Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes #3)(30)

Shane opens the wooden door and we are standing in a rectangular room roughly about fourteen feet by ten with a wooden board floor. The planks make a creaking sound as Shane walks on them. A large blackened stone fireplace is set into the back wall. A fire is lit, but it is low with bits of charred wood and plenty of ashes.

‘What’s up with that?’ I ask shining my torch towards a huge black cauldron hanging to one side of the fireplace.

He grins. ‘Authenticity. You can’t have a witches hut and no cauldron.’

‘Right,’ I say with a smile and shine my torch all around the room. There is a single bed with a blue and yellow bedspread at one end, and a small wooden table and four chairs in the middle. The wooden shelves have stuff on them, an axe, nets, knives, tin boxes, bowls, worn books, mortar and pestle, wooden spikes, dark gunny sacks. I guess they are a hunter’s utensils.

Shane opens a box of candles and lights some. There are windows, but their shutters are closed. Strands of mushrooms are drying from a string hung across the firewood. There is the smell of earth and burning wood. In another corner there are bunches of herbs hanging from the ceiling. There is a large rocking chair next to the fireplace. It has an old cushion on it.

‘Monsieur Chevalier uses this cabin a lot during the truffle hunting season,’ he explains with a smile. ‘I think it gives him a break from Madam.’

I chuckle quietly.

He takes a brown bottle from a shelf and hands it to me. ‘Mosquito repellent made of herbs.’

I rub it on my hands and legs and it smells pleasantly of lavender.

He snatches a couple of blankets and a basket and we set off again. We reach another clearing where there is a round flat surface with a green plastic covering. Shane flicks the covering off it and reveals a round bench with a flat round mattress and lots of cushions on it.

‘Go on. Climb aboard,’ he urges.

I get on the mattress and lie back. The sky is alive with stars. He switches off the torches and lies next to me. I can hear sounds in the forest, foraging animals, insects, and I can hear him breathing next to me. My whole body tingles with hyper awareness. He turns his head and looks at me. His eyes are gleaming in the dark. I inhale suddenly.

We’re going to have sex in the forest.

And then it happens. A tiny light comes on close to my head. Startled, I gasp and jerk my head around. Why, it is a firefly. The little creature flashes and then goes dark. And then flashes again. Magical.

‘Look Shane,’ I whisper in wonder.

‘Look, mate. This one’s taken, go flash elsewhere,’ he tells the firefly.

I laugh, a laugh of sheer joy and enchantment and reach up with my cupped hands.

It darts away.

‘Oh,’ I say disappointed, but I realize that others are dancing into view. They glow and flicker in trees and in the air, and slowly they light up the whole forest like a Christmas tree giving enough light that I can make out Shane’s features. Between the blades of the tall grasses and dandelions, hundreds of lights twinkle as if all the stars in the sky have fallen to earth.

‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen. I’ll never forget this night as long as I live,’ I whisper in an awed voice. ‘Thank you, for bring me here.’

‘The show’s not over yet, honey. I’ve still got a bit of flashing to do myself,’ he says lazily.

The words die in my throat when I see his shadowy face loom over me before warm soft lips are kissing me.

SHANE

We Irish believe in faeries. The Irish fairy is not like Peter Pan’s Tinker Bell. An Irish fairy can take any form she wishes, but prefers the human form. Our elders claim that they are beautiful, powerful and impossible to resist, which really, is a crying shame, because most Irish faeries love to bring misfortune and bad luck to the mortals who come near them. At that moment in the glow of the fireflies, Snow looked like an Irish fairy.


Beautiful, powerful and impossible to resist.

And I don’t resist. The air is laden with sexual longing, I have a raging hard on, and her white skin and luscious black hair are spread out before me like an irresistible siren’s call. Come misfortune, treacherous rocks, and bad luck. I’ll deal with you later. Her mouth is warm and sweet, scented with honeyed apricots she ate earlier. Her top has a metal hook, a hole and four little buttons at the back. All in a row. Piece of cake to undo.

I pull her towards me so she is lying on her side and unbutton them. I slide my hand in and stroke her silky back.

SNOW

The fireflies are still twinkling and shining around us, but I cannot look at their magic. I can only look at the beauty of Shane’s face. My blouse whispers as he tugs it off.

I smell him, his cologne, his sweat, his desire. It is all male. I can’t help but look at his cock. It is so massive, so thick, and the tip is already dripping.

‘My God! You are so big,’ I whisper.

‘Yeah, and it’s all going into you. Every last f*cking inch.’

Between my thighs I am wet and aching for the feel of his hard cock deep inside me.

In a daze I reach out a hand and curl it around the thick shaft and I open my mouth. Because it’s him. Because I want that liquid that’s dripping from the tip. He puts his hands on my shoulders and I wrap my mouth around the shaft and slide down the smooth shaft. His hands are strong and aggressive. Nothing like Lenny.