by Sam Hall
“No, no,” he gasped. “Let me touch you. Kira, babe, I’ll make you feel so good. I’ll—” His voice became garbled bullshit as I tightened my grip so I could feel the throb of his pulse. “Fuck, Kira… My control’s not that good. Love, I’ll…”
He was in the palm of my hand, not just his cock. All of him, for this moment at least, was focussed on this, on every tiny little movement I made. I stepped in closer, so he could feel the brush of the fabric of my top against his skin, and pulled his head down to mine.
I kissed him, of course I did. Kissing Johnno was like coming home. Like when you go into your bedroom after being away and the same smells and sights anchor you, telling you loud and clear that you had returned. That feel of the worn soft cotton of your sheets against your bare skin, the perfect temperature, the way your pillow cushions your head.
It was soft, nipping lips, parting mine all too soon, his hunger evident and stirring an answering one in me. I’d tried to keep it all locked down and hidden away, but that low burn that had been simmering away for so long erupted, drawing a gasp from the both of us.
“I need you so fucking much,” Johnno said as his lips trailed down my neck. “I’ll kick the rest of the band to the curb, Kira. Keep them away from you. You won’t have to put up with any of their bullshit anymore.”
I thought of that close, airless little cocoon they’d created on the eve of the party with the girls and their ravenous mouths. It was brutally sexual in a way that made me squirm uncomfortably as I throbbed between my legs.
“I don’t know if I need you to protect me from them.”
He pulled away, looking at me with a small frown and studying my eyes.
“You seem to want me to stay untouched by all of that, but I can’t, can I? Like, this is me now. I’ve traded smashing migraines and a strict medication regime for what? Not for humanity. That’s gone. Instead, there’s this.” I touched the side of his face because I wanted, needed to. “When I say I want it all, I mean I want to be able to walk freely into things and not get constrained by bullshit rules or politics. Maybe I’ll want to throw myself into whatever orgy the band’s got going on, I don’t know. But that’s just it. I want the freedom to find out exactly what I do want, without people trying to pressure me otherwise. Can you give me that? If you become my preceptor, can you help me navigate this? Try things? Explore this whole new world I had no idea existed? Let me pursue the people I know I need to?”
He nodded, his smile spreading slowly.
“I’d be fucking honoured to.”
“Well, this looks cosy.”
We both spun around to see Aen standing there in human form.
“You’ve taken one lover and look on the way to getting another.” Aen’s eyes slid down to where Johnno’s jeans gaped. “Room for one more?”
“Back off, mate,” Johnno said, putting his body between Aen’s and mine, but while I appreciated the gesture, that wasn’t going to work for me. I was sick of wandering around blindly, and I needed to start walking into things much better informed. Why did Aen provoke such intense reactions?
“What are you?” I said.
Aen’s smile was quick and bright and dazzling to look at.
“Straight to business? Well, it’s a difficult question to answer accurately. Like most people, I am many things.”
“Name one of them.”
“I’m often seen to be a trickster,” he said, throwing a hand in the air, and the room disappeared and was replaced by the kind of brightly coloured, twisty treed, acid trip faerie lands were often depicted as. I looked up as I heard the skitter of small animals in the trees, felt the gentle breeze on my face. With a click of his fingers that became the banks of a massive lake with mountains rising in front of us. Then a hilltop, complete with menhirs and wildflowers. Just when I was about to say something, he clicked his fingers again, returning us to the room.
“What the hell do you want?” Johnno asked.
“Her, of course, just as you do. But unlike either of you, I can be all of the things she could possibly want.”
Aen’s body shifted as he prowled towards me. First it was Marlow who stalked closer, then Johnno, then Dave, which had me jerking back. “No? Well, how about this?” Duke Franklin stood where Jen’s dad had, looking down at me with that same simmering intensity. I took an involuntary step backwards. From Duke or Aen, it wasn’t clear. Johnno didn’t care, he just stepped up to the cat, man, cat-man, who shifted again, taking Johnno’s form. They stood toe to toe, perfect doppelgangers of each other, so close they had to feel the other’s breath on their skin. Aen-Johnno smirked when I crept out from behind them. It was freaking weird, that mirror image intimacy, but something about it drew my attention. Aen watched me as he drew closer to Johnno, forcing him to jerk back or kiss the other man. Unfortunately, he chose to shift abruptly to one side, my eyes following every move.
“What are you?” I said, gasping when he shifted again, the changes more subtle now. The brown hair became longer and blond, and blue-grey eyes took everything in as he transformed into the other Hartley brother. He went to put his arm on the other man’s shoulder, only to be shoved away. Aen-Liam grinned and then made his final transformation, the pièce de résistance. He reverted back to looking like Marlow, a Marlow with his shirt stripped off and a familiar heavily lidded look to his eyes. He stepped in closer to Johnno to the sound of my sigh.
That, I wanted that—the way their bodies almost touched, the contrast between the shades of their skin, the different muscularity, the tension between them. Aen-Marlow shot me a sly smile, as if I’d given away a lot right then while focussed on Johnno. “What can you give her that competes with this?”
Johnno’s eyes flicked to me, not moving as faux-Marlow got nearer, while I stood there, unable to look away as Aen’s lips ghosted closer and closer to Johnno’s.
“Stop.”
All eyes flicked to me. There was something too much like the scene with the groupie about this. Seeing the two of them together was, would be hot, but for it to work, Johnno’s fingers needed to twitch with a need to score Marlow’s scalp. He needed to be reaching for the other man’s jeans, freeing Marlow’s hard cock with quick practised movements, not wanting another second between then and having him in his hand.
“This isn’t what he wants, and it’s not what I want.”
Aen cocked Marlow’s eyebrow at that.
“I think I know what I want, but I’m missing one bit of information,” I said, and Aen shifted back to his original human form, padding over to me. He kept on coming until my butt hit the desk. “You’re something special, something powerful enough to make every bloody fae in the court drop to their knees.”
“But not you,” he said, green eyes boring into mine.
“I don’t know any better, so illuminate me.”
His smile was slow spreading as that same sensual energy was directed at me. He was intense, and I didn’t know if I wanted to fuck him or run the hell away or both, but his eyes rolled closed for a second as he breathed me in.
“So heady, little flower.” His finger landed on my collarbone and slid down. “You will taste so sweet—”
“Aen, tell me what you are.”
His eyes flicked open, the green depths harder now as he hissed out a breath. “Three times you ask, and now I have to tell you.” He grabbed my hands, spun me around, and dipped me low as Johnno growled in response, leaving my head thrown back as I stared at the other man.
“I’m an original, darling, the first born of the gods. Most of you are like an image that has been photocopied a hundred times, each one a lesser copy of what came before, genetic quirks aside. But not you, my sweet. You pulled me from a pub I had been drowning my sorrows in for some years, luring me with that honey scent and that pulse of energy. I felt your transition all the way across the world, calling me forward, and here I am. There’s no one here who can touch me. I can give you every and all the things you want, and more besides. You
’ll never have to even look at fools like Rutherglen, except when you step over him. Accept my suit, and I’ll make you my queen.”
“And what about what I want?” I said, forcing myself upright and to step beyond his grip. Fuck this place, it was murder on my mind. With rules and roles and power plays, a veritable train of sexy guys ready to get their cocks out, and apparently everyone wafting sex pollen like a mother fucking flower, it was really fucking hard to hang on to who I was and what I wanted. I said something to that effect. The guys looked at each other for a second, then burst out laughing.
“If this is the part where I strip off, unable to contain myself with lust, then I’m here to disappoint you,” I said.
“So that’s how you reeled her in, by asking her what she wanted?” Aen said with a nod to Johnno. “Simple, but devastatingly effective. Alright, little flower, what do you want?”
I looked from him to Johnno and back again, able to meet those emerald green eyes easily now. He’d opened the box, I realised now, Johnno, with his disarming honesty. Well, now was the time for some of mine.
“I want Marlow in my bed before the day is done, and I want Johnno as my preceptor, backing my plays. And you?” Those green eyes twinkled as they stared into mine. “I want you to keep the wolves from our door, and to stop everyone trying to tear us apart to get what they want. Protect Marlow, protect Hartley, and protect me.”
“And what do I get, for my protection?”
“What do you want?”
He stepped in closer, so I could feel wisps of that red/black hair brushing my arm as he did so.
“I want you, little flower. As much as you are willing to give on any particular day. No more, no less.”
“Kira…” Johnno said as I nodded.
“Back my plays,” I said. “Remember?”
“I remember, but what you’re agreeing to could last the rest of your lifetime. Is that what you want?”
“And I want the option to end…whatever this is,” I amended.
“Of course, if you no longer need my protection, then I will withdraw it.”
“What do you think?” I asked Johnno. “Satisfactory?”
“Not even close,” he said with a shake of his head. “But I can’t see how we can turn him down. If only to get the courts to keep their distance while you get a feel for what you want.”
“I guess we have a deal then,” I said, sticking out my hand.
“Oh no, love,” Aen said, taking it and pulling me forward. He paused, his arm snaking around my waist, that feather soft hair falling over my arms as he leant down. “We seal this with a kiss.”
Aen could have been lying. This all could have been a lot of bullshit, illusions, or whatever, but I soon realised that wasn’t the case. His lips seared into mine as a tidal wave of sensation smashed through me. My fingers spasmed around his arms as my skin came alight. It felt as if I was being stroked by a thousand hands, more insistent fingers tugging at my nipples, sliding between my legs, stroking the length of my clit, and stabbing inside me. I couldn’t kiss Aen, I just gasped and groaned against his lips, my body thrashing in response.
“What the fuck did you do?”
Johnno pulled me back, but I felt no such need. I blinked, looking around me, feeling his body against mine, and I wanted to purr. I felt so fucking good. My clit throbbed sulkily, promising me a galaxy of pleasure if I just got out of these damn clothes and gave in to what we all wanted.
“You want both of us? Greedy girl,” Aen purred, looking incredibly pleased. “I guess I can see the appeal.” Johnno’s hands went reflexively to my hips and pulled me back as Aen stepped closer. His eyes bore into mine as he came closer, then his hand tipped my chin up while the other slid up my thigh. “Mm…” he said. “Very greedy indeed. But not yet. Proper courting must be adhered to, my flower. By all of us.”
I blinked, and he stood at a respectful distance, though with one crucial difference. Marlow’s beautiful top was now folded into a neat pile on the desk and had been replaced with a wash softened band shirt. One of The Changelings’.
“Time to declare yourself,” he said, and unclipped the silver hoop from his ear, complete with dangling raw emerald. He moved in quick, pushing it through the hole in my ear, and the click as it shut brought with it an additional weight. “There, all done. Now, we go to reclaim your lover.”
19
“OMG!” Jen shrieked as I walked into the airport check-in area with Johnno, Aen, and Marlow by my side.
We’d spent some time in an audience with Byers and Dave, hammering out the preceptor arrangement and basically requesting sexual access to Marlow. That was just…weird. This idea of being owned by people, that your interactions could be manipulated for the benefit of the court sat badly with me, which is perhaps why both Aen and Johnno had sat to either side of me, Johnno with an arm around my shoulders, Aen with a hand on my thigh. They kept me in my seat and focussing on where our bodies met, rather than on the completely bloody barbaric rules the courts lived by.
But Dave had come to the party on an open-ended agreement for Marlow, summoning him so quickly, I had to assume he’d been waiting for this. And now I had him. I found myself shooting him shy looks in the car ride over, unable to believe it, and he caught me every time.
I dragged several bags through the door of the terminal, and Aen took the others since he had none of his own. He made his own clothes from the ether, replacing the admittedly wonderful leather pants he’d been wearing for jeans and a t-shirt that fit that big body like a glove. Marlow had gone nuts, filling bags full of clothes and shoes and accessories when he was released to us. I was starting to feel like I was his private dress-up doll. Which was slightly perturbing, as I wanted him to take my clothes off, not put them on. Something that will happen soon, I thought, looking the man himself over with a predatory eye.
Whatever was between us seemed to alert him to the fact, and he moved a little closer, wrangling his bags like a pro, then met my gaze, and my concern faded away to something hotter. A slow smile spread across his face, and he leant in to kiss me, but didn’t get far as Jen’s shriek pierced the air.
“Cockblocked again…” he muttered.
“Not for much longer,” I murmured in reply. “There better be a bed or a couch or a roomy closet on that bus, as we are doing this.”
“We’re waiting as long as that? Huh.”
He smiled as my mind struggled to get my head around the implications of joining the mile-high club right as Jen launched herself at me.
“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod! We’re finally doing it! We’re finally going on a plane, overseas, to a place that isn’t within a twenty-kilometer radius of bloody Gisbourne.”
Her voice was too loud in my ear, her grip around my neck half strangling me, but it felt good to hold my friend again. Not Dave’s daughter or the heir to Rutherglen, but Jen. I wrapped my arms around her just as tight.
Mark and Paulie hovered in the background, their faces a mask of professional courtesy. My glance was met by those cool grey eyes for a moment and then gone again.
“This is going to be so amazing! We’ll hire a car and do some side trips, really get to see some of the places we’ll be visiting. The plane trip will be hell. Have you brought bottles of water? Never mind, I have some. And hydrating masks? Did you bring any…”
Her voice trailed off as Marlow took my hand and held it in his, her eyes going about ten times the size, all shiny with hearts and flowers and some bullshit.
“Oh Marlow…” she said, and nothing more about that. It was enough. There was congratulations and relief and joy and hope all rolled into one. “I need to stop blathering on, and we need to check in. Ki, I’m so damn glad we got here!”
“Me too,” I said, wrapping my spare arm around her neck. “Now, how about you show me how to check my bags in.”
It was relatively simple. We were in first class, all of us, care of Jen’s dad. The guys followed me through the process, and it was
only interrupted when the rest of the band arrived.
“Wait here,” Johnno said, pressing a hand to my shoulder. “I’ve got to tell them about the seating arrangements.”
I watched my now official preceptor lope over with an easy grace, as he went to meet the mass of people standing just outside the queue. Aen saw me watching Johnno and smiled. The Changelings stood there in various states of disarray, along with the girls and the boys wound around their bodies, the hulking roadies toting big duffel bags, the back-up singers, and Liam. He stood at the front of the horde, arms crossed as his brother spoke to him, and his eyes eventually flicked over to look at me with that same damn stare. Butterfly, he’d called me. Well right now, I could feel the icy cold pin sliding through my guts, pinning me to his display board.
“C’mon,” Jen said. “Let’s go hang out in the lounge for a bit.”
And so we did. Johnno ambled back to us, a slight smile on his face. He scooped up my hand luggage and carried it for me while depositing a kiss on my lips.
“Well, he’s being very gallant,” Aen said approvingly. His words about courting stuck with me. “Are you sure we need to actually fly to this place? I can have us there in just a minute.”
“Travel, Aen,” I said. “I’ve never done it, and I want to try it the old school way.”
“I fail to see the benefit of sitting in a metal tube for fourteen hours, but very well.”
“It could have been worse. We could have put you back in that cat carrier,” I said. “How did you get in there, anyway?”
“I put myself in there, thinking you’d see this beautiful cat and release me immediately, not have your flunkies pile gift after gift on top of me.”
“I’m sorry, but if I’d known there was a cat in there, you’d have been out pretty damn quick.”
