He pushed his underwear down, freeing his erection, and for the first time I got to see what I’d been dreaming about for so long. He wasn’t as thick as Desmond, but his cock was long and perfectly proportioned. The skin was pale, and when I wrapped my fingers around it, I marveled at how smooth it was, like polished marble.

I gave him a few firm strokes, wanting to feel the texture of him in my hand before I let him inside me. I’d have liked to wrap my lips around his head and see how it felt in my mouth, but I was past foreplay now. I needed him.

He groaned as I pumped his shaft, forgetting myself in the sensation. “You need to let go if you want me inside,” he teased, putting his hand over mine and picking up my rhythm so we both stroked in unison. His eyes were closed.

Moving his hand, he guided the head of his cock between my folds, and I jerked. The coolness of his tongue should have prepared me for his dick, but I was still shocked by the way it felt. Given how hot I was I expected to see steam coming off me as he stroked his head up and down against my wetness.

My head dropped back to the carpet, and I took my hand away so nothing was keeping him from driving home.

“You okay?” he whispered, responding to my shocked reaction.

“I will be.” I lifted my hips, pushing his head an inch inside. Biting my lip, I hooked my feet around his legs, under his ass, and urged him closer.

He took the hint, bracing his hands next to my shoulders. With one hard thrust he was in me, the full cool length of him buried completely. I gasped and held him there, my fingernails clutching at his shoulders. The cold and hot of our bodies connected made me feel like we were some kind of dangerous chemistry experiment waiting to explode.

I drew my hips back then ground them upwards again, resheathing him. Our bodies created the skin-on-skin sounds that drove me totally wild. “Fuck me,” I demanded.

He pulled out almost all the way, leaving me empty and aching for him before he thrust back in. He repeated this movement over and over—nearly withdrawing completely then pumping deep—until my hips could no longer meet his frenzied rhythm.

“You’re amazing,” he said, opening his eyes and looking right at me. His vigorous tempo never slowed. The friction and temperature of our coupling was building me back towards another peak, and the tension of his shoulders and neck told me he was on the verge of his own orgasm.

“I want you to come,” I told him.

“Let me bite you.”

I nodded, not even pausing to consider the request, just tilting my head to the side to expose my neck for him. It was how things ended in every dream I’d had. Somehow it seemed like the most natural way for it to happen in real life.

His mouth was hot against my skin. The previously violent thrusting slowed to an almost human pace as he rocked in and out of me, reducing me to barely comprehensible vowel sounds and oaths to God.

Teeth grazed my skin, hesitant until I insisted, “Do it.”

He bit me, and my whole body felt like it had been blown apart and turned into atomic dust. First there was sharp pain, but it was quickly overwhelmed by a wave of pleasure so intense I lost count of the orgasms I was having. They all swelled together into a feeling I couldn’t label or compare to anything. The French call orgasms la petite morte, the “little death”. If a normal orgasm was a little death, this was like being burned alive at the stake.

I must have been screaming, but the throb of my pulse was so loud in my ears I couldn’t hear myself. My toes curled, and I knew I was cutting his back with my nails, but I couldn’t stop myself from clawing at him. I had no control over anything except riding out the feeling.

When he pulled away and licked my blood from his lips, he looked so content and happy I wasn’t sure if I could think of any other time I’d seen him like that before.

“Eaierrgagbtghthi,” was my attempt at a compliment.

He grinned at me, laying a gentle kiss on my lips, but even the smallest touch made me shudder. “You can say that again.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Calliope sat next to me on the bed, propped up against a pillow with her shapely half-goddess legs stretched out in front of her.

“You’ve certainly made a fine mess of things, haven’t you?”

I blinked away the dregs of my sleepiness and stared up at her. I was relatively sure I had to be dreaming, especially considering the fact Calliope never left her mansion. She didn’t venture into either the human or fae realities, choosing instead to be the master of the space in between. I doubted she’d change her position just to come chide me.

“I’m usually making a mess of things, aren’t I?”

“That doesn’t mean you have to actively strive to make things worse,” she scolded.

I pulled the covers over my head, trying to block out her judgment. “You’re assuming I somehow failed a test I didn’t know the aim of.”

“Do you think fucking a vampire was the right thing to do?” Calliope swearing was a rarity. Off the top of my head I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard her stoop to using a curse word when she could be calm and rational instead. I must have really screwed the pooch on this one.

“I didn’t sleep with Holden because of Aubrey’s magic. I slept with him because I wanted to.” I peeked out from under the covers to see how she’d react.

Calliope crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. Even grumpy she was the most beautiful woman in this world or any other. Now that I was looking right at her, the resemblance between her and Aubrey was apparent. They had the same dark features and beauty that almost hurt to look at.

“I still think Aubrey had a hand in this.”

“I think maybe you’re being a cranky biotch because you don’t like that I screwed around with Holden.”

“It wasn’t the right thing to do.”

“Are you saying that as an oracle, because you have a reason to know it wasn’t right, or are you saying it as a female whose heart got punted around like a soccer ball by a vampire?”

Calliope was quiet.

“I think she’s mad,” piped in a voice on the opposite side of me, nearly giving me a heart attack.

Brigit was curled up next to me, her head balanced on her hand, watching the back and forth between the Oracle and me like it was a tennis match. She also solidified my theory this must be a dream.

“What the hell, Bri?”

“Oh, ha, yeah…” She chuckled and shrugged one shoulder, looking like she’d just been busted for something but also projecting absolute innocence. “She can’t get into your head on her own.” Brigit tapped my temple. “But since you and I are bonded, she can get to you through me.” She smiled again, sheepishly. “Are you mad?”

“No, I’m not mad.” Though I did sigh.

It was a clever way for Calliope to get in. In that sense, this wasn’t a dream per se, more of an intrusion into my head on the subconscious level. I was asleep, but they weren’t a manifestation of my own mind. They were speaking for themselves.

Similar to the way Holden used to sneak in.

“Okay, good,” Brigit said, with evident relief. “I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea, but she sort of insisted, and…well…she’s kinda scary.” My former ward looked across me to Calliope, who stared back like she didn’t know what to make of the girl. I often felt the same way. Brigit was often so earnest it felt like an act. But it was just Brigit.

“She is kinda scary,” I agreed.

Calliope shook her head. “This is absurd.”

“You’re the one who decided to use her,” I cautioned.

“Well, you took my only other option with you. And then had sex with him.”

“Cal…”

“Let me guess. Something came over you. You lost all sense of right and wrong. The only thing that mattered was being with him, and by God, come hell or high water you were going to do it. Am I close?”

I swallowed the pit forming in my throat. “At first, yes. But when we actually did the deed, it had nothing to do with Aubrey.”

“That’s what you think, but Aubrey has a gift. My gift is seeing the future, his is exploiting desire. Not just sexual desire, but whatever it is he can see as being the greatest weakness in someone’s armor. He’ll do whatever he can to make them yield to it. If it’s a lust for power, he’ll use that. A need to be loved, he’ll tap into it until he can use a person like a puppet. With you it was your stupid need to be with that vampire. You two have been dancing around the damned topic for over a week, and it must have been at the forefront of your mind. So he put you both in a situation to see if you would resist or yield.”

“And you think I caved like a Chilean mine.”

“Yes.”

“But I wanted to—”

“Regardless of whether or not the spell made you do the act, you showed Aubrey that Holden mattered to you.”

“Anyone with eyes should know Holden matters to me.”

She sighed, uncrossed her arms and gave me a sad look. “Do you know why he does it?”

“To be a prick?” I suggested.

“To prove he knows how to best you.”

I sat up and wished my subconscious had conjured me some clothes. As it was I had to keep the blanket pinned to my chest unless I wanted to give the ladies an up-close-and-personal introduction to my girls.

“You say he tested my control over my desire, and you seem to think I failed. So what? I don’t think I failed anything.”

“Now he thinks he can use that knowledge to control you.”

“Well, that’s his own damn mistake, isn’t it?”

“You think he’s wrong?”

“I don’t understand what you guys are talking about. Who did you have sex with?” Brigit asked.

“The fairy king thinks he can manipulate me because I had sex with Holden.”

“The fairy king did manipulate you. That’s why you had sex with Holden,” Calliope corrected.