“And this will…heal him?”
“I healed your ankle when you crashed through the ceiling, didn’t I? I know what I’m doing. You know what I am.”
Byron was no mere low demon. I did know that.
And he certainly had the most potent touch. Two of his fingers caught my clit between them and slowly worked up and down as he lifted one of my breasts and bowed his head over me to flick his tongue over my hard nipple. My hair was spilling over my other breast, not braided or caught back in a tie like it always was in my waking life, and I thought, This must be what the life is a nymph is like. Not bad.
“Helena…good lord…is this healing or torture?” Graham groaned as my juices starting trickling down my thighs. I let out a little moan of need and embarrassment.
“The healing comes after the torture,” Byron said, as the tip of his tail slunk under my thigh and then nudged inside of me, flicking in my inner walls, filling and heating me up with greater urgency.
“Come for him,” Byron ordered me. “You have a lot of work to do.”
I let out little pants, quickly spiraling out of control as Byron’s hand and tail and tongue all flicked in unison on all my sweet spots.
“Ahh…ahh…” I slumped in his arms.
“I do feel better already,” Graham said.
“Suck his cock,” Byron said.
Graham’s cock was definitely ready for some attention, but the rest of Graham wasn’t so sure. “I want it,” he said. “But it might kill me.”
“Go slow,” Byron told me. “It’s going to hurt, but as she gives you energy, I’m going to try and channel it to knit your bones.”
“Have you done this before?” Graham asked.
“I don’t think you want the answer,” Byron said. “All magic is an experiment.”
It was actually turning me on to think about Graham trying desperately not to move and cause himself pain while I did everything possible to give him pleasure and make him twitch and writhe, and that in the end, my sex appeal (such as it was) could mend the damage done by Piers. This was not the life anyone in my family would approve of, outside of my scandalous brother, and that made it hotter. I slowly unbuttoned and unzipped Graham’s pants and pulled them and his black briefs down enough to set his erection free.
“No damage done here,” I said. “Looks just as mighty as it did the other night.”
“God, I do love it when you compliment my cock.”
“It deserves it.” I gave the tip a slow lick.
Then I took a pause on that to unbutton his shirt. I made sure to tease him a little, brushing my hip across his stiff length. He let out a little hiss of pain when I touched his ribcage. I was very tempted to slide my hands along his pectoral and abdominal muscles and make him scream, but I didn’t actually want to hurt him or anything, so I resisted.
For now.
Instead, I wrapped my lips around the head of his cock, sucking gently on the soft skin there before taking him a little deeper and running my tongue down the stiffer length of it. Although, I was deeply aware of the fact that I had only had a few boyfriends in my life, and never for long enough to get very good at this. None of them were this well-endowed either.
I’m not sure it mattered to him. He was already charged up. He let out a pretty horrible groan as I’m sure his whole body was reacting to the sensation, and I hoped the pain wasn’t too excruciating, but Byron wrapped his larger hands around Graham’s arms and spread healing magic.
I don’t know, I kinda had a thing for men who could heal, I was starting to realize. I still thought it was pretty sexy that Jasper had picked up a little healing magic. It was subversive in the wizard community. Women were supposed to be healers, but why not let men heal? Byron had big, warm hands that could take care of anything, and right now he was definitely helping Graham. Which was also pretty sexy, like a brotherhood.
Or bond brothers, I thought. Maybe the idea did have some appeal to me when I saw how it might work.
I thought Graham might fight Byron’s intimate touch. But he didn’t.
I gave long, deep strokes to Graham’s cock, trying different things to see which he seemed to like best. My lips tight around him, my tongue along his length, a swirling motion? Well, I think he liked it all although it was hard to tell when he was also in pain and trying to control himself.
I cupped his balls in my hand and played with them a little as I licked the tip and he felt so tight, just ready to explode for me.
“It’s working,” Byron said. “The bones in his arms are set and knit. But no heavy lifting right now.” Byron stroked his hands along Graham’s ribcage.
“Fuck,” Graham panted.
Byron pushed Graham’s hair off his sweaty forehead. “Hurts, doesn’t it?” he said. “But you’ll remember this quite fondly.”
Now Byron moved in behind me and ran his hands gently down Graham’s legs as his body pressed close to mine while I was sucking on Graham’s cock. I was starting to feel like I could touch him now, in the casual ways I wanted to touch him, my hand grazing his hip bone and then to the hard muscles of his abdomen.
“All right, angel,” Byron whispered. “I’ve put him back together. The best thing you can do for him now is to give him the sweet pleasure of your womanhood.”
My body was definitely yearning to feel Graham inside of me. The orgasm Byron gave me was a firecracker. Now I wanted pleasure with more depth.
I moved forward and Graham’s eyes were full of relief, desire and a dash of something else that I guessed was the fury and violation of being attacked by the wizard council.
Jasper had already been dealing with that same feeling. And I guessed Billie had been dealing with more of an accumulation of slights and cruelties, if never any broken bones.
My kin was to blame for a lot of pain.
This does need to be my fight now, I thought. Jake wants to protect me, but I have to stand with my friends, even if it’s dangerous, because otherwise this will just keep happening.
Graham reached for my face, his fingertips at my cheek.
I shut my eyes and took his cock inside me as I savored the feel of his hands reaching for me, wanting me, treasuring me. Once our bodies were together, he pulled me down against his chest. I rocked slowly over him, letting my body adjust to him filling me.
“Thank you for the rescue,” he said. “I’m coming back to Louisiana and…I’m staying. I’ll go wherever you need me to go.”
“Good. I have a lot to tell you.”
Byron was still just behind me, and he slipped his hands around my waist and then cupped my breasts.
“Ohh…” I looked nervously at Graham.
“You look incredibly sexy right now,” he said.
“I knew you would make an excellent incubus once you stopped trying to be human,” Byron said. “Fighting one’s nature is exhausting.”
“I guess there are better ways to be exhausted.” Graham’s smile was confident and devastating as his arms crossed with Byron’s, his hands moving around my ass. I was sandwiched between them, and I had never realized how good this could feel. How very natural, as if loving both of them was better than loving just one.
But I also get along so well with the Sullivans, and they…
I couldn’t think about it now. They were driving me to the heights of pleasure again, and pretty soon I was waking up with—Jake Sullivan standing over me with one raised eyebrow.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Helena
“Uhh…” Oh, Jasper was here too, I noticed. “I—I guess I nodded off.”
“I’m glad that was all it was,” Jake said, looking me over. I realized my shirt was shoved halfway up my stomach and my feet were splayed, knees up and pointed outward. Oh god, what had I been doing when they walked in?
My face heated so fast it was like turning the broiler on in a toaster oven.
“You were…screaming a lot,” Jasper said, scratching his stubble. Or maybe it was a beard by now,
when I thought about it. They were both looking scruffier than usual as we’d been working very hard. “We were concerned. Until we got here and realized that it was more of a…good dream.”
“Too good. I’ve had enough,” Jake said. “We’re going on that second date before Jasper and I lose our chance to win your heart altogether while you dream about incubi.”
“But—”
“And it’s going to be a proper date,” Jake said. “Once we finish the master suite, it’s break time. We take you out for a night on the town and you might want to pencil in the next day for sleeping in.” He leaned over me as I was scrambling to figure out how to respond when my brain was in a post-orgasmic, stuck-in-a-dream haze. “I do like the way you scream, Baroness. So I’m not giving up on you.”
“Get out of my bedroom!”
He laughed and I grabbed a pillow and hit him until he started moving out. Jasper shot me a twin grin that was just as wicked as his brother’s, right before he left.
Good lord. What was I going to do with all of these men?
Really. It was a serious question. I knew there was no going back on what had happened in the dream, which wasn’t really just a dream at all. So it seemed like either way, I was going down the same path as my brother. How embarrassing after I was sort of judgy with him about it.
I heard the guys working on the bathroom still, and I knew they weren’t the type to stop before something was done, so I didn’t even check on them. I went downstairs. Lanterns were on in the outdoor kitchen. Billie and Gaston were working out there together, I guess. Or maybe Gaston was just painting while she talked at him. If I listened closely I could hear Billie’s loud voice saying, “But that mule never went in that bar again after that.”
I sat down inside the telephone nook. I’m sure it originally held one of those phones where you put one piece to your ear and ask the operator to place your call like in a very old movie. The empty spot where this phone would have been was still there. It seemed like it had been updated in the 1950s or so with a pastel blue rotary phone. A piece of tattered, yellowed paper taped to the wall had phone numbers handwritten on it, including Fiore and Sam.
I wondered how long you’d even be able to get phone service here. Telephone lines still worked in magical hot spots, but cell phone signals started fading. If they ever got rid of the telephone infrastructure, that would be the end of phone calls. I hoped no future buyers considered this. Bad for resale value.
I dialed my brother’s cell phone.
“Hello, Harris speaking.”
“Gosh, you’re so polite with strangers. You pick up unknown numbers from Louisiana?” I teased him.
“I suppose my psychic powers are well honed. So what are you up to? Did you ever figure out what your magical object was?”
Wow. Mother really doesn’t talk to him anymore at all. He doesn’t even seem to know that Piers attacked us. That was a strange thought. He really and truly was cut out. Their only son.
I should probably tell him what we were planning, but then everyone at Merlin College would be involved and it wouldn’t be our quest anymore. I had also called him only to discuss my romantic life, but once he was on the phone I remembered how hard he was to talk to about emotional matters and I wasn’t so sure anymore.
“Still working on it,” I said. “I’m flipping a house in Louisiana right now. Guess who I teamed up with? Billie Pruitt.”
“Didn’t you join in on the ‘Hill Billie’ thing in school?”
“I did,” I sighed. “But we worked it out. Anyway, the thing about this place is, it’s transforming into a magical hot spot. So it’s going to need some guardians. I wondered if you know any faeries who might like to buy the house once it’s done.”
“I’m sure I do.”
“We’ll probably list it for about eight hundred grand when it’s done.”
“I’m sure faery royals could manage that,” he said. Oh, damn, that was what I liked to hear. Ka-ching. Billie would love me. “Of course, they’ll pay you in gold or gems or something,” he said. “I’ll let Queen Morgana know. But I hope you’re capable of guarding the spot in the meantime.”
“Yeah, I have a whole crew here. Two werewolves, two incubi, a vampire and Billie. It’s beginning to look sort of like your household.”
“So mostly Sinistrals. Be careful. It’s only a matter of time before you’re banished from Etherium with that sort of company. What does Bevan say about all this?”
“Oh, Bevan never says much of anything, you know him.”
“He probably should say something. Sinistral is dangerous. When Alec was banished to Sinistral he got trapped in a castle with demons outside and…”
“Yeah, yeah, cool story bro,” I said. He always had some wild tale these days. “I’ll try not to get banished, but if I do, you’ll help me fill out the application to be a faery witch, won’t you?”
“I’m sure I could pull some strings. But Wyrd is the weakest realm, so I wouldn’t recommend it.” He paused. “So do these incubi have tattoos?”
“Tattoos?”
“To control their magic?”
“Ohhh.” Right. Harris’ bond-brother Alec had tattooed arms that were also control spells that helped him control his sex drive.
“Because if you’re there hanging out with two unfettered incubi all day…”
“Well, you’re one to talk if you think I might be getting action from two incubi.”
“Oh, please. You wouldn’t survive a day in this lifestyle.”
“Is that what you think!?”
He paused and then chuckled. “Oh, shit. You are involved with both of them. Or more. You left a man or two for Billie, right?”
“It’s—it’s—well, one of the incubi is a ghost, so…” Yeah, this was not the advice I wanted but it was about the advice I expected from my little brother. “But you can’t judge me. You did the same thing.”
“I didn’t do the same thing. I’ve been best friends with Alec and Monty since I was a kid. It just made sense that we would keep sticking together. I don’t want to think about my sister—especially knowing how much you like to be alone—being in that situation.”
“The situation your own wife is in? Being adored by four men? How awful.”
“It’s not an easy thing, that’s all. Charlotte wasn’t so sure about it either, at first. It takes a lot of open conversation and discussion of everyone’s expectations in the relationship and none of that seems like something you’re very good at. I’m not either. No one in our family is. It only worked because…well, my best friends dragged me along.”
“Charlotte must be delighted with how romantic you are,” I said sarcastically. “But I’m not really a loner. I’m just someone who ended up being alone…”
He paused. “Did you actually call because you wanted to talk to me about this?”
“Nooo.”
“Oh, shit. You did.”
“I didn’t.”
“I would have been more serious about it.”
“I didn’t! I don’t need you to tell me what to do.”
“Well, I’m still unsure if you can really handle this lifestyle, but I will say that it’s been good…for me. I realized how much our childhood environment was perpetually hostile. We had good times, for sure, and I think we both try to remember the good times more than anything, but with our kids now, they don’t have to deal with all the toxic crap our parents pulled. I don’t care what they do with their lives. I just want them to be happy. And good kids. It really feels like a family.”
“I don’t need your advice,” I said, but in a tone that meant, Thanks, I actually needed to hear that.
“If I speak to the fae, how soon will the house be ready?”
“Five weeks,” I said, optimistically.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“You’re the best.”
“I know.”
“Okay, I’m hanging up on you, jerk.” That meant, I love you.
; Billie and Gaston came in, splattered with paint, as I was stepping out into the kitchen of the future. I would feel a lot better once this part was done. Five weeks, I said. And Billie was spending her whole time messing around with an out building!
“It looks great,” she said. “Even if Gaston got half the paint on himself. I thought vampires would be more neat and tidy.”
“There’s nothing in the vampire handbook that says that,” Gaston said.
“Perfect,” I said. “I hope you can help us out in the main house now. We could really use it. Some faeries are going to tour the place in five weeks.”
“That’s awesome! Well, the front hall is looking great. Have you thought about painting the doors?”
“No! I really need help stripping old paint and wallpaper and refinishing floors.”
“But I think it’s really those little details that make people fall for a house,” Billie said.
“Her crew did all that boring stuff, from what I gather,” Gaston said. “You’re her crew now. And so am I, as long as you pay me.”
“I thought old vampires were always rich too,” Billie said.
He shrugged. “I had a gambling problem.”
“Had or have?” Billie said.
“Had. Mostly.”
“I’m not paying you too much then,” she retorted. “Not to watch you flush it down the drain.”
If this was what I had to work with, thank goodness for the Sullivan brothers. No matter what happened, I hoped our date went well tomorrow…if nothing else, so they’d keep working hard for me.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Helena
Workaholics gonna workaholic, so a week went by without the date, or much of anything except me stripping old paint, then slapping up primer, then new paint. The whole damn project was basically repainting the entire house. I was going to have extra-awesome arms thanks to Greenwood Manor. It would be extremely worth it, and that kept me going. Turning the bright colors into softer shades was transforming the house. It still had all of its old house charm but it didn’t hurt my eyes. Under candlelight every room was a new delight.
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