“Oh, of course I did! Jeez. I may have been a virgin but I wasn’t dead.”
“Then how did you fantasize about me before you met me?”
She sighed, deciding to tell him the truth. “I’ve been dreaming of you for what seems like forever. Of you doing all of this to me.”
He stilled, his stroking fingers stopped and he looked at her intensely. “Are you serious?” Disbelief gave way to acceptance and overwhelmed joy. It made sense. The intensity and depth of his attraction to her, their deep connection—it was fated.
“Yes. When I met you yesterday you seemed so familiar and when you got rid of your glamour and I saw your hair and your true features, I realized you were my dream man.” She touched the flesh of his chest, above his heart, with her lips. “I’ve been waiting for you, Con. You are the man I’m meant to be with. Never in my life had I felt desire except in my dreams and only when it was you.”
He framed her face with his hands. “You do me such an honor, a ghrá mo chroí. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I was embarrassed. I didn’t know if you’d be weirded out. And what on earth are you saying?”
He smiled. “You need never be embarrassed with me, I’m touched and proud to be your man and I am honored that you are my woman. As for my Gaelic, I called you ‘my heart’s beloved’ because you are.”
She blushed prettily. “Ah hraw?”
“A ghra means my love.”
“You called me that last night.”
“I’ve known for months now. It’s been driving me crazy not being able to touch you. You have no idea how relieved I was when Aine allowed me to contact you. I understand now we were fated to meet. You were born for me to love.”
“This can’t be real. I keep on thinking that I’m going to wake up.”
He slid her up his body and kissed her deeply. “This is real or I don’t want to wake up. I don’t know how we’ll make the details work but we will. I’m not going away after we get the book.”
“How? You’re an immortal. You’ll stay young while I get old and gray and die. Even before that, I can’t really imagine you living in an apartment in New Orleans.”
“We can work around your mortality. Fae and humans can be together. As for where we’d be, I think you’d love Tir na nOg. It’s a beautiful island surrounded by clear blue waters and the weather is always mild. We can be there while it’s winter here, I can take us anywhere at any time.”
“Work around my mortality? What does that mean?” she struggled to focus as his curious fingertips skated down the cleft in her bottom, dipping between her thighs and through her still desire-swollen folds.
“There are ways to make a human immortal, spells and tinctures. They can only be made by the strongest of us. Namely Aine, the queen. If I asked her to do it, she would. Would you want her to do it, Em? Would you want to be at my side forever?” He rolled her over so that she was on her back and he loomed over her.
“Forever is an awfully long time, Con. What happens if you make me immortal and get tired of me?”
He nipped at her shoulder. “Have I not told you that you are my heart’s beloved? I could find something new to love about you every day for the next ten thousand years. We are fated to be together. Your dreams, Em. Your dreams tell me that this feeling I’ve had of connection to you is something more than simple attraction. We are written in the Book, you were meant to trace that symbol, Aine was meant to send me to you, I was meant to find you.”
“The Book? The book I’m looking for?”
“No. But it is among the oldest of our books, as is The Shifting Veil. The book I’m talking about is The Book of the Tuatha De. Only the most fortunate of us are fated to have our names there, and the names of our heart’s other half. It’s close to the human concept of soul mates. I never imagined that my name was there. You can’t fight it, Em. Why even try?”
Putting aside her intense curiosity over the books Con was talking about, Em thought about the concept that they were somehow meant to be together. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, confused. People didn’t just meet someone and fall in love and want to be together for all time! Then again, her sister had. Twice. Her dreams weren’t the same kind as Lee’s of Aidan and Alex had been but she did have the gift of prophesy in her family line. Should she open herself up? Take the leap to be with the most incredible man she’d ever met—one that she loved and who professed to love her?
“Don’t know what? Can you not feel how much I love you? Do I not please you? Think of the places we can go. We can live in your New Orleans, although I insist that we buy a home. Your apartment, while nice enough, is not large enough for two. I also have a preference for making love in the bathroom and as such we would need a large two-headed shower stall with benches, a deep whirlpool tub and a great many mirrors. Your bathroom is too small. We could also live in Tir na nOg. I have a large home there, right on the water.”
He found his way down to a nipple and sucked it into his mouth.
“How do you know what my bathroom is like?” she squeaked out.
“I watched you shower many times,” he said with a wicked grin.
“Oh you did, huh? Were you worried I’d find the book in the shower?” she asked with her eyebrow raised.
“No, I’m just a pervert that way.” He laughed and she pushed him back against the bed and scrambled on top of him.
“You’re so beautiful. I’ve never seen a man so beautiful before,” she murmured as she put her face into the crook of his neck and inhaled. He was warm and sexy and smelled of the wild, of the outdoors—of sandalwood and musk and woodsmoke. She drew her tongue from neck to ear and he moaned softly. The taste of his skin seduced her senses. He didn’t taste of salt and flesh but of magic and masculinity. It was more of a feeling than a taste.
She licked around the shell of his ear and nibbled on the small point at the top. He cried out and arched his back. She pulled back and looked into his face with a surprised grin. “Your ears are erogenous zones?”
He nodded and pushed her face back to it. She licked across that endearing little point and he moved restlessly beneath her. She dipped her tongue inside the well of his ear and sucked the lobe into her mouth, learning him and learning what made him feel good.
Her hands smoothed down the wall of his chest and over his pebbled nipples. She scooted down and flicked her tongue across one and then the other, moving back up to the other ear, feeling empowered by the groan she got in response. She found that he seemed to like tiny nips right on the top of the point followed by a quick flick with the tip of her tongue.
Growling, he picked her up and stood. She looked into his face, surprised, and the look he was wearing was one of such raw desire that it made her pussy clench. He backed her to the wall next to the triple-mirrored dressing area.
“Watch me while I fuck you,” he ordered in a low voice, lining his cock up with her gate and sliding inside.
Looking down, she watched his cock disappear into her body and slowly pull out, slick with her cream. She watched as one of his golden hands grabbed her breast and kneaded, plucking the nipple and rolling it. She looked in the mirrors and watched his ass as he thrust into her, watched the muscles on his back ripple, his thighs tighten up. His hair swayed, covering his body as he moved, teasing her with glimpses of bare, muscled flesh.
She watched them, watched his face as she moved her mouth to his ear and nibbled. His lips parted and his eyes darkened to the color of whiskey.
“If you do much more of that this will be over before we get started.” His voice was a throaty growl.
She bit down on the tip of his ear and sucked it into her mouth and he cried out, slamming into her, her back protected from hitting the wall by his arm around her waist. “Yes!” she cried out. “Fuck me hard and deep, Con.”
“You asked for it, mo fiach,” he replied and entered her hard and fast and to the root. She felt deliciously filled, dominated by his size as his body surrou
nded hers, invaded hers. His cock head brushed over her sweet spot and she tightened her vaginal muscles and gripped him.
“Yes, sweet Em, squeeze me,” he murmured. He began to tremble as she traced along the shell of his other ear with her fingertip while her tongue lapped at his lobe. No human woman had ever found out just how sensitive his Faerie ears were, especially near the pointed tip, and Em’s sweet tongue and fingers were pushing him over the edge.
He drove his cock into her flesh relentlessly while he slid one finger and then another into her rear passage, fucking her in tandem.
“Oh god, that feels so good,” she groaned, her warm breath brushing across his ear.
Her pussy was so unbelievably tight, her anus so smooth and viselike, his cock twitched, wanting to forge that passage as well as the pussy it was burrowed into. He wanted to take her every way imaginable. He grinned, knowing without a doubt that he had the rest of time to find out every way possible to bring her pleasure.
“I’m going to fuck this tight little hole, Em. I’m going to stuff you full of my cock and make you beg for more.”
She whimpered, her body beginning to shake, muscles jumping, one hand brushing over his ear, the other buried in his hair.
His strokes hammered into her body. She was covered in a sheen of sweat that made her skin glow. He licked across a shoulder and took her into himself, the taste of her exploding through his system. Her diamond-hard nipples brushed through the hair on his chest.
“Maybe I’ll get a vibrator and work it into your pussy while I’m back there. Better yet, you can do it and I’ll watch you while I’m buried balls-deep inside of your ass,” he panted, his climax nearing. He adjusted her in his arms so that the length of his cock stroked over her clit with each thrust. He could feel that bundle of her pleasure, hard and swollen with desire, caressing his flesh on each pass. Her breath came in shallow pants and she was whimpering.
“Come for me, Em. Rain that sweet cream all over my cock,” he murmured into her ear. She threw her head back and screamed out his name as her orgasm rolled over her, pulling her down and under the waves of pleasure. She drowned in sensation, her body alive with feeling, deaf and dumb to everything but the rush of passion he evoked.
He was a goner the moment she began to climax. Her pussy clutched at him greedily, sucking him back inside as she writhed in his arms. He stiffened as he pushed as far into her body as he could and felt as if his entire being was shooting through the head of his cock deep into her.
Minutes later, after leaning them both against the wall for support, he gently set her on the ground.
“You were worth the wait,” she said, eyes alight with love.
He felt her words wrap around his heart and smiled. “We’re going out to eat tonight. The Savoy, I think. Get dressed up, I’m going to arrange everything and I’ll be back in an hour to escort you.” He bowed low and shimmered out of the room.
* * * * *
After her shower, Em opened the closet to look for something to wear and was surprised by the ruby red dress hanging there. She reached in and pulled it out. It had hand-beaded spaghetti straps and a low, dipping bodice and was practically backless. It was also short. She looked at it skeptically. She’d never worn anything so blatantly sexy before in her life, usually sticking to jeans and longer skirts. The material caressed her skin as she looked at it. Well, she’d wanted to start showing the world that she wasn’t some shy bookworm. She shrugged her shoulders and decided to go for it. After all, she was now involved with the most delicious man she’d ever seen—she needed to keep up.
She turned to find a tiny scrap of red lace that masqueraded as underwear on the bed and a pair of ultra-feminine stiletto heels on the floor next to it. She smiled goofily, Con had been a busy boy while she was showering. There was also a beaded bag to match the dress and a gorgeous pair of diamond chandelier earrings. For a warrior, the man certainly knew his fashion.
She did her makeup and hair and pulled on the dress, trying not to be nervous about the vast amount of skin showing. The shoes slipped on and she nearly gasped when she saw herself in the mirror. It was as if she’d become the woman she’d always been on the inside. The woman in the mirror was confident and sexy and well-bedded. Her hair was tousled, lips bee-stung and glossy red. The red of the dress set off the onyx darkness of her hair and the pale creaminess of her skin. Her legs looked miles long with the heels and her breasts looked quite lovely in the bodice of the dress.
She looked at the clock. She had fifteen minutes until Con was due to arrive. She called Adelade and made arrangements to come to her estate the next day, and also dialed Lee’s. If she didn’t return her call that night, Lee might just find it necessary to get on a plane and come interfere in person.
“Hello?” Lee’s voice was sleepy.
“Hiya. Sorry to wake you, I am on my way out but I wanted to return your calls before you panicked.”
“Ha ha. Why didn’t you call me back earlier?”
“I was busy. I’m fine, having a great time. I saw Michael earlier today. He looks great and said to pass on his congratulations on your marriages.”
“Busy doing what? Come on, I’m dying here! I talked to Maman, you know, she told me you’d met a man and by met, I think we all know she meant slept with. Is this the same guy you were with last night when you ditched me for Aidan and then hung up before I could ask any questions? The Faerie? Aidan says that he’s quite the stud.”
“Yes, that would be Con.”
Lee exhaled with frustration. “Well, spill for goodness’s sake! Jeez, I’m your sister, you need to tell me all of the naughty details. They are naughty, aren’t they?”
Em took a deep breath, remembering each detail—and yes, they were naughty. “Mmmm-hmmm. Very, very naughty. He’s really good at naughty.”
Lee snorted with amusement. “So the dry spell is over, huh?”
“Yes. Over and over again.”
Lee gave a delighted laugh. “I have got to meet the guy who finally got my baby sister into bed and made her sound so happy.”
“You will. I will be accompanying Em back home to meet her family after we get married.”
Both Em and Lee gasped. Em spun to see Con standing in the living room of the penthouse holding the phone extension. He was wearing a dark charcoal-gray suit, Prada, she’d guess by the cut and style. His hair was back and he had a glamour on his ears so the points weren’t visible. He looked like walking sin. Her mouth dried up.
“Hey, this is a private call!” she said with a laugh.
“My ears were burning, mo fiach. I knew you were discussing me. I just wanted to be sure your representations were fair. Naughty indeed,” he said, his voice low and filled with promises.
“Boy, I can’t wait to meet this guy,” Lee said and Em could hear the grin.
“Back off, you already have two,” Em said. Hell, when Con got a load of Lee he’d probably regret that he’d met the wrong sister.
Lee laughed. “And two is more than enough for me. So, what’s the plan for this wedding? Maman will have your head for doing it without family.”
“Em and I will work it out and she’ll let everyone know. It’s all up to her, I am merely her servant in all things.”
Em raised a brow at him and tried not to smile but failed. The man was irrepressible. “I haven’t been asked to marry anyone so I’ll get back to you after I am— and if I accept. We’re late for our dinner date, Lee. Please kiss Alex and Aidan for me. I’ll talk to you later.” Em blew her sister a kiss and hung up quickly before Lee could ask any more questions.
Con put the receiver down and stalked toward Em, his eyes greedily taking in every inch of her. He’d seen the scarlet dress hanging in the window of the shop he’d shimmered into to get his suit. It looked even better on her than he’d imagined it would. He took in the shoes and the red-painted toenails. “We’ll keep those on later when we get back,” he growled as he circled her. He leaned down and kissed the small o
f her back. “You look good enough to eat. I don’t know that I should let you out in public looking this spectacularly sexy. It’s a good thing I’m a warrior—I’ll have to fight men off all night.”
She was speechless. He looked at her like he was a big bad wolf and she was a deer. Her nipples hardened, begging for his attention, and got it as he reached out and flicked an index finger across the peak.
“Shall we be going then, a ghra?” He held out an arm.
She nodded and took the proffered arm. He escorted her downstairs and into the waiting limo.
Chapter Seven
They pulled up in front of the restaurant and Em gasped softly. From the perfect suit and shoes on the doorman and valet to the regal exterior, The Savoy was an impressive place.
“Good evening, Mr. MacNessa, Miss,” the white-gloved doorman said as he handed them off to the hostess, who looked at Con like she wanted to throw him back on a table and climb aboard.
“Mr. MacNessa, how nice to see you again. You’re my favorite customer,” she cooed as she stroked his forearm.
Em took a deep breath, annoyed. Con, for his part, didn’t even notice. “Yes. We’d like to be shown to our table now,” he said without looking at skanky hostess girl. Em stifled the desire to stick her tongue out at the other woman after she’d handed them menus and sauntered away.
She looked around the room. It spoke of quiet, old-world elegance from the cut crystal stemware to the silver and gold-rimmed china at each place setting. The tablecloth was the finest linen and the candles smelled of sweet beeswax. The atmosphere was hushed and a string quartet was playing in the background.
“Will you trust me to order for us? A special meal?” he asked as he nibbled her fingers, bringing her attention back to him.
“Sure, I love everything but organ meats and brussels sprouts.”
“I believe you like some organ meats,” he said, voice silky with innuendo, and sucked her finger into his mouth.
She shifted in her chair, squeezing her thighs together, her pulse pounding. “Yes, but I wouldn’t order that in a restaurant. There’s only one distributor in town whose organ I like to eat and it’s only good in the proper setting,” she teased back.