He kissed her then, hard, fast, laced with fiery passion that could raze her soul. “I think,” he said when he came up for air again, “I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you, that night I saved your life.”
She exhaled on a soft laugh, shook her head. “How is that possible? You can’t fall in love that quickly.”
“I can. And I have.” His eyes burned bright with an inner fire she wanted to wrap herself in, until all the parts still cold within her warmed and glowed. “It’s never been this fast for me, but I’m not sorry for it. I could tell you it took time for me to fall for you, but it would be a lie. And why should I lie about something that is so true for me, it’s the purest kind of pain wrapped in pleasure?” His breath caressed her lips. “I fell fast. I fell hard. And I love you with all I’ve got.”
She swallowed past a throat gone tight and dry, tears prickling hot behind her eyelids. “You’re right,” she said quietly. “You should never be sorry for that. It’s beautiful, and strong.” And I’ll take it. I’ll take it all, and hope the Fates will allow me to carry the memory with me into the eternal darkness.
“Hey, now.” He wiped a traitorous tear from her cheek. “Talk to me. Are you okay?”
Her conscience pricked her, almost made her flinch. She should tell him. Didn’t he have a right to know? The irrevocability of her fate lay heavy on her soul, threatened to suffocate her. She opened her mouth, but the words stuck in her throat. Heat rolled out from the shame-filled corners of her heart into every part of her body.
If she told him about the curse, she’d have to explain her involvement in his past, and he would learn she’d been lying to him all this time. That light in his eyes, the warmth of his love, it would be dulled by her betrayal, and she’d lose the only thing that kept her afloat in the face of her impending death. I can’t tell him. She swallowed the pained sound that wanted to escape.
“Isa?”
Live now, be in the moment. It was all she could do. Anything else would mean dying before her time.
“I’m all right,” she finally said, her voice surprisingly calm despite her inner fractures, “but I’d be even better if you did one of those many things with me you mentioned. Like taking me.” She wrapped her legs around his hips, bucked up to grind against him. Kissing a path toward his ear, she murmured, “I want to feel you inside me, Basil.”
He shivered under her hands, his muscles flexing. Those gorgeous, finely hewn muscles she still hadn’t had time to caress most thoroughly. She slid one hand down between their bodies, found his shaft already hardening. He thrust into her grip, nibbled at her lower lip—then froze.
“Oh shit.”
She blinked. “What?”
He raised his head, his expression troubled. “I don’t have any condoms with me.”
Condoms… She frowned, then remembered. Ah, yes, the human contraception. With a smile, she ran her hand along his erection. “No need for that.” He wouldn’t know, not having grown up with fae, so she explained. “We’re not fertile often. We live long lives, and I guess nature made sure we wouldn’t be able to have children at the same rate as shorter-lived species. Females only have a fertile phase every couple of years, and outside of that, we can’t conceive.” She stroked him, that thick length she’d tasted a few minutes ago. “Mine is not due for a long while yet. We’re safe.”
His hips bucked as he pushed into her intimate caress. “Well then,” he muttered against her lips, “in that case…”
He drew back, much to her protest, but grabbed her around the waist the next second, flipped her over onto her stomach. Her breath whooshed out of her, and excitement rolled through her on a wave of sparks at being handled by him. The heat and weight of his body pressed her onto the mattress while he pinned her down, skimmed one hand along her side. His hard cock was a welcome, enticing pressure against her upper thighs, so close to the point where her legs met her butt, and she pushed up with her hips, ground herself against him.
Just a little farther, and he would slide home.
He bit her neck. Pleasure arced through her, shot down to the juncture between her legs, to the spot already growing hungry and needy again. He half-balanced his weight on one arm next to her head, slid his free hand under her front, over her belly to her throbbing clitoris. His touch had her moaning into the sheets. Pinned like this underneath him, trapped between the pressure of his hand on her mound and the promise of his shaft at her upper thighs, there wasn’t much she could do, nowhere she could go.
And it made the excitement building in her all the more delicious.
Basil kissed the curve where her shoulder met her neck while he played with her, let his fingers teasingly slide around her clit without rubbing it directly. Clever, he was so clever, knowing that touching anything but would make her writhe with growing need, panting for him to grace her with his caress.
By the time he grabbed her hips to haul her up to all fours, she was shaking with desire. His cock nudged her entrance, and she pushed back, eager to feel him. Before he could slide in, however, he wrapped one arm around her front, pulled her up until her back met his chest.
With his hand cupping her breast, his breath hot on her ear, he asked, “How hard?”
It took a moment for her lust-addled brain to catch up. Before tonight, it might have surprised her that he would ask, as she’d assumed his behavior in bed would mirror the cheerful kindness of his personality—the one he usually showed. But now she’d glimpsed the other side of him, that private, precious part of his character he only revealed to a select few, she understood. Oh, he could be gentle, too, yes. And she enjoyed those moments.
But he was capable of more, was willing to give more, and he was asking how much of it she wanted him to unleash, how much she was able to take.
“I want all of you,” she said. “Rough, hard, fast…” The image of him thrusting into his own hand under the shower flashed before her eyes, his muscles flexing with his powerful, uninhibited strokes. “I’ll take everything you have to give.”
Behind her, his breath caught, and his hand on her breast squeezed, pulled her closer against him. A fleeting, gentle, kiss on her cheek…and then the pressure of his hand on her back, guiding her to all fours again. She bit her lip in anticipation as she set her hands on the mattress, as he grasped her hips, angled her just right.
His hand stroked over her butt, down to her sensitized, aching, intimate flesh. With one knee, he nudged her legs wider while he caressed her slick folds. The heat of his cock at her entrance—and he thrust into her with a powerful shove.
Pinpricks of light burst behind her eyes, her nerves overfired with pleasure-pain. As aroused and wet as she was, his size still stretched her, and those first few seconds stung in the most erotic way. He drew back and thrust in again, intensifying that sensual ache, until it turned into liquified fire in her veins.
“More,” she whispered. “Go.”