Whether it will end us all…
That is yet to be seen.
Iscratched at my jaw with two days’ worth of dark whiskers lining my chin, the stubble abrasive against my fingers. I absently wondered if the elf would have a problem with it—as if this wasn’t Fae damned awkward enough.
With the bed set between us, using it as a shield of the inevitable, I glanced from his mulish expression to the bed and back again. Finally, I cocked my head and stated gruffly, “At least you have a bed large enough for a shifter.”
“And yet, no brute of a savage has ever been in it before,” he growled, jamming his hands on his hips. His strange elf eyes, white around the dark blue, might as well be caging me into ice once more. He pointed a finger at the bed and demanded, “I like this mattress. Do not tear it up with your barbaric tendencies.”
Snorting hard, I mumbled, “I’ll try to control myself in the face of all your repugnant, elven splendor.”
As his fangs flashed in my direction—a completely useless action to intimidate—my nose wrinkled while I studied his stature. His height wasn’t a complete hindrance; I’d been with men shorter than him before. But his size truly may be a problem. He was finely muscled and broad-shouldered but lithe like the elven folk tended to be.
Meeting his scowling eyes again, I asked bluntly, “Do you have oils for easier entry?”
Cursing furiously, he turned and opened a bedside drawer and began rifling through its contents. Finally, he tossed a red glass bottle of lubricant onto the bed, and, still bent over and rummaging through his items, he griped, “Anything else we need?”
My lips twitched at his surliness—and his attempt to deflect for more time even though the urge was burning us both up. “To get naked?”
“Right.” Caspian slammed the drawer shut and straightened, turning to face me. He wiped the back of his hand over his perspiring forehead and grumbled, “I suppose that would help.”
I coughed to cover a laugh and started removing my clean shirt over my torso, raising it deftly and quickly to toss it aside on the elf’s bedchamber floor. Then I covertly watched beneath my lashes as the elf froze, slowly unlacing my leather breeches, his attention solidly on my hard, muscled chest.
I knew I looked fucking good—for a man—but I wasn’t sure how he would take to the black hair on my pectorals.
It appeared he was in a bit of a stupor now, flicking his chilled eyes from my hard, hairy chest down to my fingers working at my breeches.
I grunted at his panicked expression and ordered quietly, “Get undressed, Caspian. You may not think much of me or my kind, but I can promise you that I would never harm a man in bed.Even my enemy.Despite what you see before you, I am not that kind of evil.”
His unbelieving elf gaze jumped to mine. “You are forgetting I’ve already heard much about you.”
I cocked one eyebrow high on my forehead. “You’ve heard rumors that I’ve been unkind to my sexual partners?”
His dark blue gaze narrowed slowly, and his lips thinned just so. “Well…not of the sexual variety.” The elf breathed heavily through his nose, and then he started shedding his hooded cloak, dropping it to the floor behind him. He unlaced his silken shirt and muttered grudgingly, “Anything to do with intimacies has been rather vague. Normally, that indicates there’s little of note to remark upon.”
I chuckled deeply and began kicking off my boots, stuffing my thumbs down into the edge of my pants. “I wouldn’t say that exactly.” I stared down pointedly where my cock was heavy and hard beneath my leather breeches, clearly showing the outline of one impressively well-endowed man. “Would you rather I keep these on for the time being?”
The elf damned near rolled his eyes. “It’s a cock. I’ve got one of my own. Your shifter dick isn’t going to frighten me.”
“If you say so.” I finished disrobing and crawled onto his bed, keeping my mien utterly at ease.
I firmly ignored the tremor now evident in the elf’s hands while he attempted to stay stoic in the face of my giant shifter cock now on display.
Instead, I rolled my head on my neck while the urge battered my body from the inside out, heat and need pulsing in waves to get the job done. Then, leaning back on my elbows, I tilted my head back and stared at his curved ceiling, giving him a modicum of privacy while he undressed. “Tell me something, elf. You say you’ve had men in your bed before—and I’m guessing it’s many with the way elves react to you. So have you everaccidentallycrossed swords while in the act of pleasuring a woman?”
Caspian muttered a quiet curse…as he jumped haphazardly on one foot in my peripheral, trying to remove his left boot. Then, snippily—and distractedly—he muttered, “Do you really think I’d fall for that shit? I’m the same age as you.”
“Age has nothing to do with someone’s experience.” I kept my gaze on the ceiling while he started jumping chaotically on his other foot, one boot down. “Think you can answer the question honestly now?”
“Fuck.Once or twice.” His remaining boot went flying across the room. “I was simply experimenting—and it did nothing for me.”
“But you were curious enough to attempt the experimentation in the first place.” I kept my tone patient and smooth for the nervous elf. I stared at the ceiling and raised my black eyebrows at the crisscrossing frame. “What did those men look like?”
“Nothing like you, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Caspian muttered and tossed his last remaining clothing item away with a harsh flick of his hand, his breeches soaring across the room in a furious blast of ice power, coating them in a blue frost. “I have already told you that I’mnotinto men. But I am older. I’ve tried shit. It didn’t work out.”
“Hm,” I hummed distractedly as he climbed onto his bed, droplets of sweat covering his toned and muscular bare chest.
I kept my eyes above waist level as I turned to face him. I slowly ran my eyes over his pensive features and stated a truth he may not want to hear, “There is a possibility you were with thewrongmen, elf. Am I correct in deducing that the elves you experimented with were physically weaker than yourself? Mayhap…less dominant than you? It would be an easy guess, as you are tall for an elf, and your own predisposition screams the need for control.”
