finally become a father.”
* * *
“Are you serious?”
Blu rolled over on the huge beach towel spread next to the pool. Bree, her faery best friend, was teleconferencing her via their iPads and had just told her an old faery tale about a kitsune shifter who had wanted to have a vampire’s child. Certain animal breeds could not procreate with vampires. But a faery boon—powerful faery magic—could overcome any genetic obstacle.
“So you think if I asked a faery to help me get pregnant by my husband, it would work?” Creed was inside, lingering in bed, the sun too high to allow him to be out by her side.
“That’s how it worked for the kitsune,” Bree said. “But Blu, it’s an old wives’ tale, and who knows if it’s true.”
“Yeah, but it never hurts to try. Could you give me a boon?”
“Oh no. You’d have to ask a wise faery, a sage, or someone in royalty like a champion or mystic. And you won’t find them wandering about the mortal realm.”
“So I’d have to go to Faery?” She gripped the iPad as if she could reach through the device and grab her friend’s shoulder. “Bree, you have to help me get there.”
“Sweetie, slow down. I know you want this with all your heart.”
“With two hearts, if I had two.”
“No faery will do anything for another being without a return boon.”
“So I have to give them something? That’s cool. We’re rich. I can pay, shower them with diamonds, offer them a condo in Paris.”
Bree laughed, and Blu caught her chin in hand. She knew diamonds meant little to faeries. Nor would mortal money bring up a glint in their violet eyes.
“How do I get to Faery?”
“You don’t. The faery would have to come to you. You’d have to perform a ritual to call them out. I’ll see what I can come up with, okay?”
“I love you, Bree. How’s Rev?”
“You mean the sexy vampire who is lying in my bed right now? I’d say about half-mast, and eager for me to get off the screen.”
“It’s best not to keep hungry vampires waiting. But don’t keep this wolf waiting, either. Call me as soon as you find something.”
She signed off and set the iPad aside. “Maybe this can really happen.”
Filled with hope, Blu tugged off her bikini top and dove into the pool.
* * *
“Thanks, Hawkes. Can you email that spell?” Creed asked.
“Yes, but it’ll take a day or two to have it interpreted,” his friend Rhys Hawkes replied over the phone. Their international connection, from Minneapolis to Paris, was ridden with static.
“I’m glad I contacted you,” Creed said. “If this works, I will make my wife a very happy werewolf.”
He hung up and propped a leg up on the edge of his desk. From the office window, he could see Blu performing some mermaid moves in the pool. Not only would she be happy, but he would as well. He’d walked this world for ages. It was time to view it through an entirely new and wondrous perspective—that of fatherhood.
Chapter Two
“Fuck yeah.”
There were two instances in life that demanded the oath hissed in satisfied tones. Following deliciously mind-numbing sex. And when sinking into the perfect bath, water almost—but not quite—too hot to stand, bubbles frothy but not overwhelming.
Blu stretched up a leg in the bathtub and slicked the bar of cinnamon soap along her thigh. Bliss was an hour to herself in the tub. When they’d rebuilt the mansion, Creed had let her design every room, and this bathroom had been her first project. All white marble, including the tub, it offered her sanctity from the world.
“Sorry, sweetie,” Creed said as he strolled in, barefoot but still wearing his Armani suit, and grabbed a toothbrush. “I’ll be quick. Or I could use the other bathroom?”
“No, I don’t mind.” Sanctity breached, she knew it wouldn’t take him long and her peace would be restored. But seriously? She couldn’t get enough of the man. A few minutes to watch him was like a sweet treat.
His hips shimmied when he brushed. Blu dipped low in the tub and smiled to herself. She’d heard married couples eventually grew bored of one another, less attracted, too. How that was possible, she didn’t know. Every day she found something new to admire about her husband .Tonight it was his silly toothbrushing shimmy.
“What?” his reflection asked in the mirror, his mouth full of toothpaste.
“I’ve never noticed your toothbrush dance before. Shake those hips, lover boy.”
He shrugged, dismissing her request, yet with the last few strokes he offered her a few exaggerated shimmies. Rapping the brush on the sink, he wiped off his mouth then started toward the door. That was her guy: always willing to please, even if it meant giving her some space.
“Wait,” Blu said. “I need you to do something for me first.”
“Whatever my true love desires.” He stood there, arms spread, waiting her command.
And Blu was inclined to command. “Take off your clothes.”
His brow arched. “Really? I thought you liked your bath time all private and peaceful.”
“Yeah, but you make me so horny. I want to watch you peel away your clothes and reveal the sexy muscles underneath. I always undress for you. It’s payback time.”
“Very well.”
Unbuttoning his crisp white linen shirt, and expertly snapping the platinum cufflinks from his cuffs, he quickly took it off and tossed it aside. The cufflinks chattered across the marble vanity.
“Slower,” Blu directed. She stretched her arms along the warm marble tub rim and put up a foot near the faucet. “I like to see your muscles flex. Don’t tell me you’ve never performed a striptease?”
The man didn’t blush, but his blinking look from under the fall of his dark hair gave away his surprising hesitance. “Actually, I don’t believe that opportunity has ever presented itself in all my years.”
With a teasing lift of brow, he unzipped his trousers and slowly pushed them past his hips until the fabric fell to his ankles. As he stepped out of them his abs flexed, highlighting that gorgeous cut muscle that eased along his hip and down toward his loins.
Blu felt the water’s heat near boiling. No, that was her body temperature rising. Maybe she could boil the water? Ha!
Her husband, a six-foot-plus warrior, stood in front of her wearing nothing but the form-fitting boxer briefs she’d bought for him. The briefs were black,
