Chapter 9

The ensuing silence told me more than one of his evasive answers would have. He simply gazed up at me, eyes all limpid and wide, plush lips pursed.

"Well?" I prompted him, knowing as I did that I had no leverage at all. I'd already abandoned my blackmail plan. Given that he didn't seem to experience guilt in any meaningful way, I'd be dependent on his sense of fair play to give me answers.

Ha.

But to my shock, the next words out of his mouth, whispered so quietly that a human wouldn't have been able to distinguish them, were, "I'm so sorry."

"You're what? I mean, yes, you fucking well should be!"

That won me another faint ghost of his pretty smile. "I know. By your morality, I'm a terrible person. Even by my own…" He trailed off, gesturing with one hand as if to say, I really have no fucking idea . As if he was as surprised as I was that he had morality in the first place. Freaking fae. "I wish I'd chosen the very bronzed one in the ridiculous silver underwear. He probably isn't any smarter than he looks. And I might not have regretted involving him in my problems the way I regret doing it to you." He swallowed hard, the motion of his throat incredibly distracting. "You should go. Stand up, leave, and never think of me again. Take my apology, and go."

Of all the absurdities that had come out of his mouth.

My laughter rang too loud in the quiet room, and his indignantly raised eyebrows only made me laugh more.

"Sorry," I managed. "But look. Your thing about your friend you lost a bet with. That was total bullshit, I'm guessing. But I'm also guessing your sample size of alpha shifters is kind of small?"

"There was a bet, a long time ago, but it wasn't binding. More of a…humans play a game called truth or dare? Something like that." Truth or dare, only with young fae? The mind boggled. My teenage parties had obviously been a lot tamer. "And yes, it's limited to—limited," he bit off, and I winced. Limited to Cunningham. "How did you know?"

"Because you don't seem to know a lot about how we work. Once we get the idea that something belongs to us? We never let it go. Not ever. So you offered to pay me, and—what's wrong?"

All the color had drained out of his face, leaving him a horrible chalky color, like a lime-flavored antacid tablet, but his eyes blazed, with an actual flicker in their depths, I was pretty sure, a glint of pale purple in his black irises.

"Do you think I don't know that?" he choked out. He went on, his voice rising with anger. "I know he's never going to let me go! I know that, and that's why I was trying to—and now you're telling me I'm also stuck with you ? You fucked me once! One time! Surely you weren't a virgin, you can't possibly stalk everyone you've ever fucked!"

He broke off in a howl of pure rage, panting, fists clenched on his thighs, leaning in to yell in my face in a way that had my blood pumping and my body straining toward his again. Tigers didn't mate gently, and everything about him screamed mate who wants to snarl at me and fight me while I own him .

It took me a moment to force that instinct down and control my burgeoning partial shift, and my voice still came out low and raspy, harsher than I intended.

"I was referring to the coin or its value in actual money, not you," I said, and he jerked back slightly, lip curling, as if I'd upset him or something? What the hell, he was pissed at me for refusing to leave him alone a second ago! Anyway, that wasn't the main point here. "And you were trying to what, exactly?"

"Get free of him, obviously. What else?" he snapped without hesitation. I filed it away for later, if I needed the information: he stopped choosing his words so carefully when he got angry. "I might as well—damn it. He gave me the coin. Paid me with it, for a night with him. Or I thought it was for only one night. It's beautiful and it's magical, and yes, I was a fool, but I coveted it in a way that—you wouldn't understand. It's in my nature. He wanted to knot me, and he told me that the coin would be mine and I would be his, and I accepted. And now as long as I have the coin, my magic won't work against him and I can't leave him. I hoped if I paid another alpha to knot me, the symmetry of the two bargains, being paid to be knotted and then paying to be knotted by someone else, would satisfy the coin. But apparently not, because it won't leave me, and when I paid you with it, it was on my dresser when I got back. There. Are you happy now? Will you go away," his voice broke slightly, "and leave me alone?"

"No," I replied without hesitation, even though I hadn't thought it through. Two seconds of thinking it through allowed me to add, with a high degree of confidence, "And you don't want me to."

Through his own fae lust for magical gold, he'd managed to trap himself, and now he couldn't escape. Not the most sympathy-inspiring story compared to all the people out there who were in trouble through no fault of their own, although maybe I should cut him some slack, given my own saga of fake tits and loan sharks. And while the fairy's captor might not be a match for me one-on-one, he had all the money and resources and security to make sure it never came to that.

Yeah, I should walk away.

But this beautiful, lying, desperate man in front of me needed…someone, anyone. If he'd had any other options, he surely wouldn't have been looking for a way out in Lucky or Knot.

He only had me.

Walk away? Not a chance.

Besides, he still hadn't paid me. Until he did, I didn't have much choice but to stick around, right?

"I do want you to go," he protested unconvincingly.

The way his head tilted back to offer me his lips and his soft throat, the slight spread to his legs, his hand sliding onto my thigh—and I'd have been willing to bet he didn't even realize he'd touched me, even though sparking heat radiated out from that one, delicate point of contact, sweat prickling behind my knees and along my spine. All of it suggested that he very much didn't want me to go anywhere.

"I should never have brought you into this mess. Besides," he added much more sincerely, "it didn't work."

Laughing despite myself, I leaned closer too, unable to resist his pull any longer. My body ran much hotter than his, but I could still feel his presence, a tingling awareness. It grew stronger as I edged nearer, the bed dipping and creaking as my weight shifted toward him.

"I have two more questions," I said. His warm breath brushed softly over my chin, and every moment of it killed more of my brain cells. "Your name. Even a fake one. I mean, another fake one. Something better than Ty fucking Tania." His sly little laugh shut down my remaining higher cognitive functions, hopefully not permanently, and it took effort to add, "And I need to know why you were crying when I fucked you last time."

Context was everything, and now that I knew more about him…well, in the moment, I'd been able to dismiss his reaction as one of those weird things that happened sometimes, but I couldn't anymore. My cock had risen insistently against my fly again, trapped there and painfully hard, but I could wrench myself away and keep my hands to myself, if I had to. So I needed to know.

"You have an active imagination." I rolled my eyes at that ridiculous dodge, and his lips quirked up. "But if I had been crying…" His voice dropped to a sultry, low timbre that sent a shiver along all my nerve endings. "If I had been, it'd have been because I'd been so afraid, and you—didn't give me any reason to be."

Oh, thank all the gods.

Slowly enough that he could push me away or dodge if I'd misunderstood him, I bent down the last few inches and tilted my head, at last getting my mouth on his skin. A brush along the line of his jaw, an inhale of his sweetness and the pheromones of his desire, my arm snaking around his waist, every inch of me trembling with anticipation…

"You can call me Raven," he whispered.

"Tony," I said against his throat, and pushed him down onto the bed, biting at the side of his neck where his high collar left a sliver exposed.

The feel of his slim body under mine hit me like a freight train, every muscle going rigid, every nerve on fire, my cock straining.

"He checks my clothes for damage to make sure I'm not wasting his money," Raven gasped. "Careful."

Cunningham checked his…my vision washed crimson and my claws popped, too close to ripping his clothes to shreds after all.

"Then you need to get them off," I growled.

Mine. Not Cunningham's. Mine , to fuck and knot and protect, and shit, I hadn't meant to say any of that out loud.

The bed gave an almighty creak and jounce as Raven suddenly writhed, legs wrapping around me, pushing us up off the bed with shocking strength. We flipped and rolled, my head slamming down on the pillow and Raven straddling my hips, hands pinning my shoulders.

Well, not pinning, exactly. In a pinning position, more like, without enough force behind it to hold me.

If I'd had the slightest interest in fighting him off.

Sprawled out spread-eagled with Raven breathing hard above me, leaning down with wild eyes gazing at me, and his peach of an ass resting on my massively erect cock…no, I wouldn't be resisting.

"Don't move," he said, and licked his lips in a way that riveted my attention and accomplished his goal of freezing me in place, paralyzed with lust. "You're right, I should take care of my own clothes. You're too clumsy, and I don't trust you. You couldn't even take off stripper pants without falling down."

Apparently I'd be getting that private dance I'd teased myself by imagining the other night at the club.

My eyes nearly rolled back in my head.

"Are you going to show me how it's done?" I asked breathlessly, in lieu of something more likely to make him change his mind, like defending myself or pointing out that he was going to dance for me after all. Smugness would make him dig in his heels. Arguing would derail his intention to strip. But a challenge. This was, after all, the guy who'd used to play fairy truth or dare. In other words, an easy mark, once you knew what buttons to press. "I've been stripping for years. That was a fluke. I doubt you can do better."

His eyes narrowed. "You're not very subtle," he said. "But of course I can do better. And if you touch me, I'll stop."

Before I could ask for some clarification on the no touching, he let go of my shoulders and shifted his weight, pressing down on my cock.

He reached up and whipped the hair tie out of his ponytail, dropping it carelessly and tilting his head back and forth to shake out his shiny black mane. Crossing his arms over his front, he started tugging up the hem of his shirt, simultaneously gyrating his ass on my cock and continuing with more of those hair-tossing motions.

It should've been cheesy or ridiculous.

It so, so fucking wasn't.

Raven didn't need music or a beat, and he didn't need colored spotlights, and he didn't need body oil or glitter. His body rippled like water, his skin and hair gleamed rose and white and as glossy black as his namesake, and the mundane background of dim hotel room lamps and the rattle of the heater just made his otherworldly beauty stand out even more. My breath's rhythm grew harsher and deeper, his lighter and faster, and the two wound around each other and made their own music, punctuated by the faint creak of the bed as Raven twisted, putting his weight on one knee and then the other.

Keeping my hands to myself didn't take as much effort as I'd expected. Of course, my claws embedded five or six inches into the mattress helped. I'd need another high-interest loan to pay off the damages to the hotel room, but I didn't care, couldn't care about anything except the way Raven had pulled the shirt up enough to expose the dip of his waist, the line of his ribs, so that he could trace a circle around one pale-pink nipple with the tip of his finger.

And then across, trailing his hand over his chest and flicking the other nipple, raising it to a tiny, pebbled peak.

Even mostly clothed, with only his stomach and chest exposed, he was more erotic than any fully naked stripper I'd ever watched perform.

From my angle, the ridge in the front of my jeans looked like Mount Everest—and felt like it, my eyes starting to water from the discomfort of having my cock trapped for so long. Raven swayed, flexed, and finally, finally pulled the shirt all the way up, whipping it over his head after doing something quick and tricky to that collar, flinging it aside with a toss of his mass of black hair. It settled around his shoulders like a silk curtain.

I stared up at him, gaping like an idiot—and for the sake of my dignity, hopefully not actually drooling.

Raven smiled, eyes alight, and ran his hands down from his throat to the waistband of his pants.

"Well?" he asked. "What do you think of my skills?"

"Ungh," I groaned, my tongue practically hanging out. "Fuck."

With a saucy wink, he rolled off of me, flipping his legs around so quickly I couldn't follow his motion. He landed next to the bed as lightly as a cat, fingers already busy with his button and zipper.

When he started to lean down to work on his boots, I rasped, "Turn around for that. Pro tip."

Raven peeked up at me through his hair. "You won't keep your hands off if I turn around. I told you, I don't trust you." His flashing grin took the sting out of the words. And a moment later he'd peeled off the pants and boots at least as quickly and gracefully as one of the Lucky or Knot guys with our specially designed easy-off outfits, and was climbing back onto the bed completely bare.

His cock stood fully erect, glistening at the tip, exactly as pretty and perfectly proportioned as I remembered.

Which did I want more, that in my mouth, or his mouth on my own cock? Both at once wouldn't work well with our height difference. One at a time. Except that clearly wasn't what he had in mind, because he settled himself over me again, knees wedged against my hips, his ass resting on my thighs. If I reached out and lifted up his balls, I could see that lovely tight hole. Or I could pinch his nipples, make him squirm…

"Fuck, can I—"

"No," he said, cutting me off firmly and categorically. "No."

When he reached for my cock, he had a bottle of lube in the other hand. As if he'd conjured it out of nowhere. Fairies, Christ. He probably had.

"Will you—"

"No."

My buried claws flexed involuntarily, one of them catching on a mattress spring, bits of shredded bedding floating up into the air. I tasted blood as one of my fangs dug into my lip. Sweat dampened my shirt and trickled down my temples, and my limbs had gone rigid with the strain of not doing anything .

"For the love of—"

"I want you like this," he said. The faintest tremor ran through his voice. "Exactly like this, and I'll do what I want with you."

Bravado, not confidence. Even though I couldn't hear much over the staccato thudding of my own racing heart, I could hear that.

And so I forced my head back until my neck ached, scraped my claws through the bed's torn-up innards, dug my heels in, and stayed in place through sheer force of will as he unfastened my jeans, peeled them open in front, and tugged the waist of my boxers down. When his hand wrapped around my straining length I groaned and bucked but didn't otherwise move, vision blurring as he rewarded me by stroking all the way up, running his thumb over my swollen cockhead, and then stroking all the way down again, gripping me hard around the base of my cock.

I throbbed in his grip, the part of my shaft that would swell into my knot already thickening and tingling.

He'd reached around behind himself, arching his back, somehow managing to prep his ass while he kept up his stroke- and-twist…as if he did this a lot. Practiced, it looked fucking practiced , and the edges of my vision went blood-red and sparkly as I realized why.

But he'd chosen this. Chosen me. I had to remember that.

Raven let out a soft moan and brought his hand back around, giving his own cock a teasing tug. The glitter of his eyes and the deep, rosy pink of his parted lips and flushed cheeks didn't look like they belonged to a man who wished himself elsewhere.

He paused, biting his lip, one hand barely wrapping all the way around my thick cock and the other with a much better grip on his own. He squeezed us both at once. My head pressed into the pillow as my back arched, and I groaned, the thrill of it rolling up my spine and lodging in what I had left of my brain.

For an instant I pictured what someone watching us would see. Raven's slim, naked figure poised over me, hair flowing down around him, long legs splayed open around my big body, with only my cock out of my clothes and standing up like a flagpole, and my shoulders and arms rigid with straining muscle, my eyes glowing.

If we had it on video, we'd make a killing on a porn site. And it had very little to do with me. Alphas were pretty standard in porn, but Raven…

…And then the vision dissipated as he moved, shifting forward and positioning himself over my cock, his balls brushing over the head tantalizingly as he did.

As he settled, my cockhead pressed against the slick softness behind them and the slight give of his wet hole. Did I dare to thrust up and into him? Probably not. He might stop like he'd threatened. So I held perfectly still except for my chest heaving as he lowered himself, muttering curses as my cock slipped and he had to recenter, and then finally shoved down with his hips.

The head of my cock popped inside him, the sudden heat and tightness exploding stars behind my eyelids as my whole body went stiff.

Fuck. Fuck , no one should feel so good on the inside, my cock sliding into hot honey, the silky grip of his inner flesh, the texture of him. Without needing to think about moving my body, thrusting, holding him in place, my focus narrowed down to the way he clenched and released as he got used to the stretch and fullness, the slow rotation of his hips.

His gaze sharpened, eyes boring holes in my face. What was he looking for? I didn't know, and I wouldn't have lied and given him what he wanted even if I knew how. Raven had finally been honest with me, and he deserved the same.

And even if he hadn't, lying to him in this moment, as he gave himself to me, would've made me pond scum.

Nothing to say came to me, anyway. Nothing seemed like enough. There were times when I liked to talk during sex. Encouragement, praise, demands, or narration, depending on the occasion and the other person. But like last time with Raven, I couldn't even find words to describe how it felt to be with him, to be inside him, to be connected to him so intimately.

Raven leaned forward and laid his hands on my chest, hair swinging forward and swishing over my sides. Gods, I wished I'd had my shirt off so I could've felt it tickling my skin.

But Raven didn't want my shirt off. He wanted me exactly how he'd arranged me, and he probably didn't get to fuck the way he wanted all that often, did he?

Fuck.

"If you were mine," I choked out, as he pushed down, seating his hips, my cock buried as deep in him as he could get it, "fuck, if you were—gods, that feels—you'd always have me however you wanted me."

For a moment his mouth dropped open in shock—nearly as much as my own at having said it in the first place. And then he bared his teeth at me, eyes flashing.

"I'd never be yours." The words pierced my chest and lodged there, but I didn't have a lot of time to think about it before he lifted up on his knees, the thick length of my cock sliding almost all the way out of him, the air cold on my wet skin, and then slammed down again, hard. "I couldn't."

Another lift, agonizingly slow, and then he forced himself down, whimpering as I stretched him open again, the squeeze around my shaft on the edge of pain. And also on the edge of making me come, my gods.

"This doesn't mean—oh," he gasped, because I couldn't take it anymore, and I braced my feet and thrust up with my hips, my embedded claws giving me even more leverage.

More stars behind my half-closed eyelids, black and red, as he retaliated with a sudden constriction of his inner muscles that throttled my cock and imprinted the texture of his insides onto my shaft. The world spun around one fixed point: Raven, his head hanging down, fucking himself on me harder and harder, his fingers digging clawlike into my chest. I met him on every thrust, grinding my cock into him, opening him up for the knot that had started to form at the base of my cock as I came closer and closer to losing control.

The bed creaked and thumped underneath us as we bounced up and down, and Raven's hair flew around his head as if it had a life of its own, his slim shoulders peeking out through the strands. He held me tighter and tighter between his knees and rode me as if he didn't care if it hurt.

Raven must have been close to coming too, he had to be, because I needed him to come first this time. No hands, no mouth for kisses, so what could I do to…but I did have my mouth, didn't I?

"You have me at your mercy," I gritted out, wishing it was only meant to get him off and not a hundred percent true. "You going to come all over me? Hmm? Paint me with that pretty cock?"

He looked up sharply, wild-eyed, hair flying around his face. "Yes," he panted. "Yes?"

His expression twisted into something desperate, and he thrust his hips back, impaling himself harder and deeper.

Through the pounding roar of my own blood in my ears, I managed to say, "Come on, Raven. Hold me down and make me knot you."

Self-serving too, maybe, but good enough for him, because he stopped, shaking, coming in pearly ribbons all over my shirt, and clenching so hard that it ripped the orgasm out of me, my back arching and my clawed fists tearing up what was left of the bed underneath us.

Raven cried out, high and wild, trailing off to a little whimpering moan as I filled him with pulse after pulse, thrusting up to stuff my growing knot inside. He writhed, pushed back on me, and took it—and then toppled forward and landed on my chest with a long, low sigh. My whole body shuddered with aftershocks, every one of them jolting through him and rubbing my knot against his sweet spot. More small moans, and his fingers flexed against my shoulders.

But he didn't move, even though he'd lain down in his own sticky mess. Gods, I wanted to lick it off of him. Instead it'd just ruin my shirt. What a waste.

I closed my eyes and drifted.