Chapter 44
Aoife
After hours of training with Lor’s brothers and the royal guard, I was sore but more invigorated than ever.
It had been so exhilarating to teach tachika kan to the mortals.
Many of the Fair Folk guards had joined me in training everyone else in the ways of using our bodies as weapons.
They’d all been eager to learn, excited, and I’d felt that excitement singing in my blood.
Now I was bathed, wearing a flowy maroon dress that Ceri had made for me, my hair hanging to my waist in gentle, damp waves.
The high of the morning turned into a jangle of nerves as I approached the closed door on the ground floor of the castle.
It had taken a few days to figure out exactly what I wanted to do to show Lor how my feelings had changed over the last month.
I hoped he loved it. I hoped he understood the message that it was still hard for me to say out loud.
I reached for the door and opened it to see Lor sitting there in front of the easel, paint brush in hand, and my mouth dropped open at the sight.
Me. He’d painted me. My black hair framed my russet brown skin, my golden eyes glowed, and this ethereal yellow light surrounded me. I was beautiful, and it took my breath away.
Lor whirled on his stool, not looking surprised to see me. “What do you think?” he asked, gazing at me in that severe way of his that I’d once thought was so rigid, so unfeeling, but now I wasn’t so sure.
It felt like a mask to hide his deeper feelings, his anxiety.
“It’s perfect,” I said. “It’s everything, Lor.”
He stood and strode across the room, and suddenly there he was, right before me, sweeping me up in his arms and caressing my face. “Thank you,” he murmured. “For this. I didn’t even realize how much I missed painting, sketching.”
“I know,” I said simply, my heart still hammering, nerves, along with something else, fluttering in my stomach.
I still wasn’t sure what to say, wasn’t sure why I couldn’t say the words to explain how I was feeling. Maybe because if I said them out loud, it would be official. It would chain me to him in a way that still seemed so scary.
But I didn’t have to ruminate on those thoughts too long because then Lor was kissing me, and I couldn’t think at all.
The kiss was gentle and slow, two people finally coming together after years of fighting each other.
His lips were tentative, as if asking a question: is this okay?
In response, I stepped into him, pressing his hard body against mine.
He let out a growl and grabbed my hips, tugging me toward him so that our bodies were melding together.
I broke off the kiss, both of us breathing hard. “We still have so much to talk about, Lor. This can’t fix all our problems.”
Stubborn until the end. Oraya’s voice echoed in my mind. I wasn’t sure why I was still fighting this, regretted pushing him away again, regretted that his lips were no longer on mine. But Lor didn’t flinch or back away.
“You don’t think so?” he murmured against my lips. “Because I think it’s going to change everything.”
I wanted it to.
“We can’t agree on anything,” I said. “You think an act of passion will help?”
“I certainly don’t think it will hurt.” His voice was low and growly and perfect, sending a thrill through me.
I gave up the fight, my lips curving against his.
“I want you, Aoife. Not because I see you as an obligation or I see this as some duty I must attend to. But because I crave you. I crave your touch. Your kiss. Your body. If you don’t want this—”
My lips crashed into his, less soft this time, urgent as I kissed him hard. He pried my mouth open with his, and I tugged him down to the floor with me.
I had so much pent-up desire, so many nights of touching myself, that I couldn’t hold back. Didn’t want to. I rolled us over, straddling him, and watching his eyes go black. I peeled my dress off, now naked from the waist up, only in my silk panties.
Lor sucked in a sharp breath, staring at me. “You’re divine,” he said. “Like a fucking dream, Aoife my warrior queen.”
I leaned down to kiss him again, and he growled, grabbing my waist and flipping me over so he could pin me to the ground and press kisses against my neck. The scruff of his jaw rasped against my skin, rough and igniting a fire in my belly.
Something wet and squishy pushed against my back, and I stiffened. “Lor?”
He stopped kissing my neck and reared back to look at me. “What? What’s wrong?”
“What did I just land in?” I sat up and looked at the ground to see paint all over the wooden floor.
I let out a laugh as Lor swiped his hand across a streak of reddish-maroon paint and wiped it over my cheek. My mouth dropped open.
“Did you just paint me, Lorcan Wolfgang?”
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my mouth. “I’ll wash it off of you later, my queen. I’ll make sure to scrub every part of your body.”
I wasn’t laughing anymore as his words sent need pulsing through me. “Take your shirt off,” I commanded.
He didn’t argue, immediately pulling it over his head to reveal thick arms and a muscled chest, covered in hair.
His stomach wasn’t carved like Cillian’s or Wolfe’s, but he was clearly in shape, thick and toned and perfect.
His hard length pressed against his trousers, a small wet spot forming, and I sucked in a sharp breath.
“Now come here,” I said as I swiped a finger on the ground through some periwinkle paint.
Again, he didn’t argue, just stepped forward and lowered himself on top of me, his weight feeling so good on my body.
I let my finger trail down the muscles of his back, and he shuddered as I spread the paint over him. “I can wash you, too,” I murmured.
He kissed me hard, his tongue pushing inside while his hard length pressed against my damp panties. I moaned into him, and he dug his fingers into the folds of my waist.
“I love how fucking soft you are.” He reached down to the ground and pressed his hand into white paint, then brought it up to my stomach, marking me. “You’re exquisite, Aoife. So unbelievably perfect.”
I lifted a leg and wound it around his back, tipping my pelvis and grinding against his hard length to relieve the building pressure.
We both let out moans at that, and I slapped my hand against the ground, feeling the wet paint coat it, then I brought that hand to his muscled chest, marking him just like he had me. Paint covered my entire backside by now, but I didn’t care.
Lor rutted against me, and I moved my hips, both of us frantic with desire, our mouths crashing together, tongues mingling while we sought that friction over and over again with our bodies.
“You feel so unbelievable,” he said, splaying his hands out over me, skimming my stomach and moving them up to my breasts, covering me with more streaks of paint.
“I want to see you,” he murmured, and rolled us once again so that I was on top straddling him, giving him a full view of my naked upper half.
I grinded harder into him and leaned over to press my hands into the paint-splattered ground. He lifted his head and took a breast into his mouth, and I gasped at the sensation of it.
His tongue swirled around my peaked nipple, and he sucked harder. I rocked against him and whimpered, the pleasure inside mounting until I almost couldn’t stand it. It bordered on painful how badly I needed him, how much I wanted him inside me right now, filling me.
He released my nipple, finding my mouth with his and biting my bottom lip, pain and pleasure mingling and careening me straight toward the edge of my release.
“Lor,” I said against his mouth. “Fuck. Lor, fuck. I’m going to come.
” I tensed on top of him, my body arching as I straightened.
My hands found his hair, fisting tight. “Lor,” I said on another gasp as I tipped into a free fall.
My head flung back as I looked up, stars exploding in my vision as my release rocked through my body.
Lor’s own body responded beneath me, and he stiffened, his fingers digging into my hips as his cock twitched, pulsing in his trousers while he let out a string of curse words that I barely understood.
We both panted as our releases faded, and I dropped down on top of Lor’s sweat-soaked body, both of us sticky with paint.
I rested my forehead against his and rolled off him, still breathing hard, still coming down from the unbelievable high.
He looked over at me, so much love and tenderness shining from his eyes. “That was a first,” he said, nodding his head toward my stomach, covered in paint.
I let out a soft laugh. “For me too.”
He rolled onto his side. “Will you come back to my bed chamber with me? Let me bathe you?” His words were so sincere, and my first reaction was to say no, to take control of this situation. But he hadn’t commanded. He hadn’t told me I had to. He’d asked.
“Only if you promise to let me clean you too,” I said, then hooked a finger inside the waistband of his trousers. “I still haven’t gotten to see all of you.”
He nodded toward my black panties. “Nor I you.”
I leaned forward a pressed a kiss to his mouth. “Then let’s fix that, husband.”