“Izzy?” he said as he watched her chest slowly rise and fall as if she were sleeping.

She moved her arm a bit and turned her head to look at him and once more he was drowning. He could not help himself, nor could he stop. He felt as if his entire life hinged upon the next moment, the next breath, the next heartbeat. John slowly lowered his head and kissed her.

Her lips parted with a sharp intake of breath and her arm fell away from her face, only to creep slowly around his neck as he deepened the kiss. He took advantage of her parted lips to slip his tongue inside her mouth, leading her in a sensual dance that set his body on edge.

He framed her face with his hands and kissed her until they both had to take a breath.

“God . . .” he gasped. “Izzy.”

She pulled his face down with her hand on the back of his neck and they kissed again, only now he pulled her on her side and into his arms. She tasted of the wine and fresh-baked bread and sharp cheese and the exquisite lemon tarts that had been in the basket. She smelled like fresh grass and sunshine and she felt so wonderfully right in his arms. John placed a leg over her hip and she squirmed up against him as he wrapped it around her and pinned her to him.

He stroked his hand down her back and pressed against the curve of her behind and she moved against him. John felt a jolt of pleasure in his groin and he groaned as his member sprang to life, hard and throbbing against the constraints of his breeches.

Somewhere in his mind he knew what was happening was wrong. He knew it was too fast, too furious, too soon for the feelings that had burst into life. He needed to think,he needed to step back, he needed to take a breath, but his body would not let him;nor would Izzy’s. She was as caught up in the moment as he was.

John felt as if he were outside himself. He watched as he pushed aside the soft cloud of her hair and rained kisses down her neck until he reached the line of her bodice and the swell of her breasts. He was surprised when he placed his hand inside and tore the fabric, freeing her breasts from her shift. He felt the softness of her skin as he kissed them and moved his hand over them as he pushed Izzy over on her back.

She wrapped her hands in his hair and arched upward when his mouth closed over the taut peak.

He wanted to feel all of her. He wanted to touch all of her. He felt clumsy and out of control next to her gentle grace. How could he be so wild when his entire life was about control? Everything he had ever done he’d studied before he ever attempted it. Yet now he fumbled about in the grass like an ignorant schoolboy. It was Izzy who removed his shirt and trailed her hands over the skin of his chest until he was gasping for breath. It was Izzy who sat up and turned her back so he could unfasten her dress and cast it aside along with her petticoats and shift, her stockings, and her new shoes, which he tossed carelessly into the grass as they both laughed. It was Izzy who reached for the lacings of his breeches and with her nimble fingers freed him as he toed off his boots and stockings and she pushed the breeches down and away over his hips so that they both lay naked in the sun with his body covering hers.

Skin to skin, mouth to mouth, with his hands tangled in her hair.

“I love you, Iz,” he said, and she laughed joyfully.

“Aye, I love ye too, John Murray,” she replied and once more he found himself drowning in the dark brown depths of her eyes.

Drowning ...he was drowning. He felt the water close over his head and knew the only way he could survive was to possess her,body and soul. He wanted to touch every inch of her and so he did, with his hands, with his mouth, until she lay quivering and gasping beneath him.

The part of him that knew this was not the time rushed back inside his mind as he slid inside her parted thighs and broke through the barrier that said there had been no one before him. “Izzy,” he cried out as her legs folded around his waist and he buried himself deeper inside her. “Izzy,” he breathed as she joined him in the familiar rhythm, pulling him closer. Their lips met and the tumultuous sensations carried him away.

He felt her tense, knew that her storm was gathering. He wondered if she’d ever felt it before and knew that she hadn’t, that he was the first, the only, and he would be the only one. No other would touch her. No other would give her this. She stilled and her eyes widened and then they shut as she shuddered in his arms and he caught her cry in his mouth with another kiss. He knew she had peaked, but he had not and he could not stop. She moaned beneath him and her legs tightened and held him close as he jerked and thrust until he felt the explosion coming.

The world spun until her eyes were the sun and he was burning up inside her. He threw his head back and groaned as the sun consumed him. Then his strength gave way and he collapsed into her arms.

“I’ll make it right by you, Iz,” he said when he could speak again. “I promise.”

“I know ye will,” she said. “Because ye love me.”

Divine Fantasy
by Melanie Jackson

He kissed me again, my back to the wall beside the window, and this time I tasted storm on his lips. I would have fallen but he held me up with his body and I could feel my heart synching with his.

I pulled my mouth away and moaned into the curve of his neck, burying my face in the radiance, knowing I should be afraid or shocked or embarrassed about what we were doing, and yet incapable of reaching the logical state where I could pull away or even think to say no, whatever the potential dangers might be.

I felt his skin roughen and wondered for an instant if he would shift again and let his beast free. He pulled back from me and I saw his eyes. They were no longer black but pure feral gold. His jaw also looked heavier and shadowed and his teeth were longer and sharper. Had I actually been kissing that? And enjoying it?

“Ambrose?” I whispered again, not exactly afraid but feeling more cautious as I looked at his teeth. I was attracted to this part of him, but I wasn’t stupid. The beast was dangerous.

He stilled, breathing hard as he struggled with himself. After a moment his lashes lowered over his eyes. He held me against the wall, a hand still fisted tight in my hair, but he did nothing more.

I didn’t want him to do nothing. The dampness between my legs said that I wanted him to do something and do it right away.

“It’s all right,” I said softly. “Do what you want. I know it won’t hurt me. Not now.” Not now that I was also part wolf.

He took me at my word. My remaining clothes were torn free. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see if his hands were again fearsome claws. As though guessing what I feared to see, he spun me around and lowered me to the floor, not sparing me his weight as he came down on top of me and pushed my legs apart.

Then he was in me. Blood hot. No, far hotter than any blood that my cold, wounded heart had ever pushed through my body. I could feel small shocks inside my loins and reevaluated my stand on kinky sex. I decided to enjoy the electrical molestation and worry about being embarrassed later. Sex, and whatever else we shared on that rough wooden floor, was a sweet narcotic moving through my veins, burning away the person I had been and leaving someone new in her place.

Afterward as I lay there, too exhausted to move, Ambrose reached over and looped the cold chain around my wrists. He rolled me onto my back but I didn’t open my eyes. I felt something cold and heavy over my heart and then a sharp stab as some kind of prongs were driven into my chest. The wound was shallow but painful. I parted my eyelids once and saw some kind of a medallion pressed into my flesh. Small trickles of blood ran down the valley between my breasts, but it slowed and then stopped even as I watched.

He put his hands under my butt and pulled me forward. His expression was rapt. He glowed so brightly that I could have read by the sheen. He had become a beacon and I said a quick prayer that his light would be bright enough for me to find. Because I wanted to come back—for my own reasons, of course. But also because I didn’t want Ambrose to be alone again. How cruel it would be to have him love me and then take it all away.

“It’s coming,” he said. If he had any fears or doubts they didn’t show. “Just close your eyes and concentrate on coming back to me.” With that, he pushed back into my body and began moving again. Stunned, I could do nothing but look into his yellow eyes. Then, seeing the lightning rolling toward us, I did as he asked and lowered my eyelids. I didn’t think there was much chance of my losing track of Ambrose while he was actually in my body.

The light grew brighter, picking out the pattern of the veins in my closed eyelids. I felt Ambrose changing under my hands. I felt him changing inside of me too. He seemed to be growing hotter and had to fight for every inch he had inside of me as my body tried to adapt to the alteration. My own skin tightened and I could feel the small hairs all over me erect themselves. Electricity was crawling over my skin, in my skin. I climaxed and was so caught up in the radiance that pushed through my eyelids and the feeling of fire inside my body that I didn’t feel the lightning strike.

Then I heard myself scream, and my back arched off the floor. It sounded partly like pleasure but mostly like pain. The noise was also closer to a wolf’s howl than any sound a human would make.

Thunder and lightning were loosed on the inside of my body and mind. And it seemed that all the light in the world—even the cold moon hiding in the icy clouds above us—screamed aloud and then stabbed through my skin. It entered every fiber of my physical being and perhaps my soul too, spreading pitiless fire. It was the blaze of a laser. But it didn’t burn; rather it melted my heart, drawing away everything that wasn’t essential to survival. It filled the head with merciless white noise, a clamor not understood by the ears themselves, but rather a vibration that distorted tissues, distressed the molecules of the body and drove them into violent rearrangement. I could feel myself being remade, reordered into something stronger, something that perhaps wasn’t entirely human. I think that the newborn werewolf inside of me wanted out.

Then a flock of blackbirds, a murder of crows, swooped in and buffeted my brain, tearing at my thoughts with talons, confusing and distracting me until I could no longer tell what was happening to my body. I fought to keep my soul in place. There was no proof but I believed that the reaper was closing in quickly. I snarled a warning and this sound was purely animal.

But then it was over; the tearing claws were gone. Lightning danced over my eyelids and died out slowly, a last climax of eerie, incandescent light that was as soft as a kiss. My body spasmed once more and then the world went black. I was blind and breathless. Dead, I realized, but not gone from my body. Something had tethered my soul.

The Magic Knot
by Helen Scott Taylor

Now that his jacket was off, she could see that his shirtsleeves  were folded up. She examined the webbing and Velcro wrist sheaths, each holding a  crystal-bladed knife. “How very untraditional of you.”

He opened the Velcro and dropped the knives and sheaths onto the nightstand. “ ’Tis more comfortable and con venient. I told you, lass, I value practicality.”

With a relaxed smile, he took her hand and drew her toward the side of the bed. “Unless me sums are wrong, I’ve removed three pieces of clothing, and you’ve taken off only one.” He hooked one of his sexy long fingers beneath the shoulder strap of her bra and flicked his eyebrows. “I’m thinking ’tis your turn again.”

Rose laid her hands on his chest and reveled in the flex of muscle beneath his shirt. Soon she would have her hands on his skin. All her inhibitions fell away as she grinned up at him. His eyes glowed with pleasure. For a moment time seemed to stop. Was it possible to lose oneself in the gap between seconds and feel like this forever?

Niall blinked; her heart stumbled and she snatched a breath. “Weapons don’t count,” she said, trying to keep a straight face.

“Who says?”

“Me.”

With a little grunt, Niall wrapped an arm around her waist and flung her backward onto the bed.  Rose squealed as he trapped her legs between his knees and tickled her. “I say we get equal voting rights on this, and ’tis me vote that weapons count.”

He grazed his fingertips across the front of her pan ties. The muscles in  Rose’s stomach quivered and jumped. An aching clench of need grabbed low in her belly.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, and stilled. Suddenly she didn’t care who took what off, as long as all the clothes came off and fast.

“I say we both take something off.” He nudged the tip of his finger beneath the waistband of her pan ties. Rose grabbed his wrist, felt his tendons flex beneath the skin. Their eyes met and held for a beat.  Rose remembered to breathe.

She pushed up on an elbow, unhooked her bra, and tossed it away without caring where it landed.

Niall stared at her breasts. A flush of arousal crept across his cheeks, and he licked his lips.

“Your turn,”  Rose said softly.

“Aye.” Niall pulled his shirt over his head without unfastening it.  Rose bit her lip, hard.

She’d imagined he’d look the same as Michael, but Niall’s muscles  were precisely defined, his body a living sculpture. With an unsteady hand she traced the bulge of his pecs, his ribs, the ridges of his abs, solid as warm wood beneath her fingertips. Anticipation rippled through her, making her hand tremble against his skin.

When she touched the waistband of his pants, his abs tightened and she heard him swallow. She glanced at his face, but he was looking down at her hand.  Rose brushed her fingers across the heavy cotton of his combat pants, and flattened her palm over the ridge of his erection.

Niall closed his eyes. His nostrils flared. In precise, economic movements, he stripped off the rest of his clothes.

Rose lay back and dug her fingers into the satin bed-covers. Heat sizzled beneath her skin as he moved toward her, lean muscles rippling beneath silky skin.

“Move back.” Niall knelt next to her, his eyes devouring her body as she slid up the bed. Stretching out beside her, he placed his palm on her belly and splayed his fingers. “You’re so smooth.”

Running her hands over his shoulders, she molded his muscles in her palms like a sculptor savoring her creation. He kissed her, his body warm and heavy against her side. The swirling well of emotion filled her chest, leaving her  light- headed.

With work- calloused hands, Niall rubbed her breasts, cradling them in his palms, first one, then the other, as though he wanted to learn her shape.  Rose closed her eyes as his kneading fingers shot silky ribbons of plea sure through her.

“Rose, lass.” He waited for her to open her eyes. “Watch me.” Then he touched the tip of his tongue to her nipple.

Oh, my God.

Rose flexed against him. Wanting more. Wanting everything. Now.

When he closed his mouth over her breast and sucked, flashes of fire raced across her skin, igniting a flaming core of need low in her belly.

Burying her fingers in his hair, she pulled him closer, moving her thigh against the hot, hard length of his erection. With a small grunt of pleasure, he rubbed against her, the friction sending shocks of desire into her tender places. She pressed her nose to his face, drugging herself with the fragrance of him: green leaves, spicy wood, the tang of mountain air.

The bumps and hollows of his muscles flexed beneath her palm as she fingered his biceps. She ran her hand along the taut strength of his forearm, his ribs, gripped the angle of his hip. He stilled when her fingers drifted onto his belly, hissed in a breath as her hand slid lower. Wrapping her fingers around his hard, silky shaft, she explored the sensitive parts of him until he gasped and pulled away.

Niall raised his head, hair tousled, cheeks flushed, pupils huge and dark. “I want you naked.”

With shaky legs,  Rose lifted her hips. He stripped her panties and tossed them away.

Niall sprawled over her, heavy, hard, hot, pressing her into the soft embrace of the mattress. Her Magic Knot around his neck throbbed between them. With the rough hunger of dwindling control, he found her mouth, demanded her body, and she gave him her soul.  Rose clutched at his back, wrapped her legs around his waist, lost herself in the sensual press of him against her delicate flesh.

“Not this way,” he mumbled, and raised his head. He slid to the side, exposing her to his gaze, and grazed his palm down her body to the join of her legs. He touched her with exploring fingers, watching her face as he found his way inside.

Rose closed her eyes, trembling on the edge of losing herself as he stroked.

He pressed his mouth against her ear. The wet tip of his tongue circled, and then he whispered, “Must be sitting up.”

She opened her eyes and watched him trail his hand up her body to rest over her heart. “Why?”

“ ’Tis the way it works, lass.” He pulled her into a sitting position, then balanced the pillows behind him and sat, his back against the ornate gold headboard. “Come  here.”

With gentle command, he steadied and guided her as she lowered herself onto his lap. Hands on his shoulders, she gazed, breathless with wonder, at the eager intent on his face. He nipped his lip between his teeth and stared at her body as though she  were a priceless treasure.

The fact that he trusted her enough to accept her Magic Knot and reveal his emotions brought tears to her eyes. He was normally so guarded. She would never hurt him, never make him regret this.  Rose framed his beautiful face in her hands and pressed her lips against his forehead, his eyes, his nose, breathing him in, languishing in the heat undulating around them like a warm sea.

Her career, her professional image, the ac cep tance of her  colleagues—none of it mattered anymore. Niall mattered. He’d help her make her future with the piskies. Confirmation of who she was and the ac cep tance she’d searched for all her life shone from his eyes.

Gripping her hips, he pulled her closer. The hot length of his erection pulsed against her belly. Heat exploded through her. Rose gasped before pressing her mouth to his.

“A ghrá.” Niall’s endearment whispered in her mind, wound silken threads around her heart. At his bidding, she let her weight carry her down on him. Colors exploded behind her eyelids as he slid inside. Holding her hips, he urged her down, pushing deep. Pleasure rippled up through her, sighing from her lips.

Rose pressed her cheek to his, shuddering as waves of sensual heat overtook her. Niall touched his mouth against her ear. “Move, my love. Move.”

She watched the pleasure on his face as he lifted her, then let her slide back down. The flash of blue between his dark lashes glowed inhumanly bright, the light of a million stars trapped in sapphires. He moved within her, physically and with the boundless caress of the infinite. Deep memories stirred within the fabric of her being, unfolding toward the light.

“Niall.” His name rolled over her tongue, dark and rich. Had she known he was the one from the first moment she saw him? “Niall,” she whispered against his lips, sharing the delicious sound.

They devoured each other with long, breathless kisses feeding mind, body, and spirit. Blissful peace ran deep and quiet beneath the sparkling ripples of pleasure that shook her body. She’d waited all her life for this. She trusted him. He wouldn’t let her down.

When the ache of delight grew too much to bear, Niall held her still and rubbed his lips over her face. “Steady, lass. Take your time.”

He stared into her eyes, his gaze so deep and intense it mesmerized her. Slowly he lifted her, then let her slide back on him.  Rose gripped his arms, his muscles granite hard as he took her weight. He rubbed the side of his nose against hers, nibbled her lips. Love consumed her, gave her the strength to forget what she’d been and become what she must.

Nothing in her life had prepared her for these feelings. Ecstasy pulsed in rhythm with her heart. Was this her inner fairy waking up?

“Now.” Niall urged her faster. Her thighs trembled as pleasure bloomed, a hot surge from her belly, streaking along her limbs, singeing the edges of her mind, consuming her. Niall put his face against her neck, held her down, grunted softly.

Rose pressed her lips into his hair, stilled, breathed him, tasted him, felt him around her, inside her. All was perfect in the world, and she never wanted to move again.

Niall sucked in a ragged breath against her skin. A tiny frisson of disquiet skittered through her. Warily she reached toward him mentally, and brushed cold ripples of pain. The breath locked in her throat. As cautiously as if she  were handling a panicked animal, she cradled his head, stroking his hair. Slowly increasing her connection, she let warmth and love flow into him. “Are you all right, my love?”

His eyes remained closed, lashes scrunched into dark semicircles against his skin. Disquiet grew into jagged spikes of fear. “Niall,” she whispered. “Talk to me.”

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