There were problems with that though. I didn’t fuck casually. I’d tried but time and again I always ended up too damn attached. Plus, I was already attached to her. I’d grown that way the same as the others had. When their dangerous obsessions grew, so did my sense of protecting her. I’d tried to bury it just like I kept trying to bury a lot of things. Not just this burning need to protect her but also…

The longing to have Puca in my life again.

The scorching, suffocating desire I had for Lorcan.

I couldn’t keep doing this to myself. It was making me drown myself in liquor at the most inopportune time. I was fighting for their lives and acting like a fool. I rubbed my face.

“You’re weak to gold,” Lacey said and I lifted out of bed and stomped to my jacket, snatching it up in my hand. I didn’t like my weakness being known, especially standing in the home of a leprechaun.

This is why leprechauns and I shouldn't be involved. Another reason this wouldn’t work.

“You passed out and weren’t doing well. I tried to help you but every time I got close you got worse, writhing and sweating.” Still clutching my jacket I turned around. The long naked length of her body in bed was a feast for the eyes.

“That’s why you couldn’t capture me, right? The moment my jewelry was gone you became a player, not a moment before.” I dropped the jacket and stomped back to the bed, going around to her side. Her chest rose as she inhaled, unable to stop her reaction to me coming close with a look of anger on my face.

"You fear me," I said. She stretched out on her back, nude beneath me. She looked so soft.

"No," she denied, even as her voice trembled slightly.

"Yes," I countered, reaching down and gripping her thigh. I could wrap my hand around almost all of it. She trembled beneath my calloused fingers.

"I was,” she started. “At first. It was because of the stories my grandmother used to tell me as a child." I gave a smile. I was a bedtime story for children to be scared of. As I kept gripping her thigh she spread her legs, opening up to me. I took a deep breath, watching as she bared herself.

"No, love. This submissive, frightened nature you show me lives in your bones and blood. The sidhe quake in my presence."

"That's ridiculous," she said, a look of defiance shooting at me even as she lay on the bed, waiting for me to do as I pleased. "You’re pompous,” she accused.

"It's magic.” My tongue darted over my lips and I moved my hand to her center, my large fingers brushing her wet cunt. She shuddered, her hands gripping the blankets. “It's what you are and what I am. You are my sidhe and I am your carrion king, your cursed protector.”