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Alistair scooped my legs up and walked us both onto the bed with his knees. When we were near the center of the bed, he laid me down and stayed on his knees, looking at me, towering over me. But I'd worked alongside Uther for three years. Six feet was nothing when you'd been having lunch with thirteen.
I don't think I looked impressed enough because he took off the tie and tossed it to the bed, fingers going to his shirt buttons. He was going to undress first. I was surprised. A control freak usually wants their victim naked first. He was out of his jacket and shirt, hands going to his belt before I could figure out what to do. Slowing him down seemed to be good.
I sat up, touching his hands. "Slow down. Let me enjoy the unveiling. You're rushing through it like you've got another date tonight." I held on to his hands, rubbing across his skin, stroking his bare arms. I concentrated on the feel of the tiny hairs on his forearms and how they slid under my touch. If I concentrated just on the physical sensations one at a time, I could make my eyes lie or at least show a genuine interest. The trick was not to think too hard about who I was touching.
"There's no one but you tonight, Merry." He drew me to my knees, then ran his hands through my hair, letting it slide through his fingers so that he held my face in his big hands. "There will be no one else for either of us after tonight, Merry."
I didn't like the sound of that, but it was the first thing he'd said that was sort of psychotic so I was doing something right. "What do you mean, Alistair? We eloping to Vegas?"
He smiled, still holding my face, staring into my eyes liked he'd memorize them. "Marriage is just a ceremony, but tonight I'll show you what it means to be truly one with a man."
I raised an eyebrow before I could help myself. Knowing my face already showed it, I said, "My, you do have a high opinion of yourself."
"It's not idle boasting, Merry." He kissed me, softly, then crawled past me to the headboard of the bed. He pressed on the wood, and a little door sprang open. A secret compartment, how nifty. He turned with a small glass bottle in his hands. It was one of those glass bottles with curves and frills to it that you're supposed to keep expensive perfume in, but no one ever does.
"Take off the dress," he said.
"Why?"
"It's massage oil." He held the bottle up so I could see the thick oil in the light through the ruby glass.
I smiled at him, and I tried to make it everything he wanted: sexual, flirtatious, a little cynical. "The pants first."
He gri
"If we're getting naked, you first."
He started to turn and set the bottle inside the compartment again. "I'll hold it for you," I said.
He stopped in midmotion, turning back to me with a heat in his eyes that was almost touchable. "Only if you put some on your breasts while I undress."
"Will it stain my dress?"
He actually seemed to think about that, face becoming thoughtful, intelligence showing through. "I'm not sure, but I'll buy you a new one if it's ruined."
"Men will promise anything in the heat of the moment," I said.
"Let me see the oil run down that pure white skin. Make them glisten for me." He handed the bottle to me, wrapping my hands around it. He kissed me again, mouth lingering on me, his tongue probing, opening my mouth so the kiss could be more. He drew back, slowly. "Please Merry, please."
He moved back, but not far, hands at his belt again. He drew the leather tongue slowly through the gold buckle, drawing out each movement while he watched me. It made me smile because he was doing what I'd asked. He was slowly unveiling himself.
The least I could do was do what he'd asked. The push-up bra left enough of my breasts bare so that I didn't have to lift anything out of the dress. I drew the stopper out of the bottle. It had one of those long g]ass rods on the end of it, to glide along your skin. I sniffed the oil. It smelled of ci
"It reacts to your body's heat." He pulled the belt out of the last loop and tossed it between us on the bed. "Your turn."
I lifted the stopper out of the bottle. The oil clung to it in a heavy strand. I touched the end of the glass rod to the top of my breast. The Oil was already warm, body temperature. I trailed the rod across the mounds of my breasts and tiny trails of oil followed it, tracing like thick tears across my skin. The smell of ci
Alistair undid the snap on his pants and slowly drew down the zipper. He wore red bikini underwear, like he'd dressed to match the bedroom. The scarlet was very bright against his skin, clinging over the front of his body like a second skin. He lay down on the bed to get the pants off, gazing up at me so that I towered over him on my knees as he had towered over me earlier.
He reached up, still flat on his back, ru
I drew back from the kiss and tried to focus, to think. I didn't want to think. I wanted to touch him and have him touch me. My breasts ached to be touched. My mouth almost burned with the need to close the distance between us. He leaned in for another kiss, and I crawled backward, falling onto my back in my rush to put distance between us.
Alistair crawled to me on knees and one hand. The other hand held the bottle. He straddled me the way a horse stands over her colt. My gaze kept sliding down his body to the hard front of him. I couldn't keep my eyes on his face. It was embarrassing, and frightening.
"Stupid," I said, "so stupid. It's in the oil. There's a spell in the oil." 1 His voice came in an almost harsh whisper. "The oil is the spell."
I didn't understand what he meant at first, but I knew I didn't want anymore of it on me. He started to open the bottle, and I sat up, taking his hands in mine, keeping the lid on the damn thing. The moment I touched his hands, I lost. We were kissing again, and I hadn't meant to. It was as if the more we kissed, the more I wanted to be kissed, like it fed on itself.
I threw myself back on the bed, hands covering my face. "No!" I knew what it was now: Branwyn's Tears, Aeval's Joy, Fergus's Sweat. It could make a human into a sidhe lover for one night. It could turn even a sidhe into a sexual slave, if that sidhe had no access to other sidhe. No fey, no matter how talented, how powerful, can rival the sidhe, so it's said. You can forget what the touch is like. You can fight not to dream of glowing flesh and eyes like molten jewels, a sweep of ankle-length hair across your body. But the desire is always there just under the surface, like an alcoholic who can never take another drink for fear that one drink will never be enough to satisfy that thirst.