22. Sage

CHAPTER 22

Sage

The sense that someone watched me jolted through my body, and I glanced over my shoulder to see a man standing just inside the archway in such a way that he was barely visible, wreathed in shadows.

“You’ve got to stop making sounds like that,” Fantasy Man said, his seductive tenor sliding against my senses and reigniting the remnants of Talon’s magic.

“Is that really what you want?” I asked boldly, my voice husky.

Maybe I could have one more night with Fantasy Man, and then I could focus on ignoring my desire and sticking with my plan.

Shadows, what a terrible idea.

But the instant I thought it, my body heated, melting away the last of Talon’s cold that had been chilling my insides. Light and heat flared from the spots around my neck and another soft groan escaped my lips before I could stop it.

“It’s certainly not what you want,” Fantasy Man said with a wry chuckle. “You should be down there finding some men who catch your fancy.”

“Maybe I’ve already found someone,” I replied.

He chuckled again, the sound teasing down my spine. “Ah, but just one isn’t fun.”

“Are you proposing we pick someone below to join us?” I asked, the words slipping out before I could stop them.

My cheeks heated with embarrassment and desire at the idea of being pleasured by multiple men at once like Lark, and I was grateful I hadn’t bothered to make the fae lanterns brighter.

He hummed low in his throat, a non-answer to my question. “Take a look. There are a lot of interesting options tonight.”

“Like who?” I leaned forward again and focused my attention on the courtyard below, hoping he’d step up behind me like he had the first night he’d caught me watching Lark and her mates.

“What are you attracted to?” he asked, his voice a sensual purr, suddenly close.

My breath caught in surprise. I hadn’t even heard him move which meant he’d wanted me to notice him in the doorway.

A man who could move that silently could have stood in the hall’s shadows and watched me all night without me knowing.

His chest brushed my back and he slid his hands up my bare arms, making me tremble with a need I wasn’t going to be able to resist no matter what I wanted

“Falcon and Moor are quite handsome,” he murmured in my ear.

“Yes, but what are they like?” I asked, my voice breathy.

Wells and Crane were handsome, too, but just being near them made me feel uncomfortable… unlike Fantasy Man.

Which didn’t make any sense.

But then me being in the Garden and looking like a fae didn’t make sense either.

Fantasy Man hummed again and teased his palms back down my arms, placing his hands over top of mine on the railing, pinning me in place. Not that I wanted to move.

“They’d make good mates,” he replied.

Which meant I needed to stay far away from them.

Except everyone here, including Fantasy Man, thought I was looking for my mates, thought the marks around my neck were compelling me, so I couldn’t just refuse Falcon and Moor without a good excuse.

And while I might be able to be hesitant about Fantasy Man’s suggestion, I knew enough now about the marks that if I really was fae, I couldn’t outright deny them like I wanted to.

Not to mention by talking about Falcon and Moor and the other men in the courtyard, I might get a better understanding of how to behave. Maybe I could get a little information and a little satisfaction from Fantasy Man.

Oh, yes please!

“Good mates, hunh?” I asked. “What makes them good mate material?”

“Well, Falcon is handsome. Always a plus to wake up everyday to someone who’s nice to look at.” He pointed to a tall, thin fae with shoulder-length sandy-blond hair pulled back at the nape of his neck.

The man, Falcon, was almost as striking as Talon with an easy smile like Payne’s, but I didn’t feel compelled to stare at him like I did with Talon or Lord Quill or even Lord Rider.

“He’s fun and good-natured and would make a good balance to whoever ends up as your first mate,” Fantasy Man added.

Which implied that there was something special about first mates. Crane had mentioned something about letting Rider be my first mate as well, and from the stories I’d heard, it sounded like Blaze was Lark’s first mate.

Were first mates supposed to be more aggressive than other mates? Perhaps aggressive wasn’t the word. More protective?

“He controls plant life,” Fantasy Man said, sliding an arm around my waist and tugging me tighter against his body, his warmth adding to the heat inside me. “His magic isn’t overly powerful, but every garden and farm could use a little magic so he’s always in demand.”

“Guess that means he’ll be too busy for me,” I said with an exaggerated sigh.

“I’m pretty sure he’d make time,” Fantasy Man laughed then lowered his voice back to a sensual purr that made me clench my thighs together, aching with anticipation. “A man would have to be an idiot not to make time for you.”

With my eyes closed, I tipped my head back, brushing my temple against his chin and melting into his embrace. “Again with that assumption that I’m a worthwhile person.”

“I’m a pretty good judge of character.”

He pressed his lips against my forehead and I resisted the urge to open my eyes. I didn’t want to scare him away by trying to look at him.

My chest tightened with the hurt that he didn’t want me to know him, but maybe he sensed that I wasn’t what everyone here thought I was. And if I wanted one more night with him before I refocused on my plan to avoid everyone, then I needed to not try to push past his unspoken boundaries.

“So you’ve figured me out along with everyone else here and can say with certainty that Falcon would be a good match.”

“Yep,” he said with a chuckle. “Moor would be a good match, too. He’s the big guy talking with Falcon.”

“Oh? What makes Moor so special?”

“He has a huge cock,” Fantasy Man said, punctuating his words by rolling his hips forward and pressing his hard length against my rear.

“And every woman needs a mate with a huge cock,” I said, with a gasping laugh, my desire fluttering hot and needy and growing with every pound of my heart.

“He doesn’t have the quickest wit but he makes up for it in bed.” Fantasy Man’s hand inched from my waist to my hip and he brushed his lips against my neck.

“You have firsthand experience with him?” I teased, imagining the biggest cock I could which turned into Talon’s cock and the memory of his stunning, naked body.

“He’s not my type, but I have a friend who used to swear by him.”

“A friend, hunh?” I asked, my tone playfully skeptical even as my breath picked up.

What would Talon’s cock feel like sliding into me? What would it feel like to really kiss him and not just have his mouth pressed against mine while his shadow fed?

“So this is second-hand information,” I forced out, trying to drag myself back to the conversation. “You don’t really know if Moor has a big cock. Your friend could have lied to you.”

“Not about… cocks ,” he chuckled, emphasizing the word.

I shuddered, my thoughts now lurching to the cock I had experienced and how incredible it had felt to have Fantasy Man moving inside me.

Oh, shadows!

“Speaking of cocks…” I murmured, reaching up to tease my hand through his hair, needing more than just our banter and his embrace.

But he grabbed my fingers and set them back on the railing. “No touching. This is about you.”

“What if I want to touch you?”

Except he hadn’t let me touch him before, not when we’d first met and not while we’d been cuddling in the nook, which went hand in hand with him not wanting me to see or know him.

He grew still behind me.

Crap. That was a boundary I shouldn’t have pushed. I knew that, but I’d forgotten myself, lost on the desire of feeling him inside me again.

“Sorry,” I murmured. “I know that’s not what we have. ”

“What do you think we have?” he asked, his voice as small and quiet as mine.

I tightened my grip on the railing. “Nothing, really.”

And yet everything. He was the first man to show me what sex was supposed to feel like. The first man, other than my brother, who I’d really felt safe with.

“You don’t want me as a mate,” I said, which was kind of a relief since I didn’t want to be mated either. And yet the realization made something deep inside me ache, something I couldn’t put my finger on and not something I should be thinking about right now. “You just want a little fun.”

I should have been shocked and horrified that Fantasy Man was using me just for sex. But he’d brought me so much pleasure, and some of it without any pleasure for himself, that the idea of just being with him for the sake of sex didn’t bother me at all.

Lewin had been horrified to realize that fae men didn’t have many opportunities to sleep with a fae woman, so it made sense that even if Fantasy Man didn’t want a mate, he’d still be interested in sex.

And really, I was pretending to be my brother in the Black Tower and would eventually be found out. I didn’t have high hopes that everything— hell that anything would work out for me.

Being with Fantasy Man might be the only time a man ever touched me with kindness.

Of course, if he didn’t want me as a mate, did that mean we could keep having fun ? There wouldn’t be anything more between us so I didn’t have to worry about forgetting my purpose.

Except would not wanting to be mated be enough to prevent a bond from forming between us?