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"Yes."
"I wanted you to take after the Seelie side of your family."
"My grandfather is an abusive bastard. My uncle is mad. My mother is a cold, envious social climber. Why would you want that in your life?"
"I don't mean their personalities, and I don't even mean the ones you referred to. Remember, I knew your ancestors before they were lost in the great wars in Europe. I knew some of the women of your mother's line. They were goddesses of fertility, love, lust. They were a warm lot, Merry, in that good earthy way."
"So, what, you wondered if I had taken after my great-great aunt?"
"Aunts," Rhys said, "and a great-grandmother or two. You reminded me of them. The hair, the eyes. I saw them in you."
"No one else did," I said.
"No one else was looking."
I rose and gave him a kiss. The kiss grew until I felt his body grow hard again, where all the talk had made it soft. He broke from my lips with a sound that was almost pain. "I can't keep being the gentleman if you keep kissing me like that."
"Then don't be the gentleman, be my lover."
Kitto finished fastening his jeans. "I will leave you to what the sidhe do best, other than magic. You are my friend, Rhys, I believe that, but you are not comfortable with me in the bed with you and the princess."
Rhys started to protest. It was my turn to put my fingers on his lips. "He's right."
He moved my hand. "I know. Dammit, I know. I thought if I could have sex with Kitto and you, I could guard you tonight with the goblins, but I can't."
"You have come a long way on the subject of goblins, Rhys. It's all right."
"Who will guard you tonight if Doyle is injured and my sensibilities are too delicate?"
"I don't know," I said, "and right this second I don't care. Make love to me, Rhys, now, just you. Be with me, help chase my thoughts to stillness." I rose and kissed him again and drew him down to me with arms and hands and eagerness.
I did not hear the door close quietly behind Kitto, but when next I opened my eyes, we were alone.
CHAPTER 19
RHYS MADE ME LIE ON MY STOMACH AND BEGAN TO BREATHE HIS way down my back. I would have said kiss, but it was too gentle for that. He caressed the skin with the barest touch of lips and breath. When he got low enough, he began to breathe and work those tiny, near-invisible hairs on the lower back, so that my body ran with goose bumps and involuntary shivers.
I raised my hips minutely from the bed in a silent invitation for him to do more.
He laughed, that laugh of his that was masculine pleasure and his own amusement. But for once there was nothing of self-mockery in it. He laid a more solid kiss against the small of my back. I writhed for him, letting him know without words how wonderful it was.
He laid his weight on top of me, resting the hard, long length of himself between the cheeks of my ass. The feel of it made me cry out.
He wrapped his arms around me, forced me enough off the bed so he could cup my breasts in his hands. He held me tightly and firmly in the strength of his body.
"If I truly loved you," he whispered, "I would do what Kitto has done. I would refuse to have intercourse with you. I would take myself out of the race for king. Kitto did it because he knows that neither court would ever let a half goblin sit as your king. They'd kill you both first."
He settled himself more firm against me, pushing his hips just a little. It made me writhe as much as the weight of him would allow, but the seriousness in his voice didn't match what his body was doing.
Rhys continued to whisper against my hair. "I know you love Doyle and Frost. Hell, you even love Galen more than you love me, even now when you've both realized what a political liability he would be as king."
"Sometimes we have just oral sex now when we are together."
Rhys tensed above me, and not in a sexual way, but as if he was thinking. "Has he taken himself out of the race for king?"
"Not completely, but sometimes we don't do anything to make babies. We just pleasure each other."
"Interesting," he said, and it wasn't a seductive whisper this time.
I tried to rise, but he kept me pressed to the bed with a squeeze of his arms, a flex of his hips. I spoke, trapped underneath him. "Why is it interesting?"
"Galen has taken himself out of the ru
I hadn't thought about it that way, but Rhys was right. It was gallant and horribly brave. Galen still had a chance to be the father of my child, but the last few times we'd made love he had only used his chance for intercourse once. The rest had been amazingly fun, but nothing that would have made a baby.
Rhys wrapped those strong arms tight, so tight it was almost hard to breathe. He whispered against my ear, his breath hot. "If I truly loved you, I would take myself out of the ru
I spoke in the voice that his grip allowed me, breathy. "It isn't a fight."
"Yes," he whispered fiercely. "Yes, it is. Not of strength of arms, maybe, but it is a battle. For some of us, the prize is to be king. But for most of us, Merry, we would want you as our prize even if there was no throne."
He shoved his body against mine hard and fierce until I cried out for him. Then he squeezed me even tighter until I thought I would have to ask him to stop so I could breathe. His voice was somewhere between a whisper and a hiss against my ear, so fierce, so full of emotion. "I want to win, Merry. I want you even if it breaks your heart. I am a selfish bastard, Merry. I won't give you up, not even to see you happy."
I lay underneath him and didn't know what to say.
He squeezed harder, and I finally had to protest, "Rhys, please…"
He eased the grip of his arms just enough so that I could draw a good breath, but his fingers squeezed my breasts hard and firm. The harshness of it drew small noises from me.
"You like sex rougher than I do. Things that are simply pain to me make you shiver with pleasure." His grip on my breasts eased. "The goblins will do worse than that tonight to you, and you will enjoy it, won't you?"
"I've negotiated for pleasure tonight, Rhys."
He rubbed his face against my hair. "I could give you up to Doyle, or Frost, or Galen, if I had to. It would kill something in me, but I could do it. But I could not bare to lose you to Ash and Holly. I could not bear to have my Merry married to goblins, fucking goblins every night."
A sound escaped him that was almost a sob.
"Rhys," I said, "I…"
"No, don't say it, whatever it is. Let me finish. I may never have the courage to say it all again."
I went still under him. I lay there with his body wrapped around me, and let him talk, if that was what he needed.
"I hate the thought of them with you tonight, Merry. I hate more that you are excited by the thought of them tying you up and fucking you. God, I hate that maybe most of all." His arms tightened around me once more. "See, I don't love you, not really. If I loved you, truly loved you, I'd want you to be happy. I'd want you to have the sex you enjoy, not just the sex I think you should have. But that's not what I want for you. I want you to be gentler than you are. I want you to want sex the way I make it. The way I like it. I hate that you want things that I think are pain and not pleasure. I hate knowing that though you enjoy sex with me, it's not everything you need, or want." He dug his fingers into my breasts again until I cried out again, and my body bucked under his.