The Fae Book 2: Burr and Daisy

Chapter 1: A Drunken Mistake

A little over year ago...

The Hughes family Christmas party was always an amazing event -- no mere party for this family, yet despite the obvious money they'd spent on it, it still was fun and cozy and warm. Oberon, at home on leave for the first time in a couple of years, was clearly feeling no pain, but he still wasn't drunk. I'd never seen him get wasted to the point that he was sloppy or falling down drunk, only to this point where he became flirty and teasing. But the difference was, tonight he was flirty and teasing with me. Me!  Oh, he'd talked politely with other girls at the party, being his usual charming self, but he kept gravitating back to me. I hadn't had a drink all night, but the way my blood was pumping through my veins, I was beginning to feel drunk on his attention, on the way his amazing silver eyes caught mine from across the room or up close.

As people began heading back home after the party -- the Hughes family hired cars and drivers for the night so no one would drink and drive -- Oberon leaned in closer to me and the tip of his perfect nose grazed my neck right before he whispered into my ear. 

"Walk on the beach with me, Daisy-Daze."

I'll go anywhere with you, Oberon.

Instead of blurting that out, I smiled up at him and agreed. He grabbed my hand, and I felt that jolt, that frisson of energy shoot up my arm, electrifying my already hyped emotions. Oberon was holding my hand! He was finally holding my hand! In all the time I'd known him, in the nine years since I'd fallen in love with him at fifteen, he'd never done that before and I knew that I'd treasure this moment forever. Oberon was finally noticing me and not as his sister's best friend. He was noticing me as a woman. I'd waited and hoped for this for years. Years. Most of them without any hope of him noticing me because he always had girls, gorgeous, beautiful women, flocking around him and he was too busy flirting and charming them to notice me.

But tonight, I was the girl he was walking out the back door and onto the beach with. Me! I could hear the surf but the full moon was covered by a cloud so it was too dark to see.

"Too bad the clouds are covering the moon," I murmured.

Oberon laughed, waved his hand and said in a teasing, fake British accent, "If my lady wants moonlight, she shall have it."

He'd timed it perfectly because the clouds slipped away and the moonlight shone all around us.

I laughed. "You're a wizard!"

He grinned down at me. "Don't insult me. I am far beyond a wizard for they cannot call down the storm."

"I think you might be a wee bit drunk," I laughed at his words.

"Drunk on you in the moonlight, my little flower."

His little flower. My breath may have gotten stuck in my throat. He'd called me his little flower. That might rank above the hand holding. He'd given me a pet name, held my hand and walked on the beach with me, all on the same night.

If I hadn't already loved this man, this night would have pushed me over the edge.

We walked for an hour, eventually leaving the beach and heading into town. Oberon never once let go of my hand, and he tugged me closer often to press a kiss to my head or my cheek. We had walked all the way to my bakery, where I lived above it in a little, tiny apartment.

"I want to kiss you," he told me solemnly, "so I'm going to kiss you."

And then he placed those huge hands of his on my cheeks and pressed his lips to mine in the most perfect first kiss ever, soft and sweet at first, then deepening into something that embodied yearning and desire and need.