“You know I would never hurt you,” he whispered in my ear as I slid the key in the keyhole and turned it. The click was as loud as a gunshot. Liam sighed and shook free the manacle, which sank into the water. His wrist was cut to the bone.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, fumbling with the manacle on his left hand. “I never meant to hurt you.”

As soon as the left manacle was free he raised both hands to my face and tipped my chin up. He lowered his lips to mine and kissed me, gently at first but then hard, opening my lips with his and pushing his tongue deep into my mouth. His hands roved over my body like birds freed from a cage, stroking my breasts, my belly, then cupping my behind and pressing my hips against his hips. His erection strained against my belly.

“Liam,” I gasped, freeing my mouth from his. “You promised …”

“I promised not to follow you into your world, Callie. I didn’t say anything about what I would do to you in this one.”

He scooped me up in his arms and carried me up the bank, deeper into the shade of the willow. He laid me on a bed of emerald green moss that felt as soft as velvet. He knelt above me, raking my body with his eyes. I couldn’t help doing the same to him. He was Liam, but not. His skin was more golden, his limbs longer … everything was a bit longer.

His eyes – more emerald than black – flashed.

He stroked his hand down my belly and between my legs. “For months I’ve done nothing but remember the exact contours of your body outside …” he slipped his fingers inside me and I let out a moan “… and in.”

He lowered himself onto me and I felt the head of his penis graze my clit. I arched up to meet him, but he moved a fraction away. “Let’s see if I remembered it right,” he said, a sly smile playing on his lips.

“Let’s find out,” I said, wrapping my arms around his back and my legs around his hips, pulling him down into me. This time he met my thrust with his own. I cried out so sharply he pulled out of me.

“Callie? Are you …”

“I’m perfect,” I moaned, pulling him back inside me again. “Perfect.”

CHAPTER FOUR

IF LIAM HADN’T made me leave, I don’t know how long I would have stayed on the bank of the pool beneath the willow.

“The danger of Faerie,” he told me after the second time we made love, “is that the longer you stay, the harder it becomes to leave.”

“Mmmm,” I moaned, nestling my cheek on his broad chest. “Would that be so bad?”

He propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at me. The sunlight brought out red highlights in his dark hair and green sparks in his black eyes – neither of which had been there when he’d been Liam. I wondered if this is how he’d looked when he was mortal, when he’d been a human boy whom the Fairy Queen had stolen away to Faerie where he’d lived so long he lost his human self and become an incubus. But of course he didn’t look like a young boy. He had the body of Adonis, and his eyes looked as ancient as if he had in fact been that god. Looking into them I saw the centuries he had passed here under the unchanging sky of Faerie, slowly losing his humanity, becoming this creature who must feed on the human life force to feel anything.