Fae Lover Ch 00: Summer Breaks

As spring slips into summer, Lyra lures a handsome human man into the lake to become her summer lover.

The first section contains world building, physical descriptions. Scroll down to the first break to skip.

*****

It's another unusually hot May morning, and the lake lies flat as a mirror. The cold water welcomes me as I slip from the diving rock, sending ripples through the thin shroud of mist clinging to its surface. Only the movements of my body, the sinuous curve of a water snake, and the swallows wheeling low disturb the stillness.

Even the breeze withholds its breath, gone surly and silent after so many gusty spring days spent as my lover. But we've been through this before; the wind has never been quick to share me with a flesh-and-blood lover.

I dismiss the mist with a wave of my hand, revealing my reflection in the water. Like a playing card Queen folded in half, Colin's perception of me flows from my upper thigh to stretch across the surface.

He sees a human woman in the summer of her life--hips that invite, a sensuous curve of stomach, a waist that narrows to ripe breasts, pinked from the water's chill. A heart-shaped face with catlike grey eyes, framed by a bolt of dark, silky hair. And my mouth. He stares at it when we speak, enamored of those sensual, provocative lips--always pillowy, now flushed from the cold thrill of the plunge. When I look at him, it's with a knowing smile that promises exquisite kisses or tantalizing riddles. It keeps him up at night, imagining both.

Little wonder he's so taken with me.

I swirl my fingers through the water's surface, and for a moment the image trembles, glamour broken. Unvarnished, I am rangier in form, my features sharpened and exaggerated. Though the points were clipped in infancy, the subtle elongation of my ears remains noticeable. My true form is not unrecognizable, or even obviously inhuman, but it lacks the domesticated softness they find so appealing in each other--and the weathering we find so intriguing in them.

For all the elegance and sophistication cultivated by my race, we Fae are to humans as coyotes are to dogs. My brother Aelanthir, a courtier of moderate esteem, has warned me that such an observation would be lethally uncouth in the Court Under the Hill--even as he laughs at it.

But I am not in attendance at the Court Under the Hill, or even a citizen of Faerie. I'm one of the many Changelings they've exiled to the human world over the centuries, discarding their undesirable offspring in exchange for more pleasing human children. There are many reasons a Fae infant might be deemed inadequate. In my case, it was because the Oracle of the Court Under the Hill prophesied that my ability to weave enchantment would never grow beyond the simplest spells.

Had I been more beautiful--or lowborn enough not to tarnish the line--they might have kept me anyway. But for a striving, upper-society family embroiled in Court intrigue, I'd be a liability for as long as I lived.

So they harvested a human child to be doted upon like a rare orchid or a clever bird. And I was left among humans, ignorant of my origin until my dear brother stepped from the shadow of a rowan tree to see what had become of me.

I'd done well enough for that age. I'd grown into a strange but striking woman, too tall for her time but healthy and able, and wed not unhappily to an innkeeper's eldest son.

And I was strong. I'd come into nearly the full strength of my kind, and it had served me well in the violent human world. Swift enough to run down a deer, quick enough to snap its neck, and strong enough to carry it home. Even tempered to avoid attention, my sturdiness was boon enough during many rowdy nights at the inn that my husband's family overlooked my oddities.

Some Fae reclaimed their Changeling siblings, as was the fashion then. But I hadn't wanted to leave this world, only to be kept as a pet for sport or sentiment. And Aelanthir, excessive in his filial affection for our class and kind, wanted me to live far more than he wanted to parade around an uncultivated sister until she became passé.

So instead of dragging me back Under the Hill, he taught me the simplest of our enchantments. Glamour, to blend among humans. Persuasions, to bend their bodies and minds to my will. Divination with whatever came to hand. And how to make a consort of the wind--bound by geis to my blood, and so my right even in exile. Even if it was, at times, a sulky companion.

All these thoughts vanish from my mind as a small, languid whirlpool forms to reveal my summer lover.

Colin is handsome. Taller than me at nearly six feet, with a strong, lived-in build. Gym-polished in all the usual places--chest, shoulders, back--but with long legs honed by running the trails that line the lake and ridge beyond it. His thick, wavy hair, silvering at the temples, catches the morning light. Green eyes that sparkle when he's pleased. A nose once broken and set slightly off-center--an intriguing, increasingly anachronistic detail that makes me wonder about his youth. A square jaw softened by a short, neat beard. And he always looks as if he's on the verge of telling me a secret.

His stride is steady, his form deliberate, as he runs the long trail up the ridge and around to this secluded side of the lake. He's shirtless this time, his chest burnished by the sun since the day he joined me for an impromptu swim. I smile at that. He's hoping to find me out here again.

I wade into cooler, deeper water. He'll assume I'm naked, of course, but I'll give him no reason to linger at the edge of the lake. Even the saffron dress I'd left out last time, billowing like a flag to catch his eye, now lies folded on the shore.

Though he's desired me from the start, it's taken most of April to make him bold enough to bed me. I've seeded his dreams, sent the cajoling, alluring chiming of my bells on the wind, and employed other charms besides. I even feigned a sprained ankle so he'd have the excuse he needed to wrap his arm around my waist as he half-carried me home from the nearest trailhead.

The birds hush as he approaches. I hear his footsteps slow, the whisper of his body parting the sweet honeysuckle and silverberry as he follows my trail through the brush. I blow across his image on the lake, dispersing it back to the depths.

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He finds my dress folded neatly on the bank, then scans the water. Only my eyes and hair are visible above the surface, dark as river stones and camouflaged by the dappled shadows. When his gaze finally lands on me, I straighten, smile, and wave: so companionable, so without artifice.

"Colin!" I chirp, as though I'd hoped but not expected him to return. "Back for another swim? The water's even better today."

"Good morning, Lyra." His eyes crinkle, his smile is genuine and edged with excitement. Just standing on the shore--having sought and found a naked woman in the water--is a touch of transgression for him. He's half in a fairytale already, and only one a single step outside the carefully ordered, walled garden of his tame modern life.

"I'd like to," he admits, "but maybe I shouldn't."

"Nonsense," I admonish, voice low and teasing. "Nobody should... look." I point to the rusted 'No Swimming' sign, bent under bindweed and dangling by a single nail.

"Has that been there the whole time?" he asks.

"Maybe. But what better to base a friendship on than a little mutually assured destruction?" I cup my hand to the side of my mouth, like I'm telling him a secret so sensitive I don't want it read off my lips. "I won't tell on you if you won't tell on me."

He grins, a hint of the rake in his eye as he stares at my mouth. "As long as you're sure you don't mind me intruding on your morning swim. Again."

"Not at all," I laugh. "In fact, I brought a second towel, just in case."

His eyebrows lift.

"And haven't you earned a little treat? You went hard this morning." I wrinkle my nose delicately and add, "You're all sweaty."

"I suppose I am," he chuckles, his smile warm but uncertain. "You're trouble, you know that?"

I shrug, letting the water catch the light. "Surely not. And didn't you have more pep in your step last time, when you jumped in right after your run?"

A grin tugs the corner of his mouth as he glances at the diving rock. "Alright. But only because I've always said it's bad luck to argue with mysterious women in lakes. It's just a swim, right?"

Still he hesitates, shifting his weight from foot to foot, a last shred of propriety holding him back from stripping in front of me. I let his discomfort hang there, savoring it like the fleeting fruit it is, before giving him a gentle push.

"A wise man," I coax, pointing to the rock with a finger, "doesn't try to cross a chasm with short steps. Jump in."

Then I duck under the water and push off from the bottom. My body flashes just beneath the surface--breasts, waist, hips--then vanishes as I kick deeper, releasing my breath and letting the water swallow me like a stone.

I hear his splash overhead, see the line of his muscular legs as they tread water, his tan unbroken from ankle to mid-thigh, where his running shorts would normally sit. He calls my name, turning in the water, and I surface.

"Do you dive? You were under a long time," he says. His shoulders bunch toward his ears against the chill. They are fine shoulders, heavy for a man who works at a desk. They roll forward, making him slouch, except when he knows he wants to be looked at.

"Was I?" I ask, distracted. It's so easy to lose track of time underwater, and I'd rather talk about something more interesting. "You know, I was starting to worry about you, Colin. I haven't seen you run by in a while. I thought it might be your poor, ravaged thighs."

His startled laugh is nearly a bark. "My ravaged--what? Why?"

I hug my knees to my chest, bobbing aimlessly, arms tracing slow circles in the water.

"From running back in those soaking wet shorts you insisted on swimming in last week. I thought of leaving another balm out for you, but..." I shrug and tilt backward, letting the water cradle me before righting myself with a gentle twist. "I didn't want to make you feel bashful all over again."

"That's..." He pauses, his jaw shifting as he imagines rubbing his chaffed groin with some unguent I'd prepared for him. "... very thoughtful of you, Lyra. That balm you gave me, after I helped you home that day--it was very good for soreness. I even told some of the guys at the gym about it."

"Is that so?" I ask lightly. "I hope you also told them where to find me."

He looks away for a moment, and I kick a little closer. He rolls his shoulders back then, posture perfect in the cold water. He's tall enough to stand where I have to float.

"I wasn't bashful, by the way," he says.

"Hmm?"

"Last time, I mean. You said 'bashful again.' I wasn't. I just didn't want to make you... you know... nervous around me."

"Ah," I say, a smile curling in my voice. "So chivalrous. But I'm quite brave, Colin. I might thank you for the novelty, if you'd managed to make me nervous."

"I'll keep that in mind," he laughs softly, lowering his head.

"Do," I say, floating on my back, my toes flicking gentle splashes as I drift to a shallower spot a few feet beyond his reach. My hair fans out around me like spilled ink, undulating in the water like a living thing.

My body is a sun-kissed invitation, and I feel his eyes on me.

Then I gasp sharply, and I stand in the chest-deep water, flinching as I grab for my leg.

Colin is all fluid motion. Two strokes and he's beside me, his hand on my back.

"Shit. Lyra---are you okay? Did something bite you?" His voice is urgent. "There's water snakes. I'm not sure if they're--"

I straighten, grinning over my shoulder. "I'm fine. I just wanted to see if you'd come to my rescue again."

He pulls his hand back, raking it through his hair like he's trying to erase the feel of me without actually letting go of it.

"Don't," he says, his voice tight. But he doesn't step away.

"Did I frighten you?" I ask softly, letting the question float on the water between us.

He rubs a hand over his mouth, eyes dark.

"You did something," he says after a long moment.

I turn to face him. There is hardly any distance between us now. I take his hand and place it on my hip. My skin feel like it's glowing under his palm.

"Can you forgive me, Colin?" I ask, my voice almost shy. I take his other hand by the fingertips, and guide it to my breast, floating just under the surface. His fingers curl lightly around it, as though he's found a delicate creature.

"Lyra..." he exhales, but it's more the shape of his breath than a word formed.

"Yes," I answer. I rise onto my toes, his hand reverently cupping my breast as it breaks the surface. I brush my parted lips against his. Just a taste, just a test.

Then he wraps those strong arms around me and pulls me close--adamant, because he's a man who's come to a decision. I've watched him imagine this a dozen ways in his dreams, but watching is never nearly as good as feeling.

His larger body is solid against my smaller, softer one, and touched in all the fascinating ways a human body reveals the passage of time. His skin yields beneath my wandering hands. I find a scar here, a mole there, a birthmark, a scattering of silver hairs at his chest and the line below his belly button.

I wreath my arms around his neck and lean back, and while he kisses the hollow of my throat, I whistle softly to summon back the swallows. They answer with their liquid warble, wheeling around us, brushing us with the tips of their wings.

He kisses me again--paying no mind to my birds at all--his mouth intent, his tongue exploring as his hands slide to cup my ass and lift me against him. He takes a few steps in no particular direction, obeying that ancient human instinct to pluck up and carry off the precious thing he's found. I wrap around him completely, heels pressing into his firm backside, fingers tangled in his hair, lips hungry.

His cock twitches, swelling where it's nestled against the heat of my body. He grows harder before I move, rocking against him, the water lapping between us. Each shift passes him between the chill of the lake and my warmth. The contrast makes him shiver, and I sip his breath as he moans softly into my mouth.

We don't break apart until we're both breathless. I slide higher on his waist, and he dips his face between my breasts. Demure, almost, except for that eager part of him pressing softly against my thigh.

I pull away just enough to catch his hand, guiding it down the front of my body, between my legs.

"Here?" he breathes. I'm not sure even he knows whether he's asking about my body or the lake--but the answer is the same either way.

"Slowly," I whisper.

He nods and reaches for me through the water. He's not as practiced as some men, but what he lacks in finesse he makes up for in attentiveness--adjusting his angle, his pressure, the shape of his hand as he learns me. His eyes drink me in as he parts and traces me, charting every hidden place, every shifting texture of wet, until his fingers slide inside, certain of where they're wanted.

His thumb finds that most sensitive spot, and his breath shudders as I begin to tighten around him. Beneath the water, his cock teases me, brushing and grazing as I move against his hand, each wave sharpening his own ache. I kiss him hard, catching his lip lightly between my teeth.

"Fuck, Lyra--my God..." he breathes, his voice breaking.

His forehead crinkles as I shush him, wanting to hear the birds. I love their trills, and the way the swallows swoop closer and faster as I approach the pleasure of my first orgasm with my handsome summer lover.

I press my face against his, breath hot in his ear as I gasp, "Yes, yes, yes." His body jolts like it's been struck, then freezes--fingers still, body taut, his manhood caught just between my legs as my stomach clenches and my hips tremble against him. My pussy flutters and draws in his fingers as I come, my pleasure precious and sweet as drops of sugar from a honeysuckle flower.

He's breathing hard, for a fit man standing still. I let him feel my grin against his cheek, then catch his earlobe lightly between my lips.

"Now catch me," I whisper, and slip from his grasp with an uncanny ease that leaves him blinking.

He's still recovering when I surface a few feet away. But one look at my grin, my hair pooling around me like a dark halo, the soft mounds of my breasts breaking the surface as I float on my back, and he's after me.

Colin is a strong swimmer. Again and again, he catches me, his fingers closing tight around my ankle beneath the water, pulling me back to him with a possessive grip. His mouth finds any part of me it can reach--my hip, my thigh, the curve of my ribs--before I slip free, shivering at the feel of him.

By the time we reach the diving rock, I'm clinging to him, legs locked around his waist, our bodies slick and hungry.

He presses me against the rock, the rough stone scraping my back. He's nearly hard enough now to try to take me right there--quick and desperate in the water--but instead he lifts me, and places me on the sun-warmed stone like an offering.

For a breathless moment he stands framed between my thighs, looking up at me bright and ravenous from the water. Then he launches himself up and out of the lake, water cascading off his body in a glistening splash.

I scramble toward the towel I'd laid out just a few feet away, but he's on me in a heartbeat, flipping me onto my back. Now that we're out of the water, I feel every pulse, every twitch of him, each one a promise of what's coming.

He grows harder, thicker, as he worships my breasts with his mouth, drawing gasps from me with every suck and scrape of his teeth. My hands explore the powerful lines of his back, the taut planes of his ribs, and I'm struck by how solid he feels--how deliciously humanly needful he is of being known and savored in this exact, expiring moment.

I arch against him, trying to guide him inside me, but he pins me with the weight of his hips, grinding just enough to make me gasp. His cock is swollen, thick as my wrist, the head flushed and nearly purple. My whole body pulses with anticipation.

He presses his forehead to mine, his voice ragged. "Tell me... if you need me to stop." His body trembles with the tension of a man stalking the line between the domestic and the wild, and it nearly undoes me.

I roll my hips beneath him, fingers tangling in his hair until his lips are just brushing mine.

"Don't you dare," I whisper.

He draws himself up, stomach taut, and my fingers slide down to wrap around him. His hips cant forward as I stroke him, slick him, learn him like he did for me in the water. Veins bold, shaft heavy, the head swollen and hot. He's hard as an oath, thick enough to steal my breath. He shudders at my touch, a wordless prayer trembling on his lips, so close to giving in.

"You're too fucking gorgeous," he says, his voice cracking on the word.

I guide him to me, gilding the crown of him with my sweet slickness, aligning him to that place that's ached for him since I first saw him in the flesh. He groans, captures my mouth again, and sinks in with a slow, unstoppable thrust. The stretch is sweet and searing as my hips lift to meet him.

And his hand curves under my back, lifting me just enough to ease the pressure of the ground, his palm warm against the small of my spine.

He doesn't rush. He claims me--inch by inch--until he's fully sheathed, veins dragging pleasure deep inside me. My world contracts to the thick, perfect weight of him. His cock presses me open, his heartbeat pulses inside me. He withdraws, just enough to leave me gasping, then slides back in, deeper, harder, building his rhythm.

My legs wrap around his waist, pulling him closer.

"Like this, Lyra?" he rasps.

I shake my head, breathless, and he freezes mid-thrust, lips parted, forehead creased with tension. Caught in the thrill of my conquest, it takes me a heartbeat to realize he's waiting for me. My eyes flutter open to meet him, and I cup his cheek with the heel of my hand.

"More," I whisper, my voice velvet with want.

He shudders, and then he drives.

Colin's learned how to keep a woman just on the right side of overwhelm with that generous muscle he carries between his legs. His body moves against mine with practiced rhythm, hips rolling, muscles taut, never out of control. His breath is hot at my ear, his voice a low strum of want and praise.

"Just like that," he says. "You feel--fuck, Lyra--you feel unreal."

But I don't want him in control. "Fuck me like you do in your dreams, Colin," I urge him.

He groans, his hands tightening on my thighs as he pulls my legs over his shoulders. Then he slams deeper, harder, and I echo him--my breath catching as he nearly folds me in two. Each thrust presses me into the sandy dirt and rough grass, into his knowing that I've wanted this. That in this moment, he's untethered from everything he's ever known. That I've made it happen.

When my orgasm crests, it's like falling. My body clutching around him, a bright, hard ache that has me crying out in exultation.

Then those powerful hips snap into me again, the rhythm stuttering. His cock pulses deep, his breath catches--and then he moans, his head thrown back, a sound so close to a howl it makes my heart clench. His body jerks, once, twice, before he spills inside me.

His lips are everywhere through the aftershock. My forehead, cheek, mouth. Kisses that feel like gratitude and confession all at once. There's been real tenderness in him, I realize, through all of it. A quiet wonder that this has happened out here by the lake he sees every day.

Finally, he comes to rest against me, still buried deep. He strokes my thigh unconsciously, his thumb tracing the symbol for infinity.

I don't correct him.

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We stay like that for a moment, with only the sun to covering us. Eventually he rolls to his side, his heavy arm flung over me as he steadies his breath.

Then he looks at me with an openness that's both plain and conflicted.

"Lyra... I'm married. I should have told you," he says quietly.

It catches me a off guard, this admission. Not the first part, but the second.

"You wear a ring," I say, my voice is carefully neutral. A statement only. Nothing to say what I think, or don't think, of this.

"But I never said it. I mean, intentionally, I never said it."

"Why are you telling me that now?" I ask, and this time, there's no teasing in my voice.

"Because you should know that I knew what I was doing," he tells me.

He's not blaming me, or exactly apologizing. He's not even asking for mercy. I understand then that this is a reckoning. He wants me to know he's a man who chose--and who holds himself to account for his choices.

At least in this moment.

How interesting, and how very human, in such a very unusual way.

I pause, letting the weight of his words settle between us. Then I lift my hand to his jawline, my thumb resting just beneath his ear.

"I won't steal you away from your life," I say, my voice steady. "I may only stay through the summer. But I'd like to know you while I'm here, Colin. For at least as long as the season holds."

The desire in his face tells me he still wants me, even knowing I'm not a lie he can tell himself, or a woman he can keep.

I tilt my head toward the trees beyond the lake. "There's a deer path from your neighborhood to my cabin," I tell him. "Use it."

"I will," he says.

A small, thoughtful smile curves my lips, gentler than it might have been a moment ago. "Good," I murmur. "I'll be expecting you often."

"You are trouble," he says again, and there's a trace of a excitement in his voice, but also a flicker of something like awe.

"And you," I breathe, "are dangerous." And it's true. His odd integrity could shift the game I'm playing with him in unpredictable ways. I'll have to be clever and careful, because that danger only makes me want him more.

He nods, like somehow he understands.

"Come soon," I tell him, before I slip out from under his arm and dive back into the water. The cold depths of the lake cradle me, holding me a world apart from Colin--naked and spent, shaking the dirt from his shorts on the shore.

When I surface, he's gone. I float in the still lake, sated and thoughtful, until the sun burns off the last of the mist from the water and the wind summons me back.