“Please,” I gasped. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
It was all he needed to hear. He ground his hips against mine, and I let out a moan of pleasure. He was hard between his legs; his erection dug into my hips, demanding entrance. He pulled up my skirt roughly, running his palm over my hips and panties.
“I’m going to claim you,” he groaned into my ear. “By the end of tonight, you’re going to be mine completely.”
I felt myself nodding against him. “Yes.Yes.” My skin was about to burst with need. I needed him to touch me in every curve and every cleft. I needed him to fill me in a way no man ever had. He kissed me hard, almost painfully, and my body trembled with desire.
His hand clutching my ass slid around to the front of my hips. Without warning, he dipped his fingers under the elastic band of my panties. I gasped. His fingers teased the sensitive skin between my thighs until I was writhing beneath him. He claimed my mouth with his tongue at the same time that he plunged a finger inside me.
I moaned and bucked against his hand. He slipped in a second finger, and I closed my eyes and leaned back.
“Severn,” I gasped. “I should probably tell you…I haven’t been with anyone before. I want you to be my first, but I don’t want it to be pretend. I’m done with pretend.”
It was a difficult thing to confess, something deeply private. I’d come close to having sex with a few guys, even going beyond what Severn and I were doing now, but I’d never actually had intercourse. It wasn’t as though I was saving myself, but it had never felt right. Especially after learning of the beautiful fae world, human boys had lost their thrill.
He pulled back, lifting himself up on one hand. His eyes were dark and famished. His silken hair draped around us, loose and wild. His chest was rising in shuddering deep breaths.
“You’re a virgin?”
I nodded, biting one lip.
“Saints, Willow. A fucking virgin.” He closed his eyes briefly as his muscles rippled.
I ground my hips up against his, holding on tight to his bulging triceps. “It doesn’t matter. I want you, Severn. Right now.”
He jerked his head away with a pained expression. For a moment, I wasn’t sure what he would do. He muttered something under his breath in a language I didn’t understand and rolled off me, sitting up, dragging his hand over his scalp.
I sat up, too, still breathing hard. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do that to you—take your innocence. Not like this.”
“Iwantyou to.”
“You don’t know what you want,” he growled at me with an intensity I hadn’t been expecting. “You say you don’t want pretend. You want something real. But it can’t be real, Willow, don’t you get that? Not between us. You aren’t some fae who can fuck and forget about it the next day. You feel things deeply. If we have sex, it won’t be meaningless for you.”
My body was still vibrating with an urgent need. I was twenty-three years old, not a teenager. I could handle meaningless sex. I grabbed his arm, pulling him to face me.He said he wanted me to beg—fine, then I’ll beg.“Please, Severn.”
“Don’t do this to me, Willow,” he said tightly. “You have no idea how much I want to shove you into this mattress and make you moan all night. I’m tryingnotto be a monster. I know you already think of me as one, but this is a line not even I will cross.”
He stood up abruptly. I stared at him, slack-jawed.Ididn’t even take my virginity that seriously, so I didn’t understand why he was. Didn’t he want me? His body certainly seemed to indicate it.
I pushed to my feet and reached out to touch his shoulder. “Severn…”
He brushed my hand away. “Go to your room. Forget this happened. It was just pretend, Willow. A game. That’s all.”
I stared at him for a long time. He wouldn’t look at me. It was more than a game, and we both knew it. I started to leave, but he grabbed my hand, holding me back for a second while he whispered in my ear. “If we fuck…whenwe fuck…I promise you that it won’t be pretend. But it can’t be tonight. Not until I know it’s what you really want, consequences be damned. And therewillbe consequences.” He tugged me close with an arm around my waist, pulling me into a long, sensuous kiss before letting me go.
All night, I replayed the press of his body on mine, running my own hands over my skin, wishing it was Severn’s touch.
ChapterEighteen
“You look awful, Willow.”
Zara flopped down next to me in a beach chair while I petted Puck, sitting on the floor beside me. It was the final day of the conference, and I’d spent the morning staring at the crashing waves and thinking wicked thoughts about the night before that I shoulddefinitelynot have been replaying through my head again and again…and again. Henry and May were building a sandcastle close to the water, and I was wearing my hat and sunglasses, not to hide from paparazzi—who were luckily nowhere to be found on the private island—but rather to obscure the hungover shadows beneath my eyes.
I groaned. “I need to get off this island.”
Zara raised her eyebrows provocatively. “You either had a very good or a very bad evening.”
