“I’ve been waiting for the right time.” The husky tone of his voice made all her girl parts sit up and take notice. He pulled back, staring deeply into her eyes. His free hand slipped over the curve of her hip, pulling her in closer to him. Her breathing grew shallower as the scent of him—a mix of rosemary, mint, and potent male—swamped her senses. The edges of her mind grew muzzy, dizzy with longing.
“For what?” Her words came out a mere puff of breath.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he crushed his mouth to hers in a soul-stealing kiss that ensnared her senses and liquefied her bones.
Chapter Three
There, in the heart of the woods, Cate melted against Rook, finding out just how firm his body really was as he wrapped her in his massive arms, supporting her against him. Within the circle of his touch, her five-foot-eight frame became delicate, petite, and decidedly feminine.
It surprised her how much she craved that sensation.
Cate threaded her fingers into the thick, dark hair at his nape, going up on tiptoe so she could get better access to his mouth. Gran’s training screamed she was in danger in a voice that grew fainter and fainter the deeper his kiss grew.
The warm, slick sensation of his tongue brushing against hers caused the pulsing ache within her core to spread out to her fingers and toes, until each heartbeat made her contract with raging need. What was the point of resisting? She’d already decided to rescue Maya. She needed Rook to help her locate Maya in the fae realm, and if she got a chance for a sizzling hot kiss in the meantime, why not enjoy it?
Cate wrapped her leg around Rook, and the edge of her pencil skirt rode up dangerously high over her bare thigh. But she didn’t care. The forest of massive flowering rhododendrons, firs, maples, and other more exotic trees closed in around them, a private curtain of living green that shielded them from passersby, as if he commanded the very trees to do his bidding.
His kiss hit every hot button she had and a few she didn’t even know she possessed. Kneading fingers slid down the flair of her hip, his hot hand cupping her butt and bringing the softest part of her against the hard length of him. She rocked against him, trying to assuage the insistent ache. Rook growled. The low rumble reverberated through his chest, vibrating through her and shaking her to the core.
If this was what Maya had been up against, she could sure as hell understand why her friend hadn’t resisted. But the thought of Maya sobered Cate slightly from her kiss-induced euphoria. She pulled back, her heart still beating far harder than it should for just standing there while she got her freak on with a fae. She slid her leg down the length of his until it rested firmly back on solid ground. Making sure her knees were no longer the consistency of chocolate pudding, she pushed away from him, putting some space between them.
Rook let her slip from his arms, but his gaze lingered on her like a physical touch. “You’re a dangerous woman, Catherine O’Connell.” His tone held the gruff edge of a man battling for control.
“My friends call me Cate.” Although she sure as hell had never had any of her guy friends kiss her like Rook just had.
“Just how much do you know about us, Cate?”
She rubbed her arms, the shade seeming far colder than it had when she’d been pressed up against him. “Enough to know you can pass freely between my world and yours.”
A mischievous light danced in his eyes. “Would you like to see my world?”
Cate knew exactly what he was offering. He thought he could abduct her to the fae realm. In fact, she’d been counting on it. Her hand skimmed over the pocket full of rusted nails. She wasn’t as unprepared as he’d like to think. With a shaky breath, she fixed what she hoped was a sultry half smile on her face. “I’d love to.”
He drew a symbol in the air with his index finger, but it was too quick for Cate to make out its shape. The air shivered into waves, like heat coming off asphalt. With a crackle of static that lifted the small hairs on her skin, a shimmering golden line appeared five feet away. It grew, stretching and becoming longer, until it was the size of a doorway, before it split apart.
Cate gasped, having known it would happen but surprised all the same when she glimpsed the iridescent waves of turquoise and the sugar-fine pale sand on the other side. It looked like a massive travel poster in the middle of the forest, surrounded by a glittering gilt frame. Calls from tropical birds accompanied the gentle lapping of the waves and sharp scent of the sea. “Your home looks like St. Croix?”
Rook raised a dark brow. “This is only the southern shore. Our realm is far vaster than what you see here. This is just the part I thought you might enjoy most.”
Cate eyed the portal to the other realm, an uncomfortable mix of wariness and curiosity sloshing about in her gut like spicy Thai food and margaritas. She wanted to go. Needed to. But down deep, all her childhood training balked at the idea.
He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Ready to go to the beach?”
Cate glanced down at her heels and skirt. Hardly, but she couldn’t waste the chance. “Don’t suppose I can change when I get there.”
“Who says you need a bathing suit?” His mouth lifted at the corner in a sexy half smile. Cate squeezed her thighs together as the pulse at their apex thumped harder. Maybe she was out of her depth with him.
He stepped over the gleaming golden edge of the rift, one foot literally in his world and one in hers. He held out his hand. Cate took a deep breath, held it, and slid her fingers into his.
The sensation of passing through the veil was like moving through an enormous square of set Jell-O, thick and firm, yet pliable as it moved around her body. The sunlight on the other side was more intense, sizzling against her skin. Cate let out her breath slowly and immediately glanced back over her shoulder to see the golden seam between their worlds zipping itself together, the view of the green trees and shadowed wood disappearing completely.
Only the enormous expanse of an azure sea spangled with sunlight glittered across the horizon. In the white bits of foam riding the edges of the waves rolling toward the shore, Cate thought she glimpsed small faces.
Rook chuckled and she glanced at him. Jerking her thumb at the waves, she asked, “Am I seeing fae?”
He gave her hand a squeeze. “Remember you’re in their world now. The fae are far more plentiful here than in the Upper Realm. Those are wave riders. Their bodies blend in with the water. I suggest you don’t go swimming without me,” he warned. “They might try to pull under someone as beautiful as you.”
Cate shuddered despite the warmth of the tropical flower-scented air on her skin. Facing the ocean stood a thick tropical jungle. Trees, laden with strange pods that looked like giant purple grapes crossbred with porcupines, peeped out between the enormous fernlike palm trees. High atop the rise perched an enormous pale stone structure with a dark blue slated roof and wide balconies. At least a dozen vaulted arches, their doors swung open, had white curtains billowing in the breeze.
“What’s that place?” Cate continued to stare while they started walking through the thick vegetation up a white and pink graveled path made from crushed shells.
“My humble cottage by the sea.”
Hardly. It definitely looked more like a palace to her. “That our first stop?”
“It can be our only stop, if you want.” Rook used his hold on her hand to pull her closer.
His low, seductive tone rippled over her already hyper-sensitized skin, torquing up her response to him another notch. Cate resisted the very strong urge to lean into him and covered her tingling lips with her fingers.
She had to keep her wits about her. Judging by the position of the sun, they were south by southeast. Well, that was if the sun rose in the east here. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe she was totally screwed. Either way, she wasn’t in Washington anymore.
“It’s very pretty.” Cate deliberately kept her comments vague. She didn’t want him thinking she was taking him up on his very tempting offer just yet. While Rook was every bit built to suit her wildest fantasies, Cate suspected letting herself get too intimate with him would ruin any chance she had of getting Maya back home before Midsummer’s Eve ended.
Cate slowed her steps, forcing him to glance back at her. “I think you had other reasons for bringing me here, besides just to play in the sand and surf.”
He gave her a sultry look and slid his free hand possessively around her waist, bringing the flair of her hips close, the hard edge of his arousal pressing against the softness of her belly. “What gave you that impression? Maybe that’s exactly why I brought you here. I’ve waited a very long time for you.” His hot hand kneaded the curve of her butt.
Hell, two could play hardball in this game. “Because if that’s all you’d wanted,” Cate said as she went on tiptoe, purposely brushing her breasts in a slow slide up his chest and bringing her mouth level with his chin, “you could have tried that topside. You want something.” She brushed her mouth over his chin, the shadow of dark stubble there abrading her sensitive lips. “And you want it bad. It just depends what you’re willing to do to get it.”
He bent to capture her mouth, but Cate backed away just as fast, pulling out of his arms. “I think you need me to
get
whatever it is. So how about this—you answer my questions. Truthfully,” she amended with haste, knowing fae were tricky beings, “and in return I’ll help you get what you want.”
A blaze of sexual desire roared behind Rook’s eyes. He growled low in his throat and flexed his hands, but he didn’t move any closer to her. “You’re a dangerous woman, Catherine O’Connell.”
“So you’ve said.” A sultry smile curved her lips as she spun on her foot, then resumed walking up the path toward the palace. Rook quickly fell into step beside her.
“What’s your first question?”
She glanced at him from beneath her lashes. “Uh uh. First, what is it
you
want?”
“Isn’t that a question?”
She speared him with an incredulous look. Dancing around in verbal circles wasn’t going to help her find Maya or figure out what the hell this invasion was Rook had mentioned to his bobblehead friend. She sighed.
“Your friend, the huge blond one Miss Big Eyes called Kallus, abducted my friend. Where would he have taken her?”
§
Rook hadn’t been having much luck tamping down the raw sexual response she elicited in him, but her question was more effective than an ice bath. She knew about Kallus. Her words reminded him she was a Seer.
Yes, Catherine was dangerous on more than one level. She distracted him. She inflamed him. She lured him to an impossible end. And, damn it to the fae Hell of Morgolath, but he still burned for her.
He swatted a bit of foliage hanging low in the path out of his way. Furry Illith-caste fae danced among the branches like monkeys, swinging and following them through the trees, chattering to one another. An all-out battle ensued as they happened upon a tree heavy with ripe purple gilly fruit.
Rook knew precisely where Kallus was at this very moment. That spawn of a toadwhore would be presenting his conquest to the royal Shadow Court in the capital of Seaneath, trying to take Rook’s rightful spot as leader of the invasion. But Kallus would be cowed to his proper place once Rook presented a Seer to the court. Nothing was going to top that. It had been four centuries since the Shadow Court had welcomed a Seer into their midst. His father would have to recognize him as the best leader for the invasion.
As the foliage gave way to the wide green lawn that surrounded his seaside palace, Rook realized he had two options open to him. The first would prove far less enjoyable but more straightforward: take Cate to the Shadow Court, claim her as a Midsummer conquest, and release her to the Shadow King, who might be willing to let him have her back once the king had claimed her powers.
The thought of any man, much less his own father, laying hands on her, entering her, made a raging inferno boil Rook’s blood. Maybe there was only one option he could stomach—the one where he claimed the Seer’s powers. Despite how his verge responded to the thought, pulsing heavy and hot against his abdomen, that way was far more difficult and rife with complications. As son of the king and heir to the throne, Rook might be able to buck tradition without deadly consequences, but to make it happen he would have to get her to choose him. It was the only way. As a Seer she was in a higher caste, off-limits to him, unless she chose otherwise.
He glanced at Cate, the wonder evident on her face as she stared up at the brilliant white marble facade that made up the palace and the flurry of servants who were coming out to greet them.