Rhapsodic (The Bargainer Book 1)

I blink several times once Des finishes speaking. “That was—”

“My land’s version of a vow.” He still hasn’t dropped his hands from where they cradle my face. “I’ve wanted to say those words to you for years.” He leans his forehead against mine. “Humans aren’t the only ones with archaic lovers’ vows.”

And then Des kisses me.

A kiss to end all kisses. Love is another sort of subtle magic. It can bring people together and tear lives apart. It can wash away sorrow, it can forgive.

It can redeem.

Des’s wings wrap around us until we’re in our own little world. “Truth or dare?” he whispers.

“Truth,” I say.

“Do you love me?” he asks. I swear once he asks, he holds his breath. But maybe I’m imagining things.

“I’ve never stopped.”

For a moment, he closes his eyes, taking in my admission. When he opens them again, they’re full of so many emotions, and I know what happens next.

His hand drifts up from my chest and cradles my neck. He gazes at me like I’m some archaic deity he worships.

“Desmond.”

His eyes move to my lips, and ever so slowly, he lowers his head. I meet him halfway, our mouths colliding. Both his hands move to either side of my face, tangling in my hair.

I don’t try to stop the siren from taking the lead as soon as I give in. My skin glows brighter, and I wrap my arms around him, pulling him in close.

He breaks away, trailing kisses along the underside of my jaw, my neck, the juncture between my collarbones.

I make a small noise at the back of my throat, and I feel his smile along my skin. His hair tickles my flesh where it touches me, and the Bargainer’s lips … they’re moving lower, towards the valley between my breasts.

We’re not stopping with just kisses. Not tonight.

His breath fans out along my skin, and I arch into him. He pulls away long enough to remove my shirt, then my bra. Tossing the garments aside, he spends several seconds gazing at my exposed torso. The look in his eyes is hungry.

He’s never seen me naked before—and I’ve never seen him naked before, for that matter. The realization is shocking, considering all we’ve done.

Reaching behind his back, Des shrugs his own shirt off, and I marvel at his sculpted pecs, his toned arms, his rock hard stomach. I skim my fingers over each of his abs, for the first time ever feeling like I have a right to touch him. He looks carved from marble, his skin taut over thick ropes of muscle. Not bulky like Eli is, but every bit as chiseled.

Soulmates.

He is mine, and I am his.

I’m almost dizzy with joy. Have I ever been this happy in my entire life?

The Bargainer scoops me up and carries me down the hall and into his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind us.

He lays me out on his bed, then lowers himself over me, his narrow hips nestled between my thighs. Even just that contact has me moving against him, impatient for more.

But unlike me, Des seems to have limitless patience, his gaze moving to my bare chest. His hand cups my breast, his thumb moving in circles around my nipple until it hardens. He bends down to it, his lips replacing his fingers. His tongue moves over it, and I arch into him.

Jesus, he’s going to make me come before we’re even fully undressed.

My hands move over the muscles of his back, my fingers clutching him close.

His mouth trails down my stomach, his hands sliding down either side of me. The Bargainer glances at me through his lashes when he hits the waistband of my jeans.

“Take them off,” I breathe.

He doesn’t do anything for a second, and I get the impression he’s savoring this moment. Then he moves back up and kisses me. While he does this, I feel the brush of his magic. A moment later, my pants unzip themselves and slide off.

I can’t help it, I break off the kiss to laugh.

The man himself grins down at me, but the humor in his expression fades into something far more wicked.

His face is inches from mine, his hair hanging down around his face.

“My mate,” I say wondrously.

“Your mate,” he repeats.

Even this is almost too much. My heart and my body can’t take so many good sensations all at once. I feel like I’m going to come apart, and when I finally put myself back together again, I won’t be the same Callie I once was.

I feel the breath of his magic again, and this time it’s his pants that slide off. I only have a couple seconds to appreciate his black boxer briefs before they drag themselves off as well.

I’ve imagined this so many times, yet my mind has never done him justice. Every curve of muscle that wraps around his thighs, the defined V that points to his very large cock, the way his waist tapers in and fluidly transitions to his narrow hips and sculpted ass—it’s better than anything my mind could conjure.

He lets me drink him in for a moment, and then he drapes himself back over me, his erection pressed firmly against my leg.

I’m glowing as brightly as I ever do. Normally I have to withhold some of my powers when I make love, otherwise my glamour can turn innocent words into commands that control my partner—and I like my sex consensual, thanks.

But with the Bargainer, I don’t have to worry about that; he can’t fall under my spell the way other men can. The sensation of being myself fully and completely—something I’ve never felt with anyone else—is liberating.

His hand touches my lacy panties. “These have to go.” The second the words are spoken, I feel an invisible hand tugging them off of me.

There’s no longer anything funny about the magic. Not when the Bargainer—Desmond—is staring at me with a promise in his eyes.

He kisses my lips, softly, gently, then positions himself. I can feel him at my entrance.

He pulls away from my lips, his eyes moving over my face. Again, I get the impression he’s memorizing the moment. As he watches, he pushes into me.

My pelvis rises to meet his, and inch by inch, he slides inside me. My lips part in silence surprise, our eyes locked together. All those years of waiting, of hoping, of despairing, it all led to this moment.

Perfection.

A shiver racks his body when he’s fully seated in me. “Want to stay here … forever.”

My throat works as my hands move over his shoulders, then slip around his back. I want him to stay right here too, the two of us wrapped up in each other.

He slides almost all the way out before thrusting into me hard. I moan at the sensation, the sound unearthly.

The smile he flashes me is pure sin. “I like making my sweet siren moan.”

He moves in and out of me, his strokes powerful.

God, he’s staggering to look at. His brows are stitched together, his lips parted, and with each thrust his abs flex. The sight of him doing this to me is itself nearly enough to get me off.

He lowers himself, his slick chest meeting mine, and his hands comb the hair away from my face.

He pulls me even closer, his cheeks brushing mine. His pace slow and tender.

Making love. That’s what this is. He’s being gentle, romancing me even after he’s received my love and found himself between my legs.

This is how it might always be.

Nights like this that stretch on and on into the future. My heart hurts at the possibility. True love—it always seemed just beyond my reach. I only ever believed in it because I had acutely felt its absence all those years we spent apart.

For so long I thought something was wrong with me emotionally. That I couldn’t love fully, that I couldn’t be myself. That I was weak. Here in this man’s arms, I realize for the first time in a long time that I’m not broken. Not even close.

I’m his mate.

He’s mine.

My hands slide up his corded back, then run along his arms, drinking in each one of his sculpted muscles.

The Bargainer bends down and nips at my breast, and suddenly I’m right there on the edge of an orgasm that’s been building long before Des even entered me.

As if he can sense how close I am, Desmond deepens each thrust, his eyes riveted to me. He dips down and kisses me roughly.

“I like this look on you, cherub,” he says. “And knowing I’m responsible for it.”

My arms tighten around him, pulling him closer as my eyes close and my mouth parts.

“Don’t you dare close your eyes,” he says. “I want to see everything I do to you.”

A burst of magic courses through me, forcing my eyes open.

“Desmond,” is all I have time to say before my orgasm rips through me.

I cry out, the sound its own sort of melody. My skin shimmers, its glow reflected in Desmond’s eyes.

The Bargainer’s thrusts become faster until his body stills. And then, with a groan, an orgasm racks his body, forcing him into me harder and deeper than before.

As soon as he finishes, he rolls next to me and gathers me into his arms. He holds me tightly to him, like he can’t bear even an inch of our skin apart. His skin is still slick with sweat, and mine is slowly dimming as the last remnants of my orgasm are replaced by a satiated exhaustion. He smells like me, and I smell like him.

He looks at me, wearing a wondrous expression. His eyes are happy, so unbearably happy.

“My siren,” he says. “My mate. The years I’ve waited for you.”

I can’t stop the grin that spreads along my face lying in the Bargainer’s arms. For the first time in my life my world has felt unequivocally right.

One of Des’s fingers traces my lips, his gaze transfixed on me.

“Why didn’t you say anything that first day you came back to me?” I ask curiously. That could’ve saved us so much angst.

He huffs out a laugh. “If only, cherub. I wanted to, but you hadn’t seen me in seven years, were currently in a relationship, and pretty much wanted to flay my ass alive. My options were limited.”

I smile a little at that.

He pulls me closer. “Ah, I would give my kingdom for that smile alone.”

I could bathe in Des’s words. Words that normally taunt and tease and coax. Words that have seduced me over and over again. Tonight they’re the sweetest serenade.

I run my fingers over his sleeve of tattoos. “What do all these mean?” There’s a rose melting into tears. There are angels and smoke and scales that morph into an eye. All of it twists and turns down his shoulder and arm. It’s beautiful and macabre.

Des strokes my hair, his eyes still full of uncharacteristic softness. It’s a strange look on the normally terrifying Bargainer. It’s a look I never want to leave his face.

He hesitates before answering. “I got them when I was a part of the Angels of Small Death,” he finally says. “A brotherhood of sorts.”

That has me craning my neck to peer at him. “You were in a gang?” I ask, putting together what he isn’t saying.

He smiles wryly. “Semantics. We policed the streets when the Kingdom of Night was … under different leadership.” He glances down at his sleeve, a frown forming. “It was a long time ago.”

He really was a thug before he was ever a king. I don’t know what exactly to make of it, except it seems somewhat fitting.

Fitting and petrifying.

“I thought you were a king,” I say.

“I am a king.”

“I thought you were always a king,” I clarify.

“Disappointed?” he asks. His body stiffens, on edge.

I never realized just how much my words affect him.

I trace the lines of the weeping rose. “Not at all.” I like the idea that this man didn’t grow up in a castle. “I don’t think I could’ve dealt with an entitled Desmond Flynn.”

A blatant lie. I would’ve taken Des just about any way he came—I had taken Des without fully understanding his past.

But to know that he ruled the streets in the Otherworld like he ruled the streets here … It makes me appreciate who he is all the more. There’s undoubtedly a sad story behind his past. Just like mine.

I hug him closer. “Tell me another secret,” I say.

I can hear the smile in his voice when he speaks. “The night I first met you, I couldn’t get you out of my head …”

I fall off to sleep to a soundtrack of the Bargainer’s most intimate secrets.

In the early hours of morning, Des wakes me up. Rolling over me, he begins kissing me, his lips demanding.

I feel him hard against me, ready to go.

I moan a little, the siren in me already waking up. “Again?” I say, opening my arms to him even as I speak. “Aren’t you even a little tired?”

I already throb from the two previous times tonight that he’s woken me up. But in spite of myself, I smile like a cat that’s licked up all the cream, utterly pleased.

Des lets out a husky laugh. “Cherub, there are benefits to being the Night King’s mate.”

My skin begins to glow all over again. Normally, my siren is left wanting. Always wanting. But the King of Night knows exactly how to satisfy her.

How to satisfy me.

I move against him as his lips skim over my skin.

“Can’t get close enough to you, love,” he murmurs. “You leave me wanting, even when I’m buried inside you.”

I know the feeling. Already there’s this urgency that buzzes along my skin, to touch him, to taste him, to breathe him into me and never let him go.

And under all that is pure unadulterated awe.

Des loves me. Des spent seven years trying to get back to me.

Des has no idea what it means to be my mate.

I push him onto his back. His arms lock around my waist, and I end up straddled on top of him, my hair cascading down my back.

He reaches out and takes a handful of it, staring at it like he’s never seen hair before.

I lean forward, my hands running over his chest and down his arms. “Sweet little fairy,” I purr, my voice melodic.

Des raises a cocky eyebrow at that. He doesn’t even need to say anything for us both to know that sweet and little are the last things his is.

“I’m going to give you all your wickedest desires,” I whisper, the siren thick in my voice.

I begin trailing kisses down his chest, moving lower, lower. “One … at … a … time.”

He sucks in a breath when he realizes what I intend.

Lowering myself between his legs, my mouth closes around him.

His entire body tenses.

“Gods,” he curses.

His hands delve into my hair, tangling it.

I move up and down, up and down, working him with my lips and tongue, my hands moving over every pleasure point until I have him bucking against me.

His breathing hitches, becoming ragged and uneven.

He’s not going to last long. The thought makes me smile wickedly against him.

All at once, he pushes me away. When my eyes meet his, I see rampant hunger in his own.

“You do play dirty, siren,” he says, rolling me onto my stomach.

Lifting my hips up, he rubs the head of his cock over my entrance. Up and down, up and down.

Gathering my hair into a fist, he leans forward, tilting my ear towards him. “You didn’t think the King of the Night would just be gentle, did you?” he says, his voice husky.

His hand moves between my legs.

He pinches my clit, and I let out a moan.

Des nips the shell of my ear. “Mmm, I like that sound.”

“Des …” I lean my forehead against my pillow, panting.

Suddenly he’s pushing himself into me. I can feel my inner walls giving way, making room for him.

And now I let out another moan as he fills me.

Once he’s deep inside me, he doesn’t move.

“Cherub … never could I have imagined it would feel so good …”

It’s been like this, every single time. Like the electric, restless chemistry between the two of us is finally, finally sated.

Then he does move, thrusting in and out of me with gathering force. He holds me against him, my hair still caught up in his fist. I’m trapped in his arms, arching back into him.

Our bodies begin to make wet, slick noises as we sweat. Darkness gathers around us, and my glowing skin is the only illumination in the room.

Des releases my hair all at once, only to tweak my nipples a moment later.

That’s all it takes.

My orgasm shatters through me, going on and on and on. Somewhere in the middle of it, I hear Des shout, and then he’s coming too, his cock driving in and out of me.

The two of us collapse together in a boneless heap.

From heartache to this. Life could not possibly get better.

The next morning, when I begin to wake, I stretch, my body sore in all the right places. Des’s arm tightens around my mid-section.

I’m smiling before I even open my eyes. When I do, I first catch sight of the Bargainer’s white blonde hair. I skim a hand through it, enjoying touching him, exploring him, even when he’s not awake.

His wickedly curving lips are slightly parted. Like this, he looks like an angel. He’d absolutely loathe the compliment, but it’s true. Everything about him is perfect.

When he doesn’t wake and I begin to feel like a creeper for staring at him, I slide out of his bed.

I swing by my bedroom to throw on some clothes, and then I pad over to the kitchen. The stupidest things make me smile, like the way the sunlight shines in through the windows, or the sight of yesterday’s bag of macaroons.

I brew a cup of coffee and make my way to the back of the Bargainer’s house. A grand set of French doors open to a palatial backyard. A garden full of flowering vines and exotic shrubs line it. A gurgling fountain sits right in the middle of the garden, aquatic plants growing from it.

Where the garden ends, land gives way to cliffs. Beyond the cliffs, a blue expanse of ocean spreads out for miles and miles. Today is a clear enough day that I can see the California coast.

I think back to all those days I’d sat on the edge of my property and stared out at Catalina Island. I’d never imagined that across that water Des was right here, possibly staring back …

Forced to stay away from me because I made a foolish bargain seven years ago. And yet he was always just within sight.

It’s all over now.

He’s my soulmate.

I don’t understand how it’s possible. Here on earth, supernaturals know whether or not they have soulmates, much the same way I know I’m a siren. When we’re teenagers, our powers Awaken, including mating bonds.

And nothing of the sort was Awakened in me.

But perhaps … perhaps it works differently in the Otherworld. Perhaps soulmates aren’t predestined there as they are here. Or perhaps the bond manifests differently.

All questions I need to ask Des when he wakes.

I sit down at a patio table near the edge of the property and sip my coffee.

I glance down at my bracelet. It appears unchanged from yesterday, but as I count the beads, three whole rows are missing. I don’t think Des even knowingly removed them.

His magic did.

I notice, however, that last night didn’t remove the entire bracelet. Clearly, the Bargainer’s magic doesn’t believe that one night of revelations and proclamations of love (and a shit ton of sex) is enough to seal the deal.

It seems Des’s magic is as capricious as my siren is naughty.

I close my eyes and breathe in the briny air, listening to the crash and the sea.

“Callypso Lillis, I’ve been looking for you.”

I freeze at the sound of my full name and the strange, masculine voice at my back.

I turn in my chair and squint, staring at the sun. It dims, and in its place is a man of staggering beauty. His hair looks like spun gold and his eyes are the cerulean blue of the sky.

Some sort of supernatural. Nothing but magic makes a human look like that.

A moment later my brain catches up with me.

Why is a stranger on Des’s property—in his backyard no less? And how does he know my name?

Everything about the situation feels wrong, wrong, wrong, but I’m too shocked at the moment to react.

My siren, however, isn’t.

Luminescent light ripples across my skin as she surfaces.

I stand abruptly. “How did you get back here?” I demand, my voice ethereal.

That’s all I can say. Not, Get the fuck off this property. Not, I’m going to call the cops. Not, DES!

He steps closer. “I told you, I’ve been looking for you.”

He answers my question, but I don’t think the siren compelled him to do so. He doesn’t look like a glamoured man. He’s not clamoring to get closer to me, waiting for my next command.

Which means …

Fairy.

Shit. The only other Otherworld creature I know looking for me is the Thief of Souls.

Is this … him?

He saunters forward. “You are surprisingly difficult to get alone,” he says.

I back up, bumping into the table behind me.

He’s going to grab me.

I act on instinct, grabbing my cup of coffee from the table and throwing it at him. He lifts his hand in the air, and the mug and the liquid arcing out of it freeze in midair.

He extends his hand palm out, and ever so gently the cup floats onto it, the coffee funneling back into the mug.

I open my mouth. “DE—!”

His eyes narrow on my lips, and my voice cuts off, my shout now silent.

I clutch my throat. “What have you … ?” I might as well be mouthing the words, my vocal cords are no longer producing any sound.

“Your colleague, Ms. Darling, said you were busy, but it doesn’t look like you’re busy.”

The client who’s been pestering me.

I continue backing up, my eyes darting to the house.

He smiles, and it’s like he invented the act of smiling, it’s so blindingly bright. “He’s not going to save you.”

The man disappears. A moment later his arms lock around me as he grabs me from behind.

I go hellcat on him, kicking out, my hands scratching at anything I can reach. I scream and scream, uncaring that my voice has been muted.

“Enough,” he breathes.

Magic slams into me, and the world goes dark.