Page 10 of Overexposed

“What were your eyes like? Before? I mean, blue, but what kind of blue?” I asked.

“Mother called them ocean blue,” he said. “The left one had a streak of brown in it. Tove said that meant I’d been marked by fate.”

His body kept moving against mine, lips seeking purchase.

“Did you ever dream about me? Earlier, when you were still waiting for the prophecy to happen.”

“Yes.” He opened his mouth over my throat almost as if he wanted to sink his teeth into me, but he stopped short, grazing me with his sharp eyeteeth. “I imagined you were a golden-haired prince riding a fine destrier, retainers at your heel. I imagined you wearing a crown and gold buckles on your shoes. Then sometimes, I thought you might be a farm hand with calloused hands and a wholesome smile. With freckles.”

That made me freeze. And break out in laughter.

“What?” Auris asked. He was still on top of me and not letting me move, and he looked frustrated about the interruption.

“Wholesome? You dreamed about me being wholesome? And freckled?”

“I didn’t know you then. I didn’t know I’d fall in love with your tourmaline eyes and sable hair. Wholesome freckles were still a possibility.”

I stopped dead. “You are saying I’m not wholesome, then.”

A predator grin spread over his face and his eyes narrowed on me. If he’d had visible pupils, they’d have been blown.

“I’m saying you do not appreciate the true romance that sharing one’s fantasies can be. I’m saying that perhaps, my sweet, you lean more toward the carnal aspects in a gathering of lovers such as we are.”

“You’re saying you want to give me your cock?”

“Seduction by crudeness. Very well, I succumb.” He turned serious. “You still want me inside you? You can change your mind about it, always.”

“I know,” I said. “I want to. Want you.”

“Good.”

He moved, and I immediately missed his weight. Perhaps that was something he knew and understood, and perhaps that was why he chose to lift one of my legs over his shoulder when he next settled, stroking my calf and heel too.

“The truth is,” he said, and I heard him open the bottle of lube, “I imagined you as whatever it was I desired at the time. Longing changed according to my moods, and in my earlier days, I wouldn’t always know my moods or my longings. You’re tense, Ethan.”

I was. Without his weight, with one leg lifted and his fingers exploring, I felt unmoored. “I want this,” I told him again.

“So let me inside you. Let me have you and hold you.” His fingers wandered, explored. He paused to play with my balls until they were slick, coated in lube. “Everyone reacts differently to a compliment, but I love your body, wholesome or not. You are soft and flexible. I like the taste of your skin.”

He opened me with a single finger, sliding right in, then finding a rhythm, a movement that made him tighten his grip on my leg.

“My… Did you like my blood?” I asked.

If it shocked him, he didn’t show that in any way I could notice. “I like that very much.”

There was no time to mull the words over, to consider them, not when he carefully continued with stretching me for him, slowly and methodically, adding lube as he went.

I still felt exposed and too light, and my skin prickled.

“Look at me,” he said, his tone of voice not a command, not a request either.

I hadn’t noticed that I’d squeezed my eyes shut, but now, I focused on him. I saw him as the fae prince even in daylight, but only during the night, I saw magic in him. Imagined magic, at any rate, the mythical thing, love at first sight, the happily ever after promise bound up in one person. His idea of a prince on a pretty horse and my idea of a faerie prince were not that different after all.

Yet, I was pretty sure I’d gotten the better deal out of this prophecy, if that was as real as Auris had made it sound. He had eyes for only me, and in this situation, this very situation where you could’ve easily excused him looking elsewhere, his eyes were fixed on mine.

He said, “I’ll have you now,” and pulled his fingers out of me, lifted both my legs over his arms, and proved that this had been one of my better decisions of the night. Then, he filled me, stretched me on his cock as I lay there, watching.

The way he moved is one of those memories for me that sit in your brain like engravings on metal. I remember all of it, the firelight slithering over his face, his mouth going slack, his upper body falling back toward mine like stars falling into each other.

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