20. Cove

Chapter 20

Cove

This time, Florian kissed me back like he was drowning and I was the only source of air in the entire world. He lifted onto his toes, wrapping both arms around the back of my neck and pulling me in tight, devouring my mouth with his own. When he couldn’t get enough of me, he lifted higher, wrapping a leg around my waist and then, when I supported him with a hand under his ass, the other as well.

He pulled back with a grin after a moment, mischief in his eyes. “Knew I wanted to climb you like a mountain the day you arrived. I just didn’t realize you’d be willing to help me do it.”

I lifted a brow. “A mountain, is it?”

He gave my hair a light tug with one of the hands wrapped around my neck, nodding. “White capped and everything. Now how about you take me to bed, and we can worry about things that need worrying about later?” Then he bit his lip and shifted his gaze away and down. “I mean, if you want to. You don’t have to do anything, obviously. Not?—”

I leaned in and pressed our lips together again to cut off the string of nervous words. Slowly, I walked us over to the bed, lifting a knee up onto the cloud-soft mattress and slowly laying him across it. I tried to show him with my lips, my tongue, a hand roving down the front lapel of his jacket, that I had no hesitation about this. About him. Florian wasn’t Afton. Not in any way. And I’d had years to deal with my trauma.

Finally, I pulled back, looking down at him, both of us panting, his lips swollen and pink.

“You’re not like her, Florian. We both know that. Coral knows it now, too. And if I didn’t want to be here, kissing you, I wouldn’t be. But I do.”

He bit his lip again, nervous and not meeting my eye. “Because you find me attractive?”

That made me pause. “I do,” I agreed. “Though that’s not the only reason we’re here. I also find you kind, and clever, and pleasant company, and...frankly, an utter delight in every way.” I ran my thumb along his soft cheek. “But yes. I do find you beautiful. Is that bad?”

Quickly, he shook his head. “No, it’s...I can’t imagine finding any of us attractive. We all look alike, and?—”

“You do not.” Leaning down, I kissed one cheek, then the other. “You have kind eyes, and I’ve never seen that shade of green in anyone else. You don’t look like anyone else. Just because the lot of you have gold hair and green eyes doesn’t mean you look alike.”

He groaned and let his head fall back for a second, then with impressive speed, rolled us over so he was on top of me. With dexterous fingers, he undid my buttons, managing to divest me of my coat in record time—even faster than I could do it. Within moments, his nimble fingers were working on my zipper, then he was off me and off the bed, tugging at my boots.

“That’s...very impressive,” I told him, lifting onto my elbows. “Your stone?”

He grinned back at me. “Navia just wants me to be happy. Can’t have her Lucky not getting what he wants in life.”

As he dropped my pants atop the pile he’d made of my boots, I took his hand and tugged him back up onto the bed. “Sounds like my kind of lady, your Navia. Now how do you feel about getting naked yourself?”

His return smile was shy, but he didn’t hesitate with those dexterous fingers, dancing over his own buttons. Fuck, it was incredible, how quick and perfect his movements were. My cock had already been well interested in the proceedings but watching him move made it strain against his ass, where he was now straddling my waist. I didn’t think I’d ever found anyone more beautiful in my life. More entrancing.

I could have watched him strip all night.

When he was done, though, he looked back up at me, a little nervous in his perfect, milky-smooth nakedness. Nervous?

That was when I realized: he hadn’t been asking me if I found him attractive because he was worried I had nothing but a shallow physical attraction to him. He was worried I didn’t find him attractive at all. Incredible. Reverently, I ran my hands up his thighs, around the curve of his ass, up his lean torso, to his slender swan-like neck. When I got to his short hair, I tugged him down against me, once again pressing our lips together.

“You are one of the most stunning people I’ve ever seen, you know that? I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone more beautiful.”

He scrunched his nose. “Beautiful’s a little...I mean, I’m not feminine.”

“First of all, there’s nothing wrong with being feminine. But no, I mean beautiful like a painting. Like a sculpture. Like the most perfect work of art human hands have ever managed to scrape out, despite their own inherent imperfection.”

He flushed at that, ducking his head, so I let up on the flowery words. It wouldn’t do for him to get overwhelmed by my sudden effusiveness. It wasn’t like me either, but something in him inspired it in me. He also probably wasn’t used to compliments at all, let alone so many or so passionately offered. Instead, I motioned to the bedside stand. “There’s lube in the stand. I don’t have any condoms, so we can’t?—”

Once again, Florian dove off the bed, but not toward the nightstand. Back to the end of the bed, where he’d dropped all the clothes. He retrieved his own trousers, rifling through the pockets, finding his wallet and extracting a condom. “I can get more later. I’ve got some in my room. But for now...” He slid back onto the bed, tearing the condom open and rolling it onto my cock with quick, efficient motions. “I want you. That’s...that’s okay, right?”

I reached out to rest my hands once more on his hips, barely able to breathe for the feeling of him touching me. The sultry, dark look in his eyes. He wanted me. Not what I could give him, but me. “Yes, Florian. I want you too. I promise, I would tell you if I didn’t.”

I managed to stretch far enough to get the nightstand open and pull my lube out, handing it to him so he wouldn’t try to go without it. He was still oddly sparing, smoothing just a bit down my cock before pausing. “Do you...want to be on top?”

There had been a time, years earlier, when that would have been important to me. Now, I suspected it was more important for him. He’d had control taken from him too many times. So I just smiled and crossed my arms under my head, leaning back and looking at him. “Not at all. I love when someone else does all the work.”

He laughed, and it was one of the most beautiful things I’d seen in my life. His flushed cheeks, head thrown back, and bare neck were the stuff sex dreams were made of.

When he dropped the lube bottle on the bed beside us and started to lower himself onto my cock, I was a little worried. It had been thirty years since I’d been beneath someone with that pale gold hair.

But my mind didn’t even stutter over it. All I could see was Florian himself. The sweet, hopeful smile on his face, biting his lip and breathing raggedly as he filled himself with my cock. “Cove,” he whispered, as he fully seated himself atop me. “Oh fuck.”

And no part of me saw anything but Florian.

I moved my arms, reaching over and planting my hands back on his hips, pressing up into him. His mouth fell open at the sensation, his whole body going just a little bit lax and pliant. So I did it again, and then again.

Languidly, he started to move along with me, his hips stretching in a sinuous line as he slid forward and back more than up and down, wanting me deeper inside him instead of letting me go. I pulled and pushed, giving him what he wanted, what we both wanted. My cock buried deep inside him, rubbing against all the right places. He couldn’t seem to form words, just little cries as I thrust my hips up over and over again, pushing my cock deep inside.

Finally, I took one hand from his hip and reached up to wrap it around his own dick, one finger at a time, then sliding up and down again. With no lube, the friction was almost too much, and his whole body jerked forward. He gasped in shock, eyes going wide and mouth falling open.

So I did it again. In a second, his movements went frenzied, thrusting back and forth, onto my cock then into my hand, making the sweetest moans I’d ever heard in my life. “Co-cove—” he finally managed to gasp out, less word and more benediction, just as his cock jerked in my hand, and he came all over my hand and belly between us.

He was panting, barely holding himself up above me, his whole body stilling for a moment. Then, with impressive consideration for a man who looked like his brain had just melted, he tightened his knees around my waist and tugged, rolling until I was on top of him. “Fuck me,” he whispered, voice heated and intense, eyes darker than I’d ever seen them. “Fuck me. Until you come. I want...want you. Please.”

I couldn’t have said no if I’d wanted to, and no part of me wanted to deny him any whim he had.

So I thrust inside him with abandon as he wrapped his legs loosely around my hips, moving just enough to follow my thrusts, whimpering every time I thrust fully inside him. It didn’t take long for me to follow him over the edge, my vision whiting out as he clenched his hot, tight ass around me, moaning my name.

It took me a moment to come back to myself, panting above him, but I didn’t want to collapse atop him.

That was when I realized his cock was hard again already. So fast. Oh to be twenty-something again.

Instead of commenting on it, I grinned at him, and slid my body down between his legs, licking the tip of him, making him gasp. “Oh, you—you don’t need to?—”

“Oh, I think I do,” I disagreed. “Unless you don’t want me to?” I paused, waiting for his answer. He groaned and thrust his hips up, just the tiniest bit.

“Of course I want you to,” he mumbled after a moment. “You just don’t have to—?” The words were cut off in a gasp as I swallowed him all the way to the root.

The whine he let out was almost inhuman as I sucked him down, running my tongue along his cock and swallowing around the head. He bucked up, pressing deeper into my throat, and I let him, swallowing again and again. It didn’t take more than a moment before he was coming a second time, so I pulled back and let his spend hit my tongue, the salty-bitter taste of him filling my mouth as his moan filled my ears, every one of my senses filled with nothing but Florian Dawnchaser.

I hadn’t been wrong. It was going to take nothing at all for me to fall in love with this man. This beautiful, generous, loving man, who had subverted all my preconceived ideas about him and his family.

Somehow, I wasn’t sorry about it at all.

Florian was dozing in my bed as I went to look in on the household a while later. The housekeeper was just finished locking up and told me the house was secured. Olivier said one of the cousins’ cars was gone, which was...somewhat reassuring, if not as much as I’d have liked. The two of them told the night security people about what had happened during the day—a daily ritual to prepare them for any related issues.

I thanked them all and headed back up the stairs toward my room and Florian.

It was good, though, thinking about the cousins.

Lucky, even.

Lucky that I was thinking about how only one of them had left. One of the little assholes was still around the grounds or house somewhere. I was nearing the top of the staircase when I heard the slightest shuffle of footsteps nearby.

My instinct, and Haim’s, was to freeze whoever was closest to me, but when he swept out with his senses, there was no one within a dozen feet of me.

I took the next stair just as my mind connected what was disturbing me about the situation. Not that someone was sneaking up behind me. No, the vulnerable position of being near the top of the stairs. Just as I thought it, I felt my leg go wobbly beneath me, trying to collapse.

Nope , Haim said, his voice calm, slow, and methodical as always, and I felt my foot, ready to slide out from under me, catch in place. For the first time in our many years together, Haim’s magic was affecting me. My body froze in the spot where I stood, waiting for the sickly luck magic that was trying to tumble me down the stairs to cease.

I’d known Haim longer than almost anyone else in the world, so I had complete faith in him, and took the opportunity to look around, searching for the miscreant who was trying to send me falling down the stairs.

The bastard wasn’t even hiding.

Adger was standing on the landing, twenty feet away from me, staring at me in determination. As I met his gaze, unmoving, unimpressed, his determination was edged out by first shock, then anger.

“No,” he finally hissed, voice quiet but utterly furious. Marching over toward me, he lashed out, putting his hands on my shoulders and shoving, as though a physical assault would work better than a magical one.

I didn’t hesitate a moment. As soon as his hands touched me, I reached out and grabbed one of them, twisting it back and up so he had to spin around.

“Olivier,” I yelled as loudly as I possibly could, and was rewarded by the sound of footsteps from downstairs dashing toward us.

In moments, the hall was swarming with people—not only Olivier and the housekeeper, but the night security staff, Ivy, and finally Florian, wearing my bathrobe and looking nervous. His expression turned furious as I explained what had happened.

“That certainly follows,” Olivier said, glaring at the angry, belligerent young man, who was denying any wrongdoing. “I believe his stone is one that works on the physical luck of others. He found it worked rather less well than he wished on Master Florian after he bonded his own stone.”

One of the security guards waved that away. “It doesn’t really matter. We don’t need to prove the first half of the assault.” He held up his phone, showing a clear image of Adger trying to push me down the stairs. “We have proof of the second. A full video.”

They all turned to me, looking for my orders.

This was the chance, then, for me to make up for the previous situation and help strengthen Florian’s position. Since I’d declared Huxley’s goods forfeit and Florian was his heir, I had to follow through and show everyone I believed that as I’d said I did. Fortunately, it wasn’t hard for me. Less fortunately, it wasn’t doing Florian a kindness.

Still, I turned to him and met his eye steadily. “As master of the house and heir to house Dawnchaser, it’s your decision how to handle this. I will stand behind whatever choice you make.”

In that moment, I watched Florian go from a slightly nervous young man, half-dressed and worried about what was going to happen next in his home, to Lord Dawnchaser. He drew himself up and nodded, turning to the security man. “The punishment for a crime like this is always the same in Dawnchaser lands. He tried to assassinate someone using his stone. And not just anyone, a family lord. A friend of the Dawnchaser family.”

Everyone around me sucked in a breath as though they knew what was coming. I had never heard of such a thing, but I had never been put in the position to have to punish an assassin before Huxley, a situation that was unique and unlike this one, so I had no idea what the hells Florian was talking about.

There wasn’t a bit of hesitation in him, though, when he met his cousin’s eye. “As soon as your family is notified and arrives to take you away, you’ll be severed.”

It took some effort to keep my face still at the pronouncement. At the calm, regal way that Florian delivered it. It was...very impressive to watch, and I’d have been lying if I’d said I didn’t want him again in that moment.

Severing, though . . .

It was practically a death sentence. Worse than that, for some people. Being forcibly and permanently parted from one’s stone. Just the thought of losing Haim and Iri gave me a chill. I knew I was more privileged than most, with not only two stones, but both of them sentient and...well, both my friends.

For those who only had songs that were convenient and stones who didn’t speak to them, it was possible that a severing only represented an inconvenience. Like losing one’s car or money. Something that could be overcome.

Adger was clearly not one of those people.

His pride evaporated, face going ashen, and he fell to his knees in front of Florian. “He’s not a Dawnchaser lord. It isn’t the same. You—you don’t have to?—”

“No,” Florian agreed, but his face was as hard as granite. “He isn’t. He’s a family lord. By rights I should see you executed. But Lord Moonstriker is kinder than most Dawnchasers I know, and I think he wouldn’t want that.”

“He wouldn’t want that,” meaning me. The icy look in Florian’s eyes left no question about whether he would choose differently, if it might not offend me. It was incredible, because when he looked me in the eye and I bowed my head to him in answer, I knew that we were together in this. He didn’t want to kill Adger any more than I did, but he needed to be without mercy in this. Needed to make a quick decisive action and be clear to his whole family that he wouldn’t be kind if they tried to play these murderous power games. Again, it was unbelievably sexy.

What exactly was I supposed to be teaching him? He was already an expert at this, apparently.

I inclined my head to him, keeping my expression blank. “I would prefer not to have his death on my conscience, regardless of whether his lack of a conscience would have been fine with mine. I appreciate your consideration, Lord Dawnchaser.”

Florian nodded to me, then motioned to the security guards. “He goes in the anti-resonance cells until we can contact his family and arrange for them to pick him up. I’ll call them immediately.”

Without a hint of hesitation or embarrassment that he was wearing my bathrobe or heading toward my bedroom to get his phone, he proceeded to do precisely that.

He was utterly magnificent.