Lords Of The Dark Fall - Fabian by C A Nicks

rising blush. “I wasn’t fishing for compliments. I just don’t feel…”
    He was across the room, stopping the words with a kiss that gave no concession to her split lip. Tig moaned and pulled him closer, remembering what he’d asked for in the kitchen. A jolt of pleasure hit him like a lightning strike. Blissful release, the taste of her blood on his mouth. Generosity, such as he had never known. A tumble of sensation that left him clinging to her as if she were his anchor in this new world.
    “Shhh,” she said. “Gentle, remember? Let me find some protection.”
    Desperation made the release all the sweeter. Made him clumsy as he pushed Tig towards the bed. They fell together, he beneath her because he owed her that privilege. And because his trembling arms and legs wouldn’t hold him. Tig settled astride his stomach, knees spread wide. She dipped gracefully and swept his chest with the tips of her hair, ran a tongue over his nipples. Reached behind to stroke him.
    Each touch, each movement, increased his need until he was almost begging her to take him inside. He hardly noticed her rolling on the protection that would stop him getting her with child. When she rose up and sank down on him, he growled out his relief and arched into her welcoming warmth. He wanted to come again, hard and fast, but Tig rode him like a courtesan skilled in keeping a man on the edge until he was in danger of exploding. Each time he reached his peak, she slowed her rhythm, almost as if she didn’t want it to end. Or perhaps she had believed his hype about lasting an hour? He was so aroused, he didn’t think another minute would be possible.
    “Tig,” he said, part plea, part question. She gave a soft cry when he touched her intimately and met her gentle undulations with deeper thrusts of his own. His mortal flesh was too weak to hold back the wave threatening to engulf them both.
    “Fabian.” Tig let go of her control, his name on her lips, and he followed her, helpless to do otherwise.
    His hips stopped moving as the last spasms died down. For a long moment they simply breathed and rode out the last pleasurable aftershocks.
    “Are you all right, Fabian?” Tig’s voice filtered through the sensual fog surrounding him, bringing him back to her room, her world.
    “Yes.” He heaved in a breath and remembered. “More than all right. But you?”
    Tig flopped down beside him. He felt the glow of heat from her skin. She flung an arm behind her head and let out a long breath.
    “It was good. Very good.”
    “No, I gave a poor performance.”
    Tig patted his thigh. “You were wonderful. Please don’t think otherwise.”
    She sounded so pathetically grateful, he covered her hand with his own, stroking the work-roughened skin with his thumb. So different from the milk-and-honey complexions of his pampered wives.
    “We will do this again, without the barrier of this sheath. Then I will show you what I am capable of.”
    “I can’t risk a pregnancy, Fabian. Not now.”
    “I’ve never had to worry about such things.”
    “Then you have children?”
    “Many, over the years.” He stared at a dirty patch on the ceiling and tried to remember their names, their faces. “An immortal cannot get too attached.”
    Tig rolled onto her side, hair falling over her breasts, trailing over his chest. She leaned on an elbow and gazed down at him. “You mean you have to watch them grow old and die?”
    “Essentially, yes. What use is an heir, to someone who will never die?”
    “How were you immortal and not them?”
    Fabian twisted and indicated the white bands on his arm. “The bracelets of An Mur. My father was the greatest warrior ever to take human form. He killed the demon, Hadri, Scourge of the Night, and took from it the bracelets of An Mur. The bracelets of immortality. He gifted them to the most loved of his sons. My mother was his favourite wife.”
    “He didn’t want them for himself?”
    “He was past the age of the