Page 12 of Mountain Man's Muse

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The spasms in her own flesh quieted slowly with his breathing. After a long moment, he withdrew and lowered himself to rest at her side, their limbs still entwined.

“I don’t usually do this.” His voice was muffled against her shoulder.

She tripped her fingertips down his chest toward his still-rampant erection. “You are naturally gifted then.”

He pulled slightly away and caught her hand. “I don’t mean… I don’t know what came over me.”

She laughed, low in her throat. “You came over me.”

He gave her a repressive look. “I am trying to say, I don’t usually take a woman to bed on the first date. Not that this was a date even.”

She raised her hand to cup his cheek. The mingled scent of their sex and the flowers followed the gesture. Her heart seemed to skip once. “That makes me feel very special.”

He stared. “Really?”

“Don’t you think it means something that you would share yourself with me, like this?”

“You are some kind of woman.”

“Not any kind you know.”

“Maybe not.” He caught her hand and pressed a kiss to the center of her palm, though his gaze never left hers. “I want you to know I take full responsibility for anything that might come of what we just did. I never… That is, I’m tested, and I always do the right thing.”

Of that she had strangely little doubt. “What might come of this besides our pleasure?”

His brow furrowed. “I guess you’re on birth control?”

Did he sound panicked, or disappointed? She touched the line on his forehead. “My kind rarely have children of our own.” Even with their numbers decimated by iron, the fae were slow to rebound.

“Your kind?” He curled one finger through her hair. “You mean supermodels?”

She hadn’t meant to get into a discussion of her background, even if humans rarely remembered the truth of their encounters with the fae once the sun rose, so she kissed him again to distract him. He seemed willing if the renewed prodding against her hip was any indication.

Despite her reassurances, he insisted on protection the second time. As if human semen held any worries for her compared to the hunter and the Ruiner and the queen.

But when Josh rolled her into his arms, those worries, much like the faedrealii, seemed far away. For the first time in her fae existence, she did not think about her place or who she had to impress. Judging from his fevered breaths, Josh wanted her exactly where she was, so she gave herself up to his inspired touch.

***

They showered together afterward and he swathed her wrists again in salve and loose bandages then gave her a gentle nudge toward the clothes she had ignored before. “Get dressed while I make us some dinner.”

He kissed her once, then left, barefoot and bare-chested. She watched him go with her lips still tingling from the kiss.

She dressed quickly in garments too large for her and smelling of him while the dog Wolly watched her from the doorway. She met the flat brown stare.

“I am not here to claim your human,” she said in the fae’s lyrical tongue. “We have no quarrel, you and I.”

The dog seemed disinclined to believe her and did not move back when she approached. But from the other side of the house drifted the smell of something meaty, and after one more searching stare, Wolly trotted away.

Adelyn followed the dog toward the sound of rattling pans in the kitchen. There was a foreign touch on the house, obvious in the ruffle-topped curtains catching dust and the too-delicate throw pillows that clashed with the couch in the parlor, but no recent sign of a female presence. Hence the half-empty coat rack, the towering pile of books on only one side of the couch, and the tools scattered on the dining table. Not to mention the pall of loneliness.

She paused at the dining table to look over belt buckles in various stages of creation. The one centered in front of the lone chair had been etched and stamped. Empty settings showed where insets of some sort would go.

A dish of stones sat nearby, and she stirred her finger through the selection. Nothing precious, just an opal, some chunks of coral and turquoise, a handful of tumbled jaspers, but the stones were lovingly polished and a pleasure to touch.

Josh stuck his head through the kitchen doorway. “Ready to eat?”

“I was looking at your art.”