When he was ready, he looked down at his Lilin. She was so beautiful. And she was so very much his.
When he drove himself deep inside her, she cried out, “Oh, Goddess!” with the sound of pain in her voice.
Archer went completely still. “You’re a virgin?”
She looked as surprised as he did. “My memories aren’t clear any more.”
He didn’t move. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She smiled. “The way you fill me is wonderful.”
And she was so tight. Her velvet core gripped him like a fist and he couldn’t move for a moment or he’d come.
Slowly, he drew out, then slid back in. He didn’t want to hurt her.
She dug her fingernails into his biceps. “More, Archer.”
He gritted his teeth as he withdrew, then drove himself back inside her. Again he drew out slowly, then thrust into her. She made small cries and he nearly growled with the feelings of possessiveness that grabbed him.
As he took her, Lilin’s body began to tremble, her thighs shaking against his hips. Her lips were parted, her eyes glazed and her moans louder.
While he continued to make love to her, he waited. Waited. Waited. Holding back his own orgasm.
He drove in again. She arched her back and screamed. Her body rocked and writhed beneath him. Her core clamped so hard on him that he lost it. He shouted and pressed his hips tight against her as she continued to contract around him and his throbbing seemed to go on forever.
Finally he collapsed, barely rolling to the side in time to keep his weight from crushing her petite frame.
For a long time they held one another, her head against his chest, their breathing deep and ragged, him still inside her.
When he had the strength, he started kissing her forehead, inhaling her special scent and feeling incredible warmth deep in his heart and soul.
He brushed her wet hair away from her face with his fingertips. She lifted her head to look at him and smiled. Such an innocent, sweet, genuine smile. Nothing like the sultry, experienced look she’d given him when she’d been a Succubus.
Archer no longer doubted his sanity - or hers.
And now he’d lost his heart to this sweet woman in his arms. He wanted to show her the world and then give it to her.
Give everything to her.
The vision of a clear stone slipped through his mind. He drew away from Lilin and rolled out of bed.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, sounding concerned. “Archer?”
Confusion clouded Archer’s mind, but he knew he had to go to his drawer. “Wait.”
He reached his bureau, opened his sock drawer, and dug through it. His fingers finally touched something round and hard, hidden in one of his socks. When he returned to the bed, he shook the sock out over the mattress. An enormous diamond slipped out of it. Archer’s eyes widened, and so did Lilin’s.
Where had it come from and why had he just remembered having it?
He grasped the stone in his hand - and everything came back in a rush so fast he nearly collapsed.
Every memory of being an Incubus, every woman he had ever taken. And Queen Rusalka with her fierce beauty and even fiercer temper. She’d been pissed with him when he’d said no to becoming one of her concubines. He’d never expected her to make him human.
The Queen had given him the stone so that every now and then he would remember what he had lost - an immortal life and the ability to bed any woman he wanted, every night if he chose to. But he had to be holding the diamond to remember. A little while after he parted with it, his memories would be gone again.
But with the stone he could also call to the Queen and beg to have his old life back.
He looked from the diamond to his beautiful Lilin. He would give her the stone, allowing her to remember her past - and return to the Unseelie Court.
His heart in his throat, he placed the diamond in her hand and folded her fingers around it. “My gift to you.”
Immediately, shock registered on Lilin’s features as she held the stone, and her eyes darted back and forth as if she was watching a ping-pong match.
“I could return,” Lilin whispered. “The Queen would take me back.”
It hit him like a blow to the chest. Lilin might leave. She would go back to the Queen and she would forget he existed.
And he would never forget her.
In that single crystal-clear moment he realized how much she had come to mean to him over the period of time he’d known her.
He didn’t want to lose her.
Archer was on the verge of grabbing her, taking her into his arms and holding her tight so she could never leave him. Then she blinked as if coming back to reality and looked at him for a long moment.
His words and his breath caught in his throat as she took the sock he had hidden the diamond in, and slipped the stone inside so that it dropped to the toe.
Lilin handed it to Archer and smiled. “I choose to live a mortal life if it means I can be with you.” She bit her lower lip before adding, “If you’ll have me.”
The relief was so great it stunned him.
“Will I have you?” Archer tossed the sock-covered diamond over his shoulder and it landed on the floor with a thump. “Does that answer your question?” He planned to take that damned stone and bury it in the landfill first thing in the morning.
She grinned and flung her arms around his neck. “I think I love you, Archer.”
“I know I love you, Lilin.” Archer couldn’t keep the love out of his smile and voice as he looked down at her. “And I’m never letting you go.”
Author Biographies
Cheyenne McCray
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Magic series.
cheyennemccray.com
Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters 162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2009
“Succubus Seduction” © by Cheyenne McCray. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.
The right of Trisha Telep to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
UK ISBN 978-1-84529-941-5
First published in the United States in 2009 by Running Press Book Publishers
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.
US Library of Congress number: 2008942197 US ISBN 978-7624-3651-4
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