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Chapter twenty-four

Secrets

T he fountain of Rai’s bliss was overflowing.

His difficult conversation with Poppy did not end with their time atop the mountain, of course.

When they alighted before her house again—just where he’d snatched her up, so as not to alarm her mother—she stepped out of his arms and turned to him with a serious expression.

The rain had faded as they flew, and he had taken care to keep her dry; she was still wearing his white shirt over her own clothing.

“Just so you know, I’m still…processing.” Her voice was a little higher than usual. “And there’s no way we can get through all of what I want to—no, need to know tonight.” She huffed out a rueful chuckle. “It may actually take us the whole five weeks.”

He carefully took her hand, brushed a kiss across her knuckle. “You may ask anything. I have promised to keep no secrets.”

She squeezed his fingers and smiled, but then her eyes flickered toward her mother’s house, and the sweet smile wilted. “You’d better… I don’t think Mom’s ready for the, um, full Monty.”

“Faerie,” he corrected, even as he tucked away his wings and caught some of the water beaded on the oleander leaves to focus his glamour.

Poppy stood silently, trembling slightly as she watched. When he finished, she stepped in and brushed his cheeks with her fingers.

“Why do you hide the freckles?”

“Do I?” He frowned and tried to look at his own cheeks, but it made his head hurt.

“I have not spent much time gazing upon human faces, other than those on the large—” He gestured, trying to indicate what he meant.

“The signs. They say things like ‘Welcome to Brazil’ and ‘Calvin Klein’ and ‘ Fora Bolsonaro .’”

She blinked. “Billboards?”

“Yes, I made myself the color of the humans on the billboards. Ah, but I found the images of this Bolsonaro most unappealing. Should I have made myself look more like him instead of the Calvin Klein men?”

“Definitely not.” Poppy brushed his cheeks again. “But fashion models are made up and Photoshopped to be all smooth and boring. Your freckles are way cuter. It doesn’t matter for your disguise, I guess.”

Yet she sounded wistful. He snatched a little more water, focused on his cheeks, thinking of his own reflection as he’d seen it in countless lakes, the sprinkling of darker spots across his cheeks, mingling that image with the warm brown he’d adopted from the billboard models.

Poppy caught her breath and muttered a quiet curse.

“Is it unsightly?” He tried to view his cheeks again.

“No.” She went on tiptoe and brushed a kiss across his cheeks, left, then right, and then his nose. “When I first met you, I thought you were too good to be true. And then when I saw, um, purple you—”

“Lilac.”

She rolled her eyes. “ Real you, when I found out you’d been in disguise, I thought…

I don’t know what I thought, actually, except for feeling tricked.

Like you really had been too good to be true, just like my first impression.

But now…” She laughed then, incredulous.

“Is it weird that I think pur— real you is better? And the closer your disguise gets to the real you, the more beautiful you are.”

He glanced away then. “Even though my teeth are not as straight as…” The thought of mentioning the vile betrayer stopped him. “Not as straight as a model’s? ”

“Your teeth,” she said softly, “belong in a damn toothpaste commercial.” She stroked a finger across his lips.

The caress dragged a gasp out of him, and she slipped her fingertip inside his parted lips to touch his canine.

“There’s this one teensy bit that is the tiniest bit crooked, and all it does is emphasize how gorgeous your whole smile is. ”

He gave her that smile, relieved. “You are so kind.”

“Rai, I just have eyes.” She shrugged out of his shirt and held it out to him.

He frowned at it. “Do you send me away?”

“You were leaving when I…” Her eyes went unfocused for a moment, then sharpened. “You had to work tomorrow.”

“But that was a lie,” Rai pointed out, feeling quite pleased with himself.

“So you don’t have to work.”

“And I do not need to— Do you wish me to leave? That you may…process?”

“What do you do— No.”

“No, do not leave?”

“No, I am not doing this on the sidewalk.” She pressed the shirt into his chest again, but gently. “Come inside for now. I want to know what you’ve been doing instead of working, but I want to do it somewhere comfy. Put this on so Mom doesn’t see you and worry you’re gonna get sick.”

He took the shirt. “Human diseases are of no matter to the fae. Ofelia has said we need not fear syphilis or chlamydia.” He slipped his arms into the sleeves, settling the fabric across his shoulders.

Her mouth gaped open for a moment, then snapped shut with a clack of teeth. “That is…good news?” she said faintly.

“Is it not?” He caught her hands, giddy. “I also cannot impregnate you against your will, and of course I am but sixty-three and far too young to be a father, so I would not ask it of you. So you see, there is no need for condoms. We may make love freely without fear of—”

“Inside!” she squeaked, yanking her hands out of his. “Let’s talk about this inside.” She turned and hurried around the oleander bush, not looking behind her.

He caught up with Poppy at the guest house door, which had been left gaping open. A small puddle had accumulated on the tile just inside, and he adroitly ducked past her, setting his hand to the puddle and absorbing it before she had a chance to slip.

She laughed. “Thank you, Sir Walter Raleigh. Very gallant. Not at all goofus. ”

He shot to his feet before her. “Who is Sir Walter Raleigh?” Ah, it was liberating not to have to pretend he knew her every reference!

He would defer to her questions about his lies, of course, but there was so much he did not understand, despite the hours he spent on Google each day.

And he wished to know it all, so that he could understand all of Poppy. “Is he a great hero?”

Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “Pretty sure he was beheaded. I wouldn’t aspire, if I were you.” She slipped past him and he followed, closing the door behind him.

She stood in the living room for a moment, uncertain, before striding toward the hallway that led to her studio. Rai cast a longing look at her bedroom as they passed, but her caresses and embrace at the top of the mountain did not mean she would wish to remain his lover when she knew all.

In the studio, Poppy seated herself in her chair beside the still-blank canvas.

Rai hesitated, then seated himself cross-legged on the mounded cushions.

He could not hold back a shudder of blissful memory.

Had it been mere hours since he had lain there naked, under her eyes and then her sweet hands and mouth?

Ah, but that reminded him. “Poppy, what is French? ”

She pursed her lips. “Things and people from France. Don’t fae learn geography?”

“I know Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil…” He paused. “So it does not mean sexy?”

“France is usually considered sexy,” she conceded. “It’s in Europe. Have you been to Europe?”

Europe sounded familiar. “Is it across the ocean?”

“Yes.” She shifted in her chair, studying him. “Is salt water bad for you?”

“Ah, no, though it is…” He waved a hand in the air.

“It has a different flavor. But it is also boring. I have heard of water fae who pursue ships upon the ocean, and there are those who enjoy hurricanes, but every time I have ventured forth to cross, I have found it too tedious to continue. There is nothing to…” He held back the word destroy. “Nothing amusing.”

She regarded him steadily for a long moment, then sighed. “I feel like I’m interrogating you. And we’re still just…” She sat up straighter. “Can you look like you again? Real you. Here, in the light.”

Rai nodded and released his glamour, then removed the shirt again and unfurled his wings from faerie.

Poppy breathed deeply, surveying him from head to toe.

Rai remained as still as he could under her regard, though he could not keep his wings from crackling with awareness.

He had not been prepared for the feel of her hands on them earlier, the way she had in all innocence taken liberties he had never allowed another.

She could not know what it meant that he trusted her so, nor that her touch had set loose a torrent of overwhelming passion within him.

That he had swelled with love so fierce that it felt like despair.

That was a secret he would still hold close, he’d decided.

In his research into human romance, he had learned that a confession of love was something one must time carefully to ensure a pleasant reception, preferably choosing a moment when bells were ringing or fireworks exploding or they had gone tumbling together down a steep yet conveniently soft and grassy hill.

Which, he had already determined, was not a wise thing to do in this land of sharp cacti and sharper rocks.

And he could not very well fly her miles and miles away to find a grassy hill, could he?

No, he would wait. The right time would come for that confession.

This was not that time.

“You’re right,” she said at last. “ Purple is not the right word. I’m not sure lilac is either, though.” She stood then, slowly, and approached him. She hunkered down to sit beside him on the cushions. Not cuddling up, but not recoiling either. “May I?”