His Dark Delights

LILLY

A hundred questions bubbled up, but I held them back. The knight needed a warm bath, clothes, and a hot meal, not infinite questions from a farm girl starved for conversation.

An odd tension hung in the air when we entered my home. Ren kept a respectable distance, yet his gaze lit every nerve in my body.

I pretended not to notice him watching me scurry into the small bathing room between the bedroom and the narrow stairs to the loft. I left his questioning gaze unanswered as I laid out the remnants of father’s clothes for him and dashed out to tend to the animals.

The decaying state of the barn and fences magnified the ache of my heart. I had the tools to fix it, but Father had always handled the farm’s upkeep.

I spent twenty-three years thriving in the garden or meadow as he encouraged me to use my mother’s gifts, despite it making me an outsider to the village.

With the Fairy Butcher on the throne, part of me wondered if I’d be better off packing up and moving to a village far away where locals didn’t know my heritage.

I stopped my thoughts there and a heavy sigh escaped me.

I couldn’t go to the Fae for sanctuary. Beyond not knowing the location of the Fae Wild, I’d never met another Fae after my mother left.

Then there was Ren.

The knight in my home, claiming to be in my debt for saving his life. But if he served under the Fairy Butcher, I couldn’t trust him.

If he has an ounce of training to hunt fairies, what are the chances he’ll notice the traces of Fae magic in my blood?

“Lilly?” Ren’s smooth baritone snatched me from my reverie.

My eyes fell to the shirt stretched taut over his sculpted chest.

“You have the stealth of a soldier.” I laughed shakily.

Ren’s lips spread into a thin smile. “Your fence is broken,” he observed.

“I’ll fix it soon,” I replied, grateful for the distraction. Ren turned, taking in the state of the farm. He commented on the condition of the barn, and I assured him I would tend to it.

I admired the broad expanse of his back. The fading sunlight glinted off the rich waves of his hair, highlighting his tanned skin.

Freshly washed and dressed, a fresh, woodsy scent wafted from his skin, crisp and entirely masculine.

It was as if he was made of earth, wind, and fire, and those elements stirred a primal instinct within me.

Animals safe, I needed to check his bandages and dinner was likely ready. But Ren had seen to that, showing me by casually lifting his shirt to reveal the fresh bandages around his midsection. My heart fluttered.

My eyes widened at the hint of dark hair leading into the front of his black trousers.

An odd pulse echoed from my heart to the soft center between my thighs.

I stammered useless words, my voice high-pitched and thin.

I turned from Ren to hide the blush spreading on my cheeks. He followed me to the cottage with a light chuckle.

Ren and I dined in charged silence. Each clink of a spoon and the persistent heat of his wandering eyes served as hefty reminders that I wasn’t alone.

I pretended not to notice his blatant curiosity searing into me when he thought I wasn’t looking.

No one had ever looked at me that way before. It was different from the wary curiosity of the neighboring villagers.

Ren’s eyes held an intensity I had no experience interpreting.

To break the tension, we cleaned up dinner. I mulled over our close confines and sleeping arrangements. The stories of men and vulnerable ladies echoed a truth already known in my heart. With creeping shadows, Ren’s gentlemanly manor could shift under the darkness of night with biological urges.

Ren asked after the single mattress and the clothes, curious if I was married. I assured him I was not and that the clothes and bed were my father’s. I had left my own bed in the loft unused as I had cared for him.

Relieved and then concerned in equal measure, his condolences were swift and earnest. His offer to sleep in the barn or on the floor eased the knot of worry in my chest. But I did not want to be alone again so soon.

I insisted he stay, as dying from chill and fever would not repay my labor of healing.

Ren vented a laugh, and the sound breezed over me like shadows and silk. I wanted to listen to him laugh all night.

We stared at each other across the bed, the only thing keeping us apart. Everything in my home felt paltry compared to his glorious, towering bulk.

He broke the silence, saying he heard my voice through the fever.

I perked up, admitting I read him father’s favorite story every day. I sounded too eager perhaps when Ren asked me to read again. But reading calmed my nerves.

I settled onto the window seat with the book.

Ren lowered himself onto the bed with a wince. Despite his wounds, every alluring line of his body flowed like a predator lurking in the skin of a man.

Night shrouded the farm in darkness, and somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted.

My voice filled the bedroom as I read a story I knew by heart.

I didn’t think I’d fall asleep. Not with Ren raptly staring at me from the bed, as if the words on my lips utterly entranced him.

Sentence by sentence, the soft crackling of the fire and the heaviness in my lids allowed sleep to steal me away into the land of dreams.

***

A horrid banging startled me from sleep as morning sunlight cascaded into the bedroom. Panicked at the late hour and waking somehow in the bed, I shot up to my loft, changed into fresh clothes, shoved on my boots, and dashed outside.

I nearly tripped over chickens already scratching at the dirt. I gasped as the farm bustled with my animals out and about.

Millie mooed at me from the fence, swinging her head toward the barn. I glanced up as Ren balanced on the barn’s roof with a hammer in his hands. Bangs echoed over the garden.

I dashed for the gate only to find the now sturdy latch barring my way.

Annoyed, bleating goats scattered from my hurried path.

I scolded Ren for his labor. He merely greeted me, wiped sweat from his brow, and insisted he was repaying my kindness. I had to shield my eyes against him wreathed in golden morning sunlight.

I shook my head and huffed. “Reopening your wounds does not repay me. I demand you put the hammer down. Now.”

His blue eyes sparkled at the challenge. “You demand it?” He laughed easily. “No one has demanded anything of me in a very long time, Lilly.”

A haughty statement for a knight to make. But this was my farm.

I stood firm. Without a word, I placed one hand on my hip and pointed to the crate of tools on the ground with the other.

As the seconds stretched and I remained as still as stone, Ren’s confidence faltered. He argued, unsatisfied with his progress.

I jerked my finger at the tools. “On my farm, I am the ruler, and I give the orders.”

Ren’s dark brows shot up, and his petulant frown morphed into a wide, obscene smile.

He hummed. “Hm, Queen Lilliana. I quite like the sound of that.”

Despite the absurdity of it, a giggle bubbled past my lips. Laughter consumed me at the ridiculousness of the situation.

I’d be nothing important in a kingdom ruled by a butcher of my kind. However, I wouldn’t voice that aloud without confirming Ren’s loyalties.

“I enjoy hearing you laugh.” He shrugged, but the movement made him wince and cradle his ribs.

My cheeks burned at his statement, but his pain provided a diversion. “See that? You’ve overdone it. Go inside.”

“As you wish, my lady.” Ren dipped his head, but mischief glimmered in his gaze.

I remained outside for a moment to collect myself, watching him walk toward the cottage. He must have known I was watching because he flexed his back and rolled his shoulders before disappearing through the front door.

Only after several deep breaths, when my heart returned to normal, did I follow.

Ren was already shirtless and sitting on the side of the bed when I joined him. He unwrapped the last bit of bandage from around his waist, and my eyes hurried over his exposed flesh.

Every ridge of his sculpted torso was a testament to the mountain of man sitting half undressed on my bed.

A ribbon of desire quivered through me. My face flushed, and my heart pounded against my ribs.

On wobbly knees, I collected fresh bandages and carefully lowered myself onto the bed at his side. Ren took up so much space, I wondered how he fit on the mattress at all.

When I sat, he pressed his knee into mine. A deliberate move that had heat blooming in the pit of my belly.

Ren lifted his arm, giving me access to the wound. He was rapidly healing.

I could have said something, but the mounds and grooves of his body and the dark hair along his chest wholly entranced me.

As I applied a thin layer of poultice to his ribs, his muscles tightened under my delicate touch. I sucked in a silent breath of delight at the sight of each contraction and flex.

“I am grateful for your help, Ren. But it would please me more if you continued healing,” I murmured, needing words to distract my mind and body from immodest desires.

“I would do more if you’d let me. No one has genuinely cared this much for my well-being in a long time.” His raised arm lowered to feather his fingers along my exposed neck. “And it would please me to let your hair down. May I?”

A shiver rolled down my spine. Choosing to focus on tying the fresh bandage into place, I nodded.

His fingers loosed the bandana holding my hair up, and voluminous copper-pink curls tumbled around my shoulders.

The bandage tied, my fingers lingered on his skin. He carefully brushed my hair behind my shoulder.

My eyes drifted shut as he buried his face where my neck and shoulder met. A thin gasp escaped me when his lips pressed into the side of my throat, where my pulse raced.

Ren’s arm curled around my waist. In one move, he pulled me onto his lap. My breath caught in my lungs as he littered my neck with kisses.

Each one ignited an unfamiliar heat in my belly until it produced an inferno. I didn’t want him to stop.

I’d never felt so internally warm. Nor had I ever been so damp between my thighs. Something hard throbbed against my bottom, and I didn’t need experience to understand it.

I’d read enough books to know of desire and love. I’d grown up believing you couldn’t have one without the other, yet there I was.

His hands caressed up my sides, slowly exploring me. They paused when he reached my chest, and he cupped my breasts in his palms.

I didn’t think to stop him or complain. My thoughts hung on how his massaging fingers awakened a pulsing somewhere low between my hips.

Ren untied the laces of my dress. He peeled the fabric down my chest. I gasped at the cool air breezing over my skin, and my nipples tightened under his explorative touch.

Part of me thought I should feel embarrassed at being so exposed to a man I hardly knew. But the attention of his warm palms on my heated flesh was blinding, dizzying, and undeniably stimulating. He continued kissing the side of my neck until a desperate groan grated through his chest.

“I’ve thought about you and nothing else since I first saw you. I’m going mad for you, Lilly.” My head arched back into his shoulder, giving him a better view of my full breasts.

The hardness under me twitched, growing impossibly larger.

“Shouldn’t you be thinking about fighting and battles to be won?” I asked, struggling for breath.

A knight should have his mind on the kingdom and the people he swore to protect. Not a farm girl with nothing to offer. Ren’s hand returned to my neck, sliding over my tight skin into my hair.

He knotted red curls in his fist and angled my face to his. My eyes flared open from the exciting tension in my scalp and the whisper of his breath on my lips as he said, “The only battle I desire to win is the one for you.”