Лорел Гамильтон - A Caress Of Twilight

I hid my face in the curve of his neck. His skin was warm to the touch. His pulse beat against my face. His smell was so warm, so very warm. "I've been thinking about that." I spoke the words against his skin.

He rubbed his neck against my face. "And what conclusions have you come to?"

I drew back enough to see his face. "That Nicca would be a victim and a disaster on the throne. That Rhys is lovely in bed, but I can't see him as a king. That my father was right and Galen would be utterly disastrous. That there are more knights at court that I would rather kill than be tied to for the rest of my life."

He laid his lips against the side of my neck, not quite kissing me. He spoke with his own mouth against my skin, so that his words made small kissing movements against me. "There is Frost and. . me."

The feel of his lips made me shiver, writhing in his lap. Doyle drew a sharp breath, his hands wrapping around my waist, across my thighs. He whispered, "Merry," against my skin, his breath warm and fierce, his fingers digging into my thigh, my waist. There was such strength in his hands, such pressure, as if with little effort he could plunge his fingers into my body and bring my blood and flesh to the surface, peel me apart like something ripe and sweet. Something that had been waiting for his hand to open me, to bring me, to spill me in a rush of pleasure over his hands, across his body.

He half lifted me, half threw me onto the bed. I waited for him to press his body against mine, but he didn't. He got up on all fours, straddling above me like a mare with a colt, but there was nothing motherly about the way he stared down at me. He'd thrown all that hair over one shoulder so that his naked upper body was exposed to the light. His skin gleamed like polished ebony. His breathing was deep and rapid, making the nipple ring wink and shimmer above me.

I raised my hand to touch it, brushed my fingers over that bit of silver, and a sound came out of Doyle, low in his body and growing, a growl like some great beast, echoing through that slender, muscled body. He straddled my body, lips curving back to flash white teeth, while that growl trickled out of his lips, past his teeth like a warning.

It made my pulse race, but I wasn't afraid yet. Not yet. He leaned down into my face and snarled, "Run!"

I just blinked at him, my pulse in my throat.

He threw back his head and howled, a sound that echoed and echoed in the small room. The hair on my body stood, and I stopped breathing for a second, because I knew that sound.

That lone, clear evil belling of the Gabriel Ratchets, the dark hounds of the wild hunt. He put his face inches from mine and growled, "Run!"

I scrambled out from underneath him, and he watched me with those dark eyes, his body immobile but so tense it seemed to shimmer with the promise of some violent action, violence contained, constrained, restricted, but there all the same.

I had crawled off on the wrong side of the bed. I was trapped between the window and the bed. The outer door lay across the bed, past Doyle. I'd played games of hunt and catch before. A lot of things in the Unseelie Court liked to catch you first, but that was pretend, play, foreplay. The look in Doyle's eyes was hungry, but one hunger looks much like another until it's too late.

His voice fought out from his clenched teeth. "You … are … not. . running!" With that last, he made a rush at me on all fours, a black blur. I threw myself over the edge of the bed, rolled, and fell to the floor in front of the outer door. I was on my feet, hand on the doorknob when his body crashed into mine. The door shook and my body bruised with the violence of it. He jerked my hand off the doorknob, and I could not withstand his strength.

I screamed.

He tore me away from the door, threw me on the bed. I tried to slide off to one side, but he was there, his lower body pressing against mine, keeping me pinned to the side of the bed. I could feel the firmness of him through his jeans, through my panties.

The door opened behind us, and Rhys looked in. Doyle growled at him. Rhys said, "You screamed?" His face was serious. There was a gun in his hand, held next to his leg, not pointed but there.

Doyle growled, "Get out!"

"I leave at the princess's order, not yours, sire." He shrugged. "Sorry. You having a good time, Merry, or. ." He made a vague motion with the gun.

"I'm. . I'm not sure." My voice came out breathy. The feel of Doyle pressed tight and firm against me was exciting, even the promise of violence was exciting, but only if it was the promise of it, a game.

His hands on my thighs were shaking, his entire body quivering with the effort not to finish what he'd started. I touched his face gently. He startled as if I'd hurt him, then turned, looked at me. The look in his eyes was barely human. It was like looking into the eyes of a tiger, beautiful, neutral, hungry.

"Are we having fun here, Doyle, or are you going to eat me?" My voice was a little steadier, firmer.

"This first time I would not trust myself to put my mouth to such tender places."

It took me a second to realize that he had misunderstood me. "I don't mean eat me in the euphemistic sense, Doyle. I mean, am I food?" My voice sounded utterly calm now, ordinary. Pinned to the bed by his body, his eyes still animalistic and wild, and I sounded like I was in the office, talking business.

He blinked and I saw the confusion in his eyes. I realized that I was asking him to think too deeply. He'd given himself over to a piece of himself that he rarely let out. That part didn't think like a person.

He did something with his legs that pressed him tighter against me. It made me cry out, but not in pain. "Do you want this?" His voice was almost normal, breathy, but almost normal.

I searched his face, tried to read something there that would comfort me. There was a glimpse of him in the eyes, a sliver of Doyle left behind. I took a deep breath, and said, "Yes."

"You heard her. Get out." His voice began to fall into the growl again, every word lower and lower.

"You sure, Merry?" Rhys asked.

I'd almost forgotten him standing there. I nodded. "I'm sure."

"So we just close the door and ignore the noise and trust that you'll be all right?"

I stared into Doyle's eyes and found nothing but need, a need like nothing I'd ever seen in any man. It went beyond desire and became a true need, like food, or water. For him, tonight, this was need; if I turned from him now, we might come together as lovers, but he'd never let himself go this far again. He might close this part of himself away forever, and it would be a little death.

I'd endured that little death for years, dying by inches on the shores of the human sea. Doyle had found me and brought me back to faerie. He'd brought back all those parts of myself I'd had to leave behind to pass for human, to pass for lesser fey. If I turned from him now, would he ever find this piece of himself again?

"I'll be all right, Rhys," I said, but I wasn't looking at him, I was looking at Doyle.

"You sure?"

Doyle turned and spoke in a voice that was almost too low and animal to understand. "You heard her. Now get out."

Rhys gave a small bow and shut the door behind him. Doyle turned those eyes back to me. He growled more than spoke, "You want this?" He was giving me one last chance to say no. But his body ground against mine, his fingers digging into my thighs, as he said it. His mind and mouth were trying to give me a way out, although his body didn't want to.

I had to close my eyes as I shuddered under the press of him. He growled against my face, and the sound traveled through his body, vibrating along mine, as if the sound could travel places that his body hadn't touched yet.

Even as his body ground into mine, forced small noises from my throat, he growled, "Do you want this?"