Toby's gentle smile was the last thing I saw in the God Realm as it faded around me and I was pulled back in time to Faerie. I reformed in the bedroom I shared with my dragon-sidhe husband, Arach in Castle Aithinne, at the border of the Fire Kingdom. Arach was waiting for me on our bed as usual. He was dressed in a pair of black leather pants—the ties undone—and was sitting at the foot of the bed; leaning back on his hands to show off his amazing abs. Arach cocked his head and grinned at me as I appeared; his autumn-yellow, dragon eyes honing in on my wet hair. His own blood-red hair shifted across his muscled shoulders as he leaned forward gracefully and stood. The flap of his pants fell open and revealed a hint of red hair down there. I smiled as I let my gaze wander his body and stepped over to him.
“Your hair is wet, Wife,” Arach noted. “Would you care to make some steam?”
“Oh, you romantic dragon, you,” I teased him as I slid my hands into the opening of his pants and pushed them down. I glanced at the hard shaft rising up amid the fiery curls and then palmed it. “I know just the thing to raise my temperature.”
I shoved Arach down on the bed and pulled his pants off completely with one swift movement. Arach crossed his arms behind his neck so he could stare down his torso at me. I smiled wickedly as I pushed his legs further apart and nestled between them. I nuzzled my cheek against the side of his manhood, and Arach groaned; one hand going to my head to weave his fingers through my hair.
“You're a vicious woman,” Arach growled as the crimson scales at his temples spread down the sides of his face and then the sides of his chest. “Put your mouth on me.”
“Patience,” I purred and then gave him a lick.
“I will repay this torment in full,” Arach promised.
“I'm counting on it.” I fluttered my fingers down his inner thighs.
Arach's hand clenched in my hair and pulled me closer. I just laughed and eased back to kiss the tip of him. He made the dragon growl I adored—a low, deep rumble that always set me to rumbling too—and began to move as if he'd roll us over. I smacked my palms down on his thighs to hold him in place as I covered him completely with my mouth.
My dragon-sidhe husband burst into flames.
Don't worry; that's a good thing. An exciting, startling, and deeply arousing thing. It had been awhile since our passion had resulted in a good bed-burning. That Arach had responded so hotly to my initial efforts made me feel supremely proud, and it also set my body, my clothes, and my libido afire. Steam did indeed rise from my hair as I burned with desire for my husband. It misted around us—combining with the smoke of our blaze—and turned the bedroom into a hazy, sensual place.
Arach let me pleasure him for only a few more minutes before he grabbed me by my shoulders and pulled me up his body; the ashes of my clothes falling away as his manhood slid between us. With a quick movement, he had me beneath him and another few shifts had him inside me. I clawed at his shoulders with hands suddenly tipped in talons, and Arach roared in delight as he bucked harder into me.
Such was the mating of dragon-sidhe; a savage, bloody inferno of ecstasy and ashes. Pain and blood brought a sharp relief to our mounting desire and an addictive insight into each other. I licked the tips of my talons as my husband bit my neck; just beneath my ear. Blood ran over our tongues and our memories ran with it.
I sighed as I felt Arach's love for me burst inside my chest and then saw myself through his eyes. It was just before the last time I'd left. We'd taken the boys to their bedroom and had returned to ours to say goodbye. I could feel the silkiness of my own hair as he stroked it and the depth of his emotion as he focused on my golden dragon eyes—shifted by my desire for him—and the sparkling stripe of starlight in my dark hair. Love made pleasure magnify, but feeling my love for Arach and his for me while we made love was beyond rapturous. I cried out as my body seemed to be consumed by the flames we both craved to rise up with the smoke in the most profound sexual release.
As I screamed and writhed, Arach kept pounding into me; faster and faster. The bed was completely alight—only the iron frame surviving our lust—and we were thrashing in burning embers; setting them to swirl across the stone floor. I stared up at the wooden ceiling that had been installed over the inverted cone of our hollow, mountain tower, and wished it weren't Autumn. If it were Spring or Summer, the wood panel would be packed away—its heat-preserving ability unnecessary—and my cries would have echoed up the stone to drift among the hundreds of candles set within nooks there. But as it was, the smoke gathered around the lowered ceiling and filled the room. It was in utter grayness
