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“Feyre darling…”
Feyre murmured something unintelligible at the sound of that smooth-velvet voice crooning in her ear, but kept her eyes closed. The indulgent, filthy promises it sang for her did nothing to ease the weight of her eyelids, and she breathed, deeply and evenly, as she sank into the soothing dark behind them. Even her limbs had long since melted into the mattress beneath her, flesh and bone turning to nothing more than cotton and down and warm, luxurious silk.
But her pulse still rushed with exertion. The knowledge that she was still spread open for him, that he still knelt between her legs, was as inescapable as the citrus and pear scented air surrounding her, which was cool enough against the beads of sweat dotting her damp skin to keep her aware as a warm, calloused hand cupped her breast.
Rhys rolled its peaked tip between two fingers until she was arching weakly and chasing the sensation.
“Hmm?”
As if realizing that words were beyond her, that her tongue was worn out from hours of play, her mate’s gentle talons stroked against her mind.
One more round?
She didn’t open her eyes, couldn’t open her eyes no matter how hard she tried, but her core clenched and sparked with fresh desire. The mind curled up around her own tapped against her shields, its voice purring with smug delight.
I know I can put on quite the show, but that’s not necessary.
Rhys… Her mental voice was needy, whining, through the small crack she opened for him in her walls of black adamant. She wasn’t entirely certain why. She wanted him to soothe the renewed ache between her thighs, but she was so desperately tired…
But there was something in that thought that caught and tugged at the edge of her mind. Was it strange of her to want him like this? To be entirely passive as he… what, exactly? Took her while she slept?
No. Soft lips found the corner of her mouth, Rhys’s warm breath slipping against her cheek. If you want to sleep, sleep. If you want to have me like this, I’m yours. If you want me to take you while you’re sleeping…
Feyre let out a long, deep breath. To be prone before him, made vulnerable by the exhaustion he had wrought on her, entirely at his mercy...
She was secure in the knowledge that all her mate wanted was to give her pleasure. That there was nothing nefarious in his intentions, that he would stop the moment he encroached too far on the sweet, hypnotic clouds where she was floating. But still, she hesitated.
Just think the word and it stops, my love.
The conviction in Rhys’s voice, echoed by the current of emotion that carried it to her, soothed away the last of her worry.
She slid her shields open for him. Okay.
Rhys’s shadows entered her mind as his hands cupped her breasts. He did nothing more than hold them, stroking the delicate skin beneath with idle fingers until a delicious shiver trickled down Feyre’s spine. He waited until her mind went quiet again, the push and pull between her exhaustion and her lust calming to a steady rhythm of desire, and she sank deeper into their mattress.
He traced the curve of her breasts down her ribs, past her waist, and then his fingertips pressed firmly into her hips for a moment, testing, waiting. When Feyre said nothing, thought nothing, simply pushed the wordless want she felt at him, he lifted her gently, inch by inch, until a quiet whisper of magic and chilled wind pulled a pillow beneath her.
The muffled beat of his heart and the heady scent of his arousal surrounded her as those hands paused at the tops of her thighs. His thumbs found a home in the crease between her legs and her sex, and he wrapped his mind around hers, lifting a weight she didn’t know she was carrying. With little more than a passing thought, Rhys whisked away the last tendrils of stress from a long day listening to petitioners and hosting painting classes, along with a bit of pain that she hadn’t noticed between her shoulder blades, just where her wing joints whenever she shifted into her Illyrian form…
She understood more than heard his next promise, as if they were entirely merged, just one being kept safe and whole together. He tugged gently at their bond, and she felt a matching pull in her chest.
Just feel the word and it stops.
I want it.
Rhys’s shields came down around them both next, cocooning her within his thoughts. She stroked that smooth, shining adamant, marveling at it and the star-flecked night it contained. His shields were taller than hers, older and more fortified after centuries of practice, but a door without a lock remained just out of sight in her peripheral vision, waiting for her to turn and need it.
Exhausted darling…
…sweet love…
…precious Feyre.
Let me take care of you.
Featherlight fingers dipped into her, parting her and teasing her entrance. Rhys’s lips fell on her collar again and again, the warmth of him filling the space between them.
My Feyre, he sighed as his tongue flicked out. Feyre caught the hint of salt on his tongue from within his mind, felt the craving for more coming to life deep in his belly.
My Rhys… My Rhys.
The night sky around her shimmered with moonlight and amusement, and hot, slick need roared to life between her legs as Rhys circled her clit with the rough pad of his thumb.
Hmm, what am I, darling?
My mate, she thought. My Rhys. Mine.
A long, sure finger pressed into her, curling upward against her walls and dragging until she moaned aloud. Stars floated by behind her eyelids, Rhys’s shields keeping her tired mind from drifting too far.
Say it again, my Feyre.
My Rhys… My daddy…
Everything ground to a halt.
Above her, Rhys groaned, and then he was over her, around her, surrounding her, his head dropping onto her shoulder. The sound of shifting, unfurling leather whispered against the sheets on either side of her, and Feyre felt the magical release of his wings in their minds like an pleasurable itch finally being scratched. The hand between her legs disappeared, dragging wetness around her waist and onto her back as he curled that arm around her and pulled her into him.
But cold horror was sluicing into Feyre’s veins, and she felt herself surfacing, her exhaustion washing away as mortification stiffened her spine. She looked for the door in his mind, lifting one hand to curl it into Rhys’s hair and pull him back—
No. A will that wasn’t her own commanded her eyes to stay shut, her limbs once again falling to the soft nest of blankets and pillows beneath her, deliciously limp and lax. No, Feyre.
Rhys, her mental voice was small with shame, her cheeks hot with it. As she registered the feeling, it was carried away on a star-kissed breeze. She remained aware of it, like it was just beyond a glass for her inspection, but the sick, awful feeling writhing beneath her skin disappeared.
Is that what you want to call me?
A soft kiss to her mouth made her sigh, and Feyre pressed herself against Rhys’s mental shields, her own rising around her mind even as gentle, phantom hands curled around their uppermost edge, coaxing her open again.
She lowered them, but didn’t drop them entirely. A black mist of her own invention curled around her mind instead, obscuring her from view, but Rhys stepped through it like it was nothing, his aim unerring in the dark.
If Feyre looked at him sideways, she knew she would see a flash of fangs, the glint of scales carved from jet, wings thicker and larger than any Illyrian could possess, but that wasn’t why Rhys was reaching for her, so that body stayed a shimmering, half-formed thing in that back of their minds.
Do you want to stop, Feyre?
…Rhys.
She could already hear the teasing jibes her prick of a mate might whisper in her ear to rile her up the next time he pressed her against a wall and snuck a hand between her legs—
The thought was shredded by talons of blackest night, the bruised ache of his offense echoing down the bridge between them. I would never.
Rhys’s shields pressed closer, that midnight-dark phantom in her mind embracing her, and his full weight came down on her in their bed, tongue tracing the line of her pulse from her collarbone to her jaw. His cock, so hard and aching that its presence was a constant thrum flowing through Rhys’s thoughts, lined up perfectly against her cunt. It might as well sear a brand into her, she thought as the head dragged against her clit, sparking delicious flurries of sensation that almost seemed to reverberate through her hips.
His chest vibrated with a silent groan. Feyre. Perfect, darling girl, is that what you want to call me?
Feyre was silent. Her body was under her control again, and she let her teeth sink into her lip, turning her face to bury it blindly in her pillow. She couldn’t deny the way her desire sparked when he praised her like that or when he called her his darling girl; it was so sweet that she felt her teeth ache, but she had been denied sweetness for so many years, hadn’t she? She couldn’t hide the new pulse of wetness between her legs that she knew he felt on his cock, either, if the way he groaned and shifted against her was any indication.
It’s embarrassing, she admitted, hiding in the arms of the soft, soothing darkness surrounding her.
No it isn’t.
You aren’t my—
Rhys brushed away the mental image of the chair by the hearth in the cottage before it could come into focus, pretending to ignore the mortified way Feyre cringed, but he held onto the thread of emotion that accompanied it. That pang—unseen, unloved, unwanted, uncared for—that still beat on the walls of Feyre’s heart was curled around Rhys’s fingers and then blown away on a breeze warmed by his own anger at the feeling of it.
No. But I will take care of you the way you deserve.
Will you? Feyre didn’t allow the question to form in her mind where Rhys might hear it, but she knew he felt it all the same.
“I will take care of you the way you deserve, my Feyre,” he vowed, his voice firm and unyielding even as his lips dragged against her skin in a kiss.
Feyre breathed deeply. He would, she knew that. He always had. What would one silly nickname spoken only between them in the small hours of the night do to change that?
Say it. Rhys shifted backward just enough to pull the length of him away from her. A finger brushed her chin, but didn’t try to turn her blushing, overheated face toward him. There was an insistent, eager tug underscoring the order.
I want to hear you say it. He fit the head against her entrance. The tease of the pressure, the promise that he would stay still and let her push her hips forward and take him if only she wanted to.
But she didn’t want to, and he knew it. Tonight, she wanted to lay there and be still. She wanted to enjoy whatever way he decided to make her come, while she dozed without a care in the world. She wanted to finally, finally relax and bask in the pleasure of making languid, quiet love somewhere safe with a full belly, warm bedding, and someone she trusted entirely, someone who cared for her.
You need to be taken care of, darling. You’re mine to care for, Rhys’s mental voice wove itself into the fabric of her mind, and she accepted it easily as he sank into her.
Impatient, she chided, but she lifted her hips the barest inch to meet him anyway, relishing the stretch of his cock inside her.
He would be hers to care for tomorrow morning, but for now, she was his. A gentle wave of possessive satisfaction flowed from his mind into hers; still strange, still guided by that primal Fae instinct she had yet to fully accustom herself to, but entirely welcome.
I don’t care. You’re mine. Mine to coddle. Mine to spoil. Mine to love.
And that was exactly it. As he said it, Feyre felt the truth of it rise up from her mind to greet him, the word on the edge of her awareness…
I won’t ask again. If you really don’t want to do this…
But she crumbled.
Daddy.
All the long, cold years when she’d felt so alone, so frightened and furious and hungry… He flipped through each of them as they rose up to greet her, as if he were reading a book, and then set the moments that made her aside tenderly, cradling the heart of her just as surely as he was cradling her body.
Beyond their minds, the steady, confident grind of his cock against the sweet spot inside of her—gentle enough to leave her sated, heavy body where it lay and firm enough to drive her nearer to madness with every stroke—pushed her closer and closer to climax. It wouldn’t take much after the many hours they had already spent pleasuring one another.
And in return, the weight of five hundred long years brushed her mind. Rhys’s innate desire to provide and to safeguard those most precious to him… To give them everything they needed to be happy and protected and safe in their home and their bodies. The instinct that drove him to use his final wave of unrestricted power to shield Velaris for fifty long years and to crawl after her breaking body in that underground throne room and to lead her in front of a priestess before he set her free to wreak havoc across Spring.
You’re so strong. A flash of a javelin made of bone sinking into mud flashed in their mind, a ghost in a wedding dress calling out for help, a vicious wraith clothed in swaths of darkness cutting through soldiers in a cave. But you’re so…
Past the sound of skin on skin, the rasp of his breath, and the air stirred up by his wings, she heard a frustrated growl. Barely, just enough to drag her dangerously close to the edge of her climax, he pushed his pace faster.
You deserve the world, my Feyre. I would give it to you if you only asked.
She was unraveling, unspooling, gasping for air in the warm junction of Rhys’s neck and shoulder.
My Rhys, she thought over and over again as she gasped for breath. My Rhys, my Rhys, my daddy.
Perfect, perfect girl.
Release crashed over her, and Feyre shivered apart.