward the cottage.
I will be happy here. Happiness is a state of
being. It is something I can choose.
I open the cottage door and decide to start by getting
dressed and fixing breakfast. I’ll battle the judgmental chickens again, and
this time I’ll try frying the eggs.
I stop in the middle of the living room because an erotic
warmth swamps my senses. It starts in my pussy and pulses outward.
“Oh, god.”
I barely manage to close the door behind me when I feel the
connection between me and Cian open. It’s like someone flicks a switch on in my
brain and the channel changes. I’m suddenly tuned to the Cian Channel, and it’s
playing porn.
He’s stroking himself. I can feel it. His hand is gentle as
he strokes from the base of his cock upward, all the way to the crown, where he
brushes his thumb firmly across the head. There’s already wetness there. He
uses it to lubricate his palm and facilitate smoother strokes. He tightens his
hold on the monster, and I feel him sigh as he spreads his legs and ups the
pace.
Drops of arousal weep from the slit of his dick. If I was
with him, I would lean over and lick it off. Is that my thought or Cian’s? The
connection is so new that I have to wonder. A vision of exactly what Cian wants
me to do flows over my brain, taking over my thoughts. I would run the tip of
my tongue just inside the slit and tease him lightly. His big body would
shudder in response and urge me on. He would fist his cock while I suck the
head, begging him to feed me everything he has.
I feel Cian’s chuckle as though it comes from inside my own
body.
“Bastard,” I whisper.
He knows I can feel him. He’s pushing the experience out
toward me. It’s like I’m there with him, almost as though I am Cian. I
can feel his pleasure and his intent. He wants me. Oh, I can feel that. He
wants me so badly. I stumble into the bedroom and throw my body on the bed. I
won’t be able to ignore the vision. It feels too good to ignore.
His hand is firm now as he runs it up and down his cock. I
writhe on the bed, my legs restless as he caresses himself. He’s thinking about
me. He moves on from thoughts of my mouth to other body parts. He thinks how
good it would feel to have my tight pussy all around him. The muscles of my
pussy would clench around his cock, trying to tempt him to come. He wants to
give me his semen. It belongs to me. It’s only right for me to take it.
He wants me on top, my breasts bouncing as I ride him hard.
He would love the view from that position. He would grasp my hips and help
force me down so his dick could hit my sweet spot.
My nipples go hard. My pussy is already soft and wet. Every
cell in my body has been taken over by Cian’s assault. He’s there with me
although our bodies are apart. It’s intimate, so intimate. It’s a lot like the
connection I felt with Beck in the arena, though this time I know what’s
happening.
Cian pumps his cock. His hand slides from the head down,
down, down to the place where the thick stalk meets his balls. No wonder men do
this an awful lot. It’s completely different from touching myself. There’s a
harder edge to it that I find fascinating. It feels really good, and I suddenly
know Cian can do this all morning. He’ll be careful and prolong the experience.