Free Flight (Children of the Sidhe) by J.R. Pearse Nelson

clothes trick of yours. Except…leave this blouse. I like it.”
    With a laugh, Tessa made it happen, and Nathan’s skin flushed with heat at the sudden, blissful contact of her skin. “Yes, Nathan,” she whispered, clutching his back as he lifted her a notch higher, his body sliding into her as she tilted her hips, rocking with him, where he held her.
    Nathan breathed in the scent of her, felt her slippery heat, her eagerness. She moaned into his mouth when he kissed her, tasting her lips, her tongue. The rest of the world, this world and any other, slipped away as he lost himself in her.
    It frightened him. Sex was all well and good, but he shouldn’t feel for Tessa. Not so soon. Yet in response to that small voice, a chorus rose up in protest. Better to have loved…
     
     
    Fourteen
     
    Tessa winged her way through the darkening sky, darting and weaving among the branches that were becoming difficult to see. She chirped to call Nathan, and plunged to the ground, where she released the doves, and gathered her true form.
    Nathan joined her a moment later, his shift taking a few seconds longer than hers. She watched him stretch, finding she hadn ’t tired of seeing him in the nude. Sexy, sexy.
    She walked to him before she realized what she was doing. One hand glided over the rippling muscles of his back and shoulder. She reached the back of his neck, and turned him insistently so she could kiss him. He grinned, and let her continue her exploration of his body with her hands and mouth.
    A flash of memory startled her , and she pulled back with a groan. “Oh, I wish we had more time, but I have somewhere I need to be.” Abarta had called another meeting, and he’d scoffed when she told him she needed a few hours. No more time was forthcoming.
    The pair of them returne d to the house in silence. The last few days had been full of peaceful moments and the excitement of Nathan’s exploration of his hawk form during the day, and their exploration of each other at night.
    Tessa glanced at her new lover, who appeared deep in thought as their steady strides ate up the distance. The surge of warm affection she felt for him was as foreign as a new language. These comfortable silences were common with Nathan – the man was always thinking through some question. As they reached the porch, Tessa remembered something. “I have a book for you. I’ll grab it quickly before I go.”
    Nathan entered the study behind her, as she rummaged among the new arrivals a courier had brought earlier in the day.
    “I asked a few friends about a reference detailing forest life, and this is the only book they knew of in Old English, so you can decipher it.”
    “ Great!” Nathan exclaimed. Tessa wondered just how bored he was getting if a book could get him that excited. There wasn’t much for him to do here, and he was supposed to stay safely inside most of the time. He started paging through it as soon as she handed it over, holding it in the crook of one arm.
    “ That book is huge. Sit at the desk,” Tessa told him as she moved her work to the same shelf where he’d placed it when he’d taken over her workspace a few days ago.
    “ Thanks. Any idea how long you’ll be gone?” Nathan asked.
    Tessa could tell she ’d already lost him to the book she’d offered. His brow was furrowed in thought as he turned another page. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours, before dinner.”
    He only nodded, immersed in answering the questions he ’d been struggling with since seeing all he found in the soil sample collected from a Tir Nan Og forest. And that was just one soil sample, in one part of Middleworld Tir Nan Og. What would he find if he took the same approach to a sample from Underworld?
    Not willing to let Abarta see her as dressed down as she ’d been living in recent days, Tessa ran a hand over herself in the hallway. As she did, a deep blue gown that accentuated her eyes, and a soft grey cloak replaced her informal clothes. She