She pried Thom’s fingers apart a bit to talk through them. “And his mates’ would overlap with each other’s?”
“Not necessarily. Fairy ménages aren’t always true ménages. Anyway, his mates’ circles would overlap with those of whomever else, if anyone, they’re attracted to. There really aren’t endless combinations. We’re not talking six or eight people in a room at once. That’d just be insane.”
“Oh.” That made her feel a little better. The fairy wouldn’t be catting around on her. That was more than she could say about most of the men she’d dated before her long dry spell.
“It may be a moot point, anyway.” Thom tilted her head down to improve his access to the hollow of her neck. “My mates aren’t Sídhe, and it’s doubtful an extra party would ever come into the equation.”
“Mmm. Got it. One-time thing.” She let out a breathy sigh as Heath renewed his assault on her clit.
Thom kneaded her flesh, suckled her nipples, and just held her breasts as if they were some wondrous things he’d never see again.
Heath slipped a finger into her, and then another, all the while pressing his tongue against her clit and flicking until she was taut as a stretched rubber band and so, so wet.
She would have sighed about the pathetic mewling sounds she made if Thom hadn’t asked, “May I kiss her?”
Heath waved him on without even looking up, and then Thom looked at her beseechingly.
“Uh…if you want.”
His lips crushed hers, and he kissed her hungrily, darting his tongue into her mouth for a taste she obligingly gave him.
He followed her down as Heath pulled her flat to the bed, and she gasped when Heath speared her with his tongue.
“Been so long,” Thom muttered.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, my lady.”
He moved beside her and squeezed her breasts together, licking from one nipple to the next in rapid succession. Each flick above, seemingly in tune with Heath’s ministrations down below, had her sucking in air, so much air her head went swimmy.
Heath stuffed his fingers into her, latched his hot mouth onto her clit and sucked hard as the sting of Thom’s bite registered.
“Fuck!” she shouted.
“Not today, love.” Heath gave her pussy a little swat that shifted her orgasm from second gear straight to fourth.
She writhed on the bed, gasping and muscles spasming as the two men looked down at her with those damnable smug fairy faces. “What do you mean, you’re not fucking me?”
Heath shrugged. “Never promised that. I just said you’d get off. And you did. If you’d like another round, I’m sure Thom can demonstrate his three-finger methodology.”
She clenched her thighs together only to set off an aftershock orgasm that had her squirming.
Thom plucked idly at her left nipple. “That a yes or a no?”
Honestly, she was feeling a bit wrung out. Between what Heath had done in that dressing room and the double-teaming on the bed, she wasn’t sure she’d survive any more knob twiddling.
“I’ll probably regret saying this, but no. I might die. I don’t think I’m designed for fairy attentions.”
“Of course you are.” Heath crawled up beside her and nudged the sheets down. He helped her under them and joined her beneath, leaning on his side. “In the scheme of things, this is primer sex.”
“Two men at once is primer sex?” She eyed Thom whom, leaning against the headboard to her left, was staring down at his bulging crotch with abject fascination.
“I’m sure there are plenty of Sídhe whose first times’ happened with numerous people on their beds.” Heath picked up the end of her ponytail and twirled it around his fingers.
“That sounds more like an orgy than a gentle deflowering.”
“I guess it does, but in a lot of ways, it’s a lot more comfortable than being one on one with someone. Less responsibility.”
“Oh.” Perhaps that was why Heath was so comfortable with having Thom in the room. It was less about kink and more about doing what felt right, and she had to admit having Thom there as a buffer between her and Heath had taken the tension down a few notches. Being told what to do with Heath, and for him, took away her recalcitrance. “How many were on the bed your first time?”
He blew out a long breath. “Shit, who the hell can remember?”
“That many?” She gritted her teeth. She didn’t like the idea of so many people having seen her fairy nude—casual or not.
He shrugged. “It just wasn’t particularly memorable. At the time, it seemed like something I needed to get over with.” He let her hair fall to her shoulder. “Obviously, that’s an attitude I no longer have when it comes to sex.” He bent and drew her right nipple into his mouth, tonguing it to a hard, tender peak and eliciting answering cues from her pussy before letting go of it.
She pressed her thighs together once more. “What about you, Thom? How many?”
He was still staring down at his cock.
It was a very nice cock. Thick and long and evoking desire and terror all at once.
Heath sat up. “What the bloody hell?”
“Dunno.” Thom gingerly wrapped his fingers around the base and let out a hiss. “Balls are about to explode. Fucking hurts.”
“If you need to go handle business…” Simone wasn’t sure how to intimate that it was okay if he needed to go clear the pipes. If he was going to be without his mate or mates for a while, it seemed like a practical step.
“I’ll do that.” He didn’t move, though, just stared down at it with his brow furrowed.
She looked at Heath, whom seemed equally perplexed. “What background info am I missing? An erection would certainly be an expected consequence of what we just did.”
Heath had certainly been hard as a flagpole before he’d wriggled himself under the covers.
“Go on and tell her,” Thom said.
“All right. Hestia cursed him so he can only get an erection in very specific conditions.”
“Is this one of them?”
“Apparently.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Likely, that you may have to be in the room for him to be able to get it up for his own mates. I assure you, it’s not me who does it to him.”
“That’s appalling.”
“No less appalling than what I did to deserve it, I suppose,” Thom said.
“But, I can’t—”
Heath leaned in and put his mouth over hers. Kissed her. Nipped at her lips. Shushed her. “No, you’re right. You can’t. We’ll figure out how to fix it.”
“What’s the out clause for the curse?”
“Performing certain humiliating acts,” Thom said. He winced as he brought his fist up his shaft. “Shit. Many I would have done a long time ago if there’d been an outlet. Some of those things were forward-thinking, even for Hestia.”
“Such as what?”
“Suffice it to say, some things that are in direct opposition to my character.”
“He’s a Dom,” Heath explained. “What Hestia demands would require him to…not be.”
“I imagine that would be difficult.”
“Impossible,” Thom said through clenched teeth. “But when the time comes, I’ll try.”
He worked his fist up and down and came forcefully with a strained cry out. He put his head against the headboard and turned his gaze to the ceiling. “Fuck.”
“You’re just out of practice,” Heath said.
“I’m a laughingstock.”
“You’ll get better, certainly, in time for… Well, you know. Maybe she won’t mind so much if the first time isn’t…um…”
It took a moment for Simone to work out what the two were getting at. Of course Thom would have some stamina issues if he got off by his own hand in four pumps.
“I’ll help you.” The words came out of her mouth as if she really even knew what that would entail.
He raised both eyebrows.
“I mean, I’ll do what I can to help you, within reason. So you’re not embarrassed.”
“Thank you, but it really isn’t your responsibility.”
“But it obviously is. Your job is to take care of Heath—”
“And you.”
“Right. So, let me take care of you in the small way I can. I can even keep my back turned while you get your practice in.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“It’d be an awkward non-issue.”
He chuffed and nodded. “That sounds about right.” He padded to the bathroom, scooping his hands against his belly, and Heath pick up the ends of her hair again.
That indescribable tension returned. The fear of being left alone in a room with him. The fear she’d…lose herself to him somehow. She tried to swallow it down as if it were some tangible thing.
“He wouldn’t expect it from you, you know. He’d just suffer.” Heath’s blue gaze was so focused that she wouldn’t dare look away, but Gods, how she wanted to. Too intense.
“He shouldn’t have to suffer like that. Seems like he’s suffered for too long.”
“As did you. That’s why Siobhan’s so eager to help.”
She tipped her head back against the headboard. “Forgot about the damned motel. Need to get back so Siobhan can move on with her life. I’m sure she has better things to do.”
“Not particularly. Why are you in such a hurry to retreat to it?”
“I’m sure you guys have work to do. Going out and pursuing bad guys and stuff.”
“Are you so eager to rid yourself of me? To see my back retreating farther and farther away?”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what? You don’t want to be with me? An unfortunate thing, for certain, but I hope at some point you’ll come around to tolerating me.”
“Damn it, it’s not that.” She pounded the mattress and let out a sigh. “This doesn’t feel real to me, okay? You say you’re my husband, and all your crew agrees.”
“I am your husband.”
“That’s what I mean. You say that with such certainty.”
“Because it’s truth.”
“But, I don’t feel that.” She thumped her chest. “All I feel is fear and panic over this, because this is how weekend flings start, not lifetime relationships. We’re not inside a storybook. You aren’t some man who courted me and dated me who I decided to have a go with. You just swooped in and that was that.”
“So, it’s not an issue of you disliking me, but an issue of things moving too fast?”
“Try to see things from a human perspective if you can, Heath. Humans get maybe eighty or ninety years to squeeze in everything they’re going to do in their lives, and that’s all. We like to make sure the person we’re going to spend the rest of our lives with is someone we can tolerate long-term. Someone who understands our quirks and eccentricities. Someone…” Someone who could make her feel butterflies on occasion. She rested her hands over her unsettled belly.
He had the last thing down. But, the rest?
A man like him would probably become pretty stinking bored with her after twenty years, and then where would they be?
He stroked her chin and stared into her eyes. “I see.”
Thom returned to the bedside carrying his underwear. “Got a text. Dinner’ll be on the table in about five minutes.”
“Do you?” she whispered to Heath.
“I do. You may not believe me, but I do. You continuously misjudge me, Simone. You think I don’t understand, but I do.” He eased out from under the covers and strode to his pile of clothes. “I’ll show you I do.”
Chapter Thirteen
They had their gear packed up and were on the road heading toward Albuquerque and the airport with Queen Contessa, her brother Jody, her aide Nadia, and one of their newcomers named Jeff when Heath’s phone vibrated. He plucked it from his pocket and read Siobhan’s name on the incoming call display.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her.
“Are you in a plane?”
“Heading toward one.”
“Good. Need you to do an apprehension. Some little quarter-breed fucktwat is raising hell in Ohio. You should be able to nab him on your own. Just keep Simone away from him. His abilities are of a…um, sexual nature.”
“In what way?”
“He can arouse people and make them think they want him. You should be immune because of your tussle with that incubus last year.”
“Got it. We’ll head that way, then. Send me a text with all the details.” He disconnected.
“What’s up?” Thom asked.
“Need to pick up a fucktwat in Ohio. Siobhan said it’s a one-man job, so don’t get your knickers in a twist over it.”
“Not wearing any today, so it’s hardly a concern.”
Nadia, in the backseat, groaned softly. Normally, Heath might have asked what was up with her, but he already knew.
He turned and caught Contessa in his gaze. She was doing all she could to not laugh aloud. Shared secrets were bloody awful things. It may even have been her idea to invite Thom along on her little field trip. For whatever reason, her brash and ballsy aide wasn’t the romantically aggressive sort, though Nadia was certainly aggressive in every other way. She may have been interested in Thom, but she hadn’t overtly signaled it yet. That likely suited Thom just fine at the moment as it gave him some time to deal with his curse. Still, having them all thrown together on a two-week mission would certainly spark certain confessions.
Simone unfastened her seatbelt and leaned up into the gap between the front seats. She whispered, “So, I’m going with you to Ohio?”
“Nope. Pains me to separate from you, even for a day, but I’ll handle this on my own. You head home, and one of the girls will pick you up from the airport.”
“Think I’ll get in your way? Is that what it is?”
“Not at all. I just don’t want to expose you to that sort of shit unnecessarily. You already think I’m a brute, so I feel no need to have you witness me doing my job. Besides, I thought you were ready to go home. Changed your mind?”
She took so long to answer that Heath turned in his eat to look at her head-on. She chewed her lip and stared down in the general vicinity of the gear shifter.
“What is it?”
“I don’t want to fly alone.”
Ah. He’d forgotten about that.
He drummed his fingers on the armrest and stared ahead at the highway. If her Sídhe magic were anything like her mother’s, she could open a fairy portal between New Mexico and North Carolina and walk between the two places in about half an hour, but as that wasn’t a gift he possessed, he couldn’t instruct her on how to use it. Her own mother would have to, or else Fergus. That is, if she didn’t figure it out on her own. Sídhe were generally self-aware when it came to their abilities—they were more or less born knowing what they were capable of and refined their handling of it as they grew older. Simone was only half-Sídhe, and further, her mother had done all she could to suppress Simone’s abilities. Heath didn’t know what she was capable of, and Simone likely didn’t either.
“All right. You stay with me, and we’ll fly back together.”
She nodded, sat back, and refastened her seatbelt.
“Just take it in stride,” Thom said. “You’ll be done with all this soon, and you won’t have to worry about her getting caught in the fray.”
“Aye.” Heath’s mouth may have answered in the affirmative, but his brain wasn’t so certain soon would be as early as any of them hoped.
***
Heath peered around the corner of the park’s meeting building and fixed his quarry in his stare. He fondled the hilt of his knife and watched the man work.
The quarter-Sídhe sat on a bench, catcalling female joggers as they went by, and harassing any that responded in the negative. Siobhan had said that was his M.O. Eventually, he’d get bored with all the rej
ections, and he’d lash out. Heath was there to stop him before he did.
“Do you recognize him?” Simone whispered behind him.
“No, love. I often do recognize, or least know of, some of the half-Sídhe, but quarter and less—usually not. If I get a taste of his energy, I might be able to fill in the dots on his family tree, though.”
“But you couldn’t figure out mine.”
“Because of what your mum did.”
“Oh.”
He looked back in time to catch the flush on her cheeks, and smiled at her. He really wished she wasn’t so damned skittish—nervous around him—but at least she was talking and asking him questions. That was a good thing.
“Do you always use knives?” she asked.
“Depends on how close I have to get. I carry my sword if I can be discreet, but I’m more likely to use a knife.”
“Ever use a gun?”
“Occasionally. I am skillful and licensed to carry in most states. They’re generally too loud for discretion, so I try to only use those when getting in at close range would be too dangerous to me and the crew.”
“For full Sídhe, right?”
“Not necessarily. Even a quarter-Sídhe can be too dangerous if he has the right kind of people around him.”
“What, groupies? Acolytes?”
“Sometimes. Humans are in awe of magic and too often will believe what they’re told. Anything to be close to the source.”
“What’s your plan this time?”
“I usually start with talking. If that doesn’t do the trick, violence usually does.”
She sighed. She had to have known that admission was coming. “And when you get him, then what?”
“We’ll have to make a quick trip back to the fairy realm to deliver him.”
“Quick trip? To Ireland is what you call a quick trip?”
He shrugged. “Quick meaning we won’t stick around there long. Just enough time to pitch him to the palace guards. I would send you home from Norfolk before I went. I know the travel stresses you out.”
“Thank you.”
“Hardly an inconvenience.” He fixed his stare back on the harassing fucktwat and shoved off the wall. “I’m going to lure him around the corner so there aren’t any witnesses in case I have to use force. You might want to wait in the car.”
Beyond The Veil: A Paranormal & Magical Romance Boxed Set Page 86
