Bedeviled (33 page)

“Yes,” he said, hoping to appease and at the same time keep her unaware of his divided loyalties. “But, my queen, there is unrest in Otherworld. The warriors are being called on to settle disputes in the streets and can’t be expected to roam the mortal world searching for stray power.”

Mab narrowed her glorious eyes on him in a fit of temper that had sparks lifting from her fingertips. “I didn’t ask the warriors to get me that power, Consort. I commanded it of you.”

“You did. And I will find it and bring it to you.” He didn’t add, of course, that when he brought the power to her, that power would be within the woman he hoped would defeat the queen. “But I cannot leave the problems here for my warriors to handle alone.”

“Then they are incapable of action without your guidance? What pitiful warriors I find I have.”

“No, my queen,” he said. “I thought only to be here where I’m needed.”

She stood up from her throne, stepped off the podium and walked toward him. “I tell you where you’re needed, Consort.”

“I am, as always, at your command.”

Mab tilted her head to one side, her long blond hair falling in a thick wave off her shoulders. She stared up into his eyes and wondered aloud, “Are you? Are you still my loyal consort, Culhane? It’s been some time since I’ve called you to my bed.”

For that he was grateful. He would do what he must, but Culhane had no wish to join with the queen when his body wanted only Maggie Donovan. But he couldn’t say that much aloud. So he fell back on the courtly responses he knew Mab expected. “It has been too long, my queen.”

Lifting one hand, he touched her waist, let his fingertips caress the curve of her hip. She smiled as if satisfied, then stepped back and away from him abruptly.

“I find I’m much too busy to satisfy you at the moment, Consort. Get you to the mortal world.” She fixed him with a stare that was filled with impatience and greed. “Find the power and bring it to me at once. If your warriors are so clumsy, so inadequate to the task of controlling Otherworld while you’re gone, then there will have to be unrest until you’ve returned.”

Culhane nodded and gave her a brief bow. “I will go immediately.”

“Good.” Her voice stopped him before he could leave the throne room. “And, Culhane, I grow impatient. Do not keep me waiting.”

Maggie’d rather face another Gray man than vacuum. But despite the fact that she had windows to paint, demons to fight and a queen to kill, life went on. Clothes had to be washed, vacuums had to be run, groceries had to be bought.

“Screw fighting demons,” Maggie muttered as she hovered five feet off the floor, scraping off a layer or two of grime off the top of the damned entertainment center. “Dusting will kill you.”

She hated housecleaning more than any other thing in the known universe. She’d always thought,
What’s the point? It only gets dirty again.
Seemed like a massive waste of time and effort to her, but on the other hand, she hated a mess, too.

Naturally, being a sensible woman, Maggie had hired a cleaning service to come in twice a month to do most of it. In between times Maggie did the decluttering and putting away of stuff. But she’d been a little distracted the last couple of weeks, and now she had no choice but to clean before the maids arrived the next day and discovered what a slob she was.

Watery sunlight spilled through the open living room curtains, and a slight breeze skipped in through the partially opened windows. The scent of the sea filled the old house, and Maggie started humming to keep herself company. With the place empty, it felt a little weird to be all alone. She’d been surrounded by people and action for the last couple of weeks. Hearing herself think was a novelty.

“What are you doing?”

“Jesus!” Maggie grabbed the top of the entertainment center, whipped her head around and glared at Culhane, floating right alongside her. “To answer your question,” she said, choking back her heart, currently lodged in her throat, “I’m having the crap scared out of me by a Faery. You?”

“I meant, why are you wasting time with menial tasks?”

“How should I be wasting my time, then?” She dropped to the floor, picked up the vacuum and turned it on, hoping to drown him out or make him leave. Either one would do. But the high-pitched whine coming from the machine told her she’d probably sucked up one of Sheba’s chew toys.

“Perfect.” She snapped off the machine, flipped it over and began digging past the roller. “This is just freaking perfect. Why are you here?”

He dropped to the floor beside her, then crouched so that he could look her in the eye. His scent wafted around her, and Maggie drew it in deeply with every breath. The forest, leather,
him.

The damn Faery was a walking temptation. Or, as the nuns used to say,
an occasion of sin
. Hell, he
was
sin. Maggie had lain awake most of last night—after the nightmares drove even the thought of sleep out of her mind—thinking about . . . well, everything. She’d come to the conclusion that the only way she was going to keep her head on straight through the rest of this was to stop thinking about Culhane. About the way he made her feel. Want. She needed desperately to be able to concentrate on the little things, like . . . staying alive.

Wouldn’t you know he’d show up as if to test her newfound resolve? Why the hell did he have to smell so good?

“I’ve come to take you with me back to Otherworld.”

Of course he had. Watch her kill a Gray man, disappear for a few hours—how long was that in Faery time? And now he shows up to whisk her off for more show-and-tell in fairy-tale land. She glanced at him from beneath her lashes and felt her stomach lurch and her mouth go dry.

His eyes, so pale, so clear and sharp, were fixed on her. His mouth lush, and so damn kissable she could almost taste him. His jaw strong and hard, and set now as if it were stone. A welling tide of attraction and desire rose up inside her and stole what little breath she had left. The man was too big a distraction. One she couldn’t afford right now.

“Can’t.” There. She’d said it. Yay, her. She turned her gaze back to the upended vacuum and kept digging past the roller that still had tinsel wrapped around it from
last
Christmas. Damn stuff. They ought to make cars out of tinsel. It was indestructible. “Sorry. Kinda busy at the moment.”

“With cleaning tasks? Maggie—”

“Culhane, don’t. I’ve got a life to get back together. I don’t have time for another visit to the tree house.” She didn’t have the endurance for it, either. It had been hard enough before, being shut away with him in his house in the forest. Now, though, that much togetherness time would only result in sex, and then she’d be even more scattered than she was now. She so didn’t need that.

Finally she found the obstruction behind the roller, yanked it out and scowled down at a green-and-gold button. “Not Sheba’s. Bezel’s. Off that ugly suit he’s always wearing.”

She tossed the button onto the coffee table and stood up. Looking down at Culhane, she whipped her hair back out of her face and told him, “I appreciate the offer of a field trip, but I’ve got to finish this cleaning, do some laundry, then, when Claire and Eileen get back from the grocery store, put all of that stuff away.”

Culhane stood up, his movements slow, deliberate. He grabbed her hands, and she felt the heat and sizzle of his touch dart up her arms and settle in her chest. God, she so didn’t need this right now. Yet everything in her yearned for it.

“This isn’t your world anymore, Maggie.”

It was the one thing he could have said to shatter the little spell she’d felt being woven around her by his nearness, his touch. She didn’t
want
to lose her world.

“You’re wrong,” she said, and tugged her hands free. “This is my real world. This is my reality. A water heater that’s on its last legs. Painting jobs piled up and waiting for me. A niece who’s worried about her mom and flunking math. A friend who’s worried about me and trying not to show it. A crabby
pixie
living in my oak tree and eating all my damn cookies. It’s a life that sometimes includes fighting the stray demon. It’s
not
the other way around,” she said, getting a little hot as she defended her right to have a normal life. “I won’t be what you want and try to squeeze in what
I
want in my off hours. I can’t live like that, Culhane. I
need
normal.”

“Your life has changed,” he told her, moving in so close that Maggie could see only him—nothing behind him, around him, only Culhane. Only his eyes. “Normal for you now is what others will never know.”

“I don’t want your normal. I want my own.” Stubborn, she knew it, but couldn’t stop. She heard the near whine in her voice and couldn’t silence it. “God, when all this started I actually thought,
Okay, cool. Break out of your rut, Maggie. Get out there. Have some excitement in your life.
Well now, that rut’s looking pretty damn comfy, I can tell you.”

He smiled, that gorgeous mouth of his curving at the edges, his eyes softening as he watched her. “You are a wonder to me, Maggie Donovan. Though I’d felt our connection before, I didn’t expect this. You talk too much, eat incessantly and argue even when you know it will do no good. You were an irritation to me at first, and now you are simply essential.”

Hard to believe that he’d gotten to know her so well in such a short period of time. But then, he’d been watching her all her life, hadn’t he? He’d known her for freaking ever, and she—

“Irritation?” She planted both hands on her hips and gave him a look designed to fry his Faery ass. “Well, thanks very much.” Then the rest of what he’d said settled in, and everything in her melted.

“Oh, God.”
Essential?
How many big, strong men were willing to say that to a woman? To admit to a need that deep? How many women were ever lucky enough to hear that from the man they . . .
Nope. Not going there.
She stopped herself from even thinking the L-word. She couldn’t drag that into the middle of this now. Weren’t things unsettled and confusing enough?

His gaze moved over her face like a caress. He lifted one hand to smooth her hair, then traced his fingertips down along the curve of her jaw. Smiling a bit, he swiped his thumb down her nose and rubbed his fingers together to get rid of the dust he’d just cleaned off her skin. “I find I think of you far too often,” he said, “and not only for what you can do for Otherworld.”

She blew out a breath and took in another one, drawing the scent of him deep within. Maggie’s insides were jumping, and her heartbeat was crashing like thunder in her chest.

She’d been so sure last night that the only way to survive what was coming was to separate herself—emotionally, at least—from Culhane. Now she realized in a blast of understanding just how dumb that decision had been. She couldn’t do this without him. More—she didn’t want to. He’d become such a part of her life, she couldn’t imagine him
not
there anymore.

And wouldn’t you know she’d be having this über-romantic moment when she looked like the dregs of hell? Here she stood, staring up into the eyes of the Fae she lo—never mind—covered with dust and grime and . . . Oh, who cared?

“I woke up today determined to avoid you,” she admitted, and saw his lips quirk. “I figured the best way for me to handle what I feel when I’m around you was just not to be around you.” Maggie sighed and felt her own surrender in the action. “There’s so much going on that I thought keeping you out of my head and my heart would make it easier to deal with all the other shit. But I was wrong. Keeping you in my head makes it easier.”

“And your heart?” he asked, his voice a hush.

“You’re already there. I don’t think I can get you out now.”

“Good. As I don’t want you to.” He cupped her face in his palms, and heat slid down and through her, rushing like a river cresting its banks. His thumbs stroked her cheekbones; his gaze met hers. “I, too, thought to keep myself from you. To somehow look at you and see only the future of Otherworld. But you’re more, Maggie Donovan. You’re my future as well, Goddess help us both.”

Maggie held her breath as he leaned in closer, closer. His breath brushed her face; his warmth radiated out to her, wrapping itself around her, drawing her in. She moved in, no longer interested in avoiding him, ignoring him. He was all she wanted. She wanted to feel the magic of his kiss again, feel the heat and the need and the passion. When his lips covered hers, sensation coursed through her, pumping thick and hot and delicious. Everything in her swelled as if every cell within was blossoming.

His mouth moved on hers, deepening the kiss, parting her lips with his tongue, and Maggie moaned, giving as she took. Her slight hitch of sound made him tighten his hold on her, yanking her hard and flush against his body. Maggie did what she could to get even closer. Clinging to him, she lifted both legs, wrapped them around his hips and clung even harder, exposing her jeans-clad core to his rigid body.

She was so ready for this. Tiny explosions of want and greed sizzled inside her, and she ground her hips against his as if she could fight her way through their clothes. Feel his skin, his body against hers, inside hers.

Maggie tore her mouth from his, desperate for air. Her head fell back, and his mouth came down on her throat. He whispered in a language she didn’t understand as he kissed and nibbled and licked until she thought she would lose what was left of her mind.

Why hadn’t she done this before? Why had they waited? Torturing themselves and each other with the waiting? There was so much to be discovered. To be felt. Experienced. And she wanted it all. Now. Now, before her world dissolved again, or something else disgusting and cruel showed up to try to kill her. God, she didn’t want to die without knowing what it was to be with Culhane.

“You’re everything,” he whispered, locking his lips on the pulse beat at the base of her throat. “All and more, it’s you, Maggie. You and only you.”