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He interrupted her with a hard kiss on the mouth, ground his cock against her hot center. “I forgive you. You may remove these from me, as well. Any time you wish.”

“Holy fuck .” She undulated against him, shoved the silk down over his hips, slipped a hand between them to caress his length. “I wasn’t apologizing. I was just saying . These pants were all tangled in your big pile o’ gold so I—”

“I do not care,” he said, maddened by her touch, yet finding clarity in it as well, peace in pure sensation.

“You tended me in my pain…and you wept for me…and you yearned for me, as I have yearned for you. And I love you. Now…” He caught her clever hand, brought it to his mouth, kissed each hard knuckle and the warm hollow of her palm. “Let me love you.”

She smiled, her eyes shining. “Well, when you put it like that…”

He would have to be gentle with her, of necessity and inclination.

She was wounded, and he was weak, and their love was tender, still healing from the blaze of the sun and their disparate passions.

But ah, she was sweet. She opened to him like the flower of her name, fragile yet enduring, fragrant and persistent, and he came to her as the storm.

She sighed when he whispered that into her throat. “God, you’re such a poet.”

“I am not a poet,” he said between kisses. “I am a salesman.”

“Mmm.” She stroked her hands along his back, tracing circles on his shoulder blades. “What are you selling? ”

“I do not know,” he growled, arching back into her tantalizing touch. “I must…not find customers for my products but…products for my customers.” Somebody had said that, but he could not remember the name, nor care, not when Poppy’s hands were on him.

“Well whatever it is, I’m buying.” Poppy skimmed her hands around his ribcage to his chest, her thumbs brushing his flat nipples. “Wings.”

“I do not think I can sell wings,” he gasped, bending down to nibble at the sweet spiral of her ear. “They are…not removable. Not without—”

“No. I want your wings.” She hitched her uninjured foot around his waist, wiggling her toes against his skin.

“But not removed. On your back where they belong. I want you and your wings, all of you, right now.” She twisted to meet his mouth, her tongue sliding deliciously against his.

“ Wing me ,” she growled huskily, eyes dark and hungry, and he laughed and set his wings free, gasping at the powerful ache of their release.

She petted him tenderly, stroking his shoulders as he shuddered and then sliding her hands over and around to caress the sensitive ribs and membranes.

Tears were in her eyes again, and she let out a soft sob.

“Hush,” he whispered, touching his forehead to hers. “Do not weep.”

“I can’t help it.” She sniffled and smiled at him, wide and joyful. “The last time I touched them they were… You were dying.” She stroked a lock of hair back from his cheek. “And I never got to tell you. That was my biggest regret. That you might die without hearing me say I love you.”

“I knew,” he said, leaning into her caress. “I saw your painting, your glorious painting, and I knew. I did not need the words. If I had died, I would have died with that knowledge in my heart.”

“But you would still have been dead.” She tunneled her fingers into his hair, caught it in her fist. “You didn’t even move. For weeks. You were dying. ”

“And now I am not.” He placed a kiss between her breasts, just where the V of her T-shirt revealed their swell. “Now I am living. We are living.”

She sobbed again and drew him down to her embrace, and ah, everything was right. Everything. Her scent and her feel, the taste of her yielding flesh, the pink that spread across her cheeks like the sunrise, the sweet sound of her cries of pleasure as he caressed her.

He worshiped her as the precious treasure she was, gently removing her clothing piece by piece with care for her cast. He found the barest faded remnants of bruises and scrapes on her skin and favored each with a kiss, lost himself in the fragrance of her breasts, spent a blissful eternity sipping the sweet honey from her cunt as she moaned and cursed and tangled her fingers in his hair.

When she was limp and sighing and replete, he crawled back up the length of her body like a jaguar and buried himself in her wet heat, rocking in harmony with her as the waves of the ocean, tears coming to his own eyes at the majesty of their union, until his release finally came and he spilled his essence inside her.

He cried out her name and tumbled into her welcoming embrace, knowing she would catch him as he fell.

They lay there in her bed long, cuddling and caressing, murmuring tender words, naughty words, teasing words, even a few French words, but eventually Poppy sighed, studying his face. “You’re starting to look dry again. Back to your tub, mister.”

Rai tucked his wings away with a bit of regret. He was not yet strong enough to fly. But he would be. He would start his training again the next day. “You will join me?”

She craned her neck, peering toward the hall. “Well, we left my crutches in there, so I’m kinda stuck here.”

“I will carry you,” he avowed, and did so, though Poppy insisted they put on at least token clothing first and bring their cell phones, which had been charging side by side on her end table.

“Mom’s going to want to come see you, once I tell her we’re decent again. And we can make plans for where to go next.”

He settled them back in his tub, turning on some warm water for Poppy’s comfort. She curled sideways on his lap, her legs draped over the side of the tub, and typed her text. Her smile was contented, and Rai watched her fondly, caressing her hair.

“I must contact my mother, as well,” he said when Poppy had finished and set her phone aside. “She will have many sharp words for my almost dying.”

Poppy giggled and cuddled closer. “I guess I should meet her, huh?”

“Yes, and my father. They will be most pleased.”

“Will they?” Poppy’s smile faded slightly. “You said they’re, um, important in faerie. They’re not going to be upset about me being…” She vaguely gestured to indicate herself.

“Do not worry. Their gratitude will be fathoms deep, knowing that I have found a love as grand as theirs. And they are most friendly toward humans. There are many who live on the shores of their home, and they have taught all their allies and vassals to live in harmony with human boats and beaches. Mostly.” His own words sparked a memory.

“Did you not say your mother wished to visit Chicago? ”

Poppy nodded, rubbing her cheek against his chest. “She had friends in the suburbs she wanted to visit, and it’s been years since either of us has been to the museums. Though there’s going to be snow.

So maybe we should do Chicago in the summer?

You will not want to be in Tucson at the beginning of June. ”

Rai slanted her an amused glance. “I do not mind the snow. It obeys me as the clouds and the rain.”

“Yeah, but it’s cold.”

“It is wet,” Rai countered.

“But it’s cold! ” Poppy heaved a dramatic sigh. “Why are you all gung-ho about Chicago all of a sudden?”

“I have remembered,” Rai said, grinning. “It is close to the home of my parents. And I desire greatly for them to meet you.”

“Do they live in a hot tub? Because I could be convinced.”

He shook his head. “I will show you.” He reached for his phone, opening his navigational map and searching for Chicago, then adjusting the zoom to show his parents’ domain. “There. You can see they are quite close.”

Poppy glanced at his phone, frowned, and looked closer. “Where? You’re zoomed way out. I can’t—”

“It is right here.” Rai ghosted his finger around the perimeter. “This is the lake they govern.”

Poppy stared at him for a long moment, mouth agape, before shutting it with a snap. “Your parents rule over Lake Michigan ?”

Rai shook his head. “They do not rule it.”

“Oh, thank god.” Poppy relaxed. “So what part of—”

“They are merely the most important household of the lake,” Rai explained.

“My mother is a great matriarch, and my father much respected for his age and his wisdom. All the fae of the lake come to them for guidance, or to have their petty squabbles resolved. Yet there are other lakes in the vicinity that are as large or greater. So they are not so very important. Not nearly as lofty as the fae of the ocean.” He wrinkled his nose in irritation thinking of the salt-water fae he had encountered.

Though he had come to appreciate a well-crafted plan…

Poppy’s eyes were still wide with shock. “Well, fuck ,” she muttered. “I’d pegged you as a rich boy from the start—”

“I am no boy,” he growled, though playfully. He knew she knew.

“—and there was the big-ass pile of gold—”

Rai shrugged. “I suppose there is much of it. I have often done services for fae communities in my travels, and they rewarded me. I have had little use of it before now.”

“Oh, god, stop .” Poppy covered his mouth with her hand, though she was laughing. “I’m just trying to deal with the fact that you’re an actual fucking prince .”

Rai took her hand in his, kissed it. “We do not have such titles,” he said. “I wear no crown, and I command no servants. I am merely a man.”

“A man whose parents rule—sorry, are very important residents of —Lake Michigan.”

Rai studied Poppy’s face cautiously. “Does this change your love? That my parents are thus?”

She deflated, collapsing into his chest. “No,” she admitted.

“I still love you.” She laughed then, sounding giddy.

“And hey, I just took on a massive fire-breathing dragon of a publishing empire and came out of it smelling like a rose. So I guess that makes me kind of a knight. Why not marry a prince?”

“As long as the prince is me,” Rai said fiercely, holding her tight and inhaling the perfect scent of her hair. It was not at all like roses, but that must be another metaphor. He would Google it later.

“Oh, it’s you. It will always be you.” Poppy tilted her head up for a sweet kiss. “I can’t believe I met you on a day when literally everything had gone wrong, and now everything is just…so right.”

“You must believe it,” Rai murmured. “It is true.”

“Well,” Poppy said with a nod, “a very wise man once said, ‘If you believe in yourself, and with a tiiiny pinch of magic, all your dreams can come true.’”

Rai frowned. “I have not heard that one. Was it Tony Robbins? Bruce Lee? The great Buffy herself?”

“Spongebob Squarepants.” Poppy giggled. “Guess I know what we’re marathoning next. You’ll have so much to complain about, starting with the pineapple under the sea.”

“There are no pineapples—” Rai broke off at Poppy’s wry glance. “I look forward to learning of this Spongebob’s great wisdom,” he amended, though he could not keep from sulking a bit.

Poppy gazed at him for a long moment, then picked up her phone and started to type.

“What is wrong? ”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said. “I’m just telling Mom to wait another hour or two before coming to visit.” She tossed her phone onto the bathmat and kissed Rai deeply, sinking her hands into his hair, until he felt he was drowning in her.

It was glorious.

“Sorry,” she said when she came up for air. “There’s clearly something wrong with me, because you’re just crazy hot when you’re all pouty. You get the cheekbones and the lip going, and I just…” She rained more kisses on his face. “I missed you so much. ”

Rai gladly filled his hands with her breasts. “As did I. I trained for three entire weeks . I pouted much in that eternity. Your desire would have been great had you seen me in my despair.”

Poppy tossed her head back, yanking her T-shirt up and out from beneath his hands, arching her warm skin into his caresses.

“Three weeks? I had six weeks of being miserable without you,” she gasped.

“With the yearning and the you-almost-dying and all. At least you got to be unconscious for some of it.”

“But I am less patient than you,” Rai countered, the tempest rising within him. “Three weeks was as three centuries to me.” He bent to taste her salt-sweet nipples, wringing musical cries from her throat.

“Okay,” she panted, clutching at his head.

“It’s a draw. We were both equally miserable.

The point is, we have so much lost time to make up for.

” She hitched up and shoved at his silken trousers.

“Here or my room? You haven’t been soaking that long, but I’m really not supposed to get my cast wet.

” She cupped his manhood and began to stroke, shifting to awkwardly straddle him, her right knee in the tub beside his hip, her other leg still draped over the tub’s edge.

“The water obeys me,” Rai managed to say as he rose to meet her. “And I am yours to command. It shall be as you desire.”

“Here,” she growled. “ Now .”

“As you wish,” he avowed, dedicating himself to her pleasure, knowing no more words were needed.

He knew she would get the subtext right.