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She wanted nothing more than to crawl back to him, to give him the same kind of pleasure, to see him come apart under her caresses. She yearned to fall asleep in his arms instead of five feet away from him, wrapped in the shame of her thoughtlessness.
Because thoughtless she’d been. She should have never let it come this far, should never have encouraged the passion between them to flare into a blinding blaze. It wasn’t fair to him.
She needed to save his life soon, before her soul broke under the pressure.
* * *
Basil flopped down face first on his sleeping bag and stifled a groan of frustration. His cock was so hard and aching, he thought he might explode like an untried teenager. His fingers still carried the scent of Isa’s arousal, driving him crazy with lust.
Gods damn, but she’d been so passionate, so unrestrained, demanding her pleasure, begging for his touch, and he’d been more than happy to deliver. After that first kiss, he’d known there lurked a fierce hunger underneath her composure, but this just now? It had blown his estimate of the level of her passion out of the water.
And, of course, now his desire to get her naked and riding him into blissful oblivion had only increased a gazillionfold.
Based on her retreat, however, that option seemed highly unlikely to ever become a reality. She’d apologized to him. Apologized. As if she’d done something wrong. What was going on with her? What was the reason behind her adamant resistance to give in to her attraction to him? How bad did it have to be that she couldn’t even tell him? I just don’t get it.
He thumped his forehead on the ground a few times and valiantly tried to convince his balls to just let it go and stop hurting. By the Powers, she was killing him.
Chapter 15
“I think this is it.” Isa stopped and pointed at something in the distance.
Basil stepped up to her side on top of the little hill and looked. Nestled into the trees across the clearing was a small cottage, seemingly fused with the pines surrounding it.
“Let me guess,” he said, “wood fae?”
“Looks like it.”
It had taken them all morning to hike to the lake and find the dwelling Rinnar had described, Isa’s hawk keeping them company. At one point, the raptor had dropped a dead mouse at his feet, and Isa insisted he ought to take it as a compliment. Now the noon sun hid behind a layer of clouds, the rarely-changing winter sky of Oregon. They were lucky it hadn’t rained while they’d been on the road.
Basil’s lingering consternation about the status quo between him and Isa—they hadn’t talked about last night, and Isa had gone back to treating him with friendly distance—dissolved in the face of his anticipation and the thrill buzzing in his blood. This was it. The house of the couple who supposedly took in Rose. She could be in there, right now. Luck willing, he’d be able to leave for Portland again today, with Rose.
And Isa?
Damn, there it was again, that sting in his chest, that cramping in his guts. She still owed him a life debt, so she’d probably have to come with him, but how would things go on between them? How could he help her resolve what forced her to keep her distance to the point that she wouldn’t even let him in emotionally?
He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. First things first. Find Rose, get her out.
“Let’s go,” he said to the fae who had become his own personal addiction.
Isa nodded, unfastened her bow, and drew an arrow.
“Good idea,” he murmured while he did the same, nocking his arrow on the bow’s string without pulling it yet. He’d be ready to shoot within a second.
They advanced on the house while keeping to the cover of the trees surrounding the clearing. He scanned the area for any signs of movement. Squirrels rustled in the leaves on the ground, the branches of the trees. Here and there a bird startled, flying from its perch on top of a pine.
Not a hint of magic in the air, neither witch nor fae. Which didn’t have to mean anything—Rose and her captors might simply not be using any of their powers right now.
Isa stopped about a yard away from the cottage, her forehead furrowed.
“What is it?” he whispered close to her ear.
She shivered, inclined her head toward him the tiniest bit. “Even for wood fae architecture,” she whispered back, “this looks almost too overgrown.”
She indicated the facade of the cottage with a nod, and he saw what she meant. Creeper plants covered the walls of the house until the windows were barely visible. The intricately carved wooden front door stood a foot ajar, and vines twined around it in a way that made it clear the door had been open for quite a while.
His heart sank. “You think it’s abandoned?”
“Let’s find out.”
