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Galen stood lost in the tossing green of the leaves and the small whispering trees. His hair lifted in a halo of green curls around his face. That one thin braid that was all that was left of his long, long hair trailed over his bare chest.
As he stepped out of the trees I could see that he wore nothing. His skin was a flawless white with a shade of green to it like the gleaming underside of a seashell. His waist looked longer without clothes, a slender expanse of flesh and bone leading up to the swell of his shoulders, and down to the slenderness of his hips. He was bigger than I'd thought he would be, longer, thick, growing as I watched, as if he felt my gaze travel down his body. His legs were long and muscled as he moved toward me.
I think I stopped breathing for a second or two. I hadn't really believed that he would come. I had grown tired of hoping. Now, here he was.
I raised my eyes to his face and found his smile. Galen's smile, the one that had made my heart skip a beat since I was old enough to care. I sat up on the blanket, holding my hand out to him. I wanted to run to him, but I was afraid to move out of the circle of trees and wind and ground. Afraid almost to look away from him because if I blinked, he would seep away into the trees like a summer dream.
He stood at the blanket's edge just out of reach and slowly lifted his hand toward mine until our fingers brushed, and that small touch sent a fluttering like a cloud of butterflies inside my body. It drew a sigh from my lips. Galen dropped to his knees on the blanket, hands at his sides, making no effort to touch me again.
I came up on my knees to mirror him. We knelt staring at each other, so close that we almost didn't need hands to touch. His hand raised slowly and hovered over the bare skin of my shoulder. I could feel his aura, his power, like a warm breath coming from his body. His hand skated across the trembling energy of my own aura, and those two separate warmths flared, reaching for each other. I'd feared that it would be hard to raise the magic, but I'd forgotten. I'd forgotten what it truly meant to be fey, to be sidhe. We were magic, as the earth and the trees were magic. We burned with the same invisible flame that bound the world together. That warm flame swelled between us, filled the air around us with a shimmering, beating energy like the sound of wings.
We kissed through that rising energy. It flowed between our mouths as he bent over me, and I raised my face to meet his lips. He was velvet warmth against my mouth, inside my mouth as his power spilled down my throat inside my body. When we'd shared Niceven's power it had been sharp, hot, almost painful. This was so much more, gentle warmth, the first breath of spring after a long winter.
His hands found my body, spilling my breasts bare to the wind. He drew his lips back from mine and lowered his face to my breasts, taking first one then the other into his mouth, rolling the nipples in the warmth, spilling power. His hands cupped my breasts, fingers tightening, until I cried out. His hands slid down my back to my hips, fingers catching the edge of the bikini bottoms, sliding them down my thighs, stopped at my knees, trapped. He rolled me onto my back and slid the last bit of clothing away.
I lay naked before him for the first time with the wind spilling over my body, spilling over his body. He was propped up on one arm, the long naked line of his body so close to mine. I ran my hand down his chest, down his stomach, his waist, and finally touched the warmth of him. I cupped him in my hands, holding him solid and warm, and he shuddered, eyes closing. When he opened them his green eyes were full of a dark light, a dark knowledge that stopped my breath and made things low in my body tighten. I squeezed gently, caressed him, and his spine bowed with it, head thrown back so far I couldn't tell if his eyes were open or closed.
I moved down while he was staring up at the sky, as my hand fondled him. I rolled him into my mouth in a sudden complete movement that brought a deep sound from his throat. I rolled my eyes so I could see his face when he turned from the sky and looked down at me. His lips half parted, his face almost wild. His breath came in quick gasps that started in his stomach, spilled to his chest, and came out his lips in a word. He breathed my name like a prayer and touched my shoulders. He shook his head. "I won't last long."
I lifted my mouth from his body, pushed him onto his back. I knelt over his legs and stared down at him. I'd wanted this for so long. I caressed his body with just my gaze, memorizing the way the color of his skin went from white to a pale spring green, the darkness of his nipples, tight against his chest. I rubbed my hand down the front of his body, feeling the skin like brushed velvet or suede, and still there was no word for how soft the skin, how hard and firm the flesh. But it wasn't just his flesh I'd been wanting all these years. It was his magic.
I called my power like a breathing warmth from my skin, and his aura raised like a warm sea and spilled into my power. Our magic flowed together like two currents of an ocean, mingling, drowning together.
I moved my body over his, taking him slowly inside me a tight inch at a time, until he was sheathed inside me. He whispered my name, and I bent over him until we kissed, kissed with the feel of him inside me, our bodies pressed in the most intimate of embraces.
The wind blew against my back like a cool hand. It raised me up, until I was sitting looking down at him. I could feel the trees again. Hear them whispering to one another, whispering to me of dark secrets locked deep underground, and I could feel the ground underneath us. I could feel the earth turning in a ponderous dance under Galen's body.
We became a part of that dance. Our bodies locked together, my hips moving back and forth, his hips raising up and down so that we formed a double rhythm that fed on each movement until I felt his body swell tight and firm and I squeezed him tight inside my body, holding him, holding him with hands, mouth, every part of me, as if he would vanish if I did not hold on tight. The warmth swelled between my legs rising up in a wave of heat that spilled up my body until it felt as if my skin let loose, and I flowed away into the wind and the whispering trees. The only thing that kept me anchored to the earth was the hard, hot point of Galen's body. I felt him slip his skin, felt his power spill outward, and for one shining moment we were neither flesh nor blood nor real. We were the wind, the trees as they tugged at their roots like anchored kites, thinking both of deep earth and sunlight. We were the sweet evergreen smell of eucalyptus, and the thick warm scent of sunburned grass. When I could no longer feel my body and could barely remember who I'd been, I began to spill back into myself. My body re-formed and Galen was still inside me. His body re-formed underneath me, and we were left gasping for air, laughing into each other's arms. I slid off his body to lie beside him in the circle of his arms, my cheek pressed to his chest so that I could hear the fast, sure beat of his heart.
When we could walk, we got to our feet and walked back the way we had come to find Maeve Reed and her husband and give them the magic that we had found.