Page 40 of Lucky or Knot
Bythat, he surely meant me losing control and adding my own magic to the mix. And Cunningham, what would he do to him if Raven came back with another alpha’s bite on his neck? It didn’t bear thinking about.
“I wouldn’t do that unless you wanted it,” I said, because I wouldn’t, no matter how my fangs dropped and my mouth watered. Blood didn’t taste particularly appealing to most predator shifters in our human forms, but his…I didn’t want enough to hurt him. Just enough to know him down to his bones. “And you don’t hate me.”
“There are exceptions to every rule, not that I’m saying you are one.” The tiny smile he couldn’t seem to suppress belied that.
“Not biting,” I whispered as I leaned in, and he stopped pushing, letting me press the softest possible kiss to the hollow of his throat between his collar bones. He quivered in my arms. “I’m an exception. The only exception. Say it.”
I nuzzled the side of his throat and flicked my tongue.
“Ah,” he gasped. “In, mmm, Endless Sky. We have a portal to our own lands. It’s not really a spa for humans, but they do, oh, they do paint nails.”
“Interesting, but that won’t work. Say it.” I licked a stripe up to his chin, nipped at the little point of it, breathed out, “Tell me I’m the only alpha you’d ever want.”
“He can’t keep me from my own people, they’d take that very poorly,” Raven babbled, “so that’s why I can come here, to—” And then I kissed him again, and again, until he sagged in my arms and gave in, head tipped back and mouth yielding.
One of my hands slid down his spine, and his pants were stretchy today, enough that I could get my fingers down the back of them and tease into the crease of his ass. Raven jolted like I’d electrocuted him, hips thrusting against nothing. I found the tight clench of his hole with one finger. A knuckle’s worth of penetration had him clinging to me and shaking, practically sobbing into my mouth, and gods, I’d have given anything to be inside him—anything except the triumph and the perfection of holding him as he came apart, knowing that he didn’t need to say a gods-damned thing about exceptions. Words weren’t needed.
Raven would never moan and whine and come in his expensive pants for another alpha.
This was mine. He was mine. The hot, sweet come he’d spilled into his clothes was mine, along with that honeyed alkaline scent that wafted up to me. Someone else might technically own him, and that motherfucker’s days were numbered, but the panting, gasping mess of previously elegant and composed fairy in my arms belonged tome.
I pulled back enough to appreciate the sight of him, damp with perspiration, hair a rat’s nest, lashes fanned out over glowing cheeks. He’d slumped sideways with his head leaning on my upper arm, twisted up on top of the center console in a waythat would’ve had anyone without his natural flexibility headed straight to the chiropractor.
He’d do anything I wanted right now. Let me spread his legs. Or suck me off, if I told him to. I knew it the way I knew my own name. Some combination of fairy obligation, desire, and the submissiveness that came out at odd moments when I’d pleased him would make him agree to whatever I asked for.
My erection hadn’t subsided in the slightest. In fact, watching Raven come had almost tipped me over the edge.
But my arousal felt…not quite distant, but secondary. Pleasing him had been enough for me. Proving he wanted me, whether he’d say it or not, had been a nice little side bonus. And more than any of that, in the context of his relationship with Cunningham—if you could call it that—the thought of asking for sex acts he didn’t volunteer for made me sick.
So I eased him back down into the passenger seat, keeping my arm around his shoulders for support, and pulling my other hand out of his pants. That left me leaning uncomfortably over the center of the front seat, but the brush of his hair against my neck and cheek more than made up for it. I could’ve sat like that for a long, long time.
But of course Raven stirred and opened his eyes, tension returning to his relaxed body.
“My mouth is available if you need some relief,” he said. But his tone didn’t suggest eagerness.
The last of my overwhelming need drained away. Yeah, still hard. And yeah, later on I’d jerk myself raw thinking about his mouth, probably twice. But no.
“No,” I said, and it came out harsher than I’d meant it to. Now the arm I had around him felt weird. Half of me ached to grab him again and pull him close, but I slid it out from behind him and dropped back into my own seat, staring out at the sickly violet glow still radiating from the “spa’s” windows. What he’dsaid to me when he’d been trying to distract me replayed in my head—the big one, which finally had a bit of blood going to it. “Wait a second. You have family, or whoever, who’d be pissed if Cunningham kept you away from them? So how come they haven’t helped you? I assumed you were on your own. You can’t use your magic against him, you said. But presumably they can. What gives?”
His long, deep sigh could’ve indicated a lot of things from annoyance to regret, but the law of averages suggested disgust at my stupidity.
“Of course they can’t interfere with a bargain I entered into freely.” Yep. Shocked disgust. I’d called it. “However, their power gives me more leeway than he might allow me otherwise. They can’t release me, but they could make his life…uncomfortable. Which he’d then take out on me, of course. So no one wants that.”
Fairies. Fucking fairies, man. If my family had a choice between a cultural technicality and leaving me in what amounted to sex slavery, no rules existed that they wouldn’t be willing to violate.
“Your family sucks,” I said, because I simply couldn’t find any better words. “Christ. That’s—uncomfortable?” I rolled my head on the headrest to look at him. He’d kept his gaze straight ahead, also fixed on the eerie lighting, as far as I could tell. The clean, pointy lines of his profile gave nothing away. “They’d make him fucking uncomfortable, and that’s it? That doesn’t compute. You need their help!”
Raven shrugged one shoulder, and his lips pressed into a flat line, but he didn’t reply. Probably that was as close as he could get, within the constraints of his species and upbringing, to agreeing with me. I’d have to accept that.
Still. If I ever met his family…realistically, they’d turn me into a diseased frog.
Cunningham. I had to focus on the enemy I could defeat. A bunch of nail-painting fairies who wouldn’t get off their asses to rescue their own family and friends even though they were overpowered to do so were obviously out of my league.
“Look, we should—”
“No,” he said, echoing my earlier harshness, but with a weary undertone to it. He turned his head to meet my gaze steadily. “You’re about to start talking about it all again, aren’t you? I really wish you’d stop this. It only makes it worse. There’s nothing you can do. I’m starting to think there’s nothing I can do, either,” he added, wearier than ever.
“Not with that attitude.” Jesus, I sounded like my dad. Raven raised his eyebrows disdainfully. “Sorry, that was a joke?” His lip curled. “Fine. Not funny. But obviously there’s a way out, right? You said fae magic likes symmetry. There has to be some other way to flip the bargain you made with Cunningham that we haven’t thought of yet. Also, and stop me if I’m missing something important, but killing him seems like a pretty valid solution.”
