Concern was etched all over Trill’s feature as she mouthed, Let’s go home. I nodded, numb.
What the hell is up with me? I thought, as we turned back toward the shore of my cove. It’s like I was possessed or something.
We swam together, Trill keeping me at arm’s length while I tried to figure out what had just happened. On the one hand, I hadn’t felt any overt magical influence. But, on the other hand, I’d learned that there were all sorts of magic out there, not all of which I recognized.
But whom have I met who has such power and wants to hurt me? Blondie was apparently an ally, as was Terk, the brownie who worked for Capitola’s family back in the Borderlands. They were the only two beings with nonelemental magic, the type that my kind and I used, that I knew.
Which means we might have another new, unknown enemy, I thought with a mental sigh. I was being rather dramatic but, in my own defense, it is rather tiring having strangers constantly trying to kill my friends and me.
But before I could dwell on that thought, I felt Trill nudge me with her elbow and point forward. I peered through the water until I saw what she was showing me.
There, way ahead of us, stood a pair of legs standing waist high in the water. I squinted, swimming forward a bit more till I could see that the legs were big, bedenimed, and wearing motorcycle boots.
Anyan, I realized, and my whole body tingled at the thought. I looked at Trill, who rolled her eyes.
He’s all yours, she mouthed, giving me a mocking salute before signaling I should swim ahead of her.
Where will you go? I asked her, trying not to smile when she motioned toward the beach quite a ways up the shore. After all, I didn’t want her to think that I was abandoning her—hos before bros and all that—but I did want to ascertain that she’d be well away before I launched my vagoo at Anyan’s face.
And speaking of my lady business, I am bare-assed naked, I thought, pondering that fact. Nell had—I assumed—apparated my clothes to their usual place in my cove, leaving one eminently fuckable (and, from what I could see, fully clothed) barghest standing between me and my modesty.
Luckily, I thought, shrugging for no one’s benefit, I’ve never been particularly attached to the concept of modesty.
And then I swam as fast as I could toward those long, lovely legs. All the worry I’d been suppressing since waking up that I’d been too slow and that Anyan was dead urged me on. I’d been told he was fine, but being told something and seeing it for myself were two entirely different things. So I rushed toward him, needing to feel him—healthy and whole—against me.
At the last moment I kicked off the shallows, breaching the water with a tremendous splash. I landed, wetly, smack dab against Anyan’s T-shirted chest, causing him to rock back on his heels before regaining his balance.
But his arms had wrapped around me immediately, and they never let go.
He held me there, partially in his embrace but also buoyed by a little surge of power from both of us, for what felt like hours but could only have been a handful of seconds. I was as limp as seaweed in his arms, my head cradled under his chin, my own arms draped around his neck. We were both breathing hard—in my case, from a combination of exertion, nerves, and desire.
I barely registered when Anyan started to move, although I did feel the retreat of the water from around our bodies as he walked the both of us up the beach. It was only when I felt him start to sit—presumably on my cove’s resident ancient beached tree trunk—that I pulled my thighs upward, wrapping my legs about his waist so I could remain in his lap.
We stayed like that, me wrapped around him like a little leech, the only sounds that of our breathing and the steady drip of water from our ocean-drenched bodies. There were a thousand things I needed to ask him—a thousand things we needed to talk about. But all I cared about, at that moment, was the feel of his body against mine.
Everything else could wait.
“Thought we’d lost you,” he said, eventually. His voice rumbled through my body and I shivered. In response, he moved my hair aside and stroked a large, warm hand all the way down my back.
I shivered again, but for an entirely different reason.
“I thought I’d lost you,” I replied, feeling my voice hitch at the memory of him lying there, bleeding from everywhere.
Anyan left his one hand on the small of my back while the other knotted my hair in a rough queue, tugging my head back so that my face came away from his chest and I was looking into his eyes.
I gotta admit, it took everything I had not to moan. That hair-pulling thing he did really peeled my bananas.
“You saved my life again, little girl,” he said quietly, his eyes searching my face as if he were lost and I was his map. In response, my own throat worked uselessly, gone dry and tight from a combination of nerves and lust.
“Nothing you haven’t done for me quite a few times,” I only just managed to croak out in a voice about four octaves lower than usual. I hoped the barghest found my sudden plunge into man-voice as sexy as I found his hair pulling, but I wasn’t about to bet on it.
As if he knew what I was thinking, Anyan’s reply was to pull my hair again. Only this time he tugged outward, rather than up, moving my chest away from his. I was still astride him, our hips flush, but he’d pulled my shoulders back so that my upper body was bared to him. Cradling my neck and the back of my head in his large hand, his eyes swept over said upper body, which I quickly remembered was very naked except for the two wings of crow-black hair that, having escaped his grip, fell alongside either side of my face and down over my breasts.
Thank the gods I currently resemble Cousin It, I thought, my face reddening under his scrutiny as that long, crooked nose twitched once, hard.
He ignored my embarrassment, stroking the hand that had been at the small of my back across my buttock and the outside of my thigh, raising goose bumps all over my flesh. His nose twitched again and lord and lady did I want to nibble the tip…
“You’ve hurt yourself, already,” he said as he harrumphed, his iron-gray eyes taking in the multitude of cuts and bruises I’d accumulated near the Sow.
I was about to spill the beans about my sort-of possession, and had even opened my mouth to do so. But all that came out was an only partially stifled groan as Anyan raised his free hand to run it down my cheek, to my neck, and down each arm, trailing healing warmth. His power pushed through my body—warm and strong—and I ground down on another groan. I also may have ground down on the barghest a bit, but under the circumstances, who could blame me?
Anyan, for his part, didn’t seem to mind.
Instead, he grunted softly, his gray eyes spearing my black ones as his generous mouth pursed in concentration. At the same time, his hand on my hip clutched convulsively, squeezing nearly hard enough to hurt before his grip relaxed. Then that same hand reached up ever so slowly to insert itself under the hair on the left side of my face. Anyan spread his fingers, trailing his thumb across my jaw as he used his hand to push my concealing hair back away from the left side of my body. Without looking down, he reached across me to do the same thing to the hair covering my right side, leaving me naked before him. But he still kept his eyes on mine.
“Is this all right?” he asked, his voice husky with desire.
“All right?” I asked, wondering how on earth he could think it was anything but. Then I saw the concern on his face, like he was genuinely afraid I was about to say no. I immediately put his worries to bed.
“Of course it’s all right,” I said. “Unexpected, but all right.”
“Unexpected?” he asked, his turn to make me feel nervous.
I paused, unsure how to answer him. “You’re Anyan,” I replied, finally. A response that made perfect sense to me.
The barghest looked at me like I was speaking Flemish, but he started talking anyway. His hands were still where they rested on my forearms, but his eyes swept over me possessively.
“You lay there for weeks,” he said, “and there was nothing I could do. I thought you were going to die, and there was nothing I could do. You were so small and still, and there was nothing I could do.”
With that, he stopped talking, and his eyes glistened suspiciously. The thought of Anyan tearing up, and over me!, nearly did me in. Without thinking about it, I flung myself forward, wrapping my arms around his neck and holding him tightly.
“I’m okay, now,” I murmured into his ear, his coarse jaw rasping against my cheek. “And I’m here. I’m fine.”
Anyan’s only response was to hold me tightly, his huge hands warm and strong where they gripped my flesh.
It felt wonderful. I felt safe, protected, and cared for. Nevertheless, I’ve always been greedy.
I wanted more.
So I pulled back from Anyan, just enough so that my nose nuzzled against his gorgeously long schnoz, just as I’d fantasized about doing so many times.
“Bad puppy,” I murmured, my voice husky.
His hand on my hip pulled my pelvis in snugly against his, just as I leaned forward, my lips just brushing Anyan’s…
“If I knew it was going to be this kind of party, I’d have brought some towels,” came an oily voice from the crack in the cove walls, causing me to yank Anyan’s hair in surprise.