Something had occurred to me while I’d watched him concentrate, the white glare from my computer lighting up his face. “Do you ever leave this house, Tink? Go anywhere?”
He’d frowned up at me like I’d asked him why I should watch
The Walking Dead
. “Why would I leave? This place has everything I need, and if it doesn’t, I can order it from Amazon.” He’d paused. “Though, on second thought, we could use a live-in chef, because you can’t cook for shit.”
I’d left the conversation at that point.
So there was a good chance, if Tink was being honest, that he hadn’t been out to possibly figure out that there were good fae. I thought about the day I’d stopped over at Brighton and Merle’s looking for them and saw what I’d first believed was another brownie. I’d caught a glimpse of translucent wings. I’d chalked it up to me seeing things, but now I wasn’t so sure.
I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
But what changed with the Order? And why was it buried so effectively, that a few decades later, no one even knew about it with the exception of the older members?
All this thinking was giving me a headache.
Flopping onto my back, I flung my arms out to the side and lay there until I heard a key turning in the front door. I didn’t move an inch. My bedroom door was halfway open, so I knew he spotted me the moment he entered. Or spotted half of me.
A few seconds later, my bedroom door creaked open and I heard a low, sexy rumble of a chuckle. “What in the world are you doing?”
I threw my hands up in the universal I-have-no-clue gesture. His footsteps approached the bed and then he came into view. His wavy hair was wet and the shoulders of his shirt were damp. It must have started raining at some point.
“You look weirdly adorable right now.” He put his right knee on the bed and planted his left hand beside my head. “Though I have a question.”
“About what?”
“Why are you wearing shorts and knee socks?” He leaned over, caging me in. “Why not just wear pants?”
I arched a brow. “First off, I’m not really wearing shorts,
shorts
. I’m wearing sleep shorts.”
“And there’s a difference how?” he asked as he lowered his head and kissed my cheek.
“There’s a difference.” I waited as he kissed my other cheek. “Secondly, the socks are comfortable and they’re fuzzy, which makes them better than pants.”
“Okay.” He chuckled again, kissing my forehead.
“And finally, it’s the perfect combination. I’m not too hot or too cold,” I explained.
“Whatever you say.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “All I know is that I’m going to love pulling them off you later. With my teeth.”
My eyes widened and my stomach dipped, the muscles there tightening. My body really loved the sound of that. His mouth was now aiming for mine, and I knew if I let him kiss me, he would be taking
all
my clothes off with his teeth, and unfortunately for my libido, I couldn’t let any of that happen. Yet.
I placed my hands on his chest, and when I spoke, my lips brushed his. “There’s something we need to talk about first.”
“Okay.” His tongue flicked out, tracing my bottom lip and causing me to suck in an unsteady breath. “Are we going to talk about how your breasts feel abandoned? Because I’ve been planning all day to rectify that.” He cupped my left breast and his thumb swiped over my nipple. “No bra? Perfect.”
Sucking in a sharp breath, I called on every ounce of willpower I had and said, “Merle is missing.”
His mouth hovered over mine. “What?”
“And she left all these journals and paperwork behind, some dating back several decades.”
“Uh-huh.” His thumb made another pass.
My toes curled. “And in those journals she lists names of the previous sect leaders and—” I gasped when he plucked the hard nub through the thin cotton of my shirt. “And she detailed how the Order used to work alongside the fae.”
Ren’s hand stilled, and I didn’t know if I should be happy or sad about that. Slowly he rose up a little so I could see his face. “Come again?” he said.
“And talks about how there are actually . . . good fae—fae that don’t feed on humans.”
He blinked slowly. “Are you high?”
“I wish,” I muttered, hoping his reaction was genuine. “But if you let go of my boob I can show you.”
Ren hesitated. “Do I really need to let go of your boob?”
I stared at him.
A dimple appeared in his right cheek and he slowly, finger by finger, removed his hand. “Okay. What exactly are you talking about?”
“It’s all in the journal that’s about an inch from your knee.”
His gaze flickered over my face and then he tilted his head to the side. “You’re being serious, aren’t you?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
Frowning, Ren leaned over and snatched up the journal. He sat beside me, book in hand. “You said Merle is missing?”
I sat up. “Yeah, Brighton called me after we had dinner. She said that her mom hadn’t been acting right since the gate was opened, more so than normal, and this morning she must’ve come downstairs with all these journals and stuff.”
“Okay,” he said slowly.
“She told Brighton it was no longer safe for her and then left. When Brighton went to look for her about five minutes later, Merle was just gone. She checked several of the surrounding blocks and there was no sign of her.”
“Is it possible she hailed—”
“It’s possible, but not likely. Anyway, when Brighton came back inside, she started looking at all the stuff—including the journal—and that’s when she called me. I skimmed through it then brought it home. I’ve been reading the stuff for hours, and Ren . . . I think it’s real.”
One side of his mouth quirked up. “Ivy, there aren’t fae who don’t feed off humans.”
“According to that book, there are.”
His brows knitted together. “I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but Merle struggles—”
“Yes, she struggles, but this stuff has been chronicled for decades, Ren, before she was caught by the fae.” I scooted onto my knees and reached around him, taking the book from his hands. “Trust me, I didn’t believe it at first—couldn’t believe it, but look at this.” I opened the book to an entry made in the seventies and turned it over. “Read this and pay attention to the date.”
His gaze held mine for a few beats and then he looked down at the book. I knew which part he was reading. It was a joint mission between the Order and the fae, where they helped locate several teenage humans who’d been kidnapped by other fae. I remembered the good fae’s names—Handoc, Alena, and Phineas. Of course, the last name made me think of
Phineas and Ferb
. Ha.
Ren’s mouth opened and snapped shut. He gave a little shake of his head. “I . . .”
Smirking, I reached over and flipped the pages to the list of names. “Take a look at this. List of Order members who apparently co-hunted with fae.”
He scanned the page. “I . . .”
“And there’s more. Seriously. You could spend all night reading this. There’s no way these are all some wild delusions that spanned decades.”
I let Ren read for a few minutes. He stopped every so often, as if he was reading things more than once. When he finally looked up at me, his expression was adorably confounded.
“Most of the Order members from that time have retired and moved out of the city or didn’t make it to retirement age,” I said. “But there is one who is still kicking and is accessible. Jerome.”
Ren’s brows flew up.
“But there’s something else.” I pushed off the bed and stood. “Before Merle left, she told Brighton to contact you. That you would know what to do.”
“What?” His response was immediate.
“That’s what she was told.” I folded my arms. “To contact you.”
He shook his head as he looked down at the book. “I have no idea what to say.”
“So you didn’t know about this? That there could be fae that were . . . good?”
“I have honestly never heard of this, and as a member of the Elite, we know everything. That’s why this is impossible.”
“You know nothing is impossible,” I said, repeating what Brighton had said earlier. “If it’s true, the Order and the Elite hide it well, practically erasing all evidence, and those who are still alive obviously don’t speak of it.”
He turned back to the journal. “This . . . I honestly don’t know what to think or believe, but I’m telling you for real, I have no idea why Merle would tell her daughter to come to me. No idea whatsoever, because I’ve never heard of this before.”
Staring at him, I knew, just knew, that he was telling me the truth. Unlike me, who was lying.
“If this is true . . .” His gaze flicked up to mine again. “Then we need to find one of these good-natured, non-human-eating fae, and we need to do it quickly.”
“Yeah.” I watched him skim the pages. “You make that sound like it’s something easy.”
“Hell.” He laughed dryly. “I think we’ve learned nothing is easy.”
“So true,” I murmured.
I tugged my socks off and stretched out, dipping my feet under the covers while Ren was nose-deep in the journals. I kept quiet, knowing his head had to be spinning much like mine had been when I first read them. Hell, my head was still whirling around.
Surprisingly, I fell asleep while he read, stirring awake sometime after he’d climbed under the covers. Something about his warm, hard body must’ve reached deep into the recesses of slumber, because I was wide awake. I had no idea how much time had passed, but I was curled against his side and he was on his back. He’d left the nightstand lamp on, and as my gaze traveled over the surface, I saw one of the journals lying on the edge of the bed. He’d fallen asleep reading, and for some reason I found that incredibly adorable.
And sexy.
There was a lot of skin pressed against mine. Ren had undressed, and as I drew my leg up over his bare one, I quickly discovered that he’d stripped down to his briefs. The hair on his legs tickled mine as I slid my calf over his.
Ren shifted, and his hand, once lax against my waist, tensed. He fisted my shirt, and my heart stuttered. I placed my hand on his chest, tracing the chiseled definition of his pecs. His body was amazing.
And as I lay there, pressed against his side, I wasn’t thinking about everything that had happened. I wasn’t thinking at all, and it was blissfully perfect. It felt like it had been forever since my thoughts weren’t occupied and my body wasn’t aching.
Well, parts of my body were aching but for a whole different reason.
Biting my lower lip, I slid my hand down his flat stomach, over the taut ab muscles there. He tensed as I went lower. Ren was awake.
“Ivy,” he said, voice guttural and deep. “What are you doing?”
Instead of answering, I pushing the covers down our legs, then I shucked off my bottoms. I reached for the band on his boxer briefs, and when he didn’t stop me, I carefully tugged at them. He lifted his hips and I slid them off.
“
Ivy
.” He groaned my name again as his hand trailed down my back. I flushed.
I lifted myself up and straddled him. My heart pounded in my chest as I stared down. One side of his mouth curled up as his hands landed on my bare thighs. I leaned my head down, pressing my lips to his. I followed the path of his mouth and then my tongue, working the seam of his mouth until he parted. His hands moved, sliding up my thighs and under the loose shirt I was wearing, to my hips. I slid my body down, gasping at the friction and the deep, achy pulse between my thighs.
I knew he wanted this as badly as me. His erection pressed against my center, and I could feel it in his heady gaze and the way he clutched my hips. I pushed down with my hips again, reveling when he let out a sexy as hell groan. Moving slowly, I rubbed against him until my breaths were coming out in shallow pants. His hips lifted, and it was like we were dancing.
“Ren,” I murmured against his mouth, only able to force out one more word. “Please.”
“You don’t have to beg, sweetness. His hands slid over my hips, gripping my butt. “Grab my wallet out of my pants. There’s a condom in there.”
Throat dry, I nodded and then scampered off of him, quickly finding his pants on the floor. I pulled out his wallet and fished out the condom. “So cliché,” I murmured.
“I wanted to be prepared. I planned on using it as soon as I got here, but I ended up distracted.” He sat up and took the condom from me. I placed a knee on the bed and watched him roll it onto an impressive erection. When he was done, those green eyes burned. “Get back here,” he said.
Hot all over, I did just that, and I was back where I began, my knees on either side of his hips.
“Damn.” One hand lifted and curled around my neck. He dragged my head back down. His mouth was on mine again, and this kiss went deeper and longer than the last. Our tongues tangled, and when I pulled away again, he nipped at my lip, causing me to gasp.
I reached down and curled my fingers under the hem of my shirt before I lifted it and tossed it aside. Completely nude, I resisted the urge to shy away as he looked his fill.
His gaze moved over my chest and then his hands followed. He caught my nipples between his fingers, plucking at them until they stung with pleasure, and all the wonderful feelings pooled between my legs. My chest so did not feel abandoned now, especially when he curled up and closed his mouth around my breast, sucking deep and wrenching a cry out of me. My head dropped as he moved to my other breast, every pulse in my body pounding.
“I need you inside me now,” I whispered
“Fuck,” he groaned. “Keep talking like that and I don’t know if I’m going to make it to that point.”
Empowered and feeling a little crazy, I laughed. “I have faith in you.”
“Yeah?” His voice was husky as he gripped the base of his cock.
I slid my knees down slightly. “Yeah.”
A low moan parted my lips as I lowered myself onto him, inch by inch. Both of his hands flew up to my hips. “Oh God,” I whispered.
“Damn,” he said, sliding his hands up my sides. He held me in place for a moment. “I could keep you right here.” He lifted his hips, wrenching a gasp out of me. “Right like this.”
At this moment, with all these wonderful feelings building inside me, I totally agreed. I sat up, rocking my hips as I planted my hands on his chest. It was so much fuller this way, so much more intense. My toes curled as pleasure spiked throughout my body.