Taken (Fae's Captive #5) - Lily Archer Page 0,23
and begins rowing again, the moonlight playing along his flexing biceps and sending my thoughts in a more welcome direction. Lust is the perfect salve for terror, especially when the look of Gareth flexing every bit of his thick muscles warms me so thoroughly.
“If you keep looking at me like that, I’ll have to stop rowing,” he grits out, his gaze traveling down to where my legs are spread to stay above the water.
“This new, direct Gareth is rather fascinating.” I peer at him.
“I intend to show you just how direct I can be as soon as we’re away from this accursed island and on our way back to the winter realm.” He keeps his eyes locked on mine.
“I told you I’m not going to the winter realm.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No I’m not. I’m going to the southern mines.” I shrug. “When I’m done vacationing there, perhaps I will visit the winter realm for a trip. I heard you fools strap polished strips of wood to your feet and slide down mountains. I’d like to try that.”
“Skiing.”
“Eh?”
“It’s called skiing.” How does he talk when his jaw is that tight? “And I’ll happily take you skiing when we return to the winter realm. Which we are doing now. We are not going south.”
“I am.”
“You’re not.”
“Okay I’m not.” My wide grin provokes him perfectly.
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
“I will drag you to the winter realm.”
“Sounds rough.” I waggle my brows. “In a good way.”
“Is that what you want? I will put you over my knee and give you a lesson on who’s in charge, and then I’ll tie you up and carry you there.”
“Is that supposed to be a threat?” I trail one hand down my throat, past my breasts, and rest it on my thigh. “Because it sounds like foreplay to me.”
“Changeling,” he growls, his eyes fixated on me.
My cheeks heat and my nipples harden under his direct gaze. “Cold out here.” I quirk a smile at him.
“You tease a dangerous fae, my beloved.” He murders the oars with hard strokes. “I would not tempt the feral.”
“Really?” My smile grows. “After all that time we spent in the Greenvelde and the Red Plains with you treating me as a wastrel, after all the ways you ignored me on the journey back from the Gray Mountains, all the ways you made me feel as if you had no interest in me and didn’t care for me? Now you tell me I shouldn’t tempt you?” I ease my hands down my legs and slowly pull up the hem of my dress.
“Changeling, I’m warning you.” His eyes travel down my body, his gaze so strong it’s almost a touch.
“You’re warning me?” I keep pulling until the fabric passes my knees. “Well I’m warning you.” The hem slips along my thighs. “I will go to the southern mines and free Clotilde. If you don’t want to come, that’s fine. But you aren’t dragging me to the winter realm.”
He stops rowing.
I stop pulling.
Voices across the water restart him, his pace furious, but his eyes more so.
“You are going to the winter realm.”
“No, I’m going to get Clotty.”
“Who is this woman to you?” The words barely pass his gritted teeth. “A friend?”
I laugh low in my throat. “A friend? Clotty? Spires, no. She’s switched me too many times to count, harped on me to be better, smarter, tried to get me to do right, and all-in-all was a royal pain in my ass.”
“Then why by the Ancestors do you want to retrieve her?” He tries to keep his ire under control, but it spills over in a rumbling heap of disagreement, his gaze still on the shadowy space between my thighs.
“Because she’s the only one who ever tried to help me.” I shrug. “Not a friend. Not a mother. Something in-between, or maybe diagonal. I don’t know. But I do know I can’t let her die in the mines on my account.”
“We aren’t going to the mines.” He pins me with a scowl. “And that’s final.”
“Final?” I pull the hem all the way to my hips, and I’m not wearing anything underneath.
His body goes tense, and the low purr that rips from him vibrates through me in the most pleasant waves. “Changeling.” His voice is shattered stone, rough and sharp.
“You want this?” I add honey to my tone, but the breathlessness? That’s all natural.
“It is mine.” His eyes turn to gold, the look in them like an animal watching prey.
“It can be.” I lean back, spreading my legs