Лорел Гамильтон - A Stroke Of Midnight

“They will come to my body as the rest of you have. They will have their chance for kingmaking. I know to negotiate exactly what kind of sex they can have from me. Beyond that why should I fear them?”

“We will be with Merry in the goblin court,” Galen said. “We won’t let anything bad happen to her.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Kitto said, gazing up at the other man.

“How dangerous are the twins?” Nicca asked.

“They are some of the most feared warriors of our court,” Kitto said.

“They looked sort of puny standing next to the Red Caps,” Galen said.

“I do not know what this ‘puny’ means,” Kitto said.

“Small, weak,” I said.

Kitto acknowledged it with a nod. “But size is not everything in combat. Holly and Ash have a reputation for viciousness among the goblins.”

I stopped petting Kitto and went very still, because what he’d just said put things in perspective for me. For Holly and Ash to have earned such a fearsome reputation among the goblins spoke of terrible violence against a people who thrived on it.

“Goblins are stronger than we are,” Galen said. “To be half-sidhe in their court must make life hard.”

Kitto shivered, and he relaxed his hands on my waist enough for me to press the front of my body against the front of his. Galen and I held him between our bodies; he wrapped his arms around me, and clung to the feel of our bodies. “You have no idea, Galen, no idea how it marks you as victim. I was unlucky enough to be as weak as I look. Holly and Ash were beautiful children, blond and pale, and except for the eyes would have passed at either sidhe court. Even with the eyes they would have been accepted.”

“Why didn’t they petition to join our court?” I asked, my face resting on the top of Kitto’s wet hair, and the warmth of Galen’s shoulder.

“I do not know,” Kitto said, “for they suffered when they were young males. Our females liked to make them perform, until they grew strong enough to fight them off.”

Galen and I were frowning at him, but Nicca seemed to understand. “You mean the she-goblins raped them?”

Kitto nodded.

“It’s not easy for a woman to rape a man,” I said.

“It is possible,” Nicca said, and he leaned his face against the one folded arm that graced the edge of the tub. His other arm was deeper in the water, as if he sought something below its surface. “The queen is fond of force.”

I moved through the water to touch his shoulder. He started when I touched him, as if he had expected a far less pleasant touch. Nicca’s brown eyes were a little too wide. Whatever memory he was thinking upon, it was a bad one. So many bad memories among the guard, thanks to Andais.

I laid a gentle kiss on his mouth, and drew back to stare into his face. “Let me clean up, and we will make love. Gentle love, and then you will have Biddy and that will be gentle, too.”

He nodded, but it was a little too rapid, and his eyes still held that shadow of fear. I felt the water move before Kitto came beside me to add his hands to mine on Nicca’s body. “Until I became a part of the princess’s household, I did not understand that any sidhe could be forced to such horrors, not unless they had earned punishment.” He touched Nicca’s face. “I know now that there is pain in every court, and no one is truly safe.” He kissed Nicca’s cheek. “Let me help them rid themselves of the blood, and then the princess will take that sadness from your eyes.”

Nicca smiled at him. “There are other things you can do with Merry besides intercourse. You, too, could have her do things to you that would take that sorrow from your eyes, Kitto.”

He did that quick grin again, as if he was afraid to be seen smiling so broadly. “In the goblin court the one who gives oral pleasure is the lesser being. It shows that you are submissive to the one you are pleasuring.”

“That’s not how the sidhe see it,” Galen said, moving to join us at the center of the tub.

Kitto flashed him another grin. “So I have seen whenever Merry could persuade one of us to let her but touch us.”

“I like oral sex,” I said.

“We know,” the three of them said in unison, which made them all laugh.

“I don’t like that Holly and Ash feel they can dictate to you, Kitto. But if you truly aren’t comfortable with intercourse, then let me finish what I’ve only been able to start with all of you but Sage.”

“With Sage you were forbidden to have intercourse,” Nicca said. “Queen Andais doesn’t want to risk a demi-fey on our throne.”

I nodded. “So we did nothing that would risk Sage getting me pregnant.” I looked at Kitto, and didn’t fight the look that filled my eyes. “And now I’m supposed to do things with Kitto that won’t let him get me with child either.”

Kitto’s breath shook on its way out, but not with fear. “If you were a goblin and looked at me so, I would be afraid, but I’ve learned what that light in your eyes means.”

“What?” I asked, in a voice that was already grown lower with need.

“That you’re about to do something to me that I’m going to like,” he said. “Let me help you and Galen get clean.”

“And then?” I asked.

He gave me a look that I’ve seen in men’s eyes before, a look that says they know what we’re about to do, and that there will be no going back, no stopping. “And then I will let you have your way with me.”

“Other than the little you’ve allowed Merry to do to you, have you ever had anyone do oral sex on you?” Galen asked.

Kitto looked at him. “No.”

I took in a long shaking breath and shivered when my breath ran out. I’d never gotten to be the first for anyone before. I was almost certain that the rest of the guard had had this particular pleasure performed by someone else once upon a time. I would be the first one to ever hold Kitto in their mouth, and suck, and lick, and bite, if he wished.

“Your face,” Galen said, “like it’s Winter Solstice and you’ve gotten every present you asked for.”

“If you’d let me go down on you, you’d see this expression on my face more often,” I said.

He gave me a look. “You’re incorrigible.”

I leaned around Kitto, closer to Galen. “If you’d only say yes, you’d find out just how incorrigible I can be.”

I was rewarded with a look almost of pain, as if he wanted to say yes, but… intercourse had become everyone’s goal, because we pursued a baby like some infertile couple.

“Me first,” Kitto said.

“Me second,” Nicca said, “though I think the queen will be upset if we do oral and not something that would gain you a child.”

I nodded. “She was very specific about that, so yes. I don’t want to disappoint Andais.”

We all shivered in unison, and this time it had nothing to do with pleasure.

THE TILE WAS TOO COLD TO LIE ON, BUT TOWELS TOOK CARE OF that. Kitto lay back on them, knees up, legs slightly spread so I could reach him better, an ivory dream against all that burgundy darkness. His sex was swollen and thick even before I got to kneel between his legs. Anticipation had done much of my work for me.

I slid my mouth over the swollen tip of him, like taking in a whole, ripe plum until my mouth was so full I couldn’t bite down, and couldn’t swallow. My mouth is full of the ripe, firm flesh, but with this plum, filling my mouth was only the beginning, so much left to swallow. The warm thick firmness of the fruit doesn’t writhe in your mouth, as you move over it. It doesn’t cry out as you lick along it inside your mouth.

Kitto’s hands dug at the towels underneath him, bunching them in his hands, clutching the only thing he could find while he rode the pleasure.