Page 70 of Sweetling
Allarion bit down on his laughter, schooling his features into something contrite as he did as hisazaibid and kept back her green beans.
Coward,bullied Bellarand.
“I heard that,” Molly sang from the stove.
Bellarand had the decency to swing his ears back, abashed.
She’d set him to stringing green beans enough times that Allarion didn’t have to watch his hands as he worked. Instead, he had the much more enjoyable view of his lovelyazaistanding at the stove. He didn’t know if she realized, but a little smile adorned her plush mouth as she listened to Bellarand gripe.
These past weeks had been some of the happiest of Allarion’s long life. Having a companion like Molly filled his days with joy. The work around the manor wasn’t work when she was there with him, either lending a hand or sewing in an out-of-the-way corner.
She’d warned him that the happy, vivacious barmaid wasn’t her true self, but Allarion had his doubts. Perhaps her smiles weren’t always so wide, but now that he’d seen more of her true smiles, he realized how often in the tavern she had forced the expression. He understood now what to look for—not just the widening of her mouth but how her eyes crinkled at the corners and a dimple appeared in her right cheek.
He was learning, and that gave him hope.
Allarion knew himself to have a fierce acquisitiveness, even for a fae. Collecting the parts of his Molly, discovering all the bits and hidden layers of her, satisfied him in a way nothing else ever had. Learning her, sating his curiosity over what she thought and liked and savored, offered him the very thing he’d longed for all his life—purpose.
The only thing missing was Molly in his bed.
But he had hope there, too. She’d never been totally immune to him, even when she was angriest with him. With his sensitive senses, he’d tasted on the back of his tongue how, every once in a while, her body quickened for his. Over the intervening weeks, he’d come to suspect she was flirting with him.
Her big doe eyes, ensuring her generous breasts pressed or brushed against him when they were close, finding excuses to gently lay her hand on his arm—all of it spoke to growing interest. He dared not acknowledge it too much for fear that his desperation for her might scare her.
The last thing he wanted was her locking herself away again in her bedchamber.
As he learned Molly and she grew into her place here at Scarborough, Allarion knew he just had to keep his wits and his patience about him.Just a little longer,he told himself as he stroked his cock to thoughts of her every morning and every night.
His hunger for her grew with each day, a writhing, boundless thing that gnawed at his ribs. More than once, he hadn’t been able to keep himself from her, creeping into her bedchamber to watch as she slept.
His cock had ached and his hand twitched to stroke it, but he had a few remaining shreds of honor. He waited to do that after he left the sanctity of her room. Still, however much thislittle longerwas, he feared it’d be too much for the desperate thing inside that wanted todevourher.
Polite and gentle as he forced himself to be, Allarion dreaded the day when his patience, that ancient thing that had kept him alive for centuries, finally gave under the enormity of his need for her. It would happen, someday soon, and he could only hope Molly was ready.
When she tossed him happy little looks over her shoulder, as she did then from the stove, his hopes soared almost as quickly as his blood to his cock.
The minx winked at him before saying, “You can add those to the water now.”
Allarion gritted his back teeth, hoping his tunic hid the worst of his bulging trou. Holding the green beans in his hands out in front of him, he crossed to his mate to deposit them in the pot of boiling water.
This cooking business fascinated him—why some foods were cooked and others weren’t offered an endless puzzle. Some foods could be enjoyed either way, and there were so many methods of cooking. His favorite was baking—it filled the kitchen with sweet, sugary smells and his Molly always looked a treat bending over to pull them from the brick oven.
She seemed distracted enough by the added beans that his cock went unnoticed, but now that he was near, Allarion had no desire to leave her side.
She’d laughed before, asking why he liked to hover at her elbow while she moved about the kitchen.
The answer was simple.“To be near you.”
That was his greatest desire of all, even above finally indulging in the pleasure of her body. Despite her misgivings, Molly exuded warmth. She may not see it, but her presence breathed new life into the estate. The house hung on her every word—almost as much as him—and she filled their days with music and song. Even Bellarand had been less cranky of late.
As Molly tended her cooking, Allarion couldn’t help lifting his fingers to twirl around one of her brown curls.
“Your hair has grown,” he said. When they handfasted, her hair had fallen to just past her ears, but now it nearly swept her shoulders, the hair trying to turn for one more curl.
Molly reached back to feel the ends of her hair. “I suppose it has. I hadn’t thought about it much, honestly.”
“If you prefer it short, I could cut it.” He’d trimmed Bellarand’s mane before and he had a hard time seeing Molly as a more exacting client than the unicorn.
She made a considering noise. “I think I’d like to grow it some. The only reason I kept it so short was so it couldn’t be grabbed easily.”
