The Druid Next Door

by E. J. Russell

  Could it be that simple? Long-buried complementary yearnings that had finally found their match?

  Bryce glanced down at Mal’s groin, and even in the ill-fitting tactical pants on loan from Bryce’s closet, his erection was clear and present.

  Danger. But to whom? “If you’re sure—”

  “You know, mate, I don’t think it’s me that’s unsure here.” Mal nudged Bryce’s chin with his knuckles. “And I . . . well . . .” He looked down for an instant, a flush blooming along his cheekbones. “Ah, sod it,” he whispered, then met Bryce’s gaze squarely. “I want someone to take the weight of responsibility off me, at least for a little while. To make the choices for me for a change. You can do it. Will you?”

  When Mal put it like that, it changed the narrative completely, because if Bryce knew anything, it was how to care for those who needed him—from Gran’s garden, to the wetlands, to a student wrestling with a difficult concept. Caring for Mal, giving him what he needed, especially when they both craved it? Oh yes. That he could most definitely do, with no guilt whatsoever. In fact, not complying would be more hurtful than refusing out of misplaced self-recrimination.

  A fire lit in his middle, and Mal must have seen it reflected on his face, because those blue eyes flared with unmistakable hunger. Bryce grasped the back of Mal’s neck, pressing their foreheads together. “Get inside. We haven’t got long before we leave for Faerie, and I plan to fuck you twice.”

  When Bryce kicked the bedroom door closed behind him, Mal’s knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the edge of the mattress. I want this. I need this. And he’s just the bloke to do it—to take the burden off my shoulders and onto his own.

  He started to slip to his knees as Bryce advanced across the room.

  “Stop.”

  Mal froze at the command, chills skating across his skin. His cock was hard as granite, the brush of the head against the fly of his ridiculous tactical pants enough to send him through the roof.

  Mal gazed into Bryce’s eyes, black as midwinter night. “Where do you want me? How do you want me?”

  “What I want,” Bryce murmured, running the backs of his fingers over Mal’s cheekbones, “is to make love to you. Think you can handle that?”

  “But I thought—”

  “Trust me, we’ll get to that too.” He twined his fingers in Mal’s hair and tugged. “We both like it too much to resist.”

  Mal closed his eyes, reveling in the scent of Bryce’s skin, like forest and lake and earth. “Thank the Goddess for that.”

  “But, first, I want something different. I want to look into your eyes when I push inside you. I want to taste you, because if you taste anything like you smell . . . Christ. Have I ever told you how intoxicating that is?”

  Mal turned his head to nuzzle Bryce’s wrist, and that small movement tweaked his hair again. So good. To be held. To be safe. To be loved.

  Bryce loomed over him, the intensity in his eyes magnified ever so slightly by his completely unfashionable glasses. “This isn’t all we have, you know. It’s not all we are. You’re more than your job, just as I hope I’m more than the nerdy professor who’d never have stood a chance with you if we’d met in one of your clubs.”

  “If you’d looked at me like that,” he whispered, “I would have followed you wherever you asked.”

  Bryce’s smile was rueful. “Even to the recycling center?”

  “Even there.” He laced his left hand in Bryce’s hair—crushed and rumpled from his hat, as usual—and drew him down for a kiss, a press of lips softened by a smile.

  “Just so you know, there are some places I would never take you.”

  “Ashamed of me?”

  “No. Because I know you would hate it. You’ve had to do too many things you hate, Mal. I won’t add another.”

  Mal’s chest rose in a surprised breath. No one—not the Queen, not Gareth, not even Alun—had ever considered what the choices they’d forced on him had done to his soul.

  Because Alun was stoic, able to withstand any storm but his own guilt, he expected Mal to be the same. And Gareth was free to act out as he liked, his exalted bard status granting him privileges he didn’t even comprehend.

  Mal had had to muddle through as best he could, relying on bravado and charm to mask his vulnerability. With Bryce, though—

  “I don’t have to pretend with you, do I? That I can handle it all? That no assignment is too horrible, too overwhelming?”

  “Of course not.” Bryce lifted Mal’s right hand and planted a kiss in the palm.

  “Oh.” And Mal could feel it—more than the twitch of his fingers and the tingle of returning sensation that had teased him since Steve had recovered the dragon scale.

  Bryce raised his head, his attention snapping to Mal’s face. “What is it? Have I hurt you?”

  “No.” Strangely—and most wonderfully—Mal could still feel that shape, that warmth, that comfort of Bryce’s lips, the inverse of the geas brand in his other palm. “Never.”

  “Good. Because I won’t ever do that.” Bryce grinned down at him, a little bit sly and a whole lot wicked. “Unless you beg for it.”

  He lifted the hem of Mal’s shirt and eased it over Mal’s head. “Raise your arms.”

  When Bryce would have slipped the shirt over his wrists, though, Mal said, “Leave it.”

  Bryce’s grin was incandescent. “Well. This raises some very interesting options for later.”

  He leaned down and pressed his open mouth to the spot below Mal’s ear, whispering against his skin, “I want to give you everything you need. Because you are more than I ever hoped for.” He kissed his way down Mal’s throat with beautifully agonizing slowness.

  “Bloody tease.”

  “Yes. Don’t you love it?”

  Mal’s cock tried to punch through his pants. “Goddess, yes.”

  “The thing is, I’m a scientist. Curious by nature.” He licked a circle around one of Mal’s nipples and blew on it. “I’ve never had the opportunity to thoroughly explore the strange new world of Mal Kendrick. I intend to make the most of it.” He licked again and then opened his mouth over the nipple and sucked.

  Mal nearly came. He arched his back, needing more, needing everything. “Please . . .”

  Bryce disengaged, and Mal wanted to weep or curse, he wasn’t sure which. Shite, if he could nearly come by the man’s mouth on his nipple, what would it be like with that same mouth on his cock? He whimpered.

  “Hmmm. I must make a note of that.” He peered up at Mal from his position at Mal’s chest. “Purely in the interest of science, you understand.”

  “I never knew—” Mal sucked in a breath, his arms trembling, when Bryce trailed his tongue down Mal’s abdomen “—you were so . . . so . . .”

  “So dedicated? Oh yes. Why do you— Hunh.” Bryce stared at Mal’s belly. “You don’t have a navel.”

  “No umbilical cord. We’re not born as humans are. Shouldn’t be a surprise—we were naked together once before.”

  “Yes, but clearly I missed several salient features. I need to do more research. Lots more research.”

  “Works for me.”

  “Excellent. Let’s start here.” Bryce popped the button on the tactical pants. Mal raised his hips in mute appeal. Bryce eased the zipper down—and nearly got punched in the mouth when Mal’s cock sprang free. “No wonder you scorn underwear. Commando saves so much time.”

  Mal quivered with need, anticipation, lust. Bryce’s mouth was right there, a breath away from his cockhead, but the infuriating druid didn’t so much as glance at it. Instead, he pulled the pants down all the way to Mal’s ankles.

  Bryce snorted in disgust. “Boots again. Why don’t we ever think of those before we start on the pants?” He tugged Mal’s left boot off. “Definitely need more experimentation. It may take us years to get this right.”

  He made quick work of the other boot, tossing both over his shoulder, heedless of where they landed. The pants were next. Then
Bryce stood at the foot of the bed, and Mal felt the heat of his gaze, as palpable as if it were his fingers.

  Not enough. Mal wanted the real thing: Bryce’s hands. His mouth. His spend. Everything.

  “Christ Almighty,” Bryce whispered, and it truly sounded like a prayer. “You are the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen.”

  A chill chased down Mal’s spine. “‘Thing’?”

  Bryce caressed his ankle. “We’re all things, aren’t we? But if you’re asking if I think of you as less than a man, less than me, then no. You’re a freaking miracle, Mal. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.”

  “As long as you tell me, I don’t give a shite what anyone else says.”

  Bryce’s smile turned predatory, possessive, sending a jolt from the base of Mal’s skull to his bollocks. “In that case,” he said, his voice like sandpaper and velvet as he trailed his fingers up Mal’s thighs to grip his hips, “I’ll say it often. Especially when you’re naked under me like you are now.”

  “I—” Bryce dove down and engulfed Mal’s cock in his mouth. “Shiiite.”

  Mal tasted freaking amazing. The taste was . . . complete, as if whatever factor in human semen made it bitter had been engineered out. Was it intended to be a way to lure in humans, give them something extra that made the fae more desirable as lovers?

  Bryce couldn’t imagine anything that would make Mal more desirable or increase Mal’s effect on him. When he’d tasted Mal’s kiss, that soft, tentative offering, something had snapped, and the self-consciousness that normally overcame him during the peculiar, awkward dance of copulation had fallen away.

  He sucked Mal’s cock to the back of his throat, and where in the past he’d never been able to escape his gag reflex, this time he was able to swallow around the head, reveling in the way Mal whimpered and squirmed. He hollowed his cheeks as Mal had done, varying the suction as he pulled up the shaft to see what made Mal moan the loudest.

  Yes. More research in the future. He needed to know exactly which parts of Mal’s body produced that needy sound, breathy and desperate, because it made his own dick ache and throb.

  “Bryce. No. About to come.”

  Bryce released him, but couldn’t resist one more lick across the slit. “Isn’t that the idea?”

  Mal stretched his left hand toward Bryce, his fingers spread, and Bryce answered the unspoken plea, lacing their fingers together. “Not without you in me.”

  “You sure? I’m happy enough like this.” He licked again and was rewarded with several crystal drops, welling like a spring at first thaw.

  Mal’s fingers tightened on his. “Yes. I choose this. Willingly.” Something in the intensity of Mal’s voice, the look in his eyes, the way his mouth firmed in a determined line, convinced Bryce that he was dead serious.

  “All right.” He kissed Mal’s cock, smiling at the resultant whimper, and stood up to get the lube.

  “Naked. You need to be naked too. Otherwise . . .”

  Bryce paused with one hand on the drawer. “Otherwise what?”

  Mal shut his eyes, his dark lashes a fan against his cheek. “Just . . . please.”

  “Since you begged so sweetly.” Besides, how could he deny the man something he wanted so much himself?

  Bryce tossed the lube on the bed and stripped, remembering to take his boots off first this time—Yes, I can be taught. When he finished and stood at the foot of the bed, Mal’s hungry gaze chased away any doubts about being too thin, not broad enough through the chest, too narrow at the hips. He finally felt like enough. Like he might actually be worthy of someone so extraordinary.

  “Raise your knees,” he murmured. Mal did, his breath catching in a way that mirrored Bryce’s own. “Let them fall open.” Mal did that too, and the pulse beating in his throat matched Bryce’s own thundering heart.

  While he drizzled lube on his fingers and stroked Mal’s cleft, circled his hole, pierced him with one finger, two fingers, three, Mal’s gaze never left Bryce’s, his teeth clamped to his lower lip, and Bryce couldn’t have looked away on pain of death.

  “Now you,” Mal whispered.

  “Yes.” Bryce slicked himself up and hooked Mal’s legs over his shoulders. Cradled his hips and lifted. But as he pressed the head of his cock against Mal’s hole, something gathered in his chest, like a storm about to break. Somehow, this was different from the other times they’d joined. Important. Momentous, as if the instant he breached Mal, they would both change in some fundamental way. He tensed, ready to pull back, but Mal reached up and stroked his face.

  “Bryce. It’s all right, love. This is right for us. Take me.”

  Ah. Permission. The invitation he’d been waiting for. “Yes,” he whispered, and pushed home.

  Mal was right. God, was he ever right. Whereas before, joining with Mal had been incredible, this time, it transcended perfection. Mal’s channel hugged his cock in heat and velvet and a sensation that was almost electric but not quite. Something he couldn’t describe because he’d never felt it on his skin before.

  “Goddess, Bryce.” Mal’s voice was rough, almost broken. “You— I’ve never—”

  “Shhh.” Bryce leaned down and stopped Mal’s mouth with a kiss. Hot and wet and possessive. Then soft and sweet and inviting.

  “You’ll never be empty because you fill me. Feel me here.” Bryce thrust into Mal, his rhythm matching the beat of blood in his ears. “The way I feel you here.” He brought Mal’s right hand to his chest and trapped it there.

  Mal’s eyes widened. “I— You— I can feel your heart,” he whispered.

  “That’s because it beats for you.”

  Mal’s neck arched, and he cried out as he came, ropes of semen shooting across his chest and Bryce’s arm. Bryce leaned down and licked a trail of it off Mal’s chest, and at the bloom of it on his tongue, he gasped and came too, his cock pulsing inside Mal, his vision whiting out.

  Never. I’ll never be the same again.

  Considering how devastating the sex had been, Mal was surprised that Bryce remembered they had a deadline to meet. But after a bare five minutes of cuddling—following the promised second fuck—he crawled out of bed and retrieved a cloth to clean Mal off, his smile altogether too smug when he removed the shirt still tangling Mal’s wrists. “We should get moving. Assuming you’re able to move.”

  “Shut it, druid. I can take anything you can dish out.” And, amazingly enough, it was true. Normally after sex like that, Mal would need at least a short nap to recover and recharge, but now? It was as if he boasted another layer of skin below his own, this one forged of captive stars. He snatched the cloth out of Bryce’s hand to draw him in for a kiss, and under his fingers, Bryce’s neck thrummed as if he had the same energy-skin.

  If this was what it felt like to be a druid familiar? Hells, he had no regrets, barring a tiny niggle of guilt. Maybe he should have come clean with Bryce about the permanence of the bond before he’d asked—all right, begged—to be fucked again.

  Too late now—it was done, and other than this weird subdermal buzz, he didn’t feel that different. For instance, he didn’t feel the urge to drop to his knees in front of Bryce again once they were out of bed, which was a damned good thing. If he intended to talk the Queen into bedding Steve, he couldn’t afford the distraction.

  If he failed in that little task, who knew what else the curse might do? At the very least, he’d have two useless hands or get slapped into slavery at Govannan’s forge for the rest of eternity—assuming the Queen didn’t finish him off first.

  One thing he’d make damned sure of, though. No matter what might happen to him, he’d amassed enough favors in his time as the Queen’s Enforcer to strike a bargain for Bryce’s safety.

  Mal lifted the blinds and peered outside. Twilight was still far enough off that they had time for a more thorough cleanup. Although smelling of earthy sex probably wouldn’t bar the gates of Faerie to them, they were about to face the Queen, and she had standards. If he wanted to
turn her up sweet, he’d be wise not to purposely piss her off.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Bryce said, not meeting Mal’s eyes. “About Cassie’s bond-management tea.”

  Mal winced. “Gah. I’d as soon never think about that shite again.”

  “Well, that’s kind of where I’m going. If our willing resistance is part of the spell—well, I don’t want to resist anymore, so there’s no point in choking the stuff down, is there?”

  Now. Tell him now. But Bryce was right—there was no point anymore since their link was irreversible, and Mal suspected no druid potion, no matter how foul, would make any difference. “I’m always happy to forgo druid swill.” Besides, worrying about the consequences now was foolish. First survive the night, then deal with the fallout, including telling Bryce the truth. “Listen, though. We’ll be going to a different place tonight. We need to . . . prepare.”

  Bryce studied him warily. His eyes were brown again, no hint of druid black, as he wiped his chest down with the towel. That should be my duty. My privilege.

  Flaming abyss! Stop it. No distractions.

  “Okay. Like what?”

  “Shower, for one thing. We ought to wear only natural fibers or skins. No base metals.”

  “What about zippers? They weren’t a problem last time.”

  Mal frowned. “Maybe the rules are different for you.”

  “Or maybe you never tried.”

  Mal’s eyebrows popped up. “You have a point.”

  “I think we both need the tactical pants. And vests. Because after our last visit, not to mention Rodric’s little adventure in the wetlands, I don’t want to go unarmed. And no offense, but you can’t exactly carry a sword anymore.”

  Mal ducked his head to hide his face so Bryce wouldn’t see the relief that flooded him at the perfect excuse to hide Steve’s dagger. “I don’t think the paintball gun will pass muster with the Faerie gate.”

  Bryce’s brows drew together. “What about this? We take the paintball charges, but not the gun. I’ve already got a half dozen or so loaded with the anti-evil potion. We can carry those in our pockets—the skins are biodegradable, and if the spell works, they’ll dissolve on contact with the ill-intentioned. Since you’ve already proved how deadly your aim can be with thrown projectiles . . .” Bryce wadded the towel up and tossed it across the room.