“—and the coach turns back into a pumpkin.” He grinned at her.
“Something like that,” she laughed.
Knowing she would not like what she was about to hear, but needing to do it all the same, he walked up to her and rubbed her arms.
At first her smile lingered, but slowly, she must have realized his intention, because it slipped and she whispered a small, “Oh.”
Clenching his jaw, he nodded. “It’s time for a wish.”
“Oh,” she said again, and he tried to ignore the ache that spread in his chest when she stepped away from him. “What is your wish, Master?”
The moment the words were uttered, a gale-force breeze whipped through his tent, causing his desk to tip on its side and her dress to writhe like charmed snakes about her ankles.
Nixie pulsed with magic.
Robin wanted to tell her everything. Wanted to assure her, but he’d learned long ago to never speak in absolutes. The worst thing he could do would be to give her any kind of false hope.
He would do all in his power to ensure she stayed with him, but for now, that secret would be his alone.
“I wish for all my men to truly appear as they are now dressed until our return to these woods.”
She frowned, blinking at him, but her job as a genie was so ingrained that she did not ask.
“So shall it be,” she whispered, and the breeze that’d rolled from within her cast outward like a spiraling net, clamping hold of each of his men and transforming their appearance so that should she bump into one of them, she’d never even realize it.
When the magic faded away, she frowned at him. “You should change, Robin.”
Grabbing his clothes, he dragged them on, making sure to put on his spelled shirt—the one with the magical pocket—first. Needing to keep her lamp safely on him at all times.
Robin tied a goat-faced mask over face. The porcelain piece of art was exquisite. The planes and dips and grooves of it were so lifelike.
“Turn around,” he whispered to her.
She turned slowly, her look still one of hurt and pain.
“You will understand it all tonight, my beauty. I promise you.”
Nixie ran the tip of her pink tongue along her lower lip. He knew what that tongue tasted like. The sweetness and the spice of her.
He stepped into her. Wanting her desperately.
“I know I can’t stay, Robin, believe me. I understand, it’s just, sometimes it gets easy to forget.”
“Don’t forget.” He grabbed one of her hands and placed it on his beating heart. “I vow to you, all is not what it seems.”
They stayed like that for a moment longer, until finally he felt her relax in his arms.
*
She wanted to ask him so desperately what he meant. But she didn’t dare. Already her hope had gotten trampled on. Eventually he’d be forced to make all his wishes and that would be that. She couldn’t begrudge him that, or hate him for it.
This was the way of her kind. It was her lot in life, and she’d do well to remember that.
“I trust you,” she said softly, and then, unable to keep from touching him another second, she ran her fingers slowly up the length of one of its curved horns. Her heart thumping wildly in her chest.
“The way you touch that mask…” His voice was thick and full of the hunger they both kept trying to deny. “Would that it were my body, pet.”
Tired of pretending she felt nothing when she felt too much, Nixie took a step closer. They didn’t dare get intimate again, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make her desires known.
“I haven’t felt like a woman in forever, Robin. Not since coming to Kingdom. Just a vessel. Just a magical entity for others to find their own happiness, their own lusts and desires.” She curved her palm against the hard smoothness of the cool porcelain. “Not until you found me.”
Grabbing her wrist, his fingers dug in almost to the point of pain.
It was easier to be honest when she didn’t have to see his face. Didn’t have to feel desolated if he didn’t feel the same.
His words echoed as he said, “We’ve a job to do.”
The heart that’d been racing with a fever pitch now sank like a rock to her knees. But then he traced her neck. His fingers just barely grazing her flesh. Soft, exploratory touches that made her skin feel electrified, like a conduit for passion. It felt like all the blood in her body rushed to both her cheeks and between her thighs.
Days. That’s as long as she’d known him.
Nixie knew the stories. She’d grown with a father who’d told them constantly. The truth of love. How it came on like a flash of lightning and the roar of thunder. How it overtook all senses, possessing you mind, body, and soul.