Worlds of Obsession (Celtic Otherworlds) (25 page)

“There are no words…” he mumbled against her hair.

No, there weren’t.

Chapter 25

It seemed like they lay there by the fire for hours, but it could have been just minutes for all Liv knew.  Time seemed to have stood still, and she honestly thought she could stay like this forever, wrapped in strong arms with her fingers roaming over the hard ridges of muscle that were hers now to touch.   

Bastien was the first to stir.

“I need to feed you”, he told her.

“No, I’m fine.”

“You need to eat.  I want to take care of you.”  He gave her lips a slow, sultry kiss, and then unwound himself gently from their tangle of limbs.

“Don’t go…” she lazily reached for him, her body still limp and sated from… whatever
mind-blowing experience had just happened.  She couldn’t call it sex.  No, she had had sex before Bastien, and this did not even begin to compare…

“I’ll be right back… promise”, he said with a smile. 

Liv had to grin back at him, because there was something very different about the smile he had just given her, something she had never seen before. 

He looked happy
, she realized.  At peace with himself.  There was a light in his eyes she had never seen before.

Bastien returned with a platter of food and set it down on the blanket between them.  Then he opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses, handing her one, and holding up his own.  “I believe it is a human custom to toast each bottle?”

“Yes.”

“The
n, to us Liv.  To us, together.”

“To us
, Bastien.”

He smiled at her, his eyes full of some warm emotion that she suspected
just might be
hope
.  She was happy for him, he deserved that and so much more.

“Now eat.”  He picked up a piece of lush, orange melon from the plate and held it to her lips.  She took it into her mouth, sucking on his finger for a moment before letting it go, and watching his eyes darken in
hunger.  He picked up a piece of cheese and repeated the process, this time groaning when her teeth scraped the sensitive pad of his thumb.  “After I’ve fed you, I’m going to need you again Liv.  I’m going to need you very badly.”

“Okay”, she smiled.

He reached to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, but suddenly his head jerked up and he was looking behind her, his whole body instantly tense as if ready to spring. 

             
The door crashed open and Liv squealed, grabbing at the blanket and pulling it up to cover her naked body.  When she looked up, she recognized Bastien’s father in an instant.  He was staring right at her, his eyes accusing and his face twisting in anger.

“Oh, it’s you.  I suppose you’ve come to
try to kill me again”, she said dryly.  She wasn’t afraid this time.  Bastien was with her, and already he had moved his big body around to shield her.  He would protect her, she knew he would.

             
“In all fairness, I warned you first, female”, his father answered.

             
“You did.”  She just hadn’t seen how it was any of his business.  After all Bastien was a grown… um, Demon. 

             
Bastien was looking incredulously back and forth between the two of them.  “What the
fuck
is going on here?  Dad, I’m a little busy here, so get the hell out!”  He stood up, pulling on his jeans which lay crumpled on the floor while his father watched him with narrowed eyes.  “I mean it, out!”  He pointed at the door with one hand while he fumbled with the buttons of his fly with the other.  “Wait a minute… what does she mean you’ve come to kill her?” 

             
“Bastien, son… what have you done?”  His father’s voice was a strange mixture of sorrow and rage as he gestured to the blanket and the obviously naked woman that it barely covered.

             
For a moment, Bastien looked uncertain, a little bit guilty, even.  But he didn’t back down.  He looked his father in the eye, as if daring him to get in the way of what he wanted.  His shoulders went back, his chin tilted forward, and his eyes flashed with aggression.  “I’ve moved on.”

             
His father took two angry steps forward, his hulking frame seeming larger and more formidable than it had just a moment before.  “You can’t!” he growled.  “Moving on is not possible!  All you have done here is bring disgrace on our family’s name.  There is
no moving on
for you.  One chance, one chance only, and yours is done.”  He pointed an angry finger at Liv, still huddled wide-eyed under the blanket.  “What sort of creature is she?  Has she bewitched you?”

             
“Father, you need to calm down.  She’s not a Witch, she’s Fae.  And she doesn’t even have any powers yet, so she had done nothing to me… nothing that I didn’t want or ask for.”  He turned his gaze to Liv, and she could see the sudden lust burning there in his dark eyes.  Despite his enraged father standing before them, her body responded immediately with renewed arousal.  The heat pooled between her legs, and Bastien’s lips curled into a carnal smile, just for her.  Then he turned back to his father, who was watching the exchange with undisguised abhorrence.  “Besides, Seig said that maybe…”

             
“Your brother knows about this?” he roared.

             
“Um… yes…”

             
“Your brother knows about your Fae whore while I did not?  I will fucking
kill
her before I see you shamed!  You are my
son
, Bastien, and I protect what is mine!”

             
That was enough… far too much in fact.
  “As do I, Father.”  Within the blink of an eye, Bastien’s fist landed against his father’s face with a solid thwack.  He had never hit a member of his family like that before, but his instincts were screaming at him to protect Liv at all costs, and he could do little else but obey.  She belonged to him, he had made it so.  In every way except one, she was his.

             
Liv watched in disbelief as Bastien’s father once more began to change form, thick horns appearing, erupting right out of his head, his body seeming to grow larger and more muscular.  And to her fascination, Bastien followed suit.  Her mouth fell open in awe at the size of him, the raw power rolling off his body with such force that she could almost feel it hit her skin. And the horns, dark and smooth and way more erotic than she ever would have thought.  She wondered if he could make them appear at will, because she really wanted to touch them and see if they were as hard and sleek as they looked.  But she shouldn’t be thinking these things now, because Bastien and his father were circling each other with what looked to her eyes like deadly intent.

             
Suddenly the door flew open once again and a woman was standing there, arms crossed, looking more than a little annoyed.  She was beautiful, with dark hair that was tied into a loose bun at the back of her head, plump, rosy lips, and brown eyes with long, silky lashes.  “Baltoir!  Stop that this instant!”

             
Both males stopped their posturing and turned to look at her as she took in the scene before her.

             
Bastien frowned.  “Mom?”

             
She looked at him with narrowed eyes before her gaze moved slowly, knowingly to Liv, then snapped straight to the man who must be her husband…er, mate.  Liv could have sworn she saw the tiniest smile pass across her lips as she regarded her son, half dressed and about to engage in a no-holds-barred fight with his own father. 

             
“Baltoir, I wish to speak with you”, she said calmly.  Her voice was soft and motherly, the kind of voice that Liv wished she had heard every day as a child, reading her stories, singing her lullabies. Gran… er, Bride, had done none of that.  “Come with me Baltoir, and leave our son alone now.  He’ll be fine, I promise you.”

             
She held out a hand, and Liv was shocked to see the ferocious and enraged Fomoiri male meekly do her bidding, though not without a final glare at both Liv and Bastien.  He followed his wife out the door, which shut behind them with a solid bang. 

             
Liv sat staring at the door in shock and awe.  For one thing, she was liking Bastien’s mom a
whole
lot better than his dad right now… and were all Fomoiri males that completely whipped by their females?  Because that could potentially be a whole lot of fun…  Still, that was
not
a good way to meet your new boyfriend’s parents.  Especially when one of them wanted you dead.

             
Bastien turned to her, running his hands through his hair, his face full of worry, which mixed with the anger already there and made him look quite fierce.  She was pleased to see that the horns were still there. 

“I’m sorry
” he said on a sigh.  “Why didn’t you tell me that he came to you before?  That he threatened you? 
Fuck
, Liv, he could have killed you!”  He grabbed her up in his arms and held her tight.  “God, I’m sorry baby… so sorry… my brother was so supportive… he just wants me to live my life and be happy again.  I never even thought about how the rest of my family would react.  My dad, well he’s gets a little crazy sometimes.”

             
Oh god, his body felt even bigger now, stronger, harder…  “He didn’t hurt me… Bastien… about what he said… about you bringing shame on your family… I can’t let you do that, not because of me.”

             
His strong hands moved to the sides of her face, forcing her eyes to meet his.  “Oh Liv, no.  I don’t care about any of that.  I thought long and hard about everything before I brought you here, and I’ve come to realize that without you, I’m nothing.  You, quite literally, have brought me back to life, and I won’t go back to the way I was before.  I can’t, Liv.  This time I know I wouldn’t survive.  I
need
you.  I
need
you, baby.”

             
She let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.  He didn’t say love, but ‘need’ was a start.  She slid her hands up his powerful chest, and lifted her eyes even higher.  “Can I touch them?” she asked.

             
He gave her a crooked smile.  “If you want me to lose all control and fuck you like an animal, then yes, you can touch them.  If you want me to make love to you with any sort of civility, then you had better not.”

             
With a wicked grin, Liv stood on her tiptoes and reached for the horns.  As the tips of her fingers brushed against them, Bastien dropped to his knees in front of her.  When she smoothed her hand over one, he growled low in his throat.  Feeling extraordinarily bold, she suddenly grabbed one in each hand and used them to pull him down on top of her.  With a roar of triumph and ecstasy, he pulled back his powerful hips and sank into her with one long stroke.  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you baby”, he gritted out just before he began to slam into her again and again.

             
The tension in her core built quickly, even though his wildness was skirting the border between pleasure and pain.  A few more fierce thrusts pushed her firmly over that border into pleasure, and she screamed as the sensations became overwhelming in their intensity.  She moved restlessly beneath his powerful body, and he sank his teeth into her shoulder as if to hold her still.  Liv screamed again as her body was hurled into a powerful, shuddering release.  Bastien pumped into her faster and harder, grunting with the effort until finally he went still, threw his head back, and roared.  His entire body went tight as a bow string as his cock pulsed deep and hard within her.

             
It was some time later before she roused enough to realize Bastien had slipped back into human form.  She loved his body this way too, but she really hoped she’d have another chance to have sex with a Demon.  It was seriously…
fulfilling
.

             
“What were you talking about, Liv, when you said my father was trying to kill you
again
?”  Bastien’s sex-roughened voice was near her ear, and he rolled them onto their sides to wait for her answer while he ran kisses over every part of her body he could reach.

             
“I never told you, but when I um… met your father, he came after me and I really thought I was going to die…”

             
Bastien’s whole body tensed and a low growl rumbled from his chest.  “I swear by all that’s holy I’m going to kill him with my bare hands…”

             
She swatted him lightly on the arm.  “No, listen!  Just before he got to me I was suddenly in my hotel room, and I couldn’t figure out how I’d gotten there until I heard a noise coming from the bathroom.  It was my grandmother, Bastien, or at least the person I had always
thought
was my grandmother.  She admitted that she’d raised me as some sort of payment to Carman, but now I wonder, why would that be?  Why would Carman need to find someone to raise a Fae baby?”