She looked more closely at the titles, tipping one into the light. “A God So Wild and Bright.”
She scanned the first page and her face turned a delightful shade of pink. “What the?”
“Hmmm?” What would those thighs feel like wrapped around my head?
Her mouth stood open. Her hands clutched the book tighter and I restrained myself from pulling it from her grip. “Are these all romance books, Declan?”
I looked up sharply at her confused tone. “Well sure! Every woman I've talked to said they're basically a manual for keeping a mate and I had to be prepared when I met her.”
She looked down at me in wonder and I preened a bit. “Why does that make a frightening amount of sense? What are these bookmarks?”
Fallon touched the paper tags decoratingA Civilized Lady’s Dark Delight. I smirked. That one was probably a little advanced for her.
My smile gentled. “Oh, well, things I eventually wanted to try, or had a question about.”
Her gaze darted back and forth, scanning the sheer number of markers sticking out at every angle of every book. I would have told her it was five hundred and fifty-three. She picked one at random,A Court of Light and Ash, my favorite, and opened the first bookmark.
Her legs gave out as she read what I had labeled. Her blush turned furious. Luckily, I caught her in my arms andset her gently on the bed. I wanted to place her on my lap, but Fallon squirmed so hard I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t come in my pants immediately if I had her against my hips. This wasn’t exactly how I pictured us growing closer together, but it was all Fallon, that was for sure. The woman could complicate water.
I hovered over her shoulder, scanning the page. “See, like this one. What is a cocksleeve for cock warming?”
What a delicious word. She slammed the book shut, grazing my nose with the pages. “Never in my spiciest fantasies has anyone ever used words like that.”
I wiggled a little. “You know what it is? It’s not a bad word, right?”
She stuttered out a breath. “I guess define ‘bad’. It’s a dirty word. It’s when…” She buried her face in her hands. “I can’t do this.”
Fallon was so straightforward. Who would have guessed this would be the thing that flustered her? Then I realized, perhaps it wasn’t just the word. Maybe the word frazzled her in relation to me. I slowly lowered her hands. “You can’t stop if you know what it is.”
Fallon had never failed to delight in giving me a long and detailed lecture before.
She straightened her spine, clearing her throat as if she were about to go to a hangman’s noose. “It’s a dirty word for someone you put your penis into and you keep it there. Hence the warm part.”
I bit my lip, trying to contain my laughter. Did Fallon just say ‘penis’ like she was reading out of some sort of medicinal tome? Her face remained hilariously straight. I might not know what some of these things were in these books, but even I understood no one called it a ‘penis’ unless your mother was telling you how the fairies and the frogs did it.
I drew a little heart on the back of the hand I still held. “Like a cock sock?” I didn’t think people said that, but I couldn’t help teasing her and it rhymed. Her face was red enough to combust. If I rested against her, would she scald me? My hands twitched to find out.
“Okay. That’s…” She made a proper ‘fuck you’ gesture and I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing.
She looked down at her hands. “Goddsdamnit. I’m going to take a nap and then your mother wants me to try to ferment something with my magic.”
I kneeled on the bed as she left, making my eyes as big as possible with pleading. “Pickles, please.”
Her lips wobbled with a suppressed smile. “I’ll consider it.” Her tone was so haughty that my laughter followed her out of the room.
It was for the best, anyway. I definitely needed some alone time before I put the book back on the shelf now that the fantasy of calling Fallon a cocksleeve was stuck in my head.
Alas, it was not to be. Briggs burst into my room justas Fallon left. I batted at her as she attempted to haul me off the bed.
“What? Speak before you rip my limbs off.”
She had a sister-level grip on my arm. “I need you to talk to the Whitewolf family. They want to know what you’re going to do now that you’re back.”
I breathed in, filling my lungs. The Old Magic demanded Old Ways of doing things and that meant I didn’t even get twenty-four hours to woo my mate into something real. We didn’t bow to other Kings and Queens here. We respected the fickle Old Magic enough that the idea was laughable. The downside was wolves lived their lives slower here. Change was quite difficult. That made a pair of missing wolves all the more terrifying to them.
“We’re going to ask Momma to put together her pasta casserole and arrive with dinner. You will take Arden out hunting afterwards.”
The outrage on Briggs’ face was laughable. She released me like I was on fire. “How did I get wrangled into this?”
