Velvet Haven

panties. He could smell the perfume of her core. With her other hand she raised her top, revealing a perfect breast, the nipple hard. She tugged, rolling it between her thumb and forefinger in time to her hand, which was hidden beneath white cotton.
    She purred— his name —and he stilled, wishing he could shift into a man and awaken her as he wanted, with his cock stroking in and out of her slick cunt.
    Giving in to temptation, he stroked the tip of her beaded nipple with his wing. She moaned, pressed upward for more. He traced her shape, the sides of her breasts, then beneath, before circling her nipple and watching as she bit her lip and sunk her hand deeper beneath the waist of her underwear.
    He teased her nipple with his wing, liking the image of his black feathers against her pure, pale flesh. He usually went for mortals who resembled Sidhe women. Tall, toned, small-breasted. But Mairi’s curves and her generous breasts captivated him. He couldn’t stop looking or touching, or envisioning those breasts cradling his cock.
    Teasing her with brushing strokes of his feathers, he watched her writhe and felt her desire coalesce into energy, which his sigils absorbed. The power slowly ebbed into his veins, heating his blood. Yet he hadn’t touched her to make magic, but only for the sake of feeling her against him.
    The scent of mutual desire coated the air and he inhaled it, bringing the scent deep into his lungs. Eyes shut, he concentrated on the sound of her breathing—rapid, harsh, nearing orgasm. Surrounding him was that alluring caress, the one that strengthened him, yet weakened him simultaneously.
    Suddenly he was back in Nemed, his sacred grove. The image of his death vision rushed back, pulling him in. He felt his heart stop, his breath cease, and then there was complete and utter blackness . . .
    “Mmmm,” Mairi purred, feeling her dream lover’s chin against her cheek. His jaw was covered in scruff, abrading her throat as his lips kissed a path down her neck. Beneath her hands the thick muscles of his shoulders rolled and bunched. His hair, long and black, slid over her breasts, rubbing against her nipples. His breathing was hard, just like the cock that brushed against her sex.
    “Let me in,” he commanded, nipping her earlobe.
    “Not yet,” she moaned, smiling at the sound of torment that ripped from his throat. God, she loved this, the power she had over him, the control to keep him at bay as he pleasured her. His big hand slid down between their sweat- slicked bodies, brushing her belly before sliding down the soft rise to the slick folds of her pussy.
    She was wet, drenched with liquid desire. He tasted it on his fingers as he pushed against her with his erection.
    His hand dropped to her thigh, his fingers squeezing as he spread her. “Fuck me,” he commanded.
    “No.”
    She pushed him back so that he kneeled before her, his cock thick and full. He reached for it, stroking it, making it grow until Mairi looked away, gathering her control. She wanted to cradle him in her hand, feel the fierce strength in him, bring her mouth to him and shatter his willpower. Yet she refused to give in to her body’s needs.
    She didn’t understand it, why she felt this need to keep him at arm’s length. But it was there, a feeling that she must do this. For her own good. For her protection.
    Slowly she looked him up and down, from the muscled thighs to the chiseled abdomen, which quivered with pent-up need. Up farther to the bounding pulse in his thick neck, to lips that still glistened with the slickness of her sex. And then she met his eyes, one pewter, one gold, and stilled, frozen in a dream she had experienced so many times yet now was so very different.
    Bran?
    She was asleep, she knew that, dreaming of the man who had come to her these past weeks. Yet she had never seen his face, till now.
    “Mairi?”

    He was in his male form, kneeling, naked on his bed, his cock in his hand, pumping up and down. He was not dead, but alive and in Mairi’s dream. She was lying on the bed, the sheets rumpled in a mound beneath her as she balanced her upper body on her elbows. Her long dark hair was draped back over her shoulders, leaving her fully open to his gaze.
    With hungry eyes he devoured her lush form, which was illuminated against the white sheets. He reached for her ankle and turned it so that her thigh opened, showing him her core. She had pubic hair, and he stroked his fingers through the wet