Chapter 35
DAVID
It would surprise exactly no one to learn that David Berkeley was not a romantic.
The only idealized version of reality he could imagine was one without himself in it, morbid as that might be.
Anna Ainslan, on the other hand, was a classic idealist. She could not have been more his opposite.
She was a blue-eyed tempest of promises he wasn’t sure the universe would fulfill.
Which was probably why he couldn’t keep his hands off her. Nothing good lasted long, and this was so much better than good. He’d chain this woman to his bedpost if she’d let him.
As he trailed open-mouthed kisses down her bare stomach, her skin scented of the honeysuckle soap she favored, David was certain she’d be taken from him at some point. Nothing this fine belonged in hands so dirty, but he only clasped on tighter, ready to fight the cosmos for the rights to her.
Selfish, really.
This idyllic creature deserved so much better than him, but he wasn’t too proud to use any means necessary to make her forget that. Including his tongue.
One thing he’d learned young—probably too young—was that a woman would tell him exactly what she wanted if he just listened closely enough to that core inside her chest. Anna’s emotions were like a treasure map. He could follow the dotted line straight to her moans of pleasure.
And fuck if he didn’t crave that sound more than anything.
His name on her wanton lips—was there anything better?
David didn’t know what his future held, but he wanted it to hold Anna. He wanted it to cocoon her. He wanted her. All to himself.
Mine.
“Use your voice,” she murmured as he lingered on the place below her belly button.
He smiled against her skin. Once he’d gotten her in his bed, he’d learned another crucial detail.
Anna craved his magic. She liked his power wrapping around her, telling her how to feel and when to come. She trusted him to weave a spell on her free will and not take advantage.
It was the hottest thing to have ever happened to him, this level of trust, and besieging her with pleasure was the best thing he’d ever done with this magic.
“Open your legs,” he said, threading silk through his tone. Her teeth dragged over her lower lip as her thighs spread. “How long do you think you can last this time?”
She gasped as he teased her with the bare graze of a finger. “Not very long.”
“Look at me,” he commanded.
Blue eyes snapped to him.
“You don’t come until I tell you to.”
The blacks of her eyes swelled, and her fingers clutched his hair as he slid his tongue between her legs, holding him exactly where she wanted. As if he’d ever leave.
Her emotional marrow turned molten, oozing around him with familiar strains of intoxicating sugar and enchanting glitter. Anna’s lust seared his very being with pleasure, as if her ecstasy was so great, she needed to disseminate it wide, bury it in his skin.
Her hips bucked, her pleasure spiked, and a sudden thread of sentiment flashed bright, like sunlight sparking on gold.
He paused.
Was that—
No.
That wasn’t—
A burst of adrenaline thickened his blood, and his gaze flew to her face—rosy skin, eyes closed. He searched through her din of emotions. She whined as he stopped his ministrations, her body writhing against him.
“Please,” she whispered, kickstarting his heart and shunting blood downward so fast that he grew dizzy.
Still, he searched.
Beneath layers of shallow nonsense, she’d hidden a brand-new chain of intimacy and affection.
She must have practiced cloaking her emotions with his mother, or he would have sensed it sooner.
Perhaps she’d taken drastic measures to conceal it from him, but it was glaringly clear now that he had a hold on it.
Infused with heat, it delved deeper in her than anyone he’d ever felt, encompassing a broader scope of all those complicated, hot sensations that comprised what most people called Love.
It poured from her, fragile and new, but there.
Did she know he could feel it?
His pulse thundered in his throat and singed his veins. Why was he surprised? She was a pixie, after all. They opened their hearts before their legs, and she’d been warming his bed for weeks now.
But he couldn’t imagine what she’d found in him to love.
David dipped his head and trailed his tongue up the most intimate part of her, watching as she shuddered. He tortured her for long minutes, keeping her right at the edge but handcuffed with magic until she was panting, begging, moaning his name as a plea.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he finally said. Within seconds, she was riding his face, crying out, and he was pressing kisses to her inner thigh while she floated back to reality.
As he stared at her flushed face, a sliver of possibility opened—a future he’d never imagined. It existed on a tiny road somewhere between his stained past and his future as Djiante. This woman knew his faults, the terrible things he’d done. She knew his blood and his gruesome heritage.
She accepted him anyway. Loved him anyway.
It seemed too good to be true.
Pieces of his ice were cracking and giving way, and he sensed himself teetering on a dangerous ledge. He climbed back up her body, and her arms wrapped around him automatically, pulling him against her.
Blue eyes lifted, and a languid smile spread over her face as she lifted her hips.
The privilege of sliding inside her felt like coming home, and that alone should have been a warning of an impending fall, an imminent crash.
Her back arched as he moved, taking it as slow as he could tolerate, making it last as long as possible.
Only when she was gasping again, her eyes fluttering closed, did he allow himself the ecstasy of release.
For several seconds, his entire consciousness was showered with sheer bliss, and when he came to, she was running her hands up and down his back, her lips pressing kisses to his temple and cheek.
He moved off her, but she turned into his side, nuzzling him like a cat.
“You’ve built a cage,” he said after a few moments, wondering whether she’d confess to any particular hidden feelings.
Anna smiled against his neck. “You noticed?”
“It’s not very strong.”
Her breath gusted over his skin with her chuckle. “I know. I’ll get the hang of it eventually. It’s harder than I thought it would be.”
“Probably because you have so many feelings.”
“Too many,” she agreed, then gasped and popped up. “I forgot to tell you! Your mother got another letter back.”
“Yeah?” He ran his fingers through her long hair, strands flowing like silk. “Any information?”
She sunk back to his side, sighing. “Not really. He recommended we consult the sylphs. When I asked her why he’d recommend that, she got kind of cagey.”
He hummed, continuing to stroke her hair.
Her voice grew small. “Do you think I’ll ever figure out who I am?”
“You’re Anna. That’s all that matters.”
Her emotions fizzled with a burst of happiness. “But maybe I’m just a blip of mistaken genetics.”
“You are not a mistake,” he said, his eyes growing heavy. “You’re a masterpiece.”
She was silent a moment, and once again, that golden filament of love glinted bright in his vision, even though his eyes were closed. It felt like silk against his skin.
“A masterpiece?” She laughed. “Sure. A masterpiece with nowhere to belong.”
His hand gripped hers where it lay on his chest. “Maybe you’re exactly where you belong.”
The gold flared, blinding for a moment, before resettling. “Maybe I am,” she murmured.
He’d begun to drift into that dreamy plane just before sleep when she spoke again, her voice a mere whisper.
“Your mother asks about you.”
David stilled, and tension crept into every muscle.
“Sorry.” She scratched her fingernails gently through the hair on his chest. “I know that’s a sensitive subject.”
“Are you going to tell me I need to get over myself and accept her back into my life?”
She kissed his neck. “No. You’re a big boy. I think you can decide when you’re ready. But I just think you should know…she really does care for you.”
His fingers found her hair once more, tentative. “I’ll take that into consideration.”
“And while we’re on an awkward subject, can I ask about the pregnancy?”
That single word sliced through any remaining relaxation, and David was sure she sensed it. “That’s Sean’s problem,” he said, careful to keep his voice as flat as possible.
“Right.” She paused. “But aren’t Sean’s problems sort of your problems now, too?”
The ice rumbled, and he reinforced it with a slow breath and a blank mind. He and Sean hadn’t discussed Isobel’s condition, but the phantom of it clung to the connection between them.
“She’s very young,” Anna said. “I’ve always heard it was impossible for anyone under fifty.”
Yes, David had heard that as well, but he’d decided to down the contraceptive tonic anyway—not that it had done Sean much good.
David had even gone so far as to research the realm’s fertility issues—a dire reality, truly.
But as days passed and the rumor of Isobel’s pregnancy spread, whispers had followed.
There could be only one reason why a woman of noble blood would conceive so young, they said.
The Great Mother willed it, knowing she didn’t have long to live.
It seemed…ridiculous. And though he hadn’t spoken a single word to Sean about it, David knew he agreed. What kind of goddess cared so much about bloodlines? What sort of deity would choose to bring forth a child just to let its mother die without ending a noble line?
The child was Sean’s, too. What if he was the one destined to die young?
These thoughts had churned in cycles through his head since the moment he’d watched Isobel Faywood empty her stomach over a balcony.
She would have a baby, and that baby belonged to Sean, David’s soulmate. So what did that make David? How would this child perceive him? How connected was he to the new life growing in Isobel’s womb? How far could he distance himself from it?
He preferred to pretend none of it was happening—a trait he suspected he’d absorbed from Sean. Denial.