“Rans,” I whispered. “Bite me.”
I felt another puff of amusement tickle the side of my neck.
“Please tell me that was a request, and not an insult,” he said.
“Neither,” I replied breathlessly. “It was a demand. Bite me.”
“Good answer.” His lips touched the sensitive juncture of my neck and shoulder, pressing a kiss there. I rolled my head, baring the side of my throat, but he made a regretful noise and backed off. “First, though—much as it pains me to have to ask—is anyone coming to try and kill us in the next few hours?”
A groan slipped past my lips, but I did my best to drag my mind back to the practical. It wouldn’t take a genius to realize that I would run straight back to Rans after escaping Hell, and if Albigard knew about this place of his, others probably would, too. That being said, I suspected the demons would assume I’d had to take the slow route of cars and planes to get from California to the UK. No one who knew what had happened to me in Dhuinne would expect me to voluntarily hitch a ride with a Fae.
“Erm... probably not?” I offered. That exhaustion from earlier returned with a vengeance, this time with a hefty side order of don’t-give-a-fuck. “And this is going to sound like a serious mental health red flag, but right now—if someone did show up to kill us while we were in bed together? Well... I can think of worse ways to go.”
“Fair enough. Just remember—you said it. I didn’t,” Rans murmured against my skin... and bit me.
The sharp spike of pleasure-pain drew a gasp from me. Moments later, warmth began to spread through me, unknotting tense muscles one at a time until I felt like I was melting from the inside out. Rans drew on the twin wounds, pulling my blood into him with deep swallows.
A new heat bloomed from within and without, my animus and his swirling against opposite sides of the permeable barrier of my magic, seeking union. I let a trickle of his life-energy pass through—wanting it, but not wanting to drain him the way he was draining me. Not yet, anyway.
His fangs pulled out, though his lips remained sealed over the holes. I moaned shamelessly when his tongue laved the bite with slow strokes to heal it, the sensation spiraling down the length of my spine to settle in my sex. The barrier I was maintaining to keep from sucking him dry of energy wavered, but held.
“Good girl,” he said against my neck. “Leave me enough so I can take care of you for the next little bit, eh?”
I made a wordless noise, suddenly aware of just how heavily I was leaning on him. An instant later, the floor disappeared from beneath me as he scooped me into his arms. Vertigo swept over me for the space of a few heartbeats, and then I burrowed into him, hiding my face against the charcoal Henley he was wearing.
The cottage was small, but not cramped or tiny. The interior had been meticulously renovated in such a way that it maintained its rustic air while still offering all the modern conveniences. The bathroom was no exception—the exterior wall was the same irregular, unfinished stone as the outside of the building, while the other walls were gleaming white.
In addition to a deep copper tub, there was a clear glass shower stall taking up one entire corner of the room. It was easily big enough for two, with a tall stool and a short stool sitting inside as though they were permanent fixtures there.
“Shower’s quicker,” he said, before setting me down on the closed toilet lid and peeling off my clothing a piece at a time. Once I was naked, he stripped as well, baring pale skin and smooth muscle. After turning on the water and testing the temperature, he returned and swept me up again.
“I can walk,” I protested, though it might have been more convincing if I weren’t clinging to him.
He kissed the top of my head. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, depositing me on the tall stool and positioning me so the warm droplets raining down from above flowed over my body without spraying me directly in the face.
I let him wash me, marveling at the feeling of someone looking after me like this because he wanted to. Not because he felt he had to, or because it was an act to seduce me, but because he... cared for me. I still couldn’t quite bring myself to say the other word, even inside the privacy of my own head.
When I was clean and warm and drifting, he turned off the taps and dried us off with a huge, fluffy towel that smelled like lavender. He clearly had no clue about maintaining hair as kinky as mine, and I’d pay for that when it came time to pick it out later. Somehow, though, I couldn’t raise a single care about that. Instead, fresh warmth rose inside me at the idea of showing him how to condition and care for it someday soon.
It was such a... domestic idea.
The parts of the cottage I’d seen so far were darkly masculine—full of copper and brass, old wood and leather. By contrast, the upstairs bedroom was surprisingly airy, with light fabrics and a large window looking over the verdant hill beyond. He deposited my naked body on the buttercup yellow coverlet of a queen-sized bed, and took a moment to look down at me as though drinking in the sight.
“Two months,” he observed with a faint smile tugging at one corner of his lips, “and I finally got you into my bed.”
An answering smile crinkled the corners of my eyes. “As opposed to someone else’s bed, you mean?”
“Exactly,” he agreed.
Then my smile melted away beneath the intensity of his gaze—not so much predatory as possessive. Every square inch of my skin felt like it tightened, yearning for
