The Cherished One by Carolyn Faulkner Page A

forced desires.
    Fawna’s eyes drifted shut as she tried to shut him out, tried to concentrate on multiplication tables, starving children, plague, famine, pestilence, anything to keep her body from responding to what he was doing to it – not that any of it was helping her in the least.
    “Ah, yes, Bebe, open your eyes and look at me, or I’ll flip you over and use that ruler I brought in from the coffee table on your backside, just to remind you that I mean to be obeyed in all things.  I wouldn’t think you’d need to be reminded after yesterday, but—”
    She opened her eyes instantly and, however shyly and hesitantly, found his with hers. 
    “I will have your pleasure as mine, too, Fawna, along with your occasional pain at my hands when I see your need.”
    He was watching her so closely as he touched her in ways that said he knew her more intimately than he really did, and gazing at her like that allowed him to see her more deeply than he should.  He drank in her pleasure, locked within it with her, almost experiencing it with her, his eyes widening at every hitched breath, every slight moan, every groan until he forced her over the edge and slipped himself inside her at the same exact instant of her first blinding contraction, riding the edge of her ecstasy to the brink of his own as their eyes remained locked and claiming a second explosion from her that rocked the two of them together and sent them both reeling.
    Too soon, much too soon, Max collapsed on top of her, utterly unable to move.  He hoped he wasn’t crushing her too badly, because he wasn’t at all sure he was going to be able to move so much as a finger for a while.  He’d been so concentrated on getting his revenge on Dag that he hadn’t had a woman in more years than he’d like to consider, and this one had drained him completely dry without really trying.
    Since Musette.  He hadn’t touched a woman since Musette.  He hadn’t wanted to.  Fawna had been the first female in centuries that he’d had even the slightest interest in.  And she was literally everything he wanted, and he was nothing she would have.  It was the ultimate irony that he and Dag apparently had exactly the same tastes in women.
    Imagine that.
    Somehow, Fawna managed to squeeze out from under him.  He wasn’t at all sure how; perhaps it had something to do with faerie magic.  He didn’t know.  He was just glad she hadn’t expected anything heroic of him, because he knew he didn’t have it in him, more right now than ever in his life.  He’d never been the hero type, never would be. 
    She was on the far side of the queen-sized bed, huddled there, and he knew she was crying.  It wasn’t the all out weeping and wailing that some women did.  It was worse.  Her tears were the soft, suppressed, “I don’t want anyone to know I’m crying” sobs that were slowly carving his long dead heart out with a spoon.  Max tried to reach out to her mind and discern what it was that had her in such a state after they’d shared such a taste of paradise, but her thoughts were so jumbled and there were so many deep emotions tangled up with them that his male mind couldn’t put his finger on any one, clean cause as it was wont to.
    He reached out to pull her into his arms, at more of a loss than most men at what to do about a crying woman; it had been so long since he’d comforted a woman instead of terrorizing one.  But she wasn’t having any of it, and did her level best to evade his attempts until he finally just picked her up and plopped her down next to him.  “That is a spanking offense, which we will deal with later.”
    She almost said “bite me”, but thought better of it.  “I don’t care.”
    “You will later, when your bottom’s being roasted but good.”  He tucked her into his arms, dealing not very patiently with her attempts at extracting herself from his hold.  Finally, he swatted her several times and that seemed to calm her down a