Page 48 of Through the Veil (Endangered Fae #2)

“Don’t fret so. Naught but a—” Finn tried to fend his hands off when Diego undid his fly. “Please…it’s not so terrible.”

Diego hissed through his teeth when he peeled Finn’s pants down to his knees. Charred skin covered him from waist to mid-thigh on his left side, the black punctuated with lines of red where the burn cracked and bled. “That looks bad. God, what happened?”

“I mentioned, I think…” Finn swayed. Diego caught him and pulled him down onto his lap.

“Mentioned that falsehoods make dragons angry? Hssetassk asked me why I rubbed at my right wrist so often. I tried to concoct some story, not wanting to tell him the truth. It was a small lick of flame. He apologized. But dragon burns heal so slowly.”

“All right.” Diego stroked his hair, trying to calm him . I should call for Faolchú to open the damn door and take him to the healers. But it felt so good to hold Finn, to have his water-rush and spice scent fill his head, that he couldn’t bring himself to get up.

He slipped a hand under Finn’s hair to the back of his neck where the skin was on fire, his other hand hovering over the burn.

With the magic flowing through his fingertips, he concentrated on cooling, soothing images, dark forest pools and chuckling streams, willing Finn’s body temperature down.

A strange tingling ran through his fingers, not unpleasant but as if an army of tiny sunbeams raced through him.

Finn moaned and rested his head on Diego’s shoulder. After a moment, he twisted to look at his hip. “My hero…when did you learn how to heal?”

“I haven’t—” Something in Finn’s voice pulled Diego’s gaze down. The charred skin had closed over, the black faded to the angry red of a sunburn. “I guess…just now.” He put a finger under Finn’s chin to turn his head back around. “Feel better?”

“Yes,” Finn breathed out in a husky murmur. “And no. Are you still angry with me?”

“Of course I’m still angry with you. You put me through hell, and though I’m willing to forgive you. I can’t just forget all those god-awful days without you.”

“Your pardon, my heart, I’m—”

Diego put a finger over his lips. “Sorry. Yes, I know. Do you think you can promise me you won’t do anything like that again? If you have something to do, you tell me. If I call for you, you don’t block everything out so you can’t hear me. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes.” Finn’s lips closed over his fingertip for a soft kiss. “I promise.”

“Good. Now I have another promise I want from you.”

“Ah.” Finn sighed. “Is it some sort of penance?”

“Some might see it that way.” Diego reached inside his shirt to pull out the agate ring on its chain.

He went on as he worked it free. “I wanted to do this some time ago. I don’t know, maybe you would’ve felt more confident if I had, more sure of yourself and us, so in a lot of ways, I’ve blamed myself for all this. ”

He took Finn’s left hand and slipped the ring onto his finger. “I love you, more than life, more than breath. I want to be with you always, to have you by my side, to wake up to you, to go to sleep with you. You and no other, my Fionnachd, mi vida .”

“Diego…” Finn whispered. “It’s beautiful, but I don’t think I understand.”

“I’m asking you to marry me. To be my husband, mine for all the world to see.”

Tears swam in Finn’s eyes and this time Diego didn’t berate him when a few fell. “What do I say? Is there an accepted form of response?”

“Yes or no usually works.”

Finn wiped at his face and managed a smile. “Yes, then. A thousand times over if you need it.”

Warmth spread through Diego, the frozen iron bands falling from his heart. He gave Finn a smile and slid his hand to the back of Finn’s neck. “Once is good.”

He pulled Finn’s head down, a heated spark leaping between them as their lips met. What he had meant as a tender thank-you caught fire, his mouth besieging Finn’s, his tongue demanding entrance. Finn surrendered with a soft whimper, melting against him.

“ Carino, I’ve missed you so,” Diego whispered against those soft lips.

He placed tender, sucking kisses along Finn’s jaw while his fingers made short work of the buttons on his black shirt.

There was something incredibly vulnerable and sexy about that lean, gorgeous body dressed in nothing but the pants around his knees.

Finn’s head fell back on a hard groan when Diego swept his fingers lower to stroke the inside of his thigh. “I’ve missed you, too, my light, my heart. Please—” Finn gasped when Diego ran a finger up the underside of his erection. “Oh, please…I need you so badly I might go mad.”

Diego patted his thigh. “Up. Turn around.”

Oh, that beautiful, muscular butt…

He made Finn wait while he stripped out of his own clothes and folded them neatly on the chair. With a tender, reverent touch, he traced along Finn’s shoulder, down his spine and over the globes of that perfect backside. Finn shivered, obviously keyed up and more than ready.

“Bend over the table,” Diego murmured, his hand still stroking Finn’s ass.

His knees turned to water when Finn bent at the waist and laid his top half flat on the table amidst the dishes.

The erotic sight of those gorgeous globes offered up to him so readily sent firefly sparks of need zipping through him.

Diego reached over and snagged the bottle of salad oil from the center of the table, fascinated by the golden stream on Finn’s pale skin as he drizzled a generous amount down Finn’s crease.

Finn squirmed, rubbing his cock against the rough linen of the tablecloth. “Take me love, please.”

“No need to rush,” Diego said with a little smile. “Faolchú gave us two hours.”

He spread Finn’s cheeks and teased at the puckered entrance with the pad of his thumb.

Slowly, wanting to prolong Finn’s pleasure, he slid the tip inside, only to withdraw it right away.

He repeated this until Finn squirmed and begged breathlessly for more.

Finally, he sank two fingers into that tight sheath, and a hard shot of desire slammed through his groin.

While he stroked that sweetest of spots inside Finn, he slicked olive oil over his shaft, hypersensitive after his long months of celibacy.

Finn tensed when he withdrew his fingers.

“Shh, relax, querido .” Diego kneaded the muscles along Finn’s spine while he positioned himself.

He bit his lower lip, fighting the urge to plunge inside and hammer away.

Instead, he eased just the head inside on a harsh, tortured groan. God, oh, God, it’s almost too much…

He stopped and held still, only his hand moving gently along Finn’s back.

“My heart? I love you with every fiber of my being, but you’re driving me stark raving mad,” Finn said in a strangled voice. He whimpered when Diego pushed inside just a hair further. “Please, Diego, take me. Now. Please.”

“Soon, soon.” Diego pulled out a fraction to prolong the delicious torture. “What will you do, mi amor , the next time you feel uncertain or less than you should?”

“What? Love, this isn’t the time for questions! Fuck me!” Finn’s hips lifted in a desperate attempt to push him inside.

Diego pulled out almost to the point of withdrawal. “What will you do?”

“Oh…sweet Mother…come talk to you? I’ll come to you.” Finn’s hands fisted in the tablecloth, his body trembled.

“Yes. Right. You promise me? No more disappearing, no more running off without a word?”

Finn made a sound half-groan, half-sob. “Yes, yes, I promise! Wrack and storm, love, I’m yours, yours alone! Whatever you wish, it’s yours!”

“Good.” Diego thrust hard, burying himself halfway.

“Mine,” he said in a fierce whisper as he withdrew and plunged in again.

Buried to the hilt, the silk of Finn’s sac rubbing against his, Diego slid his hands under Finn’s shoulders and kissed his neck.

“Mine,” he murmured more tenderly. “As I am yours.”

He set an unhurried pace at first, reveling in the feel of Finn lying under him, wrapped around him.

Enveloped in Finn, the scent of his arousal, the heat of his tight sheath, the heavenly touch of skin against skin, Diego wanted the gradual thrust and retreat to last forever, this delicious, tender assault.

The self-enforced celibacy had taken its toll on them both, though, and the slow pace soon had Finn writhing and bucking.

Finn’s wild desperation overturned glasses and rattled plates. Diego had no choice but to ride along with him. He wrapped his arms around Finn and held him close, nuzzling at his shoulder. A sudden desperate urge of his own hit him.

“ Caro , wait…stop, please.”

“Water goddesses help me, what now?” Finn whimpered, though he did his best to still.

“Turn over, mi amor . I need your arms around me.”

“Ah. For that, I’ll gladly halt a moment.

” Flexible to a contortionist extent, Finn pulled a leg up onto the table and turned slowly in Diego’s arms, never losing the connection between them as he rolled to his back.

He wrapped his long legs around Diego’s ribs and his arms around his shoulders. “Better, love?”

“Much, thank you,” Diego whispered as he stroked Finn’s hair. “I’m still mad at you, but I’m so damn glad you’re home.”

“I will wait on you hand and foot, my heart, cater to your every need.” Finn lifted his head to steal a soft, lingering kiss. “Until you feel reparations have been made, until you feel whole again. I love you so. If I had come back and you had chosen another, I think I might have died on the spot.”

“Would’ve served you right.” Diego nipped at Finn’s jaw. “But I love you, too. Only you.”

Diego picked up his rhythm again, impaling Finn in long, sure thrusts which increased in force and speed as Finn moaned and arched beneath him.

He clenched tight on the muscles of his core until Finn’s face contorted in ecstasy.

Diego gasped as his balls drew up tight in a sudden rush.

His bellow echoed off the walls of the dining room as he came in cannon-fire pulses.

Finn’s cries of pleasure joined his. Diego’s cock squeezed tight as the walls of Finn’s back channel contracted through his orgasm.

Panting, his vision dark around the edges, Diego collapsed atop Finn, riding the aftershocks down.

“Oh, damn, I needed that,” he muttered against Finn’s shoulder.

He received a contented sigh for an answer.

When Faolchú poked his head in a little while later, Finn sat snuggled in Diego’s lap again, both of them still stark naked. Diego fed him bits of chicken and potato from his own plate.

Diego glanced up. “Sorry, we made a bit of a mess.”

“Easily remedied.” Faolchú sniffed at the air. “Everything settled, then?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Faolchú’s teeth showed in a wolf-grin. “There, you see? I knew it would work. Perhaps I should act as an ambassador, as well.”

“I think we’ll save your diplomacy for last-ditch efforts,” Diego said with a wry chuckle. “Everything’s fine. My Finn is home. Better than fine.”

“What do you mean?”

Finn held up the hand with the ring. “Diego has asked me to be his husband. Because I am not quite the fool people think me, I have agreed.”

“You—” Faolchú’s husky-blue eyes widened, then he turned to shout down the hallway. “Nathair? Don’t go down to bed just yet, love. Seems we have a wedding to plan.”