Page 76 of Sweetling
One side of his mouth ticked up. “Indeed. Just their time.” His face took a familiarly serious mien as he said, “But I must tell you, connected to me, your human life would be much longer. Not that of a fae, but not human, either.”
Her mouth fell open in shock. “H-how long?”
“That I cannot say. Only that with our lives intertwined, yours shall lengthen and mine shall shorten.”
“What?” she gasped. “You’ll die?”
“We all do, someday. Even fae. My end shall just come a little sooner now.”
“But…” Guilt gnawed at her to know that being tied to her was somehow a death sentence for this strange, incredible man.
His hand squeezed hers under the roots, offering his comfort. Molly held on tighter as the world spun.
“Don’t despair,” he said gently. “It isn’t about the number of years but how they are lived.”
She clung to him and those words. The prospect of having so many years—of outliving everyone and everything she’d ever known—expanded before her mind’s eye, an incomprehensible journey she couldn’t fathom. Like trying to see the path through the trees, her mind pushed against thinking in such lengths and temporality.
Molly rubbed at her temple. “That’s…going to take a while to accept.”
His mouth lifted in a wry grin. “We have the time, sweetling.”
Despite herself, Molly guffawed. Snorting with a laugh, she propped herself up on her elbow, the worries of living for more years than she could count left in the grass for now.
There was something far more pressing, right in front of her.
Tucking her hair behind her ear, Molly leaned over Allarion to kiss him.
His lips went perfectly still under hers, but that was all right. She kissed him gently, a slow introduction, savoring the feel of him.
She heard his sharp intake of breath, and then his warm hand cupped the side of her face.
Molly pulled back at his touch, looking just in time to see the smallest roots disappearing back into the earth and the large tree roots sliding away from his middle.
“Molly.”
She met his kiss with a smile as he pushed up to capture her mouth again. Free of the plant life, Molly framed his dear face in her hands, holding him at just the right angle.
Molly loved kissing. It’d always been her favorite part of flirting and even fucking. Too few of her past lovers hadn’t kissed beyond a cursory duty to get into bed. Even Finn, who’d preferred to use his mouth to talk too much during sex. It was a shame, because a good kiss could make Molly amenable to quite a lot.
And now she knew—she loved kissing Allarion.
“Show me,” he murmured against her lips, those purple eyes sparkling.
So she did. Molly showed him just how she liked to be kissed with teasing strokes and playful nips. He followed her lead, chasing her tongue when she coaxed his into her mouth to tease and circle.
His taste sparked on her tongue like his magic, electric. He tasted of spring water and ancient rites and somehow, the color purple. He was warm as cinnamon and cloves, smoky as a bonfire, and rich as the earth beneath them. This fae might have been the best thing she’d ever tasted, and she couldn’t get enough.
Those big hands gripped her waist, his fingertips somehow so gentle but piercing with their need as he pulled her down to him. She laid over him as surely as the roots and vines had, cocooning him in her.
As the birds chirped and the forest distributed Allarion’s magic, they lay in that meadow, kissing. Molly nearly melted with his sweetness, how every moment he learned and acted. He seemed to delight in pleasing her, and soon it was him delivering nips and laves, sparking a needy heat between her thighs.
Molly moaned into his mouth in encouragement, fusing their mouths together in something a little deeper, a little hotter. His hands roamed her back, kneading the wool of her coat in desperate circles. She gasped his name, needing air, but he gave her no quarter, those warm lips trailing down her neck to suck at her pulse point.
“Molly,” he groaned, “tell me not to.”
She was beyond words, mind too fuzzy with pleasure to make sense of what he said. Molly caught his mouth with hers again, sinking into his kiss. She needed less thinking, lesstalking,and more of him.
Fates, I should’ve been kissing him this whole time.
