Somehow they made it to the bed and somehow she ended up rolled beneath his big body, his hands roaming her heated flesh and his lips trailing the sensitive skin of her throat, limning her chin and then once again claiming her mouth.
She pushed his jeans down past his hips and helped him get them all the way off. Then his long, lean, muscled body was pressed flush up against her, the press of his hard cock against her leg. He shifted a little and his thigh rubbed against her sex, making her cry out. She reached for his cock, but he pulled her wrists up, pressed them against the mattress, and lowered his mouth to one nipple, exploring every single ridge and valley until she squirmed on the bed beneath him. Then he did the same to the other.
When he released her wrists, she searched again for his cock and found it. A ragged groan escaped his throat as she stroked him, trying to push him into skipping the foreplay and simply fucking her. Instead he rose and returned with two long silk ties. He’d had them ready somewhere, obviously intending to use them on her at some point. They’d simply been sitting in a drawer—handy for when he’d need them.
She regarded him warily. “Why?”
“These are so you don’t make me come too soon, sweetness. Keep touching me that way and you’ll get what you got before. On your knees, me behind you, hard and fast. I said I wanted it slow this time and I get what I want.”
The silk ties slipped smooth and tight around her wrists. He secured the opposite ends to the metal feet of the bed. Her arms were up, her offending hands immobilized. He circled the bed, staring down at her like a wolf ready to devour his prey. Her heart beat out a rapid cadence, her breath coming fast. Her nipples were hard and supersensitive. Even the slight stir of air he made from his passing made them tighten further. Her sex was heated and swollen with need. This was sexual torture and he knew it—he meant for it to be that way. It was clear he had every intention of nearly driving her crazy before he gave her what she wanted.
“Spread your thighs,” he commanded in his wood-smoke voice.
She allowed her knees to fall apart and cool air bathed her, that sensation alone drawing a ragged moan from her throat. He stopped at the bottom of the bed and let his gaze trace from her feet, up her inner thigh, and over her sex. She felt it like a physical touch. He knelt and his hand followed the same path, moving from her calf, agonizingly slowly over her inner thigh, to her sex. His fingers traced her folds, rubbing, exploring, and gathering moisture. He petted her clit, pulled so completely from its hood and pouting at him—begging for attention.
She moaned and moved on the mattress, pulling against the ties that held her in place.
“What do you want me to do to you?” he asked. He seemed so calm, so completely in control, but there was a slight tremor in his voice that let her know that was just an act. He was suffering as she was.
“You know what I want,” she answered in a breathless voice.
He slipped a finger inside her and she jerked, trying not to move her hips but wanting to seek more contact. “So pretty,” he murmured, his gaze fastened on his thrusting finger. He added a second, further stretching her muscles, and another low moan escaped her. “Do you want this? Don’t be shy. Tell me.”
“I want you, Gabriel. You.”
His thrusts became a little faster. “Do you mean my cock?”
“Yes,” she hissed. Her body was straining toward him as much as it could, her hips moving in time with his thrusts.
“You want me to fuck you.”
“Yes.”
He touched her clit with his opposite hand, pressing and rotating as he thrust his fingers in and out of her. Aislinn grabbed the ties that bound her as her body shuddered in release. The pent-up energy of the withheld climax burst over her, making low, animalistic sounds tear from her throat, making her spine bow.
Then he was there, his head between her thighs, lapping gently at her clit while her sex still trembled and pulsed around his fingers. With the flat of his tongue he brought her to climax again, using the tail end of the energy of the first. Her head tossed back and forth on the pillows as she whimpered under the force of it.
“Now, Gabriel,” she gasped. “Don’t make me wait any more.”
He mounted her, guiding his cock into her sex, sinking in as deep as he could go. His hips met her inner thighs just as his gaze met hers. She gasped at the intimacy of it, having him in this position—face to face, hips to hips, chest to chest—instead of behind her.
“Aislinn,” he murmured. Her name seemed filled with a meaning she could barely discern, layered, as it was, under so many blankets of lust and passion.
He levered up, sliding out of her to his crown, and then pushed back in, hilting within her and stretching her muscles so deliciously with his girth. She closed her eyes against the sensation of it. It was just what she wanted, just what she’d craved—to feel completely possessed and overwhelmed by him. Her fingers curled around the silken ties and gripped tight, hanging on for dear life as he thrust into her over and over.
Her hips rose and fell with the tempo he set, driving them both in a primal dance. His head fell to her breast and his lips covered her nipple as she came again, her body surrendering to his in a rush and a cry.
After he’d released himself, he stayed buried deep inside her and kissed her long and thoroughly. His tongue mated with hers over and over and she gave herself to it, despite the fact that kissing Gabriel was like conceding a part of her soul. Kissing him was too much like bliss and she couldn’t deny herself the pleasure of it.
She wasn’t kidding herself; she was falling in love with him. She’d started to do that way back in the Rose Tower. She wasn’t the type of woman who could have sex with a man and not have feelings for him. Many of the fae could sleep around just for the erotic thrill of sex—and never lose a little bit of their heart to those they slept with.
Like Gabriel could.
Aislinn had never been that way. It was unavoidable—she was going to get hurt in the long run if they survived, but she could try to limit it as much as she could. And, if it came down to it, she would reject Gabriel before he had a chance to do it to her. At the very least she could do that much to protect herself. She was not going to go through what she’d gone through with Kendal.
Never, ever again.
For now, she would enjoy this man and the bounty he offered her. When staring death in the face, there wasn’t much reason not to.
NINETEEN
BELLA
snuggled into Ronan’s side, inhaling the scent of him and trying to relax. When Gabriel had been busy breaking Aislinn out of the dungeon, they’d been busy running, too. They’d known that as soon as the Shadow King discovered Aislinn was gone and how it had been done, he would know Niall and Ronan had helped.
Niall, like always, had gone his own way. She and Ronan had taken off for the Boundary Lands. They weren’t able to be tracked, thanks to Ronan’s perfection of countermeasures to block such spells. They figured the Shadow Guard and the goblin army would be dispatched immediately to go door-to-door and the Boundary Lands offered them the best chance of survival. They had some experience with this.
The wilding fae would either warn them of the approach of the guards or they would choose to do nothing at all. They were unpredictable that way. They’d gone to Aurora, one of the birch ladies, for shelter and she’d been more than willing to give them a small cabin in the woods to stay in. She could be trusted.
It felt familiar, except this time they were on the run from the Shadow King instead of the Summer Queen. They were running out of royals to piss off and she wasn’t sure what would happen to them when this was all over. Ronan had explained the fact that together Aislinn and Gabriel could call and control the sluagh. It appeared there was a war brewing and if Aislinn and Gabriel could come together, they had a good chance of winning.
Maybe.
It depended on whether or not Aislinn had survived the dungeon. Bella’s mind couldn’t comprehend the possibility she may not have, so she’d immediately dismissed that.
It depended on Aislinn controlling the sluagh. Whether or not she would want to. Whether or not she
could
. It was hard to imagine her gentle friend commanding legions of unforgiven dead in a war against the Shadow King in a bid to take her place on the Unseelie Throne.
Bella shook her head a little at the strangeness of it all and nestled in closer to Ronan. How bizarre a turn of events their lives had taken.
There was no telling what would happen to them at the end of these unfolding events. Ultimately, she was willing to change her life drastically for Aislinn. If it meant her friend would survive, she and Ronan would live out the rest of their days hidden in the Boundary Lands, residing in this small birch-built cabin. She’d be happy anywhere, as long as she was with Ronan.
Ronan turned, pulled her into his arms, and kissed the top of her head.
“I thought you were sleeping,” she murmured. Moonlight filtered in from the few windows in the cabin, leaching the light from the already pale birchwood floors and walls. The bed beneath them creaked with their movement.
“No.” He exhaled long and slowly. “I feel something tonight. Something in the air.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something’s changed. It’s different now. I don’t know what.”
“Something good or something bad?”
“Something good.”
She lifted up to look at him. “I’ve thought up five million different curses for the Shadow King for what he did to Aislinn, but not a one of them have taken hold so far as I know.”
He cupped her cheek. “Everything will turn out the way it’s supposed to.”
“I wish I shared your faith.”
He leaned forward and kissed her lips. “I just feel like we’ll be all right, no matter what.”
She smiled and kissed him back.
And the door splintered open under the force of the Shadow Guards’ boots.
Bella screamed in surprise and scrambled back, up against the headboard of the bed. Ronan leapt in front of her, trying to shield her from the guards and goblins that were pouring into the cabin. They lined up on either side of the bed as though waiting for something.
The Shadow King himself sauntered into the room, holding Aurora’s arm. The ethereal birch lady who had given them shelter was paler than usual and obviously angry. Her normally calm blue eyes were a tumultuous ocean of hatred as she looked at her captor.
“Ronan, Bella,” the Shadow King greeted with a cold smile. “So nice to find you here.” He shook Aurora. “You thought going to her for help was a good move, but you failed completely to understand the nature of the wildings. Some of them are easily bribed for information. I just kept throwing money at the problem until an obliging Hu Hsien told me who was providing you shelter.” He smiled again, showing sharp white teeth. “Nice try, though.”
GABRIEL
awoke on a long groan. In the moonlight, he could see Aislinn’s light head near his hips, her lovely full lips moving up and down on him. It was a sight straight out of his fantasies. He dropped his head back and gritted his teeth, trying not to come instantly.
It seemed like some dam within Aislinn had finally given way since the last time they’d made love. She’d been so deliciously sweet and wanton when he’d tied her up and stroked her with his hand, moving her hips as if looking for something to fuck, pulling against the ties and making soft sounds of need. She was different in every way since the dungeon, a little more intense and with a slightly harder edge than she’d had before.
She would need it.
After they’d made love they’d taken a shower with the very last of the warm water in the heater. In the candlelight, their bodies had slid together, wet and soapy. Her hard pink nipples had peeked from between white bubbles, bubbles that had slipped down her abdomen and into her belly button and driven him crazy. She’d been shameless, her inhibitions gone, rubbing up against him like a cat in heat, and caressing his cock, which seemed like it never went soft in her presence. She’d begged him to fuck her again.
So he’d taken her up against the shower wall, his cock sliding in and out of the hot, soft clasp of her sex and rocking her against the wall with her legs around his waist, heels hooked at the small of his back. Then he’d dried her off, taken her back to their sex-rumpled bed with the silken ties still attached, and she’d run her hands over him, kissed him—never seeming sated.
Now this.
She’d woken him from a sound sleep, her lovely mouth wrapped around his cock. And she was trying to make sure he came fast and violently between her pretty lips.
“Aislinn.” Her name rasped from his throat, his fingers curling in her hair. “Are you trying to make me insane?”
She didn’t answer, only continued running the tip of her tongue up and down his length, sucking him down her throat to the base of him.
A ragged sound escaped him and he pulled her up, dragging her beneath him. He stuck his knee between her thighs, parted them, and sank his cock deep within her. His mouth came down on hers, hard—punishing her for putting him in a state of desperation for her, for taking sexual control away from him. She was the first woman ever to be able to do that.
Several pumps into her wet, silken heat and he came, groaning her name against her lips. “Bad girl,” he murmured and he felt the mischievous curve of her lips against his mouth. She’d gotten exactly what she wanted from him, a loss of control.
But she hadn’t come and that was not acceptable. His ultimate goal was to sear himself into her mind and onto her body sexually. He intended to make her his in every way, but if he died defending her, he wanted to make sure she never lay with another man again without thinking of him and the erotic pleasure he once gave her. In that way, at least, she would always be his. Maybe it was selfish, but he couldn’t deny the need to do it—to mark her as his.