God, she thought feverishly, had she always been picturing him? Try though she might, she couldn’t recall the face of the dream prince that she’d so lovingly detailed in her teen fantasies. Either he’d blasted it right out of her memories, replacing her imaginary lover with his dark eyes, his hard body, his seductive voice and devastating touch, or it had always been him.

Pull away, O’Callaghan, you know this will get you nothing but screwed—and not just physically, the inner, very faint voice of reason warned.

Right, in just a minute . . .

“You fantasized,” he continued, his voice low and hypnotic. “You may be virgin in body, but not in mind. I feel the heat and passion in you; there’s a fury of it inside you. I felt it the moment I saw you. You’re not normal. You’ll never be normal. Give it up. Stop trying to fit in a world that will never accept you. Nobody can understand you the way I can. You’re a Sidhe-seer. You want to spend your whole life denying it? What you see. What you are. What you want. Sad way to live and die.”

There was silence for a moment while he just held her, hands gone still on her breasts, breath warm against her neck, unmoving.

She knew this was her moment to rescue herself. To rage at him. To tell him he was wrong, that he didn’t know the first damn thing about what he was talking about.

But she couldn’t, because he did.

Everything he’d said was true. She wasn’t normal, and no matter what she did, she would never be normal. She’d been torn between worlds all her life, trying to ignore the one and fit into the other—both equally futile ventures—wondering if all there would be for her in the end was the kind of life Gram had lived. A baby, no husband, a big empty house. Telling herself it would be enough, if that was what had to be. In the meantime, giving it her best shot, trying to make things work with a boyfriend.

But no boyfriend had ever been able to compete with the fantastic Fae males she’d been seeing since childhood. No human boyfriend had ever been able to vie with a world that was intrinsically so much hotter and brighter and more sensual. And not with any boyfriend had she ever truly been able to be herself. And the sad fact was, a large part of why she was still a virgin was because she didn’t want a man, damn it, she wanted a fairy. She always had.

And she was tired of wondering what it would be like with one, of forcing herself to look away, to turn away, to never touch. Tired of repressing all those sinfully seductive fantasies.

The silence stretched between them.

Abruptly one hand slipped from her breast and cupped her snugly, intimately, between her legs, grinding her bottom back against his erection.

An incoherent little cry burst from her throat.

He answered with a spate of words in an ancient, unfathomable tongue that tumbled with the rough vehemence of curses from his lips. Then in that ancient, exotically accented English of his, he growled:

“You wondered what it would be like to fuck a Fae. Well, here I am, Gabrielle. Here I am.”

15

The last vestiges of her resistance eroded with his words.

Here I am.

Take me; do anything you want with me, in essence. And she wanted. Oh, God, did she want. She’d been wanting for a lifetime. Her fantasies about the Fae had always been basely sexual, and though she rarely used the f-word, on his lips, it was pure seduction. Something about the way his accent and deep burr shaped it made it sound, not harsh, but sexy and inviting, secret and forbidden and enticing. It didn’t sound crude when he said it; it sounded like an invitation to dance a timeless dance that was innately earthy and animal, for which he would make no excuses and offer no apologies. Raw man, raw sex, was what he offered, in a world airbrushed into soft focus by his sheer beauty and seduction.

Of course, later, after the intense no-holds-barred-marathon-sex, her fantasy prince always fell for her in her dreams . . . but not until the frenzy of mating had been met. Not until lust’s due had been paid. If it could ever be fully paid with a Fae.

She melted back against his body.

He sensed it instantly, the precise moment she yielded. He spoke in that strange tongue again, the masculine triumph in his voice unmistakable. She was lost and he knew it.

She expected him to turn her in his arms, crush her against him, but once again, he defied her expectations.

Hand still snug between her legs, pressing her relentlessly back against his hard-on, he splayed his other hand against her jaw and turned her head, guiding her lips to his. Standing behind her, he kissed her. She’d not have believed it possible to kiss at such an angle, but she’d never kissed anyone as tall as he was, and not only was it possible, it was bizarrely, intensely erotic. Dominant. Possessive. A kiss of branding and claiming. She was captured hard against his body, his big hand warm between her legs, his silky hair falling over her shoulder, his mouth sealing over hers.