Page 32 of Outside the Veil (Endangered Fae #1)

Finn straightened, eyes searching his face. Then he seized Diego by the waist and lifted him off the floor. His astounding strength had been unnerving at first. Now Diego found it arousing, a lover who could wrestle him to the floor, but in whose hands he was completely safe.

Two steps forward and a turn later, Diego found himself bent over the kitchen table.

“Stay there, my love,” Finn demanded softly with a pat to his naked backside.

Diego rolled his hips to rub his erection against the cool wood. “Yes, sir.”

The fridge door opened and closed behind him, and he yelped when something cold and slippery touched his crease. “Holy shit—what’s that?”

Finn took his time answering, letting the substance tease over his puckered entrance before he slid the pad of one long finger inside. “It’s just butter, love. Relax.”

“Butter?” Diego laughed. “Are you getting me ready or basting me?” He moaned as a second finger slid inside him.

“Perhaps a bit of both,” Finn whispered, and nipped his shoulder. “Would you mind if I took a nibble or two?”

“ Dios … Do whatever you want with me.” Diego gasped at the invasion of a third finger, all three stroking deep inside him to caress his gland. Finn often took the initiative, but there was something demanding about his current need, his sudden dominance new and exciting.

“I’m fairly certain you know what I want,” Finn murmured against his neck as he withdrew his fingers.

A moment later, Diego felt the nudge of Finn’s slick head against his entrance.

He lifted his hips in invitation, expecting the usual slow, careful approach.

He cried out when he was impaled in one hard thrust instead.

He clawed at the table, the pain only driving his desire higher.

Finn slowed, covering him, kissing his shoulder while he adjusted.

“ Carino … I’m so close already. Take me, please. Don’t wait for me.”

Finn’s growl vibrated against his back and sharp teeth fastened on his shoulder as Finn began to thrust in short, forceful strokes. Each downstroke hit unerringly on that sweet spot deep inside, and Diego squirmed with need, rubbing his cock against the oak supporting him.

“Oh, yes,” he gasped out as his balls drew up in a sudden rush.

“Oh, God, yes. Just like— Finn!” He lost the power of speech as his orgasm slammed up from his core, his cries echoing off the kitchen walls.

Finn’s joined his only a moment later, his thrusts frenzied, his sharp nails digging into Diego’s hips.

For a moment, Finn lay panting against his back. “How long before Miriam arrives?” he asked as he pulled out with greater care than he had entered.

“An hour, maybe,” Diego murmured, dazed and sated, the sticky remains of his pleasure threatening to glue him to the tabletop. “And since it’s that time of year, she may even bring presents.”

“Time of year?”

“Christmas. Yule. Solstice. Whichever you prefer for the season.”

Finn heaved himself up, and a visible shudder ran through him. “I should have a shower then, I suppose, even if it’s not as if she has never seen me just after waking, though you will most likely tell me this is not the same thing, so an hour should provide enough time, one would think—”

Diego stared after him as Finn wandered out of the kitchen, still chattering on in rapid-fire phrases. He shook his head. “I hope that wears off before she gets here.”

Unfortunately, by the time Miriam pulled up the long drive, it had only gotten worse. Finn still rambled on and on, apparently without stopping for breath, while he paced in agitated circles.

With a palm to his chest, Diego halted him. “Christ. Your heart’s going like a jackhammer.”

“It is rather rapid, I’ll grant, I can feel it throbbing in my fingertips, does this often happen? With the coffee, that is? Or is it simply a matter of—”

“Shh. Hush.” Diego gave him a soft kiss to stop the ceaseless flow of words. “No more coffee for you, querido . I liked the aphrodisiac part, but now you’re scaring me.”

They watched through the floor-to-ceiling front windows, Finn trembling in Diego’s arms, as Miriam levered her bulk out of her SUV.

Body-type labels such as ‘plus-sized’ were completely inadequate for her presence.

He often thought of her as a human tank—the original unstoppable force—and thanked the twists of fate that she had agreed, years ago, to be his agent.

More than his agent, she was his friend and his eternal champion, lending him her New Brunswick house when the city made Finn ill, and badgering him to believe in his writing when even he had given up.

“Try to calm down.” He gave Finn one last hard hug before he answered the door.

Finn sucked in deep breaths, arms wrapped around his chest, his eyes huge as saucers. “Trying, trying, trying, my hero. With all I have.”

“Anybody home?” Miriam called as she stomped up onto the porch.

Diego flung open the door with a bright smile. “Hey! Hope the drive up wasn’t too bad. Come in, please.” He laughed at himself. “Not like I should be inviting you into your own house.”

Miriam let out a little snort. “Don’t use it much except in the summer, anyway, kiddo.

” She put her bags down and caught him in a bone-crunching bear hug.

“Damn, it’s good to see you. And you, too, gorgeous.

” She turned to Finn, arms held wide. He came to embrace her, his nervous energy turning the gesture into a little impromptu waltz around the foyer before he let her go.

She laughed. “Well, that’s not a hello I get a lot of.” Hands on his arms, she held him back to look him up and down. “Little on the skinny side. Isn’t Diego feeding you? What’s the matter, pretty boy? Silver tongue not working?”

A strangled sound caught in Finn’s throat, panic in his eyes.

The flood of words exploded as if they had been held under pressure.

“Hello, Miriam, it’s so good to see you, we haven’t had a visit from you since before the leaves turned and Diego said you might stay for a day or two and he said there might be presents and I’ve so wanted to show you some of the new paintings I’ve done since then, since you were here last, that is, I think I shall, what a perfectly splendid idea—”

He broke off and dashed down the hall to the back of the house, presumably to the study that he used as his artist’s studio in bad weather.

Miriam blinked twice before she cleared her throat. “Hon, you know I love your gorgeous hunk of man, but what the hell’s wrong with him?”

Diego ran a hand back through his hair, certain that gray ones would join the black before the end of the day. “Bad coffee reaction.”

“How much did you give him? A tanker truck?”

“Closer to a cup and a half.”

“You’re shitting me.” Miriam stared at him.

“No, I’m not. He doesn’t usually drink it.

Can’t stand the smell.” Diego had never lied outright to Miriam about Finn, but he had never told her what Finn truly was.

As far as she knew, he was a gorgeous artist from Ireland whom Diego had picked up at some nightspot in New York.

The time just never seemed right to tell her Finn was a magical being who should have been confined to folklore.

He winced at the clatter from the back of the house.

“So why now?”

“He’s been having trouble staying awake this past week. Ever since the clouds rolled in—”

“Here it is!” Finn raced back in, a canvas clutched in both hands, a manic grin on his face. “Tell me what it is, dear lady, since I know some of them are difficult for hu— Ah, people to tell, but this one should be easy if you just look at—”

“Finn!” Diego shouted over him. “Take a breath.”

He drew in a deep breath, his trembling telegraphing to the canvas he held.

Miriam took a step closer to view the painting.

On a background of summer-sky blue stood an indistinct white figure, roughly the shape of a one-handled rolling pin.

Finn had experimented with white, finding to his great delight that there were myriad shades of it, and the final effect was one of a glowing nimbus surrounding the central figure.

He even signed the work with the ornate ‘F’ he had taught himself to write.

“It’s beautiful, hon. It’s an angel,” Miriam said with confidence.

Finn’s nervous laugh skittered from him.

“An angel? No, it’s not that, since I’ve never seen one to know what they look like, do they really have those absurd bulky wings sprouting from their shoulders?

I don’t think it’s bloody likely since they’d fall over backward with the damn heavy things, just too unbalanced, no, it’s Diego, the way I see him, he’s so lovely and, oh! There’s another one!”

He pressed the canvas into Diego’s hands and dashed away to the study again.

“This better wear off soon, or he’ll go into cardiac arrest,” Diego muttered.

“Maybe we should get him to a doctor.” Miriam’s expression hovered between worry and amusement.

“He won’t go. Hates doctors.”

They waited, but Finn did not return, and the sounds of rummaging from the back of the house had ceased long since. “Maybe we better check on him.”

Miriam agreed, and they made their way to the back of the house cautiously, in case Finn should come careening around a corner. They found him in his studio, curled in a ball on the rug, fast asleep.

“See?” Diego waved a hand in exasperation. “Like some weird form of seasonal narcolepsy.”

“Hmm.” Miriam rummaged in her suitcase-sized handbag. “Hardest damn caffeine crash I’ve ever seen. How hard will he be to wake up?”

“Very. You could shake him and yell at him… Miriam, what—? No, wait, don’t—”

The air horn blared before he could stop her from pressing the button. Finn jerked into a crouch, teeth bared, eyes glazed. He snarled, sniffed the air twice, crawled the few feet to Diego to put his head on his foot and went back to sleep.

“Shit. That’s not normal,” Miriam muttered.