My gaze followed his hands down through all that potential until he came to the band of his pants, where he caressed his hands over the only bulge that was still hidden behind cloth. I let out a shuddering sigh, because I knew that the promise of that bulge was everything a woman could want.

“The heat in your eyes never flinches, just sharpens as you see things you like more, but there is nothing on me that you do not enjoy in some way.” He started drawing me closer with the tentacle I was holding “hands” with.

I half crawled and half let him pull me across the bed toward him where he stood beside it. My heart was racing, my body already wet, though right now that was a mixed blessing, a messy mixed blessing.

“I am so sorry that I had any issues at first,” I said.

He smiled and wrapped another tentacle around my other wrist. He wasn’t holding hands this time; he wrapped around my wrist like a rope, or a chain made of muscle and skin. The one I’d been holding twisted in my grip and he suddenly had both my wrists bound. It caught my breath in my throat, sped my pulse even more.

“Just as I need someone who sees all of me as desirable, you need bondage.”

“We can’t be rough yet,” I said, but my voice was already lower, almost choked, just from him holding my arms out to my sides, and feeling the unbelievable strength as he held me. I knew I couldn’t get away if he didn’t want me to, and that was part of the thrill, but I also knew that if I asked he would let me go instantly, and that was one of the reasons I trusted him to do bondage with me. It was all about trust and desire, and understanding yourself and your lover.

“I’ll never be rough compared to Mistral, but you wouldn’t want that rough every night.” He pulled me over the bed, my body sliding helplessly toward him. There was nothing I could do to stop that muscled strength. Luckily I didn’t want to escape; I so wanted to be caught.

He smiled, and it filled his eyes with that darkness that wasn’t fey, or human, but just male. It made me shiver, but not with fear.

“No,” I whispered.

“How long has it been since you had any bondage?” he asked, pulling me close enough that some of the smaller tentacles could trace across my skin in teasing lines.

“You know how long,” I said, my voice a little hoarse.

“Do I? As you said, I don’t live with the rest of you; how do I know what you are doing?” He made it light, teasing, but sometimes when we tease there is a truth to it.

“Do you want to live with us?”

“It is not want, Meredith. I cannot leave my kingdom and move to yours.” He forced my hands straight out to my sides, until it was almost uncomfortable. His tentacles stretched effortlessly outward to hold me, while the smaller ones traced teasing lines, careful not to go inside my bra or panties.

I found my voice and said, “I have no kingdom of my own.”

“Perhaps not, but you have a court of faerie, and more magic gathers to you every day.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing and just gave myself over to the sensation of him touching me, and being held so terribly, wonderfully tight. I began to pull. I knew I couldn’t break his grip by just struggling, but sometimes struggling is the best part, or the best part until the man pins you and makes the struggling impossible.

I closed my eyes and pulled harder.

“You can’t get away,” he said, voice full of that arrogance that big, athletic men can have.

“I know,” I said.

“Then why try?”

I opened my eyes and let him see that my eyes had started to shine, just from this. “Because I like to struggle, and you like to feel me struggle.”

“True,” he said, and it was almost a whisper. One of the thinner tentacles trailed the edge of my bra, and another the band of my panties.

“Please,” I whispered.

“Please what?” he asked, but the look on his face said he knew exactly what I wanted.

But I played the game and said, “Slide inside my bra and panties, touch me, suck me, make me come.”

“And what do I get out of it?”

“I’ll return the favor,” I said.

He grinned, and then it turned into a smile that was full of as much lust and eagerness as anyone could have wished for, and I did wish for it.

“Ladies first,” he said.

It took me a second to realize what he meant, and then he slipped those long, thin pieces of himself inside my clothing and began to caress and tease along my breasts, and at the top edge of my panties, not really sliding inside them, but only playing just inside the band, when I knew he could go so much farther down.

He began to suck on my breasts, a small suction “mouth” wrapping around my nipples. Other parts of him slid a little farther inside my panties, tickling and caressing and finally sliding lower to tease, caress, and begin to bring that near-magical pleasure that usually takes someone’s mouth, but Goddess had shaped Sholto so that his mouth could be kissing mine, while other parts of him kissed me, so much lower down.

He drew back from my lips, his eyes glowing brighter, the circle of yellow around his pupil beginning to glitter like molten gold, the amber circle gleaming, and that last circle of pale yellow like elm leaves in autumn shimmering in rich, golden sunlight. His hair spread out around him like a cloak of new snow with just a hint of yellow, like snow reflecting the light of the rising sun. His skin began to blaze as if the moon were rising inside him to shine a cold, cool light that played out the tips of the smallest tentacles like shining rubies, and the largest ones that held me so tight were marbled with colored lightning, soft red, softer violet, bands of gold like the colors of his eyes. He was a thing carved of light, and color, and magic. It vibrated down his body, so that his skin hummed against mine, and the weight of pleasure began to build between my legs, and my breasts. It quickened my breath, and those shining ruby tips sucked harder, deeper, and that heaviness between my legs burst into pleasure and power, spilling through my body in a wash of light that decorated the room in the twin shines of our moon-bright skin, and when I threw my head back to scream my orgasm, my hair shone like spun rubies and garnets woven in cool fire across my face.

He didn’t stop with my screams of pleasure, but kept sucking, stroking, until one orgasm followed another, and I could see the spark of power from my own eyes like emerald and melting gold, until I was blinded by the colored fire of my own magic.

Sholto brought me until I was a quivering, shaking thing, and only the pull of his body held me upright. He laid me down on my side, on the bed. I lay there shivering with happy aftershocks, my eyelids quivering so hard that I couldn’t open my eyes and was literally blind with pleasure.

I sensed the bed moving like a distant thought, but I couldn’t think what it might mean. I couldn’t do anything but lie there and let the aftershocks of pleasure have their way with me. The light in my eyes and hair had faded enough that I could see the colors of the actual room in bits and pieces, when a hand smoothed my hair back from my face. I blinked and tried to focus, to see; I knew it was Sholto, but in that instant he was a pale blur of movement and colors seen through the fluttering of my eyelids.

He leaned in and kissed me, soft, but there was still magic in him, so that the kiss vibrated and tickled across my lips. It brought a soft moan from me, and then he lifted my head and put a pillow ever so gently underneath. He stroked fingers down my cheek, and I was able to turn toward his touch. Parts of me were beginning to work again, but the languorous edge of orgasm still held most of me delightfully immobile. He ran a fingertip across my lower lip, and I opened my mouth. I wasn’t sure if I meant to kiss him or just to touch more of him, but he took it as invitation, finger sliding between my lips. I closed my mouth around him, and the movement was so much like sucking on other things that it was almost a shock to feel the bone and hardness of finger, when part of me had already started to think about other, bigger things that had no bones, but only round, solid, flesh.