The Magic of I Do Read online

“You’re probably regretting having brought me here already.”

  “I certainly am.” He glared at her a moment. Then he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the settee. He tried to drop her onto the velvet surface, but she clung tightly to his neck when he would have dropped her. The result was that she tugged him down on top of her. He stilled. Completely.

  His breath blew across the shell of her ear as he held himself suspended above her, one hand on the back of the settee and one stiff beside her. “You’re playing with fire,” he growled. Then he unlaced her arms from around his neck, shoved himself back, and sat down on the opposite end of the settee. “You certainly know how to ruin a good meal.”

  She turned into the corner of the settee and nuzzled her body into the edge. She was more foxed than she’d planned. She should probably go to bed and try a different tack tomorrow. That would be the safest thing to do.

  “Such a spoilsport,” she whispered. She closed her eyes and nuzzled farther into the settee.

  He got up with a groan and went to pour himself another drink. She heard the clink of the glass against the edge of the decanter. Perhaps she would get her wish after all and would disarm him long enough to get her magic back.

  ***

  Finn set his glass to the side and glared across the room where she slept on the settee. He supposed he should do the gentlemanly thing and wake her so they could go to bed. He had no intention of sharing a bed with her. He planned to put her safely beneath the counterpane and settle himself in an oversized chair in front of the doorway. He could sleep that way. He’d spent many a night in that chair. One more wouldn’t hurt him.

  He walked across the room and looked down at her sleeping face. Damn, but she was pretty. Gorgeous, in fact. Her strawberry blond hair fell in loose ringlets around her neck. And her lightly colored lashes lay heavily against her cheeks. He was almost afraid to wake her. When he did, he would have to deal with that sharp tongue again. He sighed heavily and nudged her shoulder. “Claire,” he said softly. She didn’t budge. He held a finger beneath her nose, just to be certain she was still breathing. “Claire,” he said a little more loudly. She still didn’t move.

  He groaned as he lifted her in his arms. “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice drowsy from sleep.

  “Taking you to bed,” he said softly. “Go back to sleep.”

  “All right,” she sighed. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and snuggled deeper into his chest. He resisted the thought that she felt good in his arms. She was trouble. Trouble. Problems. Neither of which he needed.

  Her breath blew across the sensitive skin of his neck and he held back an oath as he took the stairs carefully, turning sideways to avoid hitting her feet against the wall and into the doorway to the master chamber. A fire crackled in the hearth, but the room was dark. Soft shadows played across the walls from the flicker of the flames. Finn crossed to the side of the bed and was about to lower her to the feather ticking, but she suddenly moved in his arms and he lowered her to her feet instead. “Are you all right?” he asked as he steadied her.

  “Fine,” she said quickly. She yawned into her open palm, and Finn couldn’t help but think of how endearing a sound that was. She was completely unreserved, and that was a rarity. She turned her back to him. “Can you help me with the fastenings?”

  “Pardon?” he squeaked. She regarded him over her shoulder as a governess might an unruly child.

  “Please?”

  She didn’t make any quips about the number of women he’d undressed in his lifetime. Or say a word about the accommodations. She just held her hair to the side and presented her back to him. He steeled himself for a moment and then began to unfasten her dress. She couldn’t sleep in it, could she? And he hadn’t let her bring a maid. He supposed he had no choice.

  The delicate skin of her shoulders was the first to appear. And he had to hold himself back from placing his lips on her freckles, one by one. He groaned low in his throat, a noise he didn’t even know he could make. She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes dark as night in the low light of the room. As he revealed the back of her chemise, his trousers became unbearably tight, and if she chanced to look at him now, she would get the surprise of her lifetime.

  He wanted her unlike he’d ever wanted anyone. “Are you still foxed?” he asked as she spun around in his arms and began to shove her gown down over her hips.

  “No.” She looked him in the eye as she tugged the string at the neck of her chemise.

  “What are you doing?” His voice crackled with strain.

  “Getting ready for bed.” She smiled a wicked smile at him. She was still drunk, no matter how much she didn’t want to admit it. The vacancy in her gaze gave her away.

  But then, all rational thought left his tiny little brain. The chemise slid down her body and landed in a heap on the floor. Her pert, puffy nipples were the same color as her lips. He didn’t know which he wanted to kiss more. When she wore nothing but her stockings, she shoved his coat from his shoulders. And he let her. Like an idiot, he let her disrobe him. First, it was his waistcoat and his cravat. Then his shirt came over the top of his head. At any time, he could have stopped her. But he didn’t.

  She smiled softly as she ran her fingertips though the dusting of hair on his chest. Then her fingers trailed down his stomach, and she began to work the fastenings of his trousers. When she shoved them down, he stepped out of them and let her pull his boots off.

  He’d had just enough to drink that her tug on his boots nearly toppled him. Her skin glowed in the low light of the room, and he reached out, grabbed her hips, and pulled her to him. “You’re certain you’re not foxed?”

  She nodded and stepped onto her tiptoes, pressing her lips to his. He expected her lips to be hesitant, untried. But her tongue slipped past his teeth to tangle with his. He growled low in his throat and drew her naked body against his raging hardness. She gasped and stiffened. But she didn’t stop the torturous assault on his lips. She was nearly as out of breath as he was when he finally lifted his head. But he only lifted it long enough to bend and take the tip of her breast into his mouth. She tasted sweet and hot, her hard nipple pebbling against his tongue.

  A sound left her throat, breaking the shroud of silence in the room.

  “Have you ever done this before?” he asked.

  “Done what?” she asked as she sat down on the edge of the bed and scurried like a crab to the center. He crawled up after her, settling between her legs.

  “This,” he said, rocking his hardness against her softness.

  She merely laughed and arched her hips toward him.

  She wasn’t an innocent. Thank God. He shoved forward, and it wasn’t until a moment later when she cried out that he realized the big mistake he’d just made. He was foxed. She was foxed. And he’d just taken her innocence. He stilled inside her.

  “So, I lied,” she said, her breath hard against his ear, where she held tightly to his shoulders. Her arms trembled. Her whole body trembled. Her sheath trembled around his manhood.

  Too late to turn back now.

  Five

  Lord Phineas froze atop her and Claire held tightly to his shoulders. How the devil had she gotten into this predicament? One minute, she’d just wanted to get him out of his clothes so she could get her dust, and the next, she’d given her innocence to a human. To one of them. He wasn’t even of her world.

  “Don’t move,” he said, his lips tickling her forehead as he spoke. He pressed a kiss there, quite unexpectedly.

  “How could I?” she breathed. “You’re inside me.”

  “Yes, I am,” he groaned, as he looked down at her from above. “I’m your first?” he asked.

  “Not very clever are you?” she quipped. She tried to make a sound like a mocking laugh, but it came out more as a sob. A tear leaked from the corner of her eye. She hated
that sign of weakness. And she hated it more when he moved to kiss it away.

  “Why did you do this?” he asked. He was still hard as stone inside her, but the pain was easing a bit. She wiggled her hips beneath him. “Don’t do that,” he warned.

  Perhaps if she kissed him, he wouldn’t notice how uncomfortably sober she suddenly was. She lifted her lips to his.

  His lips were tender. He sipped at her lower lip like it was made of nectar. All the pain of his taking her innocence was suddenly gone, and he was hot and hard inside her. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t of her world. She’d never see him again after this night. “Be gentle with me,” she whispered against his lips.

  “In order to be any gentler, I’d have to be a damn eunuch.”

  She gasped as he pulled back, like he was going to withdraw. Claire wrapped her legs around his hips to hold him in place.

  “Let me go, Claire,” he warned.

  “Not yet,” she whispered. “Be still.”

  Claire hooked her feet behind his back, even though that simple gesture couldn’t possibly hold him. He could get free any time he wanted. “What do you want?” he muttered.

  Claire tugged with her feet against his buttocks, and he slid marginally deeper inside her. A groan left his throat as his arms began to tremble.

  “Make it stop hurting,” she said. “All of it.” She wasn’t sure if she referred to the parents she suddenly had but didn’t want. He probably thought she meant the pain of losing her innocence. But she didn’t mean that at all. Another tear slipped out of the corner of her eye.

  Finn’s head bent and he nuzzled his lips atop the rise of her breast, turning his head so that his cheek brushed the aching point of her nipple. Her nipple strained to reach him, hard and painful, neglected and wanting. She arched her back toward him. He took her nipple reverently between his lips, suckling her tender skin softly.

  She stifled a sob of pleasure and moved her hands from his shoulders to sift through his hair. “Claire,” he whispered.

  “What?” she whispered back as his wicked, whiskey-scented breaths brushed her chest.

  “Why?” he grunted as he shifted his hips ever so slightly between her thighs. His way was slickened by her own desire, and she ached for him to move.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t fall in love with you,” she said, as she pulled his bottom with her heels, making him move inside her.

  The next move was his as he retreated. “I don’t love you, either.” His lips tugged a little harder at her breasts as he surged inside her, at once desperately soft and punishingly slow.

  “I can never love you. It’s forbidden.”

  “Thank God,” he groaned as he hit some spot inside her that she didn’t know existed. “You might not love me, but you will love what I can do for you.”

  “Prove it,” she whispered. But he was already inching his hand down her body, sifting through her nether curls where he tugged lightly. His hand moved into her wetness and stroked across the heat of her as he filled her again.

  An animalistic cry left her throat, as he groaned and pushed farther inside her, increasing his pace as his fingers lifted her higher and higher.

  “What are you doing to me?” she whispered against his lips, her words broken and battered almost as much as she was.

  “I’m not falling in love with you.” His wretched, hot fingers stroked her higher and higher, as that part of him that filled her stroked her fire. Hotter and higher, hotter and higher she climbed, consequences be damned.

  “Never,” she repeated. He buried his face in the crook of her neck as his movement inside her became a torturous push and retreat. So pleasurable that it was nearly painful, her body promising to ignite and break into a million pieces.

  “Come for me,” he coaxed gently.

  That was all it took to throw her over that impossible precipice. Pleasure swamped her as she clung to him. His fingers deftly and aptly toyed with her, wringing every last bit of pleasure from her body. And it was only when the pleasure met the point of pain that he began to tremble.

  His hand slid down to her bottom, tipping her toward him, and he grew fuller inside her, bigger than she could have imagined. But somehow it felt right. She wasn’t sure why or how, but she held him close as he shuddered, his pulsing inside her slow and sweetly painful, sending her to a place she’d never been as he met her at the top of that mountain of pleasure and hurled them both over it at the same time.

  ***

  Robin is going to kill me, Finn thought to himself. He’s going to chop my head off. Or my manhood, whichever he can get to first. Perhaps he’ll do both. Finn rolled to his back, and Claire tumbled into his side. His arm went around her as she rested her head on his chest. Her breathing was as choppy as his was, but her body was lax and sated. She felt soft and comfortable in his arms. Like she belonged there.

  “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I still don’t love you.”

  He tugged her closer to him, and she threw a leg over his, settling comfortably into his side. He kissed her forehead, suddenly so exhausted there was no way he could keep his eyes open. “I don’t love you either.”

  It wasn’t until hours later that Finn reached across the bed to feel for Claire. Emptiness met his grasping hands. “Damn it,” he cursed as he jumped to his feet. He dashed across the room to where he’d left the clothes he’d discarded so carelessly the night before. His clothes were gone. The vial of magic dust was gone. And so was Claire. He ran a hand through his hair. She was gone. Claire was gone. The evidence of her lost innocence the night before stained the bedclothes. What they had done wasn’t gone. But she was nowhere to be found.

  Six

  Claire brushed her hair back from her face and regarded herself closely in the looking glass. What the devil had she done? She searched her own face, looking for some sign that there was something wrong with her. Would anyone be able to tell? Would people know just by looking at her that she was no longer an innocent? She’d never be able to show her wings again, as they would be forever stained by her misdeeds. Even worse, would the fae know she’d had relations with one of them?

  She scrubbed her face with the palm of her hand. Why on earth had she done that? Too much drink, too much opportunity, too few wits. She knew better. Look at what had happened with her mother. She’d been cast from the land of the fae, her wings stripped, never to return. Her fae children had been taken from her, and it was her own fault that she’d not been able to mother them. Her own stupid, stupid decisions were her downfall.

  Claire gazed around the chambers where she was hiding and hoped that Finn slept soundly, at least long enough for her to gather her thoughts.

  A rap at the window jerked her from her reverie. She looked out into the night and saw Ronald there at the second-story window. She crossed the room and thrust the window open. He jerked back but held on tightly. At less than three feet in height, the garden gnome had a tendency to bounce when dropped from great heights, so he had no fear of falling whatsoever.

  Claire looked down at her chemise and pulled the string tightly. She crossed her arms in front of her breasts and glared at Ronald. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  He smiled sympathetically at her. “A better question would be what you’ve been doing here.”

  Heat crept up Claire’s face. “You won’t tell, will you?” she whispered, her voice cracking.

  “Gather your thoughts and your things. The dawn wind awaits. As does your brother.” He pointed down into the yard where Marcus stood. Her brother cupped his hand around his mouth and called softly to her. “You’re needed at home, Claire.”

  “Give me a moment to dress,” she said, holding up a single finger.

  “Where’s Lord Phineas?” Marcus called back.

  “I imagine he’s in his own bedchamber sleeping.” She didn’t look Marcus in the face. And the
garden gnome made a noise in his throat. “Shut it,” she snapped. Ronald simply shook his head at her.

  “What’s done in the dark always comes to the light,” he said softly. His look was so sympathetic that it twisted Claire’s gut.

  “Why is the wind swirling tonight?” Claire asked, as she stepped behind a screen and began to don her clothes.

  “Special circumstances,” Ronald said.

  The wind carried the fae back and forth from the land of the fae one night a month, on the night of the moonful. Tonight wasn’t even near the full moon, so circumstances must be special indeed. “What has happened?”

  “Dress, and Marcus will inform you.” The gnome never held anything back. Claire’s heart began to drum within her breast. She dressed as quickly as she could and then stepped softly toward the door. She opened it slowly, wincing slightly when the door squeaked. She tiptoed down the stairs, only stopping to put her slippers on at the door.

  The wind was already swirling when she opened the front door and stepped out into the snow. Marcus held out a hand to her.

  “What’s wrong?” Claire asked. It was rare for the Trusted Few to allow the wind to swirl on a night like this.

  “Grandfather has died,” Marcus said. He inhaled deeply through his nose and exhaled out through his mouth to calm himself. “Your presence is required at home.”

  Claire laid a hand on her chest. If she didn’t, it might just stop beating. Her grandparents had raised her and her brother and sister.

  The wind began to swirl in earnest.

  “Prepare yourself, because Lord and Lady Ramsdale are in the land of the fae, as well as Sophia’s duke and his daughter.”

  Humans never entered the land of the fae. “It’s forbidden,” she bit out.

  “So is falling in love with a human. But apparently, people do it anyway.”

  Just as Claire stepped aboard the moving wind, ready to be swept away to the land of the fae, the light flared to life in the bedchamber where she’d been with Finn. She looked at Marcus and said, “Idiots, the lot of them. I could never, ever fall in love with a human.”