FIVE

Emotions! He’d forgotten the everyday wonder of just existing. He’d have time to be pissed off at Ninane later. But for the moment, he sat in a pub, enjoying the sensory feast before him. Truly able to appreciate eating dinner with a beautiful woman—his woman. The same woman who’d freed him from the prison his existence had been.

She smelled good too. The beer smelled good, food tasted good. He enjoyed it, enjoyed her. How he’d missed that subtle back and forth with a woman, each seducing the other. She was wary, yes, but thankfully not afraid. And with each breath he took, his magic returned like an old friend, filling each cell slowly.

“Okay, you’ve had your Guinness, you’ve eaten enough for three men, now you have a story to tell. Who the hell are you? Tell me. All of it.”

“I am Conall macCormac. I truly was born thirty-seven years ago to Billy and Janet Shaunessey, as I said. But to answer your real question, I am Daoine Sidhe and I was cursed by a very nasty sorceress because I wouldn’t betray my queen. She stole my soul and killed me and I’ve been reborn nine times. Each lifetime, I’ve been without emotion, without connection. I’ve been unable to love my family of birth and I’ve been unable to contact my original family.” Suddenly the depth of emptiness he’d been living with hit him square in the gut and he had to pause and take a few swallows of Guinness.

Haley reached across the table and touched the back of his hand, a butterfly of a touch and their magic flared, bringing a gasp to her lips.

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine. You lost so much. I take it my translation and recital of the scrolls did something to undo it? Why did you wait all this time?”

“Curses are dark magic. Performing dark magic costs the person who does it. Because she had a murder on her hands as it was, she crafted the curse in such a way that it could be undone so as not to damn herself totally. But to undo the curse, I was unable to help in any way, not direct or suggest. And the right person had to translate. A witch with a touch of Fae in her blood.”

Startled, she blinked quickly. “What?”

He laughed. “The Ogham is more than symbols and words. Magic carries intent and flavor. You have Faerie magic in your blood, Haley. You know that.”

“I know that? What? You’re telling me I’m a Faerie?”

He leaned in and took a deep whiff of her. “Mmmm, yes. Not too far from the hill, maybe a generation or two. Not your parents but perhaps your grandfather? Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

The day just kept throwing more and more her way. The weight of it sent her reeling, trying to grasp it all but failing as it slipped through her fingers. Her grandmother’s words the last time Haley visited came back to her. She knew she had magic, that wasn’t in doubt, but a Faerie?

She stood up and grabbed her bag. “I have to talk to my grandmother. I can’t believe this day,” she mumbled, grabbing his pint glass and draining it. At least the warmth of the alcohol numbed the impending fall into total insanity.

He joined her, looming above her, dominating the space with his sexual lure, with the way he smelled. Her mouth watered to taste him. Oh, this was bad.

Tucking her hand into the crook of his arm, he propelled her toward the door and out onto the quiet street beyond. “After you come back to my flat.” His eyes seemed to glow when she looked up into them, stealing her good sense. He continued, “I need to contact my family too. Nine hundred years without any word, they’ll likely have believed me dead. But I don’t have all my magic back yet so I can’t get into the hill. Still, I can think of a few ways to pass the time.”

She looked into his eyes and a wave of desire so strong she might have stumbled had she not been leaning on him, rushed over her. “I…are you propositioning me?”

So close, his lips hovered above hers, his breath against her mouth, shivers blanketed her as her nipples tightened. “Haley, I want to make love to you. And then I want to fuck you. Do you know how I knew you were the one to free my soul? When you walked into my office that first day and my cock jolted to life. You’re the only woman who’s done that in the entire time I lived with the curse. I want you. I want to touch you. Taste you. I want to feel you from deep inside.”

His lips brushed over hers then and her body warmed, tightened and loosened all at once. Insanity, that’s what it was. Hormonal insanity because she hadn’t had sex in eight months. All kinds of crazy had descended into her life and her hormones thought they’d take her on a holiday. And it sounded pretty damned good right about then.

“I really need to talk to my grandmother. This is all so bizarre.” Her eyes remained halfway closed, his body against hers.

“Haley, it’s half-past eleven. You said she lives in Kerry, that’s two hours away in the daylight. She’ll be sleeping until the morning, I’m sure. Come, while away the darkness with me in my bed. I can feel your nipples through your shirt. I know you want me too.”

Oh good heavens, she was going to have sex with a formerly cursed Faerie. A stranger who was a formerly cursed Faerie. Well, technically, she’d known him for the last six months, had certainly been attracted to him since that first meeting and she did have a very strong and accurate sense of people. Lawd, talking herself into fucking a handsome man, she needed to get out more.

“Would you prefer your flat? Would that make you feel safer? You know I’d not harm you, don’t you?” His thumb slid down the line of her jaw.

Her flat did have some magical warding her gran had performed when Haley’d first moved in, and her bed was nice and big.

“How far are you from here?” God, she had to be crazy to even consider this.

That smile again, wicked, wicked man. “I’m only down the road a piece. My car is at my office. If we walk back there, I can have us to my flat in ten minutes.”

“I’m just the other way, probably the same amount of time. Let’s go there.”

His hand at the small of her back, he steered her toward the lot where he’d parked. “I bet your flat smells like you. Lilac, that’s very nice.”

“Were you this full of it before the curse?”

He laughed and squeezed her to his side briefly. “My mother used to tell me so. But in all honesty, Haley, I mean it. I do want you, very much. Not just because I’ve not lain with a woman in centuries, but because you’re you. You stir things deep within me.”

Oh boy, was she ever a horny fool. But his words moved her despite knowing she was a fool.

The drive to her apartment was relatively fast and before she knew it, they stood at her door while she fumbled through her bag for her keys. Quickly unlocking the deadbolt, they entered and she closed the door behind her. Silence fell between them again as the air grew heavy with promise.

Eyes closed, he took a deep breath. “Yes, it does smell like you. And magic. Not only yours though. Ahh.” He opened his eyes and watched as she hung up her coat and bag and toed off her shoes. “Fae magic. Female. Your grandmother set the wards here, didn’t she?”

“How can you tell?”

He tossed his jacket up on the rack and followed suit with his shoes, leaving them next to hers at the door. “You can’t tell a magic’s signature?” He stalked to her, encircling her waist and pulling her body against his.

“I can tell if there’s magic somewhere and usually if it’s right or wrong. But I don’t think I’ve ever really focused on different signatures before.”

“Okay, we’ll talk about all this. After. Because right now I need to see you naked and beneath me.”

“Behind me. My bedroom is just behind.” Her hand waved somewhat uselessly in the general direction of her room as he moved her toward it and through the door, kicking it shut behind them.

With the moon shining through the big bay windows, he leaned in and finally kissed her. Not simply a brush of lips but a kiss that rocked her very foundations.

Her fingers dug into the muscles of his upper arms as she held on and opened herself to his plunder of her mouth. A masterful possession of a kiss, his tongue, confident and sensual, stroked along hers, tickled the roof of her mouth, the insides of her cheeks, pulling back only to be replaced by the sharp nip of teeth over the flesh of her bottom lip.

On and on it went until she lost all sense of time and everything simply was right there in that room, within the circle of his arms. His taste wove a spell over her system— the earthy tang of Guinness, the acid of the malt vinegar from the fish and chips and beneath that, some elemental spice that she knew was his alone.

A deep moan came from him, vibrating through his body and against hers. He broke the kiss and looked into her face. “You taste so good. Let me taste the rest of you.”

After he released her from his embrace, she managed to get her lust-stunned fingers to work to grab the hem of her sweater and yank it over her head. She wished she’d worn something a bit more sexy than the utilitarian white cotton bra but it was too late for that.

Apparently he was just fine with utilitarian. When she looked up at him, that wicked smile had returned and he’d pulled his own sweater off. Lean, hard muscle banded his chest and upper body. His belly was flat and a light arrow of hair pointed from his navel to beneath the waist of the pants he had on.

In for a penny. She quickly unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans and kicked them off. At least the panties were sexy. Not by design. All the regular cotton bikini panties she usually wore were currently in her laundry basket so she only had her “back of the panty drawer” supply left. The thong style panties her ex-boyfriend had given her some years before on Valentine’s Day.

“Aren’t you a bundle of contradictions?” His voice was lazy as he reached down and divested himself of his pants and then the boxer briefs he’d been wearing. The socks were gone in moments and when he turned his attention back to her, he was totally naked and very happy to be there.

“Show me, Haley. Let me see all of you.” His hands fisted at his sides as he heaved in breath.

Reaching up quickly, she popped the catch on the bra and let it fall then bent to get rid of the panties. By the time she looked up, he’d moved to her.

“Every bit as beautiful as I’d thought.” Bending his head, he traced his tongue over the freckles on her shoulders. His hands skimmed over her collarbone and clever fingertips danced over hardened nipples.

“Such beautiful skin. Irishwomen, I love them. Pale like moonlight. Soft. Your nipples, mmm.” He rolled them between his thumb and forefinger for emphasis. “A very pretty shade of cinnamon.”

His hands left her to pull the coverlet back and pushed her to the mattress carefully. Words escaped her as she took in the focus on his face, the greed with which he looked at her.

He was long, tall, rangy and yet, whip-strong and hard. An interesting build for an academic. No tattoos but there seemed to be a whisper of something on his right biceps and up his shoulder. Tawny skin. She’d thought him paler but unclothed she realized he wasn’t pale like her at all, his skin almost had a golden tone to it.

She’d meant to ask him about his shoulder but his lips found her nipple and the thought skittered away, replaced by the warm tug and lick that shot straight to her clit.

When she reached down to take his cock into her hands, he moved back, separating from her nipple with a wet pop. “No. It’s been so long. If you touch me, I’ll come right away. Let me make you ready first.”

Ready? Hello, she was so wet her thighs were sticky. She would have been embarrassed if thoughts of what his idea of ready might entail hadn’t consumed her last two working brain cells.

And even those two stopped working once his body settled between her thighs and his hands pushed her legs apart as they slid up the sensitive flesh, stopping at her pussy.

Thumbs parted her to his gaze and she shivered as cool air hit the heated, wet folds of her cunt.

Want thrust into Conall with force, so deep and massive his hands shook. It wasn’t just that he hadn’t been with a woman for so long, it was this woman and the effect she had on him. Every inch of his skin felt over-sensitized, especially where her hands lay on him, the tips of her fingers digging into his shoulders. He wanted to crawl inside her and never leave. The scent of her body drove him to distraction. And when he leaned in and took a long lick, the taste of her, her essence, laced with magic, arced up his spine.

His tongue flicked over the swollen, slick bundle of her clit and the sound of her strangled gasp caught him in its grasp. He wrestled with his need, attempting to control feelings he hadn’t had in a very long time.

Arching her back, she pressed her pussy to him, silently begging him for more. He gave her more. Bringing her up over and over, a hair’s breadth from climax, and backing off a beat or two only to drive her up again. Each cry and sob fed his need as her body slickened more, swelled, readied for his cock.

“Please! Conall, please let me come,” she begged.

“As you wish,” he spoke against her before sucking her clit gently between his teeth and pressing two fingers deep into her pussy.

The magic and energy of her orgasm wound around him and filled him up, giving his renewal a boost. The mark on his shoulder and biceps stung and the tips of his ears tingled.

He kissed a trail up her body as he moved up, reaching down to angle himself at the entrance of her pussy.

“Wait. Condom. I have some in the bathroom.”

Flexing his hips, the head of his cock slid into her as he caught her gaze. “Don’t need one. As a human without a soul, I was infertile and impotent. I haven’t had sex in nine hundred years. And as a Fae again, I control my fertility. I won’t impregnate you.” Yet.

Certainly not until he dealt with his family and he and Haley had discussed it.

Her breath caught but he held himself in place, waiting for her okay before he filled her totally. She nodded and, relieved, he pressed deep into her, nearly coming on the spot at how good the embrace of her cunt felt wrapped around his cock.

“Great Mother,” he stuttered as he began to pull out and then press back into her body again, setting a sweet, agonizingly delicious rhythm.

Haley felt her magic respond to his, felt his react to hers. It was momentous, this joining. She should have stopped to think about it, it wasn’t like her to simply jump into things without thinking, but all her body wanted was him. All her mind wanted and damn it, all her heart seemed to want. It wasn’t just sex. Wasn’t just a-fucking-mazing sex. There was something between her and Conall, something a lot deeper than anything she’d ever experienced before.

Hard, smooth skin tantalized her palms and fingers as she stroked over his naked body, needing to touch him. She wrapped her thighs around his waist, taking him deeper, loving the way the blue of his eyes deepened in response.

His hair was like ebony silk against her skin and that’s when she noticed it was longer. His facial features were the same, his eyes a bit deeper blue, cheeks a bit sharper, but his hair had grown a good three inches and the shadow on his upper arm was now a blue tinged tattoo. Brushing his hair back, she saw the top of his ears had taken a bit of a point.

“Conall, your hair, your ears, what’s happening?”

“My soul self is returning.” His words were a gasp as he quickened his pace, plunging deep and hard into her body as her own responded, her hips rolling to meet his thrusts.

“I’m Fae, my ears will return to their pointed shape. When she took my soul, my hair was waist long. My tribal marking,” he turned to look at his shoulder and then back to her, “is returning as well. Joining with you has aided my magic’s full return.”

He kissed her hard, even as he continued to fuck deep into her. She tasted herself, her magic and his too. The combination set her on fire.

“I’m so close. Give me another, sweet Irish witch. I want to feel your pussy come around my cock.” He changed his angle, grinding the length of his cock against her clit each time he drove into her. The friction was delicious and she felt another orgasm begin to build at the base of her spine.

Over and over again, incremental, inexorable, he drove her up until it burst over her with sweet, sharp pleasure. Her eyes blurred, as she looked up into his and heard his intake of breath, felt the jerk of his cock deep inside her as he came, flooding her body with his magic.

When Haley woke in a tangle of warm limbs, she couldn’t help the smile that came to her lips. Didn’t want to. Her night with Conall hadn’t provided much sleep but her muscles, which should have been sore, were loose and satisfied.

She turned to look at him and quite liked the transformation. His hair covered them both. The blue markings on his shoulder and wrapping around his biceps were very sexy. His body hadn’t changed but she felt the metaphysical difference right off. The air between them hung heavy with sex and magic. She wasn’t a virgin by any stretch of the imagination but never, even in longer term relationships, had she felt so connected to anyone. It wasn’t just that they both had magic, but that their magic was unified in some sense, tied together.

She didn’t know what the future would bring, but for that moment, she let herself enjoy it.

His eyes fluttered open and his sexy-wicked smile curved his lips. Unable not to, she leaned in and kissed him. She’d meant for it to be quick but he took over and was very thorough before he released her.

“Good morning, Irish witch. And how are you today?” Sitting, he reached up over his head to stretch and Haley watched the subtle play of his muscles as he did.

“Mmm, very satisfied. And you?”

He kissed her again, hard and fast. “Very nice answer. I feel good. My magic is back, all of it. I need to go to the hill today.”

Suddenly the huge differences between them settled into her brain. Regret sliced through her, even though she was happy he’d be reunited with his family.

It must have shown on her face because he pulled her into his lap, facing him. She had no choice but to wrap her legs around him and let him bring her close.

“Haley? What is it, love?”

“Nothing. I’m happy you’ll be reunited with your people. Living apart from them for all this time, well, I can’t imagine the isolation.”

“Yes. Fae are big on family. I’ve missed my sisters growing up, and my brother Riordan who was my closest mate. I’ve got three. I expect at least a few of them will have married, possibly even mated by now. They’re going to love you.”

“Me? You’re taking me?”

He stilled, cocking his head. “Did you think I’d fuck and run? Did you think last night was just bedsport?”

“I don’t know!” She tried to wriggle free but he held her to him.

“Haley, I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you. I knew you. And after last night, my magic knows yours too. Can’t you feel it? The connection between us? That’s not I-like-you connection, that’s heart-and-soul connection. That’s rare. You do realize that?”

“What are you saying?” she whispered.

“Oh, sweet witch, I’m saying you’re my woman as assuredly as I’m your man. When my family meets you, it’ll be as my woman, as the mate of my soul. Surely you can feel the metaphysical bond between us?”

“Oy. I’m your magical mate? Like in some romance novel?”

He laughed and kissed the tip of her nose. “I don’t know. I’ve never read one. Do they have sex in them?”

She rolled her eyes. “Some. But back to the question at hand.”

“For some things there are words, explanations. The scientist in you knows that. But for others, it’s all here.” He kissed her chest, above her heart. “You know some things, even without the words to express them, you know them. Like the Ogham. The closest word is alphabet but you know it’s more than that. If you were all human, I’m sure I’d still be attracted to you, still want you and want to be with you. But you’re more. You’re Fae and your magic and mine resonate, as our hearts do and now our souls. You have an old soul, Haley.”

Haley blew out a breath. “So like this is a Faerie gig? The mate thing? Only one person in the whole world is your other half or whatever? What happens if you never meet them? Are you single forever?”

“No. Well, it is a Fae thing, yes. But it’s rare, as I said. In most cases Fae are like humans. They meet someone and fall in love and share their lives with someone. A mate bond is unique. I don’t know the statistics, but less than one in four. My parents are mated but no one else in my family has a mate although there are loads of marriages and kids. Or they didn’t when I was taken from them.” He took her hand, kissing her knuckles. “What you and I have is a miracle, Haley.”

Her heart softened. The man was so charming he was an absolute menace.

“I’m guessing your grandmother will have something to say about all this as well. Shall we go see her first and then head to the hill?”

“You want to meet my gran?” Her voice squeaked at that thought. “My grandmother isn’t some sweet old matron who’ll make tea you know. She’s formidable. Sharp. She’s going to give you the third degree and expect you to answer every question fully. It’ll be like the scariest interrogation you’ve ever seen on television. Only she’s the bad cop with better hair. And,” she hesitated, “well you know there are a lot of unanswered questions so she’s going to be very personal and possibly hostile.”

He grinned. “I look forward to meeting another of The Gentry. Come on. You shower and I’m going back to my flat to grab a bag. I’ll be back here in a few minutes. Now that I don’t need to drive, it makes things much simpler.” He stood and put her down gently. “You do want to come with me to meet my family, don’t you? I’m not imagining this thing between us?”

The look on his face was so vulnerable for a quick moment all her defenses against him simply crumbled. “God, you’re totally irresistible aren’t you? I’m in so much trouble.”

He winked. “It’s the best kind of trouble, having a man who adores you and plans to fuck you and spoil you until you have not a single want.”

He threw her off balance. Her senses were at war with her brain and common sense. Never in her life had she been so tempted to toss aside ration and embrace simply feeling. And yet she did. “I can’t be gone too long. I do have a job you know. But I’ll take a few days and we can re-evaluate what the next steps will be. You sure you don’t want to shower here. With me?”

“Temptress. Come on with you. Get yourself ready. I’ll be back. We have loads to do today and then we can take our time in the bath and the bed after we’ve done it all.”

A quick kiss to the tip of her nose and he was gone, leaving her with rubber knees and out of breath.

“Holy shit. He spelled himself out of here.”

Pushing away the utter unreality of it all, Haley blew out a breath and headed for the shower.