Fae Lover Ch. 01: Sweat & Rosewater

Season by season, Lyra weaves spells of seduction and slow unraveling from her small cabin by the lake. Her human lover knows she's dangerous--but he keeps coming back, drawn by bells no one else can hear.

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My knees press into soft earth, the sun warms my bare shoulders, and the tiny bells I wear at my ankles and wrists keep time with the cadence of harvesting dandelions. The flowers will go to wine, the greens to dinner.

Between my tiny bungalow and the big lake, the easy melody I've been humming slips deeper into my chest. Slowly, it stretches into a come-hither rhythm that signals my wanting to the wind. My basket is nearly full when the subtle pulse at my wrist lets me know that my call was received and answered.

The breeze teases up my skirt, licking the sweat off the backs of my thighs as I stand and stretch. Its lake-fresh breath is cool on my skin, and I don't rebuke it. The wind has always carried my wishes wherever I desired, so I let it have what it wants of me.

I pitch the belled bracelets and anklets unceremoniously beneath the futon as I step inside. It wouldn't do for Colin to find me wearing them. The only bell left on me is the silver one on the beaded cord encircling my waist. Tucked beneath my tank-top, it won't make a sound unless I want it to.

I take a cloth stiff with frozen rosewater from the freezer. A delicious shiver breaks over me as I press it between my breasts, then run it over my face and collarbone. The pulse runs through again, harder, and I almost drop it on the floor.

He's closer.

I drape the cool cloth around the back of my neck, pour two glasses of magenta Sumac Lemonade, and step onto the porch.

He appears at the curve in the road, heading toward the lake trail in a ratty sweat-soaked t-shirt and idiotic neon green running shorts. The inelegance of masculine attire is one of the tragedies of this age, and for a moment I'm wistful for the past.

But I shake it off. Death chases such thoughts. Those of us who last remember that the best time to be alive is always now. Now is the only time I can savor the taste of Colin's skin, and the way he offers his throat to me in his ecstasies. The memory of his pulse against my lips alone is enough to root me back into the present.

My time with any lover is always short, and I'd wanted Colin since the moment his green eyes, broad chest, and strong thighs appeared in the dark liquid depths of my scrying bowl. An ideal summer lover. Often, men look better in the water than in the world, but he hadn't disappointed me.

Of course, there had been complications. From the start, he looked at me with want and wariness in equal measure. I'd had to send the bells on the wind to clear the way, and make him bold enough for my bed.

"You've got to stop doing whatever you've been doing to me," Colin says tightly, trying to project his voice from the curb without raising it.

I lean against the porch rail, smiling like he's just said something charming.

"You're cute when you're angry, Colin. Has anyone told you that?"

Not even his scowl displeases me. Nor do these moments of surliness. Yes, I could charm them away, but I'd miss the frisson of his brooding summer storms. It's their edges that make mortals memorable, and without memory to mark so much time, it's easy for us to get lost in the current of it. So I wanted his tension, yearning, and even his petrichor. I wanted him.

One day I won't, and on that day I'll move along. I had so many times before. But right now? He makes my blood sing.

"I'm not kidding, Lyra," he warns me, his eyes tracking the motion of my hips as I shift them. "Don't try to distract me."

"What are you not kidding about?" My voice is innocence itself.

"Your damn bells ringing. I hear them all day and all night. I'd complain to the HOA but..." he stops short of saying out loud what he already knows.

"Do you hear them now?" I ask.

"No," he admits. His body tilts forward, but he braces a foot against the curb. A tiny civil war playing out in the posture of the man who just ran almost three miles to my doorstep, then began dragging his feet with the finish line in sight.

I could ring the bell again to clear his way, but I doubt it'll take even that much now. I just curl my fingers, beckoning.

"Now?" I ask again, and warm my voice with notes of honeyed indulgence.

This time, he hesitates only a moment before coming up the steps to stand beside me on the porch.

"No," he says, and it sounds like his mouth has gone dry.

"You live over a mile away, as the crow goes over the woods," I remind him. "If you don't hear it from here, how could it be me? Nobody else is complaining. The only one raising a fuss on my doorstep is you."

The weathered planks of porch creak as he shifts on his feet. A fissure is opening between what his body knows about me and what his rational mind refuses to accept. He isn't more sensitive than most. Just more forthright.

It's always right on his tongue. Enchantment. Witchcraft. Inhuman. I don't quite know what I'll do if he says it aloud. It's been a long time since anyone has, and the world has changed so much since then.

"You have your ways," he says uncomfortably.

"You sound a bit overheated," I tell him. "Why don't you cool off with a drink before you go running up the mountain?"

"Someone will see us."

"No one will see us." I say it with an authority I do not have. As if I'm an Oracle to the Court Under the Hill, not just a Changeling passing as a human woman in a cheap summer rental.

"How do you know?"

"The same way I knew you were coming." I lie, nodding toward the porch table. The two glasses I set out for us are already sweating in the heat.

The lie as close to the truth as most lovers can stand, and still more than is wise to grant them. No rules bind my kind in exile --we are considered unworthy of governance-- but our stories are full of warnings about the limitations of humans. Men especially. Ask any Selkie, if you can find one.

He sits down with a huff, but he believes me. Takes a sip.

"Listen, Lyra," he begins, "this thing between us... I..." but he trails off. Having served its purpose of bringing him to my door, whatever proclamation he'd told himself he was going to make dissolves behind his teeth.

Instead, he takes a big gulp of the sweet, tart drink I've poured for him.

"What's this going to do to me?" he asks.

They always want me to tell them that I've given them some irresistible aphrodisiac. Potent enough to let them lie to themselves about their choices later. Even when I do, I never admit it. It only makes them lazy.

I roll my eyes at him. "It's just sumac, lemon, honey. Tonifying. Cooling in this weather."

He swirls the ice around in the glass self consciously. Disappointed that it's only more herbalism.

"Speaking of..." I take the damp cloth from my neck and lean toward him, my tank gaping just enough for the bell at my waist to release a delicate chime.

"There it is again," he says, reaching toward the sound. "Where is it?"

I brush his hand aside and run my damp cloth over his flushed forehead.

"Oh, you can hardly hear that tiny little thing," I say, stepping back into the house. "Come along now. I'll get you a fresh cloth."

Behind me, the glasses clink as he picks them up and follows me inside.

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He's already sunk into the futon by the time I return from the kitchen, long legs spread, shirt clinging to his chest. His presence highlights just how small this cabin really is. From the front door, it's just three long strides to the kitchen, and two more to the bedroom.

We won't even make it that far today.

This time, he pulls me into his lap when I bend toward him. I press the frigid cloth between his shoulder blades and he shudders as icy droplets slip down his spine. His hands snake under my tank, and the cord at my waist goes taut around his hooked finger.

"I knew it," he mutters.

I leave the cloth draped across his shoulders and strip off my top. His sodden shirt hits the floor right after, and then his face is at my throat, inhaling me like he can't get close enough. I run the cloth across his back in long, cooling strokes.

Then I shove him back. The beads bite my flesh as he tugs the bell toward him.

"If I tore this from your body," he says, dreamy and dark, "would I still hear that tinkle-tinkle-tinkle that's driving me out of my fucking mind?"

"Of course you would," I say, tilting his head to smooth the cloth along his neck. "Because your neighbor has a wind chime."

"It's not a wind chime."

"Then a cat," I offer. "With a bell on its collar. Hunting mice in your attic."

"No cat. No mice." His voice dips. "I asked my wife if she hears it too."

I let the silence stretch. It's not mine to break. I'm not the one with a wife.

"She doesn't," he says at last, quiet as a confession.

He watches me closely for my reaction while I trail the cloth across his ribs, his stomach.

Whatever I do now will shape the rest of this. Maybe all of it.

"Tinnitus," I say at last, light and faux-concerned. "It's common in men your age. Try ginseng. Maybe gingko. Keep your vitality up."

He pinches my waist, hard enough to make me jump.

"No. I went to the doctor."

His earnestness nearly makes me laugh.

"Well, take them anyway," I tell him. "For your erections."

His eyes narrow, and he pulls me hard against the bulge just forming in his lap.

"My erections are excellent," he grumbles.

"Then maybe you're just listening for what you want to hear."

He buries his face in my hair and inhales me like he's been holding his breath since last time. His lips move against my scalp like he can't bear to pull himself away.

"Maybe you're just making me crazy."

The scent in my hair--honeysuckle, orange blossom--is intentional. In seasons where I mark time by taking lovers, nothing touches my body that isn't an offering on the altar of my desire.

"I feel your pussy hot on my thigh," he rasps. "Do you even own underwear?"

"I keep them in the freezer in this weather," I tease. Then I slide from his lap to the floor, settling between his legs.

He lifts his hips just enough for me to strip his ugly shorts and boxers to his ankles, and catch them under my knees. They are loose shackles now. I want him to feel the part of himself that knows he's been cornered by something with teeth.

He twitches, hardening as I take him in my mouth, swirl my tongue around his tip, then down his shaft. Both of his arms are flung across the frame of the futon, palms up in surrender. My hand wraps around him as I suck him deeper, and his thrusts through my lips are tight and desperate. The tilt of the seat pulls him back, and he's constrained by his own shorts.

I reach between my legs, letting him hear how much pleasure the taste of his frustration brings me. He's gripping the edge of the cushion with the backs of his knees, straining to push deeper into my mouth. When I moan around him, the vibration makes his thighs tremble and his breath catch.

That's far enough. I won't finish him this way today.

When I stand my skirt closes around my legs like a petal, and he watches, chest heaving, as I step out of it. I pin my knees on either side of his hips, and sink down inch by aching inch, breathing through the stretch, the sensation of my body fluttering and tightening around the length and girth of him. My hips circle until I find the tempo that takes me and makes him throb and curse.

"Jesus, Lyra... what the fuck are you doing to me? You must've--Goddamn me--you can't be--" He chokes on the rest, hips jerking upward, eyes wild.

I lean forward, laughing into his mouth.

"Jesus isn't here, Colin. Aren't I enough?"

One of his hands cups my breast, the other squeezes my ass, pulling me into him with every roll of my hips. His head falls back, lips parted, and I kiss the column of his throat, tasting the salt and rosewater on his skin.

"Do you hear bells now?" I ask him.

He shakes his head, breathless.

"Would you like to?"

He nods, like he can't help himself.

His mouth opens in a silent moan, and I raise my hips till his cock barely grazes my threshold.

I lean over him so our lips almost touch. "Say it."

"I want to hear the bell, Lyra," he whispers.

I pull his breath into my lungs, and ride him with force, rolling against him, coaxing him to climax. The bell sings at my waist. The ringing is faint, but multitudinous. A spell in sound, soft and implacable.

He bucks beneath me, eyes rolling back, neck arched in an offering. He wants me to mark him, but I don't. It's much too soon for the trouble that would cause, and I'd lose him before the summer was through.

Instead, I press my breast to his mouth. He sucks. First gentle, then hard, with teeth. It shocks a cry from me. I grind faster, my hips wild with their want.

But Colin is strung taut between his desires for both total abandon and a sense of control, and he isn't ready to succumb to me so easily. Almost too late, he grips himself and shoves me off of him.

"By the mirror. All fours. Now." His voice is hoarse, but commanding. I move quickly, heart pounding, shaking limbs slick with our sweat.

He follows so close behind me it's hard not to trip, and impossible to believe he wouldn't take me where I fell if I did. I half want to do it on purpose, just to feel him snap and fall upon me like a wolf pulling down a fawn.

But more than that, I want to see what he's planning to do next. He's full of little surprises.

His movements become deliberate once I'm braced in front of the mirror. Precise and controlled, the way he wants to be seen.

He adjusts my hips just so, studying my face in the reflection as he drags the slick head of his cock between my thighs. When I push back against him, he tentatively slaps my ass. The twist of his lip tells me that he wants a taste of conquest, so I do it again, and this time he slaps me sharp enough that I gasp. I freeze under his hand.

"That's right, princess," he says gruffly. "You're going to stay still, and take what I give you."

Only then does he mount me.

My body closes around him, and his groan is so rough and deep it feels like it rose up from the gravel beneath the cabin. He curls forward over my back, not just entering me, but claiming me, his weight pressing down before he even wraps his arm around my waist. His thrusts are relentless--measured, brutal, devastating.

He catches me just before my arms give out, and hauls me upright against his chest. We kneel before the mirror, still joined.

His eyes, watching our reflection, are keen as a hawk's.

"You'll come just like this," he breathes into my ear. "I'll watch your face while you break. Trap the sounds you make against my palm. I won't let you go till you give me exactly what I want. Do you hear me?"

Wide-eyed, like I'm half enchanted myself, I raise my fingers to his mouth. He sucks them, eyes locked to mine.

When I slip my wet finger between my legs, his hand closes around my throat.

"You look so fucking good, Lyra, you were made to be splayed out over my cock like this. You're soaked for me. I can feel how close you are, you--"

My hips try to rock, to circle and grind against him, but he keeps me maddeningly still. Tightening his grip on me with a growl while I struggle. He's holding me open for his own pleasure, drawing it out. He wants to watch me writhe for it.

"You like to be filled so tight you can hardly breathe, don't you? Don't play shy now. I know what you are," he growls.

I'm whimpering senseless animal noises of my own. His hand flexes against my throat, catching each sound. My cunt wraps tighter around him in reply to the pressure, and my orgasm swells but doesn't break. His mouth stays hot at my ear. His words don't stop. But he's shaking too, gasping, losing the thread as I spasm around him.

"My sweet fuck --squeeze me like that again I'm gonna-- you merciless whore -- if you--fuck--I'll fucking lose it, I'm--"

His eloquence is exciting, but this is how I like him best. Every muscle in my body draws tight, strumming with heat.

"I'll give you anything. Don't make me beg..." His voice cracks, and his hips stutter against mine. "Give it. Right now. God--fuck, Lyra--"

Feeling him come undone is always what pushes me over the edge.

My orgasm tears a high cry from my throat as it take me, electric and undeniable. I seize around him like I've been struck by lightning, my hips locking, spine arching against him, one arm flung back around his neck.

He slams up into me with a strangled shout, like a hex landed hard in his gut. Broken open halfway between man and beast, he spills wave after wave deep inside me. He claws at my hips, anchoring himself to my body through the maelstrom.

We arc and bow against each other, riding the last jagged edge of climax before we sink down together, a slow unraveling of breath and spent bodies.

The mirror holds the remnants: a shimmer of sweat, the tremble of the bell still ringing at my waist, and his hand splayed over my thigh like his grasp could keep me from vanishing.

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"You know," he says at last, fingers stroking my hair, "I came here to tell you it was over. That I wasn't coming to see you again."

"And now?" I ask, tracing the slope of his cheek with my fingers.

"And now I don't think I can leave. Can't even feel my legs."

"Mmm," I murmur, unimpressed.

"I mean it. If you left, I'd blow up my whole life to follow you. So I'm begging you to stay. I'll help you with your rent here. Pay your heat in the winter. Or I'll find you a new place. Whatever it takes."

I trail my hand over his softening cock. He flinches at the touch, then melts into it.

"Heat, rent," I say, stroking him lazily. I don't especially care about those things. "What a silver tongue you have."

He looks at me, wounded, unsure if I'm teasing him. He's right to wonder. It is a three-season cabin. And even though I don't really get cold, I haven't decided how long I'll stay.

"Anything you want," he says.

"Warm me yourself, if you're worried." I tell him. I run a finger up the seam of him to watch him flinch again. So delicate. "The back door doesn't lock. "Visit me in the night. You can come to me any time."

"I'll fix it for you," he says immediatly.

"Don't." He stiffens at my tone, then relaxes while I comb my fingers through the hair on his chest. "Then you'd need a key. It would be just another jingle for you to complain about."

"It's not safe for you," he insists, too serious now to take the bait. "I'll get you a gun. A dog. A camera. And of course I'd knock."

"I don't want you to do any of those things. Especially the knocking." I smile faintly.

His hand closes over mine. "I'll come as often as I can."

"I'll be waiting."

His fingers drift to my hip again. "But never with panties on, right? Promise me. I never want to catch you in them."

"You can have that. But that's a summertime promise." I laugh, "Only good while the leaves are green as your eyes."

"So I get to choose something else for fall? For winter?"

I prop myself on one elbow. "You're getting ahead of yourself. And selfish."

"Alright then." He grins with boyish charm, believing that we're playing a game. "What do you want in exchange?"

I reach forward, fingers just grazing the inside of his thigh.

"I want your location. I want to know exactly where you are, at any moment."

He squirms. "That's risky. I'm not... always free."

"No talking. No touching. I won't even look at you," I whisper. "But you'll see me. Maybe. You could call it foreplay."

He hesitates. For a moment I think he's going to refuse. I shift my body to allow the tiny bell chime once more.

He shivers.

"And you won't be wearing...?"

"Not while the leaves are green," I assure him.

"Alright," he says. "I'll share it."

I kiss the inside of his thigh like it's his mouth.

Then he adds, "And you won't take other lovers, either."

I sit up, flicking his balls lightly in reprimand. "You're asking for a second promise already? And so greedy to want it on credit before you've even paid for the first. Ungallant. Unbecoming of you, Colin."

"It'll make me sick," he says. "Thinking of you with someone else."

"Come to me often enough, and I won't have a need for another man else." I shrug. "Or I'll simply send him away when I hear you opening the back door. Then you'll never doubt whose company I prefer. A great boon to you, I imagine."

"A boon?" he retorts, incredulous. "That's not a gift, or a blessing. It's a Trojan horse. You want to make me suffer," he accuses.

"Not at all." I lean in close, lips soft on the underside of his jaw. "But I won't be martyred to your petty jealousies. You won't be sleeping alone after you leave me here, and winter nights are long and cold."

He frowns and I roll away from him. Even though he's quick to grab my ankle I can still reach the tangle of his boxers and shorts by the futon. He takes them from me gingerly, like he suddenly finds them distasteful as I do, and grudgingly fishes out his phone. There is a sulkiness to him now, like he really thought he'd be allowed to play checkers with chess pieces forever.

"You're an attractive man. If you'd prefer someone a bit more domesticated, I've no doubt you can find her." I'm goading him, and we both know it.

His lips tighten, but he taps on his screen. The answering ping on my phone tells me he's shared his location.

He pulls on his shorts without looking at me. I bring him his shirt. His socks. Smooth his thick hair so he doesn't look so freshly fucked. I murmur praise over him until he's mollified.

"I'll never sleep again," he says. "Between the ringing, and your door."

"Good." I press a kiss to his mouth. Then I nudge him gently toward the front door. "Better run fast," I tell him, "and jump in the lake first. You smell like sex and rosewater."

He glances back at me sheepishly, then looks up and down the block before closing the door behind him.