Not Your Ordinary Faerie Tale (11 page)

Luc was so focused on dodging and weaving that he didn’t even see the blow coming.
Later he would curse himself, kick himself, and call himself ten kinds of fool, but he simply hadn’t been paying enough attention.
He’d been thinking with his dick, and so he’d never noticed when a form shifted through the crush of bodies just behind him on his left and raised a short length of metal pipe in the direction of his head.

Thankfully, his instincts seemed to operate well enough even beneath the haze of lust that had clouded his other senses.
He caught the swing of movement and turned just enough that the blow meant for his head landed on the meat of his shoulder instead.

Adrenaline kicked in before he even had time to  think about what had happened.
He shoved Corinne away, pinning her between him and the wall of the nearby building and keeping himself between her and the threat.
His left hand shot out and grabbed for the man’s arm, the one with the weapon in it, feeling skin and leather before the assailant twisted away and broke free.
Even as he raised his right hand to the hilt of his sword, he knew it was too late.
Whoever had come at him had already melted back into the crowd.

Luc scanned the faces nearby and saw nothing.
Damn it.

“Hey!”

He heard Corinne shout even as the pain of the injury began to resonate, making his breath hiss in between his teeth.
His attacker had been strong, very strong; and for the blow to have nearly staggered him, the choice of weapon must have been deliberate.
Only a blow from cold iron could possibly pack that kind of wallop.

“Jesus Christ, that guy attacked you!
Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said, lowering his hand from his sword and pressing it hard into the small of Corinne’s back.
“But we need to get out of here fast.”

If he’d been rude before as he’d pushed his way through the milling crowd, now he was ruthless, using a combination of brute strength and magic to move every obstacle from their way.
His pace forced Corinne to jog to keep up with him, but he couldn’t worry about that now.
The goal was to get her off the street and into the safety of her apartment before their mysterious attacker could double back and try his luck a second time.

“Luc, what the hell is going on?”
she demanded as they broke free of the congestion and picked up the pace until she was running beside him the last two blocks to her building.

“Not now.
Get your key out of your bag.
Have it ready.”

“It’s in my pocket,” she grumbled, but she reached for it anyway and drew it out as they turned for the entrance.

“Inside.
Quick.”

He shielded her back as she worked the lock on the main door, his eyes scanning for anything odd in the street around them.
Everything looked quiet, but then things usually did just before trouble broke out.
He heard the
snick
of the lock and hustled her inside even before the door was fully open.
Hearing the thick glass close behind him made him feel only marginally better.

“Okay, upstairs.
Which floor?”

“Fifth.”

Luc bundled her into the elevator and took a last glance around the lobby and out the door onto the street.
There wasn’t a soul in sight.
He breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to his heartmate just in time to see her jab the button for her floor with such force he could only assume she was imagining it to be his eye.
Or another, equally sensitive portion of his anatomy.

“Okay, what the hell just happened?”
she demanded, her voice hot and hard with a combination of confusion, fear, and adrenaline.
“Who the hell just tried to bring a lead pipe down on your head in the middle of a crowded street?
And why did you react to it by treating me like the damned president right after somebody yells that they have a gun?
You’re not the goddamned Secret Service.”

“Actually, I am,” he murmured.
“I’m the Fae equivalent, anyway.
What did you think the Queen’s Guard were for?”

She looked ready to spit nails, all warm and flustered with adrenaline pinking her cheeks and speeding her breath.
Actually, she looked like a woman who had been thoroughly aroused, and the sight went straight to Luc’s groin.
He needed to taste her.

He reached out, his eyes narrowing in surprise when she slapped his hands away with a sharp snap.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?”
she demanded.
“You think you’re going to get all touchy-feely after someone just tried to kill you?
What is wrong with you?”

God, she really was gorgeous when she was angry.
Wasn’t that a human cliché?
Luc had never thought he would say this, but in this case the humans knew what they were talking about.
Her eyes snapped with temper and her skin flushed with heat.
He needed to show her how arousal could be converted from anger to sex in the space of a heartbeat.
Maybe less.

“I’m not dead,” he purred, stepping forward to crowd her against the elevator wall, “and neither are you.
We’re not even hurt, but that doesn’t mean our hearts aren’t pounding and our bodies aren’t humming.
That’s the adrenaline.
It makes a body feel alive.”

He lifted a hand, stroked fine dark strands of hair away from her cheek, trailed the backs of his fingers across her smooth, warm skin.
He felt her tremble and wanted to roar in triumph.

“Don’t you feel alive, Corinne?
Don’t you feel…” He leaned in, breath fanning the soft curve just behind her ear.
“…excited?”

He’d never be sure if he’d fallen on her like a starving man, or if she’d yanked him down like a lightpost flyer.
When it came right down to it, he’d never feel moved to care.
The first touch of her lips felt like home and tasted like brandied cream.

Luc growled his pleasure against her mouth and wrapped his arms around her, dragging her body hard against his.
She felt small and delicate compared with him, so tiny he could almost wrap his arms around her twice, but she didn’t kiss like a retiring flower; she devoured him.
Her mouth bloomed under his, her body stretching and heating, her hands clinging to his shoulders as if she couldn’t imagine a reason to let him go.
Lady help him, he didn’t want her to.

Her lips parted eagerly for his tongue and he plunged deep, seeking the unpolluted taste of her, the flavor that lingered in the soft, inviting recesses of her mouth.
He could sense in her the same lust that threatened to send him over the edge, which wasn’t helping his struggle for control.

Then the elevator dinged and the doors slid open and he had to drag himself back to reality to keep from throwing her down and taking her there in the hall of her apartment building.
He may never have been involved with a human woman before, but he’d heard they tended to frown on public sex.
Compared with the Fae, humans were just prudes.

“Apartment,” he said, his voice raw and hoarse and tight with need.
“Key.
Hurry.”

“Left.
Second door on the right.”

He picked her up and ate up the distance with long, loping strides.
It would be faster this way, when he didn’t have to wait for her shorter legs to keep up with his.
She didn’t bother to protest.
She just buried her face in his shoulder, small white teeth digging in to the tight, flexing muscle, even as her fingers fumbled for the key to her door.

“Hurry,” he repeated, following her directions and pressing her up against the smooth white surface of her door.
She scraped the key against the lock, swearing when her shaking fingers missed the keyhole twice.
Luc rubbed his hips against her in encouragement.

She dropped the keychain.

“Shit!”

“Let me.”
He had the key in the lock and the door swinging wide before she could so much as nod.
He herded her through, kicked the panel shut behind him, and saw to his great relief that there was enough light in the sparsely decorated room that he could make out the sofa immediately.
Picking her up, he tossed her onto the soft cushions and followed closer than her own shadow.

The taste of her lingered on his tongue, and he’d have sold his soul for more of it.
She felt like paradise, the feel of her curves under his hands, the smell of her, warm and musky and so essentially female that he literally felt dizzy.
Thank the Lady he’d finally gotten them horizontal.
Taking advantage of his own good sense, he framed her face in his hands and dove back into her brandy-flavored kiss.

“Mm.”

Her throaty moans drove him crazy.
This human he’d been afraid of shocking apparently didn’t know she was supposed to be significantly less aggressive than a Fae woman.
Her hands wove themselves though his hair, nails raking his scalp and sending tremors shivering down his spine.
They kneaded his shoulder like kitten paws then dove between their bodies.
She shifted position, wrapping one slim leg around his hip, opening herself and letting his body sink deeper against her, but she never interrupted their kiss.

Their mouths fed on each other as she maneuvered her hands with surprising dexterity in such tight quarters to attack the buttons of his now too-tight jeans.

Luc barely managed to stop himself from releasing them with magic.
Instead of whisking them both naked with a flick of his fingers, he savored the maddening slide of her fingers over his hips and thighs, the brush of knuckles against his straining erection, as she struggled with metal and denim.

When she finally got the last of the buttons open, she moaned her relief against his mouth and slid her hands inside to close reverently around him.
Slim, feminine fingers curled and flexed, exploring silky skin and lingering over urgent hardness.
Lady knew, there was no way on
Ithir
he could possibly get any harder, short of turning completely to stone.
And even then, it would be a close call.

Her other hand burrowed lower to cup him in a tender palm.
The satisfied purr she gave when she did that almost finished him in her hands, and he cursed his own impatience.
He felt like a boy again, too eager to pleasure the woman who promised him a taste of heaven.
He’d be damned if he’d disgrace himself.

He tore his mouth from hers just long enough to strip his shirt over his head and toss it away.
Before he had time to grasp the hem of hers, she dove headfirst for his bare chest and laid her warm, clever tongue against the hollow of his throat.
He cursed.
Between her stroking hands and her darting tongue, he didn’t stand a chance.
If he didn’t stop her right now, he’d never be able to live with himself.
And Corinne certainly wouldn’t be asking for a repeat performance.
Easing her hands from his body, he decided it was his turn now.

In one dizzy rush of motion, he stripped her T-shirt over her head and flung it away into the darkness of the room.
Before she could do more than blink up at him, he had her pants, shoes, and socks off and was kicking out of his jeans, leaving them to join the pile of abandoned clothes on the floor.
Naked, he forced her legs apart and settled himself in the saddle of her hips.
No place in this world or his own had ever felt more like home.

Bracing the weight of his torso on one hand, he curved the other around her breast, flicked his thumb over her erect little nipple, and grinned down at her.

“Hey,” she protested, even as she parted her thighs wider and wrapped her smooth, golden legs around his hips.
“You’re not fighting fair.
I was enjoying myself.”

Luc ducked his head until he could scrape his teeth over the delicate tendon along her shoulder.
“I’m not fighting at all.”
He inhaled deeply to capture her scent.
It was a heady mix of honeysuckle, clove, and warm, willing woman.
“And I’d much rather we enjoy ourselves together.
What do you say?”

He rocked his hips against hers, savoring the music of her ragged gasp.
Goddess, he couldn’t wait to be inside her.

Teeth clenched, he rose up above her, watching the arch of her throat as she threw her head back, the fluttering of her eyelashes when he gently kneaded her full breast.
He stared down at her, at the dark, expressive eyes currently narrowed in arousal, at the warm, olive skin flushed with passion.
He could stare at her forever, he realized, and never see enough.
She held the whole universe within her.
His whole universe.