Page 31 of Lucky or Knot
He wouldn’t be sneaking out tonight, magic or no. My arm tightened around him without any conscious input from me, and hemmphed at me as his ribs creaked.
“Sorry,” I mumbled into his hair, and forced my arm to relax.
Tucked all the way under me like this, he had to be either suffocating or crushed even without my too-possessive grip, and I started to push up.
Raven’s surprisingly strong hands dug into my shoulders, tugging me back down again. Well, all right. No arguments from me. Missionary position was the worst for knotting in someways, because then you had to hold a plank for half an hour if you didn’t want to squish your lover. Maybe Declan was onto something, taking another alpha as a mate. He’d be durable.
Of course, Raven seemed like a good middle ground. Not an alpha, which was great, because I wasn’t attracted to guys who looked like me, and most alphas ran to the big and muscled and rough. But…shockingly durable for someone so delicate-looking. And fresh-smelling, despite two rounds of sweaty, knotted sex. Mmm. I nuzzled into his apple-blossom-scented hair.
“I wanted you to kiss me,” Raven said, so abruptly that it startled me out of my impending slide into total relaxation.
That statement demanded my full attention, and I pushed up to look down into his face. Christ, why did he have to be so…so…he hadn’t been crying this time, because I’d have noticed, but the shiny corners of his eyes and the tightness around his mouth caught at my heart in a way no one else’s emotional displays had ever done. Usually I figured people would sort out their own crap unless they directly asked for my help, and I much preferred it that way.
Not with Raven, damn it all.
Gods. He’d wanted me to kiss him. The bubbly sensation in my chest made me a little bit embarrassed to exist.
“Then why didn’t you let me?”
He turned his head a bit and met my eyes. The gods only knew what mine were showing him, probably too much. But his had clouded over, the shimmering polish of his jet-black irises dimmed.
“You’ve heard about eating fairy food? What can happen to someone from this plane of existence?” His mouth turned down at the corners, and I’d never wanted to kiss him more, even as the pit of my gut started to sink like he’d dropped a brick into it. “It’s all true. It’s a very bad idea. You can’tconsume something that’s not of the mortal world without it having an effect, usually unpredictable and even more usually undesirable.”
“And your bodily fluids are the same. If I consume them. Is that what you’re telling me?” Fuck me. The headaches and the longing and the protectiveness…not that he hadn’t warned me. Although. “You know, you could’ve tried a little harder to explain why I should keep my mouth to myself.”
Raven’s eyelashes swept down and up again in a slow blink that was almost more catlike than an actual cat, and I should know.
“My general attitude toward alphas can be summed up as ‘go knot yourselves and die.’ I made quite an effort, considering.” I raised my eyebrows at him, and he sighed, one corner of his mouth quirking up. “Unfortunately for my total lack of concern for your well-being, you haven’t been completely dreadful. In fact, in some ways, you’re grr—oh!” He pressed himself back down into the pillow. “That’s what your actual growl sounds like. Ah.”
Good to know he could take me at least a little bit seriously, for fuck’s sake, although the way he lay still and lax under me, my cock slowly starting to soften inside him, suggested I hadn’t actually scared him.
Even better.
And anyway, I had more questions.
“Is it cumulative? I mean, you said it might wear off. You thought. And by the way, if you think that counts as quite an effort, you know, try harder.” A slight nod was all I got in acknowledgment. Little fucker. “But if I kiss you now, will it actually make it worse? Whatever the hell you’ve already done to me? And don’t pretend it was only the effect of kissing you. You whammied me to knock me out the other night.”
“It’s also the effect of licking me. My sweat isn’t any betterthan my saliva.”
“Not an answer,” I gritted out. “And way to make it sound gross instead of hot, dude.”
He tensed up slightly, sending one last ripple of sensation through my now truly exhausted cock, his fingers digging into my upper arms.
“If you call me ‘dude’ again,” he said primly, “I’ll use my magic to change your name from The Hammer to Tony the Tiger on every piece of promotional material your club puts out from now until the end of mortal time.”
That cartoon tiger in a glittery G-string…wearing my face?
I dropped back down against the edge of his pillow to hide my expression, but my shaking shoulders gave me away, and he poked me in the ribs until I pinched his side and made him squeak and cut it out.
“Fuck,” I wheezed. “Fuck. But you really overestimate the good taste of Lucky or Knot’s clientele, Raven. I’d sell out the house as Tony the Tiger. All I have to lose is my dignity.”
“Will you pinch me again if I point out that you don’t have a lot of that to lose?” The warm, relaxed amusement in his voice took all the sting out of the words.
After all, when I fell down on stage the other night—still his fault, I hadn’t forgotten, simply chosen to forgive—it’d been all right when they were laughing with me instead of at me.
“It’s the glitter,” I finally managed. “It doesn’t leave you with a lot of dignified high ground.”
And then I remembered what I’d said to Dominic about girls and corvids, and I lost it again, whooping with laughter, my soft-at-last cock slipping out of Raven as I shook with it.
