“I love you,” he says, and my heart races even faster. “With blood running down your lips and a man crying at your feet. In a yellow dress and clumsy dance steps. With your skirt pulled up to your thigh and a rifle in your hands. With four paws and a cute little face. I love you, Daphne Heartcleaver.”
He loves me. It isn’t one-sided. It isn’t my imagination. He loves me back. Then his latter words send a ripple of amusement through me. “Heartcleaver? I thought you said my surname should be Hartford.”
“I changed my mind. Hartford doesn’t suit you at all.”
“But Heartcleaver does?”
“Yes, my vicious little love, it does.”
He hefts me higher, and I frame his face with my hands, lowering my mouth to his. I’ve never felt so seen, so accepted, so torn between wanting to cry and wanting to make love and everything in between. I want to taste every inch of him. I want to learn every expression his beautiful face can make. But before I can get too carried away, I separate my lips from his and study his bruised visage. I run a hand along his jaw, where Gabby struck her victorious blow. Then through his damp curls.
“We need to get you warm and dry,” I say, unable to hide the disappointment in my voice. The last thing I want is for him to put me down. To have to maintain even an inch of distance as we return to the main streets. Perhaps even part ways for the night, if it’s too soon for us to take this tenuous, precious thing between us further. “After everything that happened, you must be exhausted. I can’t imagine that’s good for your wounds. You may heal faster than a human, but half fae don’t heal nearly as fast as pureblood. And with the rain?—”
“Daph,” he says, his lips curling in a wicked smirk, “you don’t need to worry too much about me. It’s true heat is most healing for a fire fae, but there are other ways to generate it.”
His words spark heat of my own, simmering in my lower belly. Mischief infuses my tone as I rake my fingertips against his scalp. “Is that so?”
He nods. “We can go home if you prefer. Light the stove. Undress each other. Sleep in a nice warm bed. Or we can give in to what I think we both want.”
I know exactly what I want. Based on the rock-hard length just beneath my ass, I think he feels the same. But I want to hear him say it. “What is it you want?” My voice comes out breathless, and I lower myself slightly, rocking my hips, wishing to the All of All that I’d worn a damn dress tonight, something I could lift with ease.
He bites his lip, tightening his grip around me. “I want you right here, Daphne, right now. In this musty alley that’s flecked with rain and blood, where anyone could see us if they chose to walk by. I want you against that wall, propped on one of those weird fucking mushrooms. I want the danger of getting caught. I want us just like this, filthy, sweaty, and burning for each other. And I want to make love to you until I’m on fire.”
A spark of desire surges through me. I lower my mouth to his. “Yes,” I breathe against his lips.
Our kisses reignite, fiercer than before, a dance of tongues and teeth. I lick up the side of his face, tasting sweat and blood. He smells like rain and pungent ale from the air at the club, but beneath it all, he smells likehim. Smoky Moonpetal and lavender, drifting on a current of lust.
I pull back just enough to undo my waistcoat and blouse, tearing the articles from my body and throwing them to the ground. I don’t know how he’s managed to hold me up this long without so much as a twitch of fatigue in his muscles, but maybe what he said about heat is true. Passion blazes between us, igniting our hearts, warming the rapid pulse of our shared breaths, and pooling between my thighs. I roll my hips against him, biting my lip at the agonizing distance my trousers create. Then I feel my back press against a rough, cold wall, and a wide shelf of blue-green fungi brightens above my head. Our personal spotlight.
He releases my legs and gently sets me down, and my fingers fly to the bottom of his shirt. Together we pull it overhead, baring his chest. I take in the sight of it, my palm roving wherever my eyes do. He winces as my hand grazes his ribs, which tells me he must have sustained injuries from his fight there, but there’s no sign of bruising. Already he must be healing.
His lips return to mine, and this time he’s the one exploring my torso, smoothing over my belly and my waist, then over my bralette. I arch into his touch, and he slides his hand beneath the silk, palming my breast. He spreads his fingers, rolling my nipple between them, and I breathe out a whimper. As he pulls his hand from beneath my bralette, I tug the entire undergarment over my head, tossing it aside. Then I work my trousers, undoing the top closure. Monty doesn’t aid my efforts, instead bracing his hands against the wall on either side of my head and staring down at my body, my hands, watching as I slide my trousers down my hips, then my undershorts.
He sucks in a breath at the sight of me bare before him, and I realize this is the first time he’s seen me naked. The last time we engaged in this sort of activity, I kept my dress around my middle. There was something erotic about that, yet this—being completely bared to him—is a whole new layer of vulnerability.
“Blazing hell, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he says, gaze sweeping up and down my form. I’m about to pull him against me, to reach for his trousers next, but before I can, he kneels on the ground before me.
I suck in a breath as one hand moves to my calf, urging me to part my legs and lift one.
“What are you doing?” I ask, bracing my hands on the two nearest mushrooms beside me. Thankfully, they’re strong and don’t give way beneath the pressure. I turn the rest of my weight over to the wall behind my back and let Monty guide my leg over his shoulder.
“Getting on my knees for you and groveling,” he says looking up at me. Then he lowers his lips to the apex of my thighs and presses a kiss there. Still holding my gaze, he says, “I’m sorry I was too afraid. You were right about me.”
I make some unintelligible sound that turns into a moan as he parts his lips and drags his tongue over the center of me. If not for the way he braces my hips, the way my leg is cradled over his shoulder, the sturdy wall beneath my back, I would collapse from the shock of pleasure that tears through me. The stroke of his tongue is so different from how his fingers felt. A sensation that’s entirely new to me.
He licks me again, his gaze unwavering. “I love you, and I’m not going to run. I’m not going to push you away again.” With that, he buries his face between my legs, licking, sucking. Eliciting sensations that send stars to my eyes. I roll my hips against his mouth, and he moves one of his hands from my hip to tease my entrance, painting it with the shared medium of his saliva and my arousal. Then he thrusts the finger inside me, all the while flicking his tongue over my swollen clit.
It’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever felt, and soon I’m riding his mouth, his fingers, cresting the wave of my release. I throw my head back, crying out as the wave barrels through me. His tongue swirls over me, dancing with the pulse of my orgasm, until my hips cease rocking.
Slowly, he slides his fingers out of me, then plants a kiss to my inner thigh. He trails a line of gentle kisses up my body until our lips meet. I breathe in the heady scent of my own sex, then taste it as he slides his tongue over mine. Every move is slow and soft, and I’m filled with the dreadful thought that this is over. That, like he did in my hotel room, he’s only going to deliver my pleasure.
Before he can consider such a ludicrous thought, I hook my fingers around his waistband and tug him closer. “More,” I manage to say through my panting breaths. “I need more.”
He quirks a brow, his smile cruel and taunting. “What did I tell you, Daffy Dear? Sex isn’t always transactional.”
“Grovel more for me, then,” I say, holding his eyes as I undo the closures of his fly. With trembling hands, I shove his trousers down, then his undershorts too. Then I grip his length, solid and ready beneath my palm, and give it a squeeze. “Grovel with your cock. Fuck me against this wall like you said you would.”
His eyes darken, and that’s all it takes to end his teasing. He steps between my legs and kisses me hard, then drags his tongue down my neck, across my collarbone. Lowering his head to my breast, he flicks his tongue over my nipple and takes it into his mouth. I gasp, once again learning just how incredible his tongue feels on my most sensitive places. With a final graze of his teeth, he releases my nipple and brings his mouth back to mine. I spread my legs wider, and he hooks one around his hip, angling me. The head of his cock meets my entrance, and I’m already wet for him, eager to feel this next new sensation between us.
