He laughed and put his palm over his eyes. “Can’t.”
She shifted, he felt something drag across his lower back and took his hand away again. Audrey sat and tossed a stuffed octopus he’d been lying on out of the tent.
“Better?”
“Nope.”
“Why can’t you get comfortable?”
“Because I don’t know what you want.”
She leant over him, her leg over his hips, dangerously close to his chief source of discomfort. He couldn’t hide it from her and he couldn’t stop his hands spreading over her butt and holding her tight to him.
“I’m feeling much better. Much better.”
She felt incredible. “You still have the headache and the pins and needles.”
“Yes, but it’s calmed down, bothers me less. I’ve put on some weight.”
He doubted that. It gave him an excuse to check. He let his hands rove over her, measuring, weighing, not quite caressing, because the minute he thought of it as that was the point at which he’d betray how strung out he was. But she melted into his touch so it was game over.
She closed her eyes and leant into his touch. “Do I need a secret fairy spell or are you going to start this make out session?”
She started it by putting her mouth to his neck. A surprise attack. He pushed into the pillows and grasped her under the thigh, pulling her further up and ov
er his body.
She humming her approval and moved her mouth to his throat. It was going to get hot in here, she was going to give his internal thermometer an almighty shove. He touched her places he’d not touched her before: the inside of her knee, the crest of her hipbone, her fluttering stomach. She moved her lips to his face and groaned against his cheek when he filled his palm with her breast, the one part of her that wasn’t down to angles, that was plump and full. When he rubbed his thumb across her raised nipple she shuddered and surged closer to him, finding his mouth at last.
No one led. No one followed. The kiss had no owner, it bossed them both. There was nothing magical or prettied up about it. It was greedy hungry and growling. It was dangerously sly and grasping. It got deep and dirty quick and there were no more niceties or polite disguises. No more fucking dancing around each other. No one was recovering or being patient. No one was waiting. This was manic attraction, hard core want, desire so slippery with heat and heart, Reece forgot to be considerate. He took.
He showed Audrey how much he wanted from her. He teased her body and loved her mouth. He sucked her tongue and tasted her lips, stealing her breath and playing her senses out on a long line of jitters and twitches, grinding of hips and urgent touches.
He made her gasp. She made his spine tingle. When she ran her hands under his shirt, he got rid of it. She sat across his hips, her head almost grazing the top of the palace, fairy lights winking around her and stared down at him.
“I’ve wanted to see you like this.” She put both hands to the ridges of muscle at his hips, ran them up his abs and over his ribs. She leant forward and nipped his chin. “That night I was very late and you fell asleep on the couch. I watched you for ages before I woke you. I had all kinds of fantasies about where I wanted to touch my sleeping giant.”
He grinned. He’d never have guessed that. That was the first night he’d touched her with less than honourable intent. “Don’t let me stop you living those fantasies now.”
She ducked her head and licked his collarbone. He put his hand under the back of her shirt and peeled it off her. Jesus, her ribs were too prominent, the bones in her shoulders, too obvious. He touched her in all those places that needed care. He lavished attention on the column of her neck, on her clavicle, on the tops of her breasts. He kissed her jaw and her cheek and grazed on her earlobe and she laughed at him and pushed away.
“My turn.” She sat upright. He adjusted her position so she could feel him and her eyes widened. “I’d wondered if you were proportional.” She rocked her pelvis. “Oh God, that’s some proportion.” She closed her eyes and rolled her hips again and it was his turn to moan. He couldn’t let her keep doing that, he’d wreck the palace, crush the magic; he’d trash this slow, slaying sweetness of this exploration. He didn’t want to rush it. He didn’t want backward glances, morning regrets. She was worth more than the conquest, more than the ached for tumble.
“You’re beautiful, Audrey.” He arched as she slid against his length again. “But if you keep doing, oh fuck, doing that, we’re gonna kill some fairies in here tonight.” She did it again. He palmed her butt to stop her moving, lifting his head and torso off the mattress. He was wedged in, might hurt her if he tried to flip them. “Take it easy on me.”
She laughed. “As if you need easy. Look at you.”
He kissed her, broke it off sharply. “I don’t need it, but I want it, with you.”
She speared her hand through his hair and stared at him. He had no idea what she was thinking beyond giving him access to her body. He had no idea how far she’d want to push this. If she was genuinely well enough.
She met his lips with hers and he dragged her further up his body, bringing a knee up to anchor her. His hands played all over her back, down her arms, while he kissed her with enough deliberation to create a science of it. He mapped her mouth and her body and marked them out as his and the feel of her in his arms did wicked things to him. Made his head buzz, made his muscles burn, made him want time stopped, the world shrunk so everything they needed always was in each other and this magic pink lit tent.
It got hot. Steamy. They knew how to kiss each other professionally now, with expectation and denial, with all the grades and variants of wet pressure and sucking release. But she was tiring, her movements slowing. Audrey’s skin got lusciously moist. He could slide his mouth across the softness of her. Sweat beaded on his chest. She licked it. He had no idea what kind of freaking alchemy that was. Some telekinetic trick short-circuiting his inner compass. She did it again and he felt himself spinning. He shook his head and the feeling remained and he didn’t ever want it to go.
The fairy palace was temporary, this temple of lust and want and need—he would build it to last.
16: Certain