What would you say, I wonder, if I told you you were more right than not? “If I were saying the right things, this would be much less uncomfortable than it actually is. Because you would be letting me help.”
Terry stared, tears welling in his eyes once more. “I doubt it. I’m not only an idiot when it comes to men, I’m stubborn as a mule, my grandma always said. Testardo come un mulo.”
Terry tried to laugh. The sound was painful to hear.
Painful. I am feeling pain, simply because a human feels it.
And, as Maelduin watched, a single tear contradicted Terry’s laughter. Terry ignored it, but Maelduin could not look away.
I think… this is no longer a pretense of caring. Though what it is I am actually doing, if not pretending, is still a mystery.
“Look, as long as I’m quoting wise Italian women, I might as well say there’s no sense in letting good food go to waste.” Terry turned away from Maelduin and peered into the bag, as if concerned some morsel had escaped his notice. “We can talk after dinner, okay?”
Humans had nothing whatsoever to teach Fae about the art of deflection. And Terry had no idea, yet, how tenacious Maelduin was.
Chapter Ten
Tiernan settled back into the hot tub with a blissful sigh, the ends of his unbound hair trailing in the scented water. All Fae were born sensualists, but most kicked that tendency up several notches into hedonism. And Tiernan was in a class by himself, at least in his own opinion.
A simple channeling was enough to lower the lights; if Kevin were with him, he would have lit the scattered candles, too, but under the circumstances—
“Mind some company?”
Kevin’s voice drifted in from the bedroom an instant before the male himself appeared in the doorway of the master bath. Tiernan had had an enthusiastic appreciation for suit porn long before he met his husband, but the sight of Kevin in charcoal gray Armani and a full day’s growth of dark stubble was enough by itself to bring the head of Tiernan’s cock out of the water, as if to find out for itself what all the excitement was about.
“If I ever answer that particular question ‘no,’ do me a favor and put me out of my misery permanently.”
“Not funny.” Kevin stepped back into the bedroom, and from the sound of things was quickly stripping out of his office attire.
The foggy mirror on the bathroom ceiling gave Tiernan back a blurred version of his frown. “Why not? It usually is.”
One of Tiernan’s favorite sights was Kevin, naked, demonstrating by his mere presence why his past girlfriends had universally dubbed him ‘Elephant Dick.’ This sighting did not disappoint… yet something about Kevin’s face, his demeanor, as he climbed into the water left Tiernan unsettled. He slid over, making room for Kevin on the underwater seat, and rested a hand on his husband’s thigh.
Husband. What an un-Fae thought. And yet it was second nature by now. As was not understanding what went on behind his husband’s deep brown eyes. There was a time he could have found out, of course—humans were simple to manipulate—but manipulation stopped being an option once a Fae Shared. Human morality was contagious, apparently.
And even if it wasn’t, there were the daragin, and their dead-Fae’s-switch buried in Fiachra’s brain. Manipulating humans was undoubtedly somewhere on the list of Fae behaviors that would earn Fiachra a one-way trip to the madhouse, and totally fuck up the Fae-daragin-Gille Dubh truce.
Kevin slowly let out his breath in a deep sigh; Tiernan could feel taut muscles relax under his hand. “Sorry.” His head fell back against the hot tub’s padded headrest, his eyes closed.
Tiernan leaned over and kissed his way up the side of Kevin’s throat, until he was in range to nip his earlobe. Which he did, as gently as he could stand to. “So what’s eating you? Besides me.” A moment’s concentration dimmed the lights even more and lit the candles, lavender-scented like the water. An aphrodisiac for Fae males as well as human, not that either of them usually needed the help.
Kevin shook his head, almost imperceptibly. “Nothing. Just some… bad dreams, I guess.”
“You guess?” Tiernan nipped harder, then licked where he’d bitten.
“I don’t want to call them premonitions. That’s giving them more weight than they’re worth.” Kevin’s fingers threaded through Tiernan’s under the water. “I think it’s just nerves. Not knowing what the hell is going on with the Marfach, or what our next move is. Knowing we live on top of a wellspring and might be eavesdropped on. I know we’re probably too far above it for the daragin to bother, but…”
Tiernan didn’t want to let go of Kevin’s hand, not as long as it seemed Kevin wanted him to be holding it. So he stroked his husband’s broad shoulder with his other hand, and busied himself tracing the curves of Kevin’s ear with the tip of his tongue. Less blatant seduction techniques were sometimes even more enjoyable than more direct options—and to a Fae, seduction tended to be the answer no matter what the question was.
Kevin shuddered slightly, his lips parted in a silent sigh. Tiernan smiled, and leaned even closer to let his human hear the hoarseness of his own breathing, the catches in it. Soon he’d ease Kevin onto his lap, slip a couple of fingers into him, make him ready—
“Were we fated to meet?”
“Hm?” Tiernan blinked, startled, as Kevin turned to face him.
“Our SoulShare bond. Was there something there before we had sex? Something that drew us together?”
Maybe this is what’s been bothering him. Empathy didn’t come naturally to a Fae, or at least to any Fae without Water blood, but Tiernan was learning. Slowly. “No one’s sure exactly how the bond works. Cuinn wasn’t in on the crafting of it, he was busy with other parts of the plan for the Sundering. And we don’t really have a large statistical sample—”
“Oh, fuck statistics.” Kevin was smiling, a little. “What did it feel like to you?”
“Interesting question.” Tiernan didn’t feel much like thinking at the moment, but he loved his husband, so he tried. “I knew I had to have you, the moment I saw you. But that by itself doesn’t mean all that much, when you’re talking about an unShared Fae.”
Tiernan loved Kevin’s deep chuckle. “So I’ve noticed.”
“An observant lad, you are.” Kevin’s soft mouth begged for a kiss, and Tiernan had never been able to deny that particular request. After a necessary moment to clear his head, he went on, “I knew I was going to take you somewhere and get you to drop those incredibly well-tailored trousers. But when I touched you…”
He fell silent. The memory of that first touch always took him out of the present, and he was glad to let it. In the Realm, love had ruined him, the only kind of love a Fae was supposed to be able to know. His love for his sister had driven him to murder the brother who had raped her… and the forbidden killing had stolen his sister’s vengeance, and for that his sister had Oathbound herself to see him exiled to the human world for his crimes. Her act of spite had left him fucking determined to live the rest of his life without love of any kind, without intimacy.
Until chance—which didn’t exist—had brought him and Kevin to Purgatory on the same night. And he’d come up behind the young lawyer, rested a hand on his shoulder…
And the shiver of magick racing from his hand, up his arm to his heart, his mind, his soul, had told him that he was never going to be alone again. No matter how much he’d wanted to be at the time.
Kevin returned Tiernan’s kiss, with interest. “The touch woke up our bond.”
“Yes. I think so. And a few other things.” The memory of Kevin’s expression, when he’d first whispered in his ear, taking his conquest of a new human for granted, was another one of those things that never failed to make Tiernan instantly hard. Or harder.
Kevin noticed, and let go of Tiernan’s hand to stroke the proud curve of Tiernan’s cock. “But we weren’t fully SoulShared then.”
“Right. One of the few things we know for sure about SoulSharing is that the
bond only fully asserts itself once the Shared couple—or threesome, or for all any of us know moresome—share pleasure the same way.” Tiernan slid his hand up Kevin’s thigh. “Giving and receiving.”
“So sharing souls is really just about sex?” Kevin’s grip on Tiernan tightened; he swept his thumb over the head of Tiernan’s cock, tickled the nerve bundle under the head, and smiled at Tiernan’s involuntary grunt. “Just about pleasure? Seems kind of shallow…”
“I wish you’d quit asking questions that require me to think at the same time you’re making my brain switch-off.” Tiernan couldn’t help a grin of his own, as he settled deeper into the water.
“Want me to stop?” Kevin let go of Tiernan’s cock, crossed his arms behind his head, and stretched luxuriously, his toes poking out of the water on the far side of the tub and the broad dark head of his erection poking out considerably nearer.
“Bite your tongue. Or mine, I’m good either way.”
“Later.”
One of the many things Tiernan generally loved about his scair-anam was the way his relentless intelligence never entirely deserted him, even during sex. It made him the perfect magickal partner. Unfortunately, it also made him nearly impossible to distract. “Fucking tease. What were we talking about?”
“Sex and SoulSharing.” Tiernan caught a brief glimpse of a wicked grin, before Kevin ducked his head and took the first few inches of Tiernan’s cock into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the head until Tiernan’s hips jerked involuntarily.
“Shit.” Tiernan worked the fingers of his crystal hand into Kevin’s dark hair, drawing his husband’s head to rest on his shoulder. “Stay up here, at least your mouth isn’t distracting me this way.”
“Optimist, aren’t you?” Kevin nipped at Tiernan’s throat.
“Scilim g’fua lom tú.”
“I hate you too, just as much.”
Reluctantly, Tiernan forced his thoughts back to his lanan’s question. “The SoulShare bond is about a lot more than sex. Trouble is, we’re not sure what, exactly. Aine might have been able to tell us something, if anyone had thought to ask her before communication with the Realm became so difficult. It’s quick. Usually. Which I suppose makes it seem strange to most humans—Fae don’t really have anything to compare it to, so unless we fight the bond, the speed of it doesn’t seem odd to us. But it’s definitely more than just falling for a piece of ourselves. Self-love. Even humans have stories about soul-mates, one soul in two bodies.”
“I’d wondered about that, from time to time.” Kevin wrapped his arm around Tiernan, snuggling in close. Another one of Tiernan’s favorite sensations.
And wonder of wonders, tenderness only heightened his arousal. Never in a hundred lifetimes would such a thing have happened before his SoulSharing.
“Carrot and stick,” he murmured.
“I beg your pardon?” Kevin’s large hand cupped Tiernan’s balls, rolled them gently.
“Talk now, beg later. Sex and SoulSharing, carrot and stick. Or at least carrot. I’m not sure it would be possible to get an unShared Fae interested in love. The only Fae who love are the ones who have already Shared. No unShared Fae is ever going to care about someone else, unless that someone else has something he needs.”
“I’ve heard that story before.” Kevin’s breath was warm against Tiernan’s neck and shoulder. “From Conall, and Cuinn, and probably a few other Fae. And I think it’s high time someone called that theory out for the bullshit that it is.”
With some difficulty, Tiernan turned his head, the better to look into his husband’s eyes. “It’s not bullshit. It’s the way Fae are.”
“The way you think you are.” Gently, Kevin gathered up a lock of Tiernan’s golden-blond hair, and just as gently kissed it. “The way you’ve told yourselves you are, for whatever reason. Told yourselves for so long that you believe it.”
“And you know better?” Tiernan couldn’t help arching a brow.
“Maybe looking in from the outside lets us humans see something you don’t.” Kevin ran his fingertips lightly along Tiernan’s collarbone. “I’ve been watching you, and the other Fae, for a couple of years now. And it’s perfectly obvious from your actions, toward your humans, and even toward one another, that you know how to love. Hell, half a Fae soul was enough to give Bryce Newhouse the ability to love, starting from a stone cold heart.”
Tiernan curled his fingers of warm living Stone around his husband’s wandering hand. “Assuming you’re right…” Not an assumption Tiernan was prepared to make immediately, or necessarily at all. “Then what do you think SoulSharing is for?” He’d always suspected it was tied up with love—specifically, he’d deduced, or thought he’d deduced, that Sharing was what gave a Fae the ability to love in the first place. But he was no Brathnach the Wise, no Sherlock Holmes; he had, on exceedingly rare occasions, been known to be wrong. Most of which occasions tended to involve underestimating the male in his arms.
Kevin laughed softly, thoughtfully. “I think that was kind of what I started out asking you.”
The human was silent for the space of a few breaths, the pounding of his heart perfectly audible to the acute senses of a Fae. This does have something to do with what’s bothering him.
“Maybe SoulSharing is a wake-up call for the Fae, reminding them of something they’ve thrown away. Something they need. But…”
The hammering was louder, more urgent. “But what, lanan?”
Kevin worried his lower lip between his teeth, making Tiernan want to kiss the breath out of him. But no, not yet. Not until his husband finally made plain what he himself was too dense to see.
“None of that tells me what SoulSharing is to a human. To me.” Kevin’s gaze dropped. “Whatever you brought to our bond completed me.” A tremor ran through his body, and Tiernan held him closer. “What if I have to do without it someday?”
Shit. “You never will, m’lanan.” He pulled Kevin onto his lap—roughly, needing to show the male he loved that he was strong, that he could keep a vow—and settled him astride his thighs. “Lasr, s’oc as fola.” Flame, frost, and blood. “I swear, you never will.”
Chapter Eleven
This feels fucking amazing.
Terry sat back against the back of the sofa, pleasantly full, watching as Maelduin licked the last of the curry sauce off his fingers. Almost the last, he corrected himself—the golden-brown splotch on Maelduin’s linen shirt was probably technically the last of it. Anyone else would have looked like a slob. Maelduin looked adorable.
This is fucking agony.
Terry tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and hoped he didn’t look anything like he felt. Which was… what? Confused. Frustrated. Sad. Turned on.
Spin the wheel and win a prize, every slot’s a winner.
“What are you thinking, lán’ghrásta?”
Terry didn’t open his eyes. The last thing he needed to see was more gorgeous. More of what was just going to pass him by, walk off into the night. “I’m thinking I’d love to know what language that is. Is it Gaelic? It sounds like it.”
He thought he heard a sigh. “I suppose Gaelic is close enough.”
There was a tightness to Maelduin’s voice. Maybe it was irritation. That would make total sense. The stunning blond had spent most of dinner finding new ways to be impossibly perfect while making awkward small talk over curried scallops. Small talk which was going to get Maelduin nowhere, in the end, because Terry’s mind was made up. Period.
Yes, he was attracted to Maelduin. He’d have to be dead not to be—for one thing, if Terry crossed his eyes just a little, Maelduin looked a whole lot like Tiernan Guaire, the landlord of Raging Art-On and Terry’s new dance studio, and one of the most stunning men Terry had ever met. But really, the simple fact of his attraction to Maelduin alone was more than enough reason for Terry to show him the door. Because Terry had the world’s worst taste in, and luck with, men. If he, Terry, felt anything for a guy, that feeling was surely fucked up,
and enough reason by itself to call for the hook.
And attraction was all it was. Chemistry. He’d known that since he first saw Maelduin, sitting on the edge of the sample of sprung flooring Garrett had been so crazy about, stopping a nosebleed. Something had happened, deep down in Terry’s gut. And other places. He knew better than to pay attention to that sort of reaction—if he let himself give in, that would mean he hadn’t learned anything at all from losing Josh, or from the clusterfuck that had been Bryce.
If he hadn’t learned anything, what had the point of it all been?
A hand rested lightly on his. More perfection, more of what he would be happy to acknowledge as something-more-than-just-fucking-chemistry if that weren’t even crazier than the one-night stand had been.
He opened his eyes—reluctantly, because he knew what was going to happen. Sure enough, Maelduin was leaning in, no doubt to make sure everything was all right with him, and Terry felt his heart bang on his chest wall like it wanted out. Maelduin had eyes as gorgeous as the rest of him, eyes that made Terry want to do clichéd and anatomically impossible things like fall into them and drown.
Yeah. There was something in him that wanted to do that. Take a chance, throw the dice, every idiotic cliché in the book, and maybe a few he’d come up with on the spot, special for the occasion.
I can’t let myself do this. Not again. Not when I know better.
“You don’t want me to stay, do you?”
The question, circling back to fragments spoken and then silenced during dinner, was almost casual, yet there was sadness, almost despair, under the surface of it that left Terry short of breath. And the hand resting on Terry’s was shaking.
Fuck. I don’t want to be the bad guy again. It had been bad enough to do that to Josh.
But he was short on choices. No matter what some secret corner of his psyche wanted, he knew that in the real world, it came down to one of two things: he could either be the bad guy now, or the fall guy down the road.
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