5

Conall looked out the windows of his study, past the wall of his books. His muscles trembled, still twitching as he stared out over the wildflower-covered slope leading to the glistening lake below.

Nearly a thousand years without emotion had caught up to him and he’d only barely put Haley’s sleeping body down in his—their—bed before he’d begun to drown.

Setting a ward to alert him if she stirred or called out, he’d headed down to his study, a place where he’d always felt comforted and safe in the past. His knees buckled and he’d begun to weep in deep, gut wrenching sobs.

So much had been stolen from him. His family had moved forward. He had four siblings. The sister just younger than he was had mated and married and had children.

They lived in another sithein and he’d need to take Haley to meet them sometime soon.

The sister just younger than her, Brenna, had married and had children as well. The baby of the family, Aideen hadn’t yet taken a husband but lived in the brugh. Lastly, Conall’s older brother Riordan had spent generations learning how to be a warrior and teaching it to the Fae here within the brugh. Conall was disappointed to hear his brother was off on a top secret mission of some sort and wouldn’t be back for another few weeks.

Overall, not a whole lot had changed about how the brugh looked, with the exception of another pub. His world had continued on without him as he’d lived, wrapped in the cotton of his emotionless state, lifetime after lifetime.

After the tears, the rage had come. He’d broken a few things, pulled books from the shelves on the far side of the room, overturned furniture as he’d fumed. That bitch had stolen his life! She’d scared his family and made them think him dead or lost to them.

And now, hours later, he’d reached an equilibrium of sorts as it all eased and he felt love. Love for his family, his tribe and the woman in their bed. Without the curse, he’d never have met Haley and for that reason, he could actually thank Ninane for her treachery. After he killed her perhaps.

An ever-present anxiety blanketed his feelings. Ninane continued to haunt his thoughts. She posed a threat. A bigger one than he’d let on to Haley. Ninane was powerful and even nine hundred years ago had bordered on insane. Once she found out he was back he’d bet everything he had, she’d be back to her old tricks.

But the problem was, he had more to lose than his life or his soul. He had Haley and any fool could see using Haley was the easiest way to get to Conall.

He itched to rush out and find Ninane right then. To kill her and end the threat before it touched Haley. Breathing out, he tried to manage all the emotions he’d been without for so long. He needed to get himself in check, to remember how to deal with feeling anything at all.

Hunger hit him and he realized he needed to check on Haley as well. She had to be hungry too. He needed to be sure she took care of herself. He wasn’t the only one dealing with a rush of new experiences. Seeing her so pale and weak had done something to him.

After centuries without emotion, the intensity of what he felt for his woman nearly felled him.

He’d loved before, back before the curse. Fae put a lot of stock in family and love.

But all the women in the past couldn’t stand up to what he felt for Haley.

As he’d grown up and still lived with his parents, he remembered catching the two of them looking at each other, or touching each other. Just a glance or a caress and so much passed between them it was as if no one else existed. He hadn’t understood it even as he’d grown past embarrassment and into a sort of yearning to have that kind of connection.

And totally out of the blue, Haley O’Brian had walked into his office and set his world upside down. She’d given him back his soul. He didn’t have any fear that he only loved her because of the magic of the bond. She was meant for him. Period. To question that would be silly.

As if he’d called to her, the wards flared and he heard her moving about in the bedroom at the top of the stairs. He moved toward her, needing to know she was all right.

She stood at the head of the stairs, hair tousled and looking much better. A smile curved her lips.

He pulled her against his chest, breathing her in as her arms slid around his waist.

“How are you feeling, darlin’?”

“Much better. How long was I out?”

He maneuvered her back toward the bedroom. “Several hours. I lost track of the exact time. Get back in bed. I’ll magic us some food and we can eat under the blankets.”

“Won’t your family want to see you?” She let him push her back onto the bed and swung her legs beneath the covers. The bare flash of her creamy skin shot straight to his cock. Another thing about the bond between them was his need to touch her, take her scent into his lungs. Taste her.

He kissed her neck and she arched into his touch. He took a taste, the barest flick of his tongue to drag over her steady pulse. She was ill, he had to stop before the roar of his hormones and his need for her drowned out his concern.

“No. No. Don’t stop. Please.” Her voice was soft but he heard a need that mirrored his own. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, holding him to her.

“Haley, you’ve been ill. You need to rest.” Even as he said it, the edge of his teeth scraped over her collarbone and she shivered.

“I need you. When you touch me it’s all better. I feel all right.”

He broke away enough to look into her eyes, those big green eyes of hers that saw right through him from day one. The transformation made them brighter, a bit more otherworldly but still his Haley looked back at him. Yes, passion tinged them but she was clearly in charge of her faculties.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” It was so important that never happen.

She let go and his relief warred with disappointment. Until she grabbed the shirt she’d been wearing, one of his he’d changed her into when he brought her home, and ripped it open. The pinging sound of buttons hitting furniture and then the floor echoed just barely over his breath as he struggled to control himself.

A struggle he lost when her breasts were bared to his gaze. A struggle she knew he’d lose when she brought her hands up to cup herself. A smile, then the flash of teeth as she caught her bottom lip, charmed him.

“You’re a siren, you know.” He pulled his shirt over his head and quickly shed his pants, coming back to lie naked with her.

“Me? I’m the one who wasn’t wearing panties when I woke up. I know I had them on when I went to sleep, Conall.”

He laughed. “Well, I like to see you bare.” He drew his fingertips down her belly and over the lips of her pussy.

“Mmm, well, I’m the first woman in what, a thousand years, who’s given you the green light. I’m guessing you’d like anyone who did that at this point.”

He shifted and flicked the tip of his tongue over each nipple. “It’s more than that. I need you to know it’s so much more than that.”

“I…I think so. I…I can’t think when you’re doing that! And if you stop I’ll have to kill you.”

Her growl was sufficiently cute enough the edge fell from his frustration.

“I knew you were mine the first moment I laid eyes on you. Mine, Haley. You were born to be and I was born to belong to you. Our magic mingles together right now as it did then. In nine hundred years not once did a woman stir me. Until you. You walked into my office and you looked right into me and knew me. I know you.”

He shifted, moving downward. “Your taste is lodged in me. Your scent has taken over my brain. When I close my eyes, it’s your face I see. My hands itch to touch you.”

She watched him, wide eyed as he pushed her thighs apart and licked along the crease at the top of each leg. A soft gasp escaped those lips and he smiled, their gazes meeting as the air began to vibrate with their desire.

Sliding his hands beneath her, he lifted her up, serving her body to himself as he began to devour. Her scent, the earthy tang of her body made his cock throb against the bed. Lady, he needed her.

She was so wet, her honey coated his tongue as he licked through the furls of her pussy and over the swollen bundle of her clit. Soft sounds of entreaty murmured from her lips.

So good. So fucking good. Her pussy was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

A moan vibrated from deep within her as her hands grasped his hair. Side to side, he brushed his lips over her pussy, over her clit, as if he could never get enough. And he knew he never would.

A low hum filled the room as the very air seemed to throb. He knew when she began to climax as her magic rose from her like heat from the pavement. It caught his own magic, sucking at him, pulling him under with her as he heard her whisper his name over and over.

When her muscles relaxed, he gently lowered her to the bed and moved to lay beside her.

He thought they’d enjoy a soft, quiet moment but he was wrong. She got up, swinging her leg over his body and settled herself astride him.

“So, um, wow. Orgasm as a Faerie? Rocks. Just sayin’.”

He laughed. “Why didn’t you say, orgasm with Conall instead of the Fae thing?”

“I had an orgasm with Conall before I was a Faerie. Okay, three. And while they were all way above average orgasms, like the kind you read about in smutty books, what you just did to me? My teeth are vibrating. My ears! Oh man, you didn’t tell me about the whole ear as an erogenous zone thing.”

All the while she chattered, she undulated her hips, driving her hot, slick pussy over his cock until he ground out, “Put my cock inside you and stop teasing me or there’ll be hell to pay!”

“Mmm! While that sounds very intriguing, I can’t find it in me to test that now.”

Rising up, she reached back and guided the head of his cock to her gate and sank down, taking him deep into herself. A deep, bone shattering groan broke from his lips at the sensation of being surrounded by her body.

He looked up into her face, over the swells of her pert, beautiful breasts as her hair slid back and forth over her shoulders like sunset-colored silk.

“Lady, you’re beautiful.”

He touched lips that smiled only for him and felt grateful, so very grateful, she existed and was his.

The look in Conall’s eyes seared her deep. Such love there. Adoration. Trust.

Admiration. Joy. Fear too.

She felt it as well. How fortunate she was to have this. However it came about, whatever brought it to her she couldn’t feel resentful or distrustful of it. It simply was and she wasn’t going to question it.

She shared his love, his adoration, trust and admiration. And his fear. Fear that this bitch who harmed him would come back to hurt him again. Fear she’d lose the best thing she’d ever tasted. And what would her world be like without Conall now that his life had touched hers? Bleak.

“Haley? Are you all right?”

She focused on his face, saw his concern. Unable to speak she nodded but a tear fell anyway and he sat up and scooted back to lean against the headboard, staying seated within her.

“What is it? Am I hurting you?”

“No,” she managed to whisper. “I don’t want to lose you. She won’t come back will she? Teach me how to fight her, Conall.” She could bear a lot, but losing him seemed totally unimaginable and yet, the anticipation she’d felt in the glade where the ring stood just a few days before remained and she had a strong suspicion it had everything to do with Ninane.

He smiled and kissed her tears away. “Lady, you slay me. So precious to me, sweet, sweet Irish witch. Ninane may try to come back. I won’t lie. But she doesn’t have the element of surprise she had before. She won’t succeed if she tries to harm me. And I’ll kill her before I’d let her harm you.”

She nodded. “Okay. I love you, Conall. I know it seems soon. Hell, it is soon, but I do.”

He kissed her lips softly. “Me too. I love you too. Now, if you’re not going to do your job, you can’t be on top.”

Haley undulated on him, rolling her hips as she raised one eyebrow in his direction.

His breath stuttered. “Where’d you learn that, Irish witch?”

She continued with the movement, slow and sure. “I took a belly dancing class. I’ve never tried it this way. Pity.”

Leaning in, he nipped her bottom lip, making her yelp as she laughed. “You’d better not have!”

“Conall,” she continued, breathless from laughing, “you may have been forcibly chaste for a thousand years but I’m not so stupid I don’t know you got it on with loads of chicks before that.”

Putting a hand to his chest he gasped theatrically. “Got it on? You wound me! Are you suggesting I was loose?”

“A man whore? A floozy, or is that moozy if it’s a guy? Oh get that look off your face! I’m guessing you were a connoisseur of women rather than a moozy.”

“If you didn’t have such talented hips I’d be vexed.” He totally blew it when he started to laugh, rolling over and landing on top of her body, continuing to stroke into her.

He felt so damned good Haley thought she might die from it. The heightened sensation her magic gave her now that she was Fae was incredible. Like having her skin turned on to ten on the dial. Everywhere they touched was like a brush of her clit. Every inch of his cock sent ripples of pleasure through her pussy. Stretching her even as he caressed her internally. He existed within her, not just with his cock, but with their connection to one another. He was all around her and inside her. She was awash with him, with desire. Love filled her to overflowing. To say sex with Conall was mind-blowing would be an understatement. In truth she wasn’t sure there were words adequate to describe the feeling of his cock as it pressed in and then retreated.

Haley arched her back, needing more of him. She raised her knees, wrapped her calves around his waist and dug her fingers into his shoulders. His hair caressed her bare chest and neck, his scent settled things within her even as it excited her.

Her orgasm began to build again and she let go of one shoulder to slide a hand between them. He groaned in her ear. “Goddess it’s sexy when you do that. Soon, Irish witch, soon I’m going to put you on the table and sit back and watch your fingers coated in your honey, playing over your clit.”

Her breath caught in her throat when her middle finger reached her clit and pressed gently. She didn’t need to move, he provided the friction as he fucked into her body.

“Your pretty pale skin will glow with pleasure and I’ll take my cock out. Lightly stroke it because I’ll want to concentrate on you, with those fingers sliding into your pussy. Your head will fall back, you’ll catch your bottom lip between your teeth the way you do and you’ll make soft, needy sounds.” With each word, his voice became deeper and more strained. She knew he was close and she was too.

“Oh, yes!” she gasped as orgasm rushed through her, sucking her under as her body gave over to endorphins designed to make her feel as if she floated in desire. His body on top of hers anchored her, kept her from drifting away as he arched back, thrusting into her hard and deep, and came as well.

Long moments later, he let out a satisfied sigh and rolled to the side, holding her against him as they caught their breath.

“Now, my family will be here in about half an hour. There’s to be a large meal and everyone will ooh and aaah over you.”

Haley sat up with a gasp. “Why didn’t you tell me? Conall, I have to get ready.

Shower. I don’t have any clothes here. Oh man.”

He grabbed her and pulled her back to him, kissing the top of her head. “I tried but you jumped me. Minx. And I saved you from a trip to my parents’. You should be grateful. They’ll all come over here because my mother won’t hear of you going anywhere for a day or so. Now, we will shower together. No, don’t get that look, you’re still weak and I shouldn’t have had sex with you just now but I don’t want you to fall. I can wait a few hours to have you again.” He winked and tumbled out of bed, helping her to stand.