Fairyville (6 page)

"Don't stop," Alex said. "
I need another
."

Bryan could hardly believe it, but those three words were enough to harden him again.

Alex's second sprint to orgasm was as quick as the first, too quick for Bryan to follow. He bit Bryan's shoulder when he came that time, probably the sexiest love bite he'd ever had, because he knew for sure Alex hadn't meant to lose it like that.

"Shit," Alex said, coming to enough to see the mark. "I knew I'd hurt you if I made myself wait that long."

Bryan began to laugh. He turned around and wrapped Alex in his arms, kissing his reassurance into Alex's sighing mouth. To Bryan's delight, Alex didn't pull away for a long, long time.

His skin was velvet on Bryan's chest, as preternaturally perfect as his cock had been.

"Okay," Alex said at last, a bit breathless. "I guess you don't hate me after all."

"That's your conclusion?" Bryan teased. "That I don't
hate you
?"

Alex averted his gaze. "I know you feel more than that."

Bryan snorted at his embarrassment. "Alex, I'm not expecting you to marry me because we fucked."

Alex flushed up to his hairline. "I'm honored that you care about me. Really. That's why I—I didn't want to screw up our friendship."

"You haven't screwed it up."

Alex's mouth twisted. "There's plenty of time for that."

"Right," said Bryan. "In Fairyville."

The wryness of Alex's expression just might have slanted into a smile. Still not looking up, he slid his hand down his friend's belly, his fingers skating through his black pubic bush. It was a gentle, intimate gesture, one Bryan hadn't expected. "I didn't finish you."

His palm had an interesting tingle as it wrapped Bryan's shaft. His erection had been subsiding, but that little surge of whatever it was brought him up.

"Oh, no worries," Bryan said, his voice a fraction higher than before. "I'm perfectly happy to let you make it up to me now."

Bryan and Alex were cruising north on I-17, halfway to Sedona, when they had a fluke accident. Bryan didn't see how it happened, but somehow Alex caught the sole of his shoe on the gas pedal, and the thing peeled off like the top of a sardine can.

Fortunately, Alex's reflexes were quick. The wheels barely squealed before he was able to pull over onto the sandy verge. In the distance, a lone saguaro cactus raised beseeching arms to the sapphire sky.

"How the hell did I do that?" Alex demanded, pulling the remnants of the loafer from his bare foot.

His mood had not been cheery to begin with, but he frowned in genuine affront at the ruined shoe. As a rule, Pis learned to expect the unexpected. Subjects rarely did what suited their convenience. Bryan had noticed, however, that Alex didn't like it when the things he believed he
could
plan didn't go according to.

"I can take the wheel," he offered, without a single objection to driving Alex's beautifully kept, dark-brown, eight-cylinder Audi. His own two-year-old Buick looked more like ten—and that was before you considered the fast food trash. It had never run as smoothly as the Audi, not even when it was new.

"That's okay," Alex declined. No surprise, since he was kind of a control freak about his car. "I saw a sign for Target at the last exit."

When Alex came out of the store, at least twenty minutes after going in, Bryan couldn't contain his amusement. Alex's face was storm-cloud dark.

"Don't. Say. A word," he ordered, sliding grumpily back into the driver's seat. "These were all they had in my size."

"Yeah, 'cause thirteen is such a freakish shoe size for men." Totally cracking up, Bryan craned to get a better look at the glory that clad his partner's feet. The shoes were neon-yellow high-tops with—oh, Lord—was that Wile E. Coyote printed on the side? Tears of laughter began to squeeze out from the corners of Bryan's eyes.

"Shut up!" Alex said, but Bryan was having too much fun.

"They're rad," he choked out between gasps for air. "I'm sure they're all the rage with the high school boys."

Alex covered his face, finally beginning to laugh himself. "I swear, I searched every shoe in that freaking store. This was the only thirteen they had."

"Well, they go great with your navy sport coat. Very preppie casual."

"Asshole," Alex said through his grin. He put the car into gear and backed neatly out of their spot. Witnessing the deft maneuver, Bryan could hardly blame him for wanting to drive. Alex was a genius behind the wheel. Now he narrowed his eyes at Bryan. "You just wait till we get to Fairyville. Then you'll see this weird shit happens all the time."

"Can't wait," Bryan promised, relaxing back in his seat. The happiness that rose inside him had been a stranger far too long.

Meeting his laughing gaze, Alex reached out briefly to squeeze his hand. It was a boyfriend squeeze, sweet and spontaneous. It surprised Bryan enough that he had to turn his face to the window, to hide how his own eyes pricked.

Don't get ahead of yourself
, he warned his budding optimism. He and Alex had only had sex once. In Bryan's experience, this was no guarantee of a great romance. Alex had slept with a lot of people. In fact, he'd slept with more than Bryan had suspected, considering he'd only guestimated the female ones. Bryan wasn't sure he could count them all without a calculator. Alex had dates most weekends—sometimes more than one. That little hand squeeze could be nothing more than a friendly bit of afterglow.

Determined to play it cool, Bryan curled his fist on his thigh.

As luck would have it, Alex glanced at him just then.

"I'm glad you're here," he said in his perpetual bedroom voice.

The acknowledgment was too much, the little extra rasp of sincerity. Every shred of Bryan's caution instantly tore loose in the highway wind.

It wasn't unusual for a being of Magnus's persuasion to enjoy sexual release numerous times a day. The fey were a lusty lot, and sex was like food to them: something to be enjoyed with gusto, not life or death serious. In the decade since Magnus had stolen, unsanctioned, into the human realm, he'd enjoyed countless such tasty meals.

All that had ended when he met Zoe—or it had ended as much as it could.

The terms of his magical visa were simple: Win a woman's heart under each full moon, seal the deal by climaxing inside his partner, then return the heart afterward. Nothing said he couldn't have sex more often, and certainly he wanted to, but to do so with Zoe watching didn't strike him as the best way to keep her regard.

Unfortunately, given the amount of satisfaction he was wired to crave, it was nearly killing him to restrict himself to having sex once a month. He could pleasure himself, of course, but to his kind nothing compared to the delicious skin-to-skin contact of intercourse. He needed that like Phoenix needed water, and without it he felt himself approaching a state that, for a naturally cheerful person like himself, resembled surliness.

Zoe had no idea how she'd upped the difficulty of his life by breaking into tears this morning and forcing him to kiss her. Now he'd tasted her sweetness. Now he'd felt her eager embrace. Now—damn it all to the nether realm—he knew what he was missing!

In spite of the arousal that still goaded him like a lance, Magnus chuckled at the cloudless sky. He sat beneath an awning in the little courtyard across the street from her gallery, waiting patiently for her to emerge for lunch. Sun-sharp shadows shifted slowly around the circle of adobe shops, different but every bit as beautiful as his home.

He could hardly claim to have been
forced
to kiss her when he'd been wanting to do it for the last two years—ever since he'd spotted her giving readings in the little park the locals called Tourist Square. All sorts of artists and prognosticators set up booths there on summer weekends—and Zoe hadn't been the only friend to dead people there. Nonetheless, a line ten-deep had snaked back from her table, mostly women fanning themselves in the blazing heat, clearly determined to speak to no psychic but her—even if they melted in the meantime.

Magnus had taken one look at the reason for their patience and had known he wasn't going to move on to Colorado like he'd planned. Zoe was worth sticking around for, even if it meant remaining where his mother could get at him.

Stable portals between the human world and Fairy were hard to come by, and just as hard to open if you weren't a queen. Sadly, Magnus's mother was a queen, and the door to Fairyville was as old and stable as they got. Titania could come and go as she pleased, with one disadvantage. Should she ever step into the human realm, she'd have to leave the bulk of her magic behind.

Titania didn't want to do that, not even if it improved her chances of retrieving her unruly son. Full-strength fairy magic was a drug without which she couldn't function, the blood that kept her power-loving heart beating. She'd try every way she could think of to reel Magnus back, so long as she didn't have to come into this world.

Imagining how many ways Titania would think of—especially once she realized he wasn't going to tire of his "rebellious phase"—had been behind his plan to change states, at least, until he'd laid eyes on Zoe.

Zoe had been a vision in that park, as if one juicy little person could unite the glitter and buzz of Fairy with the comforting solidness of humanity. Her curly hair had rioted like silk around her slender shoulders, a rich blue-black that made her soft gray eyes shine. In her bright gauzy skirt and skimpy summer top, she'd resembled a sexy butterfly—lean and lithe with breasts the size of oranges. Her smooth, tanned skin had made him want to nibble her all over, to sample every inch of those sun-kissed curves, but even then he recognized his reaction as more than lust.

She'd smiled at her clients, nodding at their troubles and patting their hands. Some had shed tears as she'd shared messages from their dear departed, and all the while that soft, sweet smile of hers had not wavered.

This one knows
, Magnus had thought.
This one knows there's more to life than most people see. This one knows there's truly nothing to cry about
.

He'd been tempted to get a reading for himself but hadn't dared, for fear of what she would discern. Her magic was a perfume swirling through her aura, a pulse of deeper, more vibrant life. He'd watched her for days before he'd concluded she could not read minds, days during which he'd realized he couldn't sleep with and forget this one. Instead, he'd proposed she join his string of proteges, the human artists whose shops and studios he funded, whose careers he gently oversaw and took commissions on.

She'd been surprised by his offer but not shocked. He'd been pleased to discover she knew how good she was. Confidence was a kind of magic by itself. Though it hadn't been his primary goal, he'd known his investment in her would pay off.

That she had a private coterie of fairies had been an unexpected plus. Magnus hadn't had a close-up encounter with his diminutive cousins since they'd slipped from his mother's iron grip two human centuries ago. He'd been looking forward to the reacquaintance. As fellow escapees from Fairy, they had much in common. He hadn't realized the little fey were going to flee in terror whenever he came near.