I spun him around and trapped his long, tapered fingers against the wall, then licked a stripe along his spine, from the join of his vibrating wings all the way to the nape of his neckwhere the stray hairs had come loose from his braid. I wanted his scent all over my bed sheets and saturating my skin. My groin punched against his ass and he arched back, presenting for me like a proper slut.
“You want Daddy to take control of your pleasure tonight, boy?” I asked, my voice deepening as my dominant instincts took over.
“Yes, sir. Tell me what to do. I only want to please you.”
“What do you like?” I asked, having my suspicions already.
“I like fat cocks drilling my insides so deep I can barely breathe. And when I tell you I can’t take anymore, I want you to hold me down and make me.”
“Safeword?” I asked before we got in too deep.
“Succotash.”
“I’m bigger than average,” I warned.
“I’m counting on it. Fill me up, Daddy. I’ll make room.”
“You gotta let me know if I’m being too rough.”
“I’m a tough cookie. I can take it.”
I reached over and used my clan’s signet ring to unlock the door to my apartment, still with Skylar trapped against the wall. The fire within me was by now a blazing inferno, but my sense of self-preservation finally kicked in. I’d made a habit of fucking frivolous, emotionally unavailable men. Men who were attracted to my physical oddities or my bulk, and after a few rounds of athletic sex, left me high and dry. The worst was when we’d spend a fantastic night together only for me to discover the next morning that they’d disappeared without atrace. It left me with a hollowness inside that was becoming harder and harder to bear.
I had a hunch this fae was a runner, so before crossing the threshold of whatever this was, I spun him around and took hold of his chin to level his heated gaze with mine. “Daddy has a condition. We’ll call it rule number one.”
He blinked at me, wide-eyed and waiting.
“I’m going to take you apart all night long, baby boy, and if you’reverygood, I’ll allow you to come. But when I wake up tomorrow morning, I want to find you still rumpled in my bed sheets. Is that understood?”
He nodded, gave a small smile, and said oh-so-sweetly, “Yes, Daddy.”
Music to my ears.
Chapter seven
Skylar
Yes, Daddy.
I’d said it and I’d meant it, at least for the night, and with a deep, shuddering breath I crossed the entrance into Hiero’s darkened apartment. The ceilings were high and sloped with exposed wooden beams from which an ornate candelabra hung, and the walls were made of the same stone masonry as the bar below. Lit by only the moonlight filtering in through the stained-glass windows, the centerpiece of the space was a very impressive, minotaur-sized bed. I found myself liking the openness of the space, as if my minotaur had nothing to hide.
Hiero appeared to live simply, but the space was homey, decorated with artifacts from the natural world and a few house plants growing in pots. His furniture was worn but seemed to have been chosen with comfort in mind. There was a fireplace too with an animal-skin rug and cozy-lookingrecliner, and I imagined curling up in front of the fire on cold, winter nights while the snow was falling outside.
But winter was still many moons from now and who knew where I’d be then?
Do not get attached.
“I like your place,” I said. The bass of the music reverberated through the stone floor, but the sound was muted by the many carpets, making the sudden quiet even more noticeable.
“Thank you. It’s the monastery where I grew up.”
That explained the name of the bar and the large pewter cross around his neck. And his name too, I supposed. Wasn’t the Hierophant a religious figure in some human cultures? I hadn’t done all that well in my studies, not with hunger always snapping at my heels like a vicious dog, but I’d paid attention in the classes that dealt with cultures and belief systems. You could learn a lot about a person according to whom or what they worshiped.
“Was he good to you? The monk?” I asked while hoping he had been. It couldn’t have been easy growing up as a halfling.
“Aberthol was a very good man,” Hiero said with genuine warmth. “And I have the Wolfsbane Clan now, who’ve adopted me as one of their own.”
I was glad he’d fallen in with a good crowd. It was harder to find kinship in Emrallt Valley, as our society was much more rigid with the various guilds controlling our labor and associations. Hiero would likely have ended up guildless in Emrallt Valley, much as I had. But here he’d become aprosperous business owner with a community to call his own. It was admirable all that he'd achieved. Perhaps I should have struck out from my homeland years ago, but it was all that I’d known and for all their faults, the fae were my people.
