Лорел Гамильтон - A Kiss Of Shadows

"I can't give my word that I won't turn away a second time, but I can give my word that I will try."

He looked at me, arrogance like a shield in his eyes. "That's not good enough."

"It's the best I have to offer. Is fear of rejection really worth losing your first touch of sidhe flesh so quickly?"

Doubt flickered in his eyes. "If you can't… stomach it," something about the phrase amused him, but not in a happy way, "then can I call glamour and…"

I finished when his voice trailed off. "Yes, we can."

He nodded. "That is the closest I have ever come to begging."

"I laughed. "Lucky you."

He looked puzzled then, and it was almost a relief to see the real Sholto peeking through that careful mask. "I don't understand."

"Your magic is powerful enough that you probably don't." It was my voice that held bitterness now. I shook it off, literally shaking my head, sending my hair sliding around my face. I held my hands out to him. "Come here."

Distrust showed on his face. I guess I couldn't blame him, but I was getting tired of holding his emotional hand. I didn't want to hurt him, but I wasn't sure I wanted to tie myself to him forever. It wasn't the tentacles it was the heavy emotions that seemed to swing back and forth so quickly. He was going to be a high-maintenance partner when it came to his feelings. Men like that are so damned exhausting that I usually avoid them, but Sholto could offer me things that the others couldn't. He could give me back my home—for that I could shovel emotional shit for a while. But truthfully, it was almost a bigger mark against him than his extras.

"Drop the shirt and come here, or don't. It's your choice."

"You sound impatient," he said.

I shrugged. "A little." I motioned him closer with my hands.

He slid the shirt off his shoulders to spill to the floor. A flurry of emotions crossed his face; he finally settled on defiance. Fine with me, because I knew that whatever was on his face wasn't how he really felt. He'd use a mask until he was sure of his welcome.

He dropped the glamour.

I TRIED TO WATCH ALL OF HIM AS HE WALKED TOWARD ME, BUT FINALLY gave up and stared. The tentacles were the same gleaming white as the rest of him. There was the faintest marbling effect in the thickest tentacles, and I knew from Bhatar that those were the muscular arms, the tentacles that did the heavy work. There were longer, thinner tentacles in groupings around the ribs and upper stomach. They were the fingers, but a hundred times more sensitive than a sidhe's. Then just above the belly button was a fringe of shorter tentacles with slightly darker tips. That he had those made me wonder even more if what lay in his pants was sidhe, or not.

I sat on the bed and stared until he was standing in front of me. He kept his face turned away, hands elapsed behind his back, as if he didn't want to see or touch me. I reached out and touched one of those smooth muscular tentacles. It jerked away at my touch. I stroked it, and I felt Sholto's gaze before I looked up to meet it.

I stroked the outer skin of the tentacle again. "These are for hard work, lifting, capturing prey, or prisoners." I traced my finger on the underside of the tentacle, feeling the slightly different texture. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was thicker than human skin, almost rubbery, like the skin on a dolphin.

"I suppose Bhatar told you that." His voice was angry.

"Yes." I grabbed the base of the tentacle where it melded into his body. I pulled gently but firmly down the length of it. It wrapped around my hand, holding it, moving it away from him.

"Don't," he said.

"It felt good didn't it?" I asked.

He looked at me, so angry, so scared. "How do you know what feels good to a nightflyer?"

"I asked."

He looked startled then, and I was able to pull my hand free of him.

I touched one of the groupings of thinner tentacles. They retracted like sea fans when a diver brushes them below a coral sea. "Bhatar could do the most intricate needlework with his fingers."

I moved my hand lower, not quite touching the last visible line of tentacles. "These are very sensitive—they can be used for the finest tactile work, but they're actually a secondary sexual organ."

He looked startled. "We do not usually share that bit of information with outsiders."

"I know." I smiled. "Bhatar used to caress visiting ladies with them. They were often afraid to tell him to go away for fear of offending him, and offending my father. I noticed when I finally went back to court that the Host often caressed nonsluagh with the lower tentacles. It's a sort of in-joke that you all have on us. You touch us with what amounts to a breast, and we're none the wiser."

"But you know," he said.

"I like a good in-joke when I'm not the butt of it." I ran my hand in a long movement over that last line of organs.

His breath went out in a sigh. His eyes stayed defiant, protective. I didn't even blame him for it. I had enough mixed genetics in my own ancestors that there but for the grace of Deity go I.

I touched them gently, and they began to weave around my fingers. The ends were slightly prehensile, not nearly as much so as the upper ones, but there was a slight depression on one side of each of the tentacles. I stroked a finger into one of the depressions; it made him shudder.

"I take it that has a specific job if you're with a female nightflyer?"

He nodded, wordlessly.

"What can they do for me?" I asked the question for several reasons. First, I was curious. Second, I had to know if I could stand for him to touch me intimately with them. I was touching him in almost a detached scientific way. You do x, and y happens. Detachment might allow me to touch him, but it wouldn't get me through sex.

He reached down with his hands, but that put the thicker tentacles in a mass against my face. It made me jerk back. Sholto instantly straightened. Maybe he would have stepped away again, but I grabbed a handful of the lower tentacles. It froze him in place, and his breath caught in his throat. The reaction reminded me of what happens when you touch a man's penis when he's not expecting it.

He reached down with his hands and jerked my shirt out of my pants. The movement put the thick muscular limbs against my face. This time I didn't pull away, but it was an effort.

He pulled the shirt over my head, and let it drop to the floor. The defiance was tinged with something else, something darker and more real. He used two of the muscular tentacles to gently move my hands away from the lower organs. Then the long thin tentacles grew, stretching longer and thinner, like muscular clay. The tips caressed the mounds of my breasts in quick teasing movements. It made me both startle and gasp.

The tips plunged inside my bra, and it was like a snake crawling against my skin. I was about to tell him, no, I couldn't do it, when those reddened tips found my nipples and I discovered what the depressions on the underside were for. They had suction, and the touch was expert. My nipples hardened under the sucking, squeezing sensation.

A second organ played low on my belly, tickling along the top of my pants. He asked without asking. I pushed him gently away. "Enough, please."

He pulled away from me, but this time he wasn't hurt. The look on his face was almost, not quite, but almost triumphant. "The look on your face just now, that alone is worth much to me."

I took a shaking breath and tried to think. "Glad to hear it, but there's one more thing I have to check before I know for sure."

He looked at me.

"Lose the belt, please," I said.

I didn't have to ask twice. He took the belt out, but left the pants buttoned. I liked that he had done exactly what I asked, no more, no less.