did. In a heartbeat or three, we were inside, upstairs, and somehow entangled on the floor.
“Genèvieve.” Eli pulled back and stared at me. His already bee-stung lips looked thoroughly kissed. “How did you . . .?”
“You’re not the only magic creature here.” I removed my shirt. It was too much of a barrier. “Please?”
He looked at me like he’d never seen my half-naked body. He’d stitched enough of me that I wasn’t sure I had many secrets, but the way his gaze burned me up now, I thought I might be wrong.
Our gaze was only interrupted by the removal of his shirt.
“Rules?” he asked.
“Touch me.”
He laughed, low and full of the same needs I was feeling. “That’s a demand, Genèvieve, not a rule.”
My hands were on his skin already. Muscle under silk. Magic under flesh. I wanted all of it, all of him—but I wasn’t going to end up married.
I kissed his chest, his shoulders, his throat.
“Genèvieve,” he said. “Rules?”
“No intercourse,” I said between kisses. I couldn’t call it fucking because it wouldn’t be, and I couldn’t call it making love because I was afraid to say that. If a faery made love, truly made love, to a person who reciprocated that love, they were wed. It was that simple. “No intercourse. No . . . I want to, but I won’t end up accidentally wed.”
He looked unsurprised by my demand, but disappointed.
I knew damn well that he wasn’t going to remind me of that rule, but I wasn’t going to forget it. There were other options.
“What do you want, Genèvieve?”
“Touch me. Kiss me.” I stepped closer. “Please?”
Maybe it was the please, or maybe he simply understood me better than anyone else ever had. Eli took my hand and led me to a bedroom.
He leaned down and kissed me speechless. Then he ordered, “Stay right here. Strip. No jeans. No shoes. Nothing.”
When he returned, I was naked. I don’t know what I expected. Ravishing? Hurried grasping? I ought to have known better. Eli was fae—which meant he had the patience of nature.
In his hand, he had a bowl. “Turn onto your stomach, love.”
I rolled over, and soon I felt the hot drizzle of oil. The room smelled of the clean nature of Elphame, so whatever oil it was, it was fae in origin.
At a word in his language, the room became completely dark.
I could see nothing. “Eli?”
“You asked for touch,” he said, voice low and rough. “No intercourse. Merely touch.”
I felt him place my hands along my sides, arrange my body as if I was clay in his hands. Then I felt him touch me. Slowly, steadily, hard, teasing, he rubbed and caressed almost everything in some fashion.
Time seemed to freeze. I could see nothing. The world was reduced to touch, scent, and sound. His murmured words, sighed, groaned as he explored my body. It didn’t matter whether he was caressing sensitive spots or mundane. Under Eli’s touch, everything was erotic. My feet, my calves, my hips. He was leaning his weight onto me, his forearms and muscular chest brushed my body as his rubbed along my spine.
And I realized he was atop me.
Straddling me.
Naked.
Eli was naked.
I felt the hard length of him nestled between my thighs. Unconsciously, I parted my legs further, and he leaned down so his chest was flat against my back and his lips were by my ear. “No intercourse, Genèvieve,” he taunted.
Goddess help me, I whimpered. “We can’t, but this is . . . nice.”
“Nice?” he echoed. He was a voice and pleasure in the dark, and I was certain that no one had ever made me so desperate so quickly.
He thrust his hips against me, groaning. Not entering me, merely taunting me with what I was refusing.
“Still just nice?” he asked.
I moaned and admitted, “More than nice.”
By the time he had me roll over, exposing my naked chest and hips to his touch, I was wishing I could find a loophole in the no intercourse clause.
He parted my legs further. “Shall I be thorough, Genèvieve?”
“Please. Please.”
His hands danced between my legs, but only for a moment, sliding along my most delicate skin, and then they were gone. In the dark, he plucked my nipples, massaging my thighs, my belly.
I could only feel and beg. “More, Eli. Please. More.”
In that moment if he’d asked me again, I’m not sure I’d have refused intercourse. Damn the consequences, I was shaking in need. Maybe he knew that, and it was why he didn’t ask.