Page 99 of Threadbound

“Ach. Please,” Bran gasped as Jamie pushed in deep once more.

“Please what?” Jamie managed, the words thick and almost fuzzy in his mouth.

“More.”

Jamie took him at his word, driving into him once, twice, three more times before he thought he might break in half from the pressure. Jamie couldn’t hold back any more, gasping as he slammed himself home one final time, his orgasm already unfurling before he registered Bran’s shuddering moan and the pulsing throb of his body as he spilled his own across his stomach.

Jamie’s arm shook, so he let himself ease down onto his side, carefully moving Bran’s leg so he wouldn’t crush it. Not that he could, really, but he didn’t imagine having his six-four body lying on it would be terribly comfortable.

Bran made a small noise in the back of his throat, rolling onto his side so he was still facing Jamie.

It was a raw moment, vulnerable, and Jamie didn’t know if he was ready for that. If he was ready for any of this—threadbond, whatever relationship change this marked between himself and Bran, being a part of the fairy world his momma had so desperately wanted to believe in.

So he broke it with bad humor. “Now what would you do, if I were fae?”

But the joke was clearly lost on Bran. “Probably leave,” the fae answered, a frown marring his brow. “Do you wish me to go?”

“No.” Jamie felt like he’d answered too quickly, but the furrow had smoothed out of Bran’s forehead. “I don’t want you to go. Not yet.”

But it made him wonder what this was—not only the threadbond, but what they were… or weren’t. Jamie got the impression that casual sex was common among fae, at least if all the sex in dark and not-so-dark corners at the reception thingwere any indication. He was pretty sure he’d seen the same person involved in more than one of those couplings, too.

Maybe to Bran this was just sex. Jamie wasn’t like that, not usually anyway, and he didn’t really want to start being into casual sex now, but he hadn’t made that at all clear. They hadn’t had any of the normal conversations about STI testing or exclusivity or what they thought this relationship was going to be.

It was a very un-Jamie-like thing to do.

Trixie would probably be proud of him. Rob, too, maybe, although Rob did think Bran was a stalker.

Jamie wasn’t sure whathethought.

Then something even more uncomfortable occurred to him.

What if it was all the magic? This threadbond thing, drawing them together, pushing them into bed. What if this whole thing was because of magic, not an emotional or even physical connection?

No wonder fae were more casual about sex. If it could be essentially forced by magic…

A finger touched his forehead, jarring him out of his own thoughts. “Why are you unhappy?” Bran asked softly, his own brow creased.

Jamie sighed. “Overthinking,” he answered. “I’m still just not sure about… anything.”

“The threadbond?”

“Yeah.”

Bran’s frown eased. “What else do you wish to know?”

Chapter

Thirty-Seven

Jamie frowned down at his hands, his fingers tangled in a heavy dark-grey yarn that felt oddly slick. He wanted to blame the material for his inability to make it do what he wanted, but he knew it was his head, and not the yarn, that was to blame for that.

Well, his head and his stupid, foolish heart.

That first night after the threadbinding, Bran had stayed up with him well past dawn—since the Sluagh slept during the day and were active at night—answering every question Jamie could think of, although he was pretty sure that he’d probably forgotten several very important things he’d meant to ask. It had been almost noon when Bran had left, re-dressing himself the regular way with clothes that he’d apparently somehow ‘dropped’ on the floor when he’d magically removed them.

The whole thing was giving Jamie a headache.

Or maybe that was the fact that he hadn’t slept at all. He still wasn’t used to sleeping during the day, for one, and for two, he absolutely knew that he was falling in love with Bran mac Cairn, and he also knew that was a very, very stupid thing to do.

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