Author's note: Last chapter before sunset... ;)
Quinn snuggled closer to me, as though checking I would still accept him. We were talking about his past, and even though he assured me that he had no desire to take advantage of all the sexual opportunities his fame in the shifter world afforded him, I wasn't entirely convinced yet, and he could tell.
"Look, I'd be lying if I said I always felt this way about it," he explained. "When I first started working for E(E)E and being around Supes again, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. When you're a twenty-two year old guy and complete strangers want to fuck you everywhere you go... I'm not made of stone. I took full advantage of it for about three years, and if you'd asked me at the time, I would've told you it was fantastic and I wasn't ever going to stop."
"What changed?"
"Honestly? I started having the cliched breakdown people have because it's so hard being rich and famous," he rolled his eyes. "So I started seeing a therapist, and she got me talking about what my life was like, but also what I wanted it to be like in the future. She asked me one day whether any of the women I'd been with recently were people I could see myself settling down with, since I wanted to have a family of my own one day, and -"
"And none of them were," I nodded, thinking I understood where this was going.
"No, plenty of them were, that was the problem. I was never into the really slutty types, the ones who were having sex to fill some sort of void in themselves. Guess I saw too much of myself in them," he chuckled. "I slept with a lot of really great women, women who I would've loved to date, but I was their walk on the wild side, a bit of rough trade, nothing more to them. The person they wanted me to be... well, they thought I was who I was in the ring all the time, so I never got to be anything more than that. It was physically satisfying, but it wasn't very good for me overall."
"What did they want you to be?"
He sighed loudly. "A lot of women have this fantasy about being with someone who's strong, stupid, and a bit of a brute. Just once or twice, before they go back to someone who's kind and gentle and cultured to be with long-term. So I got to play the all-brawn, no-brains fantasy guy, over and over."
"That must've been tiring, hiding so much of yourself all the time."
He looked at me in astonishment. "Tiring isn't really the word, I just wound up feeling... kinda empty, I guess."
I nodded. "Because you weren't really there most of the time, or only part of you was, anyway."
He stared, his mouth hanging open, wondering how I could know that.
"I see it all the time. People who are stuck in jobs or relationships or even friendships where they have to play a role that doesn't really come naturally, there's this... I guess creeping unease it the best way to describe it. They're not strictly unhappy, but they're not really happy, either. Kind of unfulfilled, I guess, like they're hungry for something they can't have."
"Yeah, that about sums it up," he agreed. "I thought all the sex was a nice escape from that, but when I figured out it was actually making it worse, I felt like such a moron. I know there's this stereotype of women wanting to feel loved, and men just wanting to empty their balls into the nearest female, but when a woman really doesn't want anything other than sex... on some level, it feels really wrong, but it draws us in and gets us hooked and when that happens over and over... I'm glad I stopped when I did. If I'd done it much longer, I'd have wound up becoming the man they all wanted me to be."
"I'm really glad you didn't," I told him, because I'd caught a bit too much of what other women had wanted him to be in his thoughts. A lot of it horrified me.
"Me too," he smiled.
"But you only did that for three years?" I asked tentatively, still mentally tallying how many women he must've been with in that time.
He nodded. "But as far as famous men go, I was a major underachiever. There was someone new every week or so, but I figured out pretty quickly that the second time with someone was always better than the first, and the third was always better than the second, so I'd try for short-term things instead of one-night stands. Well, I tried for an actual relationship a few times, especially with women who were on the road as much as I was and wanted something flexible, but I got a lot of fake phone numbers back then. Which I deserved, really."
"Uh-huh." I wasn't sure what to say to all of that.
"You're freaked out about this," he stated, trying not to sound upset. "Babe, after what happened to my Mom and all the stuff in the pits... I didn't have a nice, normal life to go back to, I had to make one for myself and that took me longer than I like to admit. But the life I have now... my work, my sister, you... I chose all that. My past... I didn't choose that stuff. It happened, and I made the best of it, but I didn't seek it out."
It actually made sense then, and I snuggled up to him for some more cuddles. His relief was almost palpable; he held me so tightly he was squeezing the air from my lungs, and I could feel he didn't want to let me go, ever.
"I love you," he breathed into my hair. "My past... it just makes me even more aware of how special you are."
"But..." I pulled away to look in his eyes, "aren't I kind of boring after all that other stuff you've done? Aren't I really dull by comparison?"
He laughed at me loudly, finding it hysterical I could even think that. "All that other stuff is fun occasionally, but the main thing trying all of it taught me is that it's totally unnecessary. Give me a beautiful woman, a bed and a couple hours and I'm a happy man. Well, until I met you. You're the only one I want in my bed now." He kissed the tip of my nose sweetly.
"So your wild days are over, huh?" I joked.
"Not at all," he purred. "Why do you think I got bored with short-term stuff? You can be so much wilder in a relationship than with a stranger." He saw my skeptical look and realized he'd have to explain. "What we just did... would you do that with someone you'd just met?"
"Heck, no!" I exclaimed. "No way!" I couldn't imagine doing that with anyone else, but especially not a stranger.
"See? Only possible because we've been together a while, right?"
I saw his point and nodded.
"Some people only bring out their wild side with strangers, but me, I always found it takes time to really trust someone like that. I trust you more than I've ever trusted anyone, and I really hope you feel the same way about me... 'cause I know you've got a wild streak of your own in there somewhere, and I'd really like to be the one you trust enough to explore that with..."
I couldn't help but grin at that; I loved that he didn't treat me like an ingenue, an innocent to be seduced and devoured. To him, I was as responsible for seducing him as he was for me: the way I stared at him and voiced my appreciation of his body at the packmaster contest where we first met; the skimpy outfit I wore to flaunt my own body while he helped me pack up Hadley's apartment; my declaration that I had "big, big lust" for him before we first made love... He knew I was an adult with appetites of my own, and that excited him far more than any naive virgin could. I felt strong and sexy with him, confident in my own desires... and my ability to pleasure him. I loved that.
"Maybe." I batted my eyelashes. "Just a small one."
"If that changes, tell me?" he asked. "Your fairy powers... I'd like to believe you got them for free, other than a few nightmares, but if you find yourself feeling any wild instincts of your own..."
"Like taking you to the fairy meadow in the middle of the day to fuck you and scratch you and bite you? Like scarring your neck with my teeth?"
He smiled then. "OK, so you've already got an outlet for all the wild fairy sexual instincts," he grinned, happy to be my 'outlet'. "But if you start feeling other instincts as well, to hunt or kill especially... I know all about having instincts that tell you to do things that aren't acceptable if you're even slightly human, and finding outlets for them is really important."
"What sort of outlets?"
"Things that are similar to what your instincts say to do to, but OK to the human part of you, too. Like I used to want to hunt all the time, which wasn't so great, but if I eat heaps of meat, as close to uncooked as I can get it, I don't have to hunt very often. Only two or three times a year now."
"What do you hunt?" I asked curiously, never having heard about this part of his 'wild side' before.
"Whatever's nearby that I won't hate myself for killing. If the hunting instincts start screaming at me while I'm here, there's a nasty razorback that passes through your woods every few days, so I'd go after him. He's so violent and destructive, I'd be doing everyone a favor to take him out, including the other wild boar. Besides, the bears around here are endangered and deer are too cute, so razorbacks are about the only tiger food around... livestock's too easy, and all the other wild animals are too small."
Living in the country my whole life, I wasn't disturbed by my boyfriend wanting to go out hunting, even though I knew he wouldn't take a gun (or clothes, for than matter), just his claws and teeth. My brother liked hunting; my father and grandfather had too, when they were alive; many of the men I knew loved to kill things... but what disturbed me was part of me now did, too. The fairy part of me that enjoyed the sight of his blood on my teeth earlier today was also excited by the idea of hunting a wild boar, cornering it, sinking sharp teeth into its rump as it tried to escape, ripping it apart while it struggled... I shuddered in revulsion, disgusted that I might be capable of that.
He saw my reaction and got worried. "Too much?" he asked gently. "You've been so great about all the tiger stuff that I sometimes forget how weird this all must be for you... Sorry, I won't mention it again... it's not likely I'll need to hunt for a while..."
"It's not that," I admitted. "The fairy part of me likes the idea of hunting wild boar a bit too much." I shuddered again, just thinking about it.
He kissed me sweetly to say it was OK. "If fairy instincts are like tiger instincts, you need outlets for all of them. Suppressing them doesn't work, they just take over at the worst possible moment." He spoke from bitter experience, I could feel that. "Hunting's gross the first couple of times, but there are ways to make it easier for the human part of you. Like choosing your prey carefully, and making the actual kill quick so they don't suffer. Once you've made peace with your wild side, it's OK that you need to do things regular humans don't."
"How did you make peace with that?"
"I'm lucky, I feel so blessed to be a tiger that it wasn't hard. It's so great being completely wild and free some of the time, and the only price for that is I eat lots of meat, hunt occasionally and I'm wired a little differently to other people. It's a small price to pay for that. The power I've got is nothing like what you've got, though. The stuff you can do now, on top of your telepathy... that's gotta be worth whatever price you pay for it."
I shook my head. "Doing terrible things so I can be powerful... that's just wrong."
"What do your instincts tell you to do that's so terrible?"
I sighed. "Most of the time, nothing. But when Eric sent those girls to Merlotte's and I got really mad..." my voice faded away and I wasn't sure I could go on. He just waited patiently until I spoke again. "I wanted to eat their eyeballs," I finally whispered, disgusted with myself.
He just nodded. "That makes sense. Magically, all the rituals that involve eating eyeballs are about taking the things they've seen into yourself. So it would be like you saw him that way, not them. Did you feel an urge to do it? Or just an instinct that it was the right thing to do?"
"Just an instinct," I answered, relieved. "I didn't feel like I had to do it, just that it would make things right somehow if I did."
"Well, now you know why," he smiled. "Your fairy instincts told you how to remedy the situation magically, but they didn't make you do it."
"I didn't have to bite you, either," I grinned back. "Or claim you yesterday. Or even take you to the fairy meadow. I felt like they were the right things to do, and I somehow knew that doing them would keep you here with me longer, but I chose to go with it, I didn't have to do it."
He chuckled. "You must really want to keep me here, to go through both shifter and fairy mating rituals to claim me as your own."
"You have no idea," I grumbled, rolling my eyes. "It still doesn't make it right though, claiming you like that without asking you if I could first."
He gave a frustrated growl then, wrapping his hands very loosely around my neck and pretending to strangle me for a second. "Woman!" he complained. "What part of, 'I liked it so much I came in my pants' do you not understand? How many times do I have to tell you I wanted this and I'm happy with it? You need to be in control, and I'm good with that... I just showed you why I like it so much... please, can't you stop worrying you're doing something wrong?"
"Sure," I agreed, but I wasn't completely convinced, and he heard it in my voice.
He got very serious all of a sudden. "Look, I was hoping I'd never have to spell this out, but...You need to be in control because of things from your past, and I honestly don't mind... It works for me. It's not something I could do with just anyone, but I trust you, and when you do that... it's like you want me just as much as I want you... and when you're on top, I don't have to worry about hurting you... but more than that... I have a past too... and if I ever forced a woman..." his voice cracked, and he was silent for a long time. "I couldn't live with myself, if I did that."
He was radiating so much emotion it overwhelmed me, and all I could do was cling to him until he calmed down enough that I could speak.
"I'm sorry, I didn't even think of that," I admitted, as soon as I could. "I didn't consider how that would effect you. Is there anything I can do?"
"There's one thing," he said immediately, and I knew he'd been thinking about it a lot. "What happened the other night... that's practically my worst nightmare, hurting you like that. Promise me it won't happen again? That if what I'm doing isn't good for you, you'll tell me right away?"
"I will," I promised. "It wasn't meant to happen like that. I wanted hard and fast, and even though things went a bit too fast... I just figured we'd take turns. I was gonna give you what you needed, then put you to work giving me what I needed."
"Now that, I'm OK with," he grinned, thinking of all the ways he would've liked to repay my generosity... and how much 'interest' he would add.
"Mmmm, me too," I agreed. "I love taking turns sometimes, especially if I get all the stuff you were just thinking about when it's my turn," I bit my lip just thinking of it. "Darn, if Eric hadn't opened the bond and been so furious with me-"
"He used the bond to interfere?" he interrupted. "What did he do?"
"He let me know he could feel what I was doing. He was so angry he wanted to kill us both, and make us both really suffer... it was awful."
"And then he did something to make you think of him while you were with me!" he fumed.
I went to deny it, but before the words could leave my mouth, something clicked. All the images that flashed through my mind, all those images of the expression on my face as he fucked me... they were his memories of being with me. Somehow, he had sent them to me.
"Is it possible to send images through a blood bond?" I asked shakily.
He just nodded, still furious. "We really have to get that asshole out of your head," he muttered under his breath.
And when I told him I agreed, I meant it with all my heart.