CHAPTER NINETEEN

Tamatsu had seen Noelle afraid before, early on in their acquaintance, but for an entirely different reason. She hadn’t been afraid of him back then, but for her people’s wellbeing.

His heartbeat skipped at the thought that she, once bold and assertive, had become paralyzed by his company. He couldn’t believe that they’d been thrown together only to stay apart. In spite of the things he’d done in his long life, the Fates couldn’t be so cruel. He’d put in the work. He’d do his part to pull them back together.

“You’re wearing so much today.”

Her scoff was weak as she closed her eyes. “Just another kind of armor. Put on a suit and shoes with heels of at least three inches, and you feel like you can slay dragons … of a certain sort.”

“And this is what you want to be doing? Slaying dragons?” Keeping one hand on her cheek, he worked her suit jacket down the opposite shoulder. After so many centuries of avoiding intimate touch, he didn’t want to disconnect for even a second. If he were going to condemn himself to the hunger, he was going to go all in and savor every bit of her warmth. He was going to consume everything she had to offer.

She shrugged out of the garment and let it pool on the floor behind her.

“Some days, yes,” she said. “Most days, no. I certainly understand the appeal of holing up on a secluded little farm the way Clarissa is. I think when elves get to a certain stage in life, we want to root somewhere quiet and let the world go on around us. Clarissa got there first, but she’s always been the grounded sort.”

“And you were a wanderer?” He lifted her hand to her shirt buttons, hoping she’d get the hint.

She did, and he was glad, because he wanted to do other things with his hands.

He worked her hair free of its elastic and pins and made a pile of the accouterments on the floor beside her knee.

“There’s definitely some appeal to commandeering my own little corner of Earth and becoming a local institution. Everyone would know the grumpy elf who lives at the corner and hates having people cut across her lawn, but who gives out the best candy at Halloween.”

“I suppose you have to pay penance for your sins somehow.”

“Mm-hmm.” She wriggled out of her shirt. There was a camisole beneath that, and a bra.

Still too many layers.

He raked his hand through her hair and sighed silently and indulgently as he arranged the strands around her shoulders.

“I don’t dislike children, after all,” she said, and he stilled his hands, waiting.

Listening. This was an opinion that mattered to him, even if it hadn’t long ago.

“Do they perplex me? Absolutely.”

“So you’re fine with them?” he asked. “Other people’s children?”

And your own? he wondered silently.

“They make me laugh.” Her smile was fleeting. “They’re so innocent and I worry about corrupting them.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not good.”

“But you’re passionate and decent.”

“Is that enough?”

“It can be.”

He unbuttoned her pants. He’d need to get her on her feet again to get them off her, but that could wait. She was still fumbling with her top parts. “You’re stalling.” He skimmed his fingers along the line of skin between her waistband and the bottom of her camisole.

She squirmed.

He smiled.

She was so responsive—always had been. He prevented himself from devoting any more mental energy to who might have been witnessing her shudders and listening to her moans during the long gap in their acquaintance.

“Am I the only one who’ll be undressing?”

“Are you suddenly shy?”

“Maybe a little. You’ve got to take pity on me. The last time I saw you in all your glory, I couldn’t see the wings.”

“They do tend to distract.”

“So you hid them from me?”

“You’re getting distracted right now, are you not?”

“I missed our banter.”

 And I missed you.

Using his shoulders as handgrips, she pushed herself upright and divested herself of her remaining clothing. Pants first, followed shyly by her trouser socks. She muttered something about them not actually matching, though he couldn’t tell the difference. They both looked black to him. Next came the camisole.

He stopped her there, cinching her narrow waist between his hands and just holding her.

She’d upgraded her underwear since the last time he saw her in such a state or, rather, she was actually wearing some. Pale gray-blue with lace and a little satin bow in the front.

“Armor?” he mused, pressing his lips to the indentation of her belly button.

She sighed, and squirmed. “Underwear doesn’t have to be ugly. A girl’s got to have a few things she splurges on.”

“And you splurge on underwear?”

“And shoes.” She cringed and ground the big toe of her right foot against the carpet. “And perhaps knives, but I do actually use those.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Are you going to undress?”

“Perhaps I’ve changed my mind.” He skimmed his palms up the sides of her thighs and hooked his thumb beneath the elastic near her hipbones. “Perhaps I like this balance. Me dressed. You not.”

He wriggled her panties down a few scant inches and drew in a breath at the sight of what was there.

Or rather, what wasn’t.

She cleared her throat and rolled her gaze toward the ceiling. “Modern grooming, you know.”

“So thoroughly?”

“It grows back.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with how hair works, seeing as how I have some myself.”

He may have seemed put off by her new habit, but he wasn’t, really. He liked having a new texture to explore, and he put his lips there, where she’d once had hair.

She chuckled and squirmed. “My, you don’t wait around, do you?”

“You’d keep me waiting longer?”

“You were waiting for your voice. Not for … Gods.” She gave his hair a hard tug when his tongue probed into the top of her slit.

He’d only wanted a taste to be sure her essence was the same. He couldn’t remember, and it didn’t really matter. He was still going to devour her.

“Would you prefer to sit on my face?”

“Yes.” She cringed. “I mean, no. I’m not going to sit on your face. I’d like very much to keep my wits about me, and that’s sure as hell not going to be possible if you’ve got your tongue spearing me.”

“If not my tongue, then something else. What difference does the organ make, really? You’re going to scream no matter what.”

“I believe you’re trying to drive me insane. You know damned well we can’t—”

“Quiet.” He tugged her panties down in one hard yank and pushed her feet apart as far as he could without completely destroying the elastic of her underwear. He liked that underwear, and hoped to see her in it again, once he’d seen what else she had on offer in her lingerie drawer.

“Why can’t we?” He lashed his tongue along the crevice between her thigh and her sex, and as her fingers tightened against his scalp, she whispered to the ceiling, “Oh, gods.”

“I don’t think they’re particularly invested in the matter. If calling on them for aid makes you comfortable, might I suggest a couple of specific ones?”

“I could name a few, too.” Putting her head back more, she writhed.

She may have wanted to escape, but she wouldn’t—not since they’d gotten the business underway.

“I don’t remember you being this short.” Rolling his gaze up to her, he rubbed his chin against the place she should have had hair, and pondered strategy.

“I’m the same height I’ve always been,” she said breathily. “I think we simply didn’t spend much time on our feet, and you don’t remember the logistics.”

“Don’t get smug. I’ll compensate.”

The genie was already out of the bottle. Pandora’s monsters were out of their box. He wasn’t backing off. He could probably manage a bit of strain to his neck, but not without some awkwardness … and not without being rid of the panties he liked seeing caught around her ankles so much.

He slipped his fingers between his lips to wet them. There’d be plenty of other opportunities for oral sex gymnastics. Also, they’d have plenty of time for the more depraved things he’d decided during their long cooling-off that he wanted to do to her. There were some perks to being immortal.

“I was skeptical. Do you remember that?” His fingertip barely grazed down the seam of her. He was exploring, parting, looking, and already, her toes were curling into the carpet and legs trembling.

“What?” Her voice was a husky rasp.

“I didn’t think you could handle me, but you did.”

Tightening her grip of his hair, she pulled some air through her teeth. “I seem to recall something of a challenge. You assumed I wasn’t used to big men.”

Had he the ability to make the noise, he would have growled at her impertinence. Instead, he slid his finger into her entryway and stilled the tip there, watching her belly and thighs spasm from her effort at stillness.

“I didn’t want to hear about your big men.”

“You made an assumption. I corrected you. You can’t get pouty. I simply gave you what you wanted.”

“Be quiet, woman.”

“No.”

“I think you will be.”

 He withdrew his fingertip and added a second. He pushed them both in deeply enough to make her gasp.

In case she’d forgotten about the talent he held in his thumbs, he reminded her with a brush across her clit.

She let go of his hair, then, gripping the air instead, her fingers likely cramping. She clenched her teeth, but she didn’t back away. “Damn.”

“Hmm?”

He’d said that he didn’t want to hear. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t dwell on it, but he couldn’t help but wonder who she’d found her pleasure with in the past centuries. Had they given her what she needed? Did they know her cues? Did they fear her fierceness and back down at the exact times they should have been giving more?

Again, he withdrew his hand. He slipped his fingers between his lips as he stood, and sucked them as he worked the fly of his jeans down.

She made some sound that seemed to be half sigh and half gasp—a quick in and out that suggested both surprise and resignation.

Keeping his pants about his waist, he freed himself, and her gaze followed hungrily. Her mouth had been on him countless times, but he didn’t want her mouth—not right then. Taking her hand, he pulled her forward. She left the panties behind, but that was just as well. He needed her legs around him.

He scooped her up by the bottom and settled the head of his cock against her entrance.

The black of her pupils flooded her irises and made her usually pale eyes appear stormy.

“Is that fear I see, elf?”

Her thighs tightened against his ribs, and she blinked like an innocent doe.

She most certainly wasn’t that.

“Maybe it’s been a while.”

“We have something in common, then. How many hundreds of years has it been since you’ve fucked someone?”

Her eyelids drifted downward and her air came out in a long gust. “You’re unkind. Do you know that?” She clenched against him, warm, wet, tight, and he ached to be inside her, plunging as far as he could go.

“I never insinuated that I was kind, only that I could be good when I wanted to be.” He ground her against his hardness, enveloping the head of his cock in her folds, needing to claim back what had been his.

“Do you want to be?” she whispered.

“No.”

“Good.” Her arms, slung over his shoulders, were shaking. She wasn’t that weak and, besides, he was holding the vast majority of her weight in his forearms. She crept down his torso, pulling the tip of him within her.

Fuck.

He widened his stance. He’d forgotten what heaven felt like, but thought Noelle’s body might have been a close second. Gripping her hips, he guided her down onto him, hardly able to wait to give her body time to adjust. He was so needy, but she was fragile compared to him.

She pressed her knees against his ribs and jammed her eyes shut, pausing halfway down his length. She could go a little more, though, with some effort.

“There’s nothing reasonable about me. Never forget that.” He dipped his head and found the tender arc between her shoulder and neck and nipped.

She’d liked that once—being scored by his teeth—and apparently she still did. She melted in his arms.

“Do some work, Noelle.” He raised her by her bottom, teeth grinding at the pleasurable squeeze of her muscles as he slid her up.

She wasn’t helping.

He wasn’t sure if she really wanted to, or needed to, to get her pleasure, but he needed her to take some control. He was keeping his passion at a low simmer, but there was only so slow he could go and not turn into that frustrated, wild creature who’d be all about speed and depth. Although he’d been thinking about doing so on and off for centuries, he didn’t want to fuck in a frenzy. He spent too much of his life in frenzies of other sorts.

“Ride me, Noelle.”

Sighing, she laid her cheek against his chest and whispered, “I am.”

“No you’re not.” He nuzzled her hair with his face and swiveled his hips, trying to make more room inside her. She was clenching, perhaps, but too tight for speed. He’d wanted a little more. He wanted her breasts bouncing against him as she rode. He wanted sweating and swearing and desperation.

“Do you require incentive?” He slipped his fingers beneath her and traced slowly up her other cleft.

That made her jolt upright. “I will squander the bit of magic I have left and try to end you.”

He clucked his tongue.

“No. We’ve discussed this.”

“I believe what you said at the time was that it’d be a cold day in hell before you let me have you there. I’ll have you know that hell can get plenty cold. Hell is in the mind.”

He drummed the tip of his middle finger against the pucker and grinned.

She moved violently against him, swearing in Gaelic about sadists and sociopaths. He imagined she was referring to him, and he wasn’t so sure she was wrong.

Again, he clucked his tongue.

“Talking about yourself, sweetheart?” he teased. “I’m the one who’s been unceasingly punished.”

She dug her nails into his back and rode him up and down, grinding her teeth.

He gave her ass a slap. “Faster.”

“You—” She growled, but did what he’d asked. She set her knees in deep atop the shelves his hips made and bounced faster, harder—dropping herself down low on him and squeezing him for all he was worth.

He could do a little work. Had to. He needed completion like he needed a deep breath. Being inside her body was a far cry better than taking himself in hand, and he hadn’t done much of that in the past several centuries, either. There was always the risk that he’d want more, and he hadn’t wanted to succumb.

“Is it as good as you remember, Noelle? Good enough to keep you atop me, licking me, kissing me, touching me, for hours on end?” He thrust upward, and she stilled momentarily, moaning wantonly before continuing her ride.

“Good enough to make your eyes cross and your thighs cramp?”

“Shut up.” She’d always been a creative sort. She couldn’t silence him when he was touching her the way he was, but she could distract him, and she did with her lips and tongue against his mouth. Pushing herself up higher to reach his face, she thrust her searching muscle into his mouth and tamed his, even as he tamed her down below.

She may have stopped riding, but he continued to thrust.

So good. So perfect.

“I missed you …” she whispered. “You don’t know how much I missed you.”

She settled back into her rhythm in earnest, laying her head against his shoulder and riding hard and fast.

He had no quip for her. No snarky retort about whom she had or hadn’t been sharing her body with, because he didn’t have the mental energy to spare.

He put his head back, closed his eyes, and widened his stance a bit more.

Using his hands, still clenching her bottom, he lifted her and let her fall, and again. He was hard steel and she was satin. Together, a sword ensconced in silk. He was unforgiving where she was so bending.

So soft. He didn’t remember her being so soft.

“Fuck.”

He wanted her lips again, but couldn’t reach. She’d made him forget how soft she was, or maybe he hadn’t wanted to remember, because then, she would have been too easy to pity. He hadn’t wanted to pity her. He’d wanted his anger. It’d nourished him just as much as every kill he’d made and every meal he’d consumed.

“I’m not going to … You won’t …” She sighed, and then stilled against him, whispering some self-disparaging comment she didn’t deserve. Her self-control may have been shot, but his was nearly non-existent.

He worked her up and down himself, using her for his pleasure since she’d had hers, pulling her up so he could gnaw at her lips, her jaw, her stubborn chin.

He made her breaths his rhythm, thrusting along with each rasp, each gasp, each small sigh.

And when she tightened around him again, shouting out her release, he stilled. Then he shuddered, anticipating the pain of unused things being pressed to service after hundreds of years.

He wasn’t wrong that it’d hurt. Pinpricks of lightning in his loins became searing stabs of the cruelest angel-forged blades.

You want this? it taunted, and had he been a sensible angel, the answer should have been no.

But he hungered, and his feast was in his arms, offering him generous fulfillment. So he gritted his teeth against the pain and braced his legs, breathing it out. Letting Noelle’s scent be his balm, her touch be his rescue.

And then it abated. His will was strong and he savored his reward as it coursed through him. Coiling around his insides. A sensual tightening that took his breath and made his skin prickle with heightened sensitivity.

And her lips, whispering encouragement in Gaelic against his cheek, were too much. The words, so intimate and personal, did as much for him as being inside her did. He’d never thought he’d experience heaven again, but she was as close as he’d ever get.

“Noelle …”

No words. Just a nod and a tightening of her legs around him. Then the pressing of her sweaty face against his neck.

She was real, and she was his, and he wasn’t going to let go of her again.

Half a thrust and his body could endure no more. He needed relief, and it came with tender kisses on his mouth and chin. It came with the curling of her fingers into his back, and her murmuring his name as if the sounds were a spell she could find peace with.

He didn’t know about peace, but he was sated.

He stood there, encircling his arms around her even tighter, being inside her.

She said nothing. Just breathed.

He did the same for a while, needing to get his grips, but then he carried her to the bed and set her on her side.

The night was young, but she owed him some flesh—some touches.

She scooted up to the headboard, staring as he undid the buttons of his shirt and pulled the garment off over his head and wings.

She watched him doff his pants and underwear.

She widened her eyes as he climbed onto the bed and reached for her.

Slowly, she crawled to him. Wary, unlike way back when.

Still afraid he’d hurt her, probably.

He wouldn’t. Couldn’t, really. She’d said she’d missed him, but he was pretty sure he’d Fallen in anticipation of a woman like her.

He leaned against the headboard and opened his arms for her.

She crawled into his embrace and settled between his legs.

He pulled the covers up over her and locked his arm around her, pondering as the fingers of his free hand traced the outline of her leg.

Passions aside, Noelle was what normal felt like. She gave him a sense of duty and a reason for routine.

She hadn’t clipped his wings, but she had grounded him in a way, and he wanted to badly to do the same thing to her. It was time for the elf to make some roots.