Kissing him was much more prosaic without the bite of his power, but I didn’t miss it. Just feeling him, tasting him without the jump of Sky Daddy’s lightning? I liked it enough that I didn’t want to stop, clawing at him for just a little more until he chuckled, setting me down and turning me around.
Had I ever seen Liam Hartley scared? All that brazen front he used to keep the world at a distance was still there, it just hung in tatters now. The eyes that looked at me now were familiar ones. I’d seen them in my dreams, naked with want and need. He watched me like one would a dangerous animal—fascinated, fearful.
Luc’s hand was firm as he pushed me closer, neither Liam or I willing to make the first move. I stumbled, my legs not wanting to cooperate, and Liam, he reached out to catch me.
We froze where we were, the touch of his skin the only thing I could focus on. I looked down at those hands, knowing this was different. Letting Liam go down on me was a whole world away from this, the silvery light in his chest fluttering, going dark and lightening again in response to the tumult of his thoughts.
This could be the way things went with us. We’d spend the rest of our lives circling the other, unable to walk the fuck away and too put off by the other’s dominance displays to move closer, making each other miserable with our high-handed bullshit.
Or…
He didn’t deserve this. He hadn’t shown me enough to prove he did, but I moved closer anyway, putting a hand on his chest, sliding it under the soft cotton of his button-up.
“Need you so much, Ki. I love you.”
I stilled, the words bringing it all fucking back—the man who’d come into my dreams, stroked my hair back from my forehead as I ached, who’d soothed me, cast his spell over me, kept me with him long past the time of waking. I answered by moving forward, until my mouth hovered over his. A million reasons to not do this rose, but when did I ever listen? I might have gotten better about making more measured decisions in the rest of my life, but in love, I was always jumping off cliffs.
“Don’t make me regret this. Don’t break me any fucking more, Liam Hartley.”
“Right back atcha, babe. Truce?”
Our kiss was a treaty, the details yet to be hammered out, but I felt it around the room, the collective breath out as we connected. The circuit was completed, I could feel it throbbing inside me, all of them, all of them. Especially him. Liam rushed in just as the others had.
Did he realise how much the geas determined who and what he was? It throbbed at his core, a seed carelessly planted that had grown into so much more. The wellbeing of the group was as important to him as his next breath, yet at the same time, it created a resentment in him that twisted in his guts. Love was still love, even under draconian rule, but it made me wonder what would happen if it was removed.
I…teased at it. The only thing I could think of was it was like running your nail under the edge, loosening it a little, seeing if it would—
Not yet. Not now, Lilith said with a deadly finality. He will be free. You will all be free when it’s time. Now take what you want from your lover, because things are moving fast.
What?
The thought was a whistle in the wind as it rose inside me. Fae power comes from connection, I thought idly as whatever tide in my blood had been held at bay by this ritual came roaring back. I bit at his lips, feeling and hearing his snarl, his hands going to my hair and digging in as he pushed right back.
This was us, our dynamic, a push-pull we could either endure or have fun with. I pulled back from that hungry mouth, burying my face in the crook of his neck, feeling him stiffen, then soften as I breathed him in.
“Try to hang on,” I whispered, his words to me now mine to him. “Stay with me, Liam.”
He spun me around, picking me up and depositing me onto a sink, the water only further dampening my already sodden folds.
“Now?”
His head tilted to one side, his eyes boring into mine as he waited for a slap or a caress. I knew that mulish, closed down expression that still seemed to yearn, because I was willing to bet my face looked exactly the same.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. I didn’t have sex with Luc or Billy.”
“Yeah, but they’ve got a whole lot more to offer you. Right now, this is all I’ve got.” He parted my thighs, drawing me closer, but waited to make his move. “Fuck, Kira, I’ve been aching to be inside you for years. I thought the fucking dreams would end when we were together, when you left, when you took Billy’s monster, but they never did. You, always fucking you, over and over.”
He stroked a hand down my thigh, watching his hand’s progress.
“This is done, as it always should’ve been. We’re bound, we share a life force, we’re stronger now together than we ever were apart, but damn me if I don’t want more.”
“I’m gonna hear that a lot, aren’t I?”
“Damn straight you are. Part of the reason why I’m such a fucking hard arse is that. I can’t stop myself needing more.”
“A small part of the reason,” Johnno said with a wry smile, moving closer and winking at me.
“Very small. You’ve gotta stop being such a fucking prick now,” Billy rumbled, the rest of them clustering in.
This was such an ignominious set up, me sitting splay legged on a sink in a fucking public bathroom, but then that was us. We were fae, could transform this place into something of beauty, but instead, we had our eyes on the stars as we scrubbed in the dirt. I found myself relaxing against the porcelain and the mirror behind me, their eyes taking in every slight shift as I parted my thighs.
“I guess it’s traditional to commemorate a truce with a celebration.”
Liam grinned at that, the wild, crooked smile I was so used to. He hadn’t zipped up, just tucked his still hard cock into his pants, so it was easy to free it again. I looked down at that angry red length, thick enough I’d feel the pinch and crave a bit more.
And I did crave it.
His eyes were on mine, all of them were as he drew me closer, so my legs dangled off the edge, helpless under him. He was still smiling right up until he stepped between them, brushing the head of his cock against me. We both stiffened at the same time, that barest contact having our gaze snapping together. Was it me I was feeling or him? That rush of sensation, so foreign yet familiar, my cunt throbbing in readiness for what was to come.
“Fuck…” he hissed as he dipped in slowly, so I could feel every single inch going in. “Fuck…fuck… Kira?”
His eyes found mine, and for the first time since he begged me to save his brothers, Liam was broken by me. His face was a mask of pleasure-pain, lips frozen in a partial snarl, his gaze spearing into me. I could feel it now, what he felt. His heart was smashing in through his ribcage, racketing around at the feeling, of the idea of being inside me. For once, he hadn’t lied, because I could feel the rapid flutter of all his memories competing with the actual sensation, until I roughly shoved them to one side and brought him back to here, now, me.
“Love…” His siren-like voice tugged at me, making my chest ache for him, so I reached out and pulled him close. “God, Kira, stay with me.”
The last time he’d said those words, he’d wanted me to hold on to the dreams until the two of us could reach our peak, but now? Whether he realised it or not, there was a lot more to it.