She looked at him in surprise, but whether that was for his tone of voice or his question, he didn’t know. “Of course.” He walked with her out the front door. When they were outside, she turned to face him. “What is wrong?”
As soon as the door was shut behind them, he began to feel better. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all. Why don’t I change again? I can fly us to the Fairmont more quickly than a taxi could take us.”
She frowned. She was certain something had been wrong. In the hall he had flared with aggression, but whatever had set him off, the aggression was gone now. She put it out of her mind and shrugged. “Fine, if that’s what you want to do.”
Secretly she was thrilled. She couldn’t wait to fly with him again. She schooled her face to hide her excitement as they stepped down to the sidewalk, he handed her his duffle and her leather bag, and shimmered into the change. Just before he shifted, he cloaked them again. She felt the ripple of it settle over them both like a warm blanket. As she leaped onto his back, he pointed out, “And still, nobody has seen us.”
Amused, she tapped the back of his sleek eagle’s head. “Pay attention. There’s nobody around.”
“You want more proof? I’ll just have to show you more proof.” He crouched and launched.
The power in his spring was even more incredible as he took off from land. Her spirits launched with him, in a straight-up trajectory toward exhilaration. After a steep climb, he wheeled to head in the direction of the hotel.
The Fairmont Hotel was one of the premiere luxury hotels in San Francisco. It sat atop Nob Hill and looked over the city and the Bay, and it had hundreds of rooms and suites, three restaurants and lounges, ballrooms, multimedia rooms for business conferences, shops and a spa. It was not far from Carling’s house, so in just a few minutes they landed on the hotel’s spacious manicured grounds, and Rune waited until Carling slid off his back before he changed into his human form.
Carling watched in fascination as he rippled through the change again. She had seen him change a few times now, and she still could not quite grasp what happened. This time the blur of his change was made even more indistinct by the cloaking . . . spell? no, that didn’t seem quite right, as it didn’t involve an incantation . . . that he kept wrapped around them. Then he was in his human form again, with his broad bare chest, horrible blood-streaked jeans and all.
He stepped close to put an arm around her and she leaned into him. “By the way, how are you feeling?” he asked. “Any hint of an approaching fade?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
“Good.” He squeezed her shoulders. “Check this out; here’s your proof. We’ve landed, you’re here in public, I’m half dressed, and nobody’s noticed. Now Councillor, you’ve got to admit, that’s just not right.”
Her eyebrows shot up and she laughed. She took a quick look around. The fog blew vaporous tendrils of white along the streets. She could hear and see people and traffic in the distance, but by some trick of chance, once more nobody happened to be nearby. “That’s sheer luck,” she said. “Nobody has noticed us because again, nobody is paying attention. I’m not convinced.”
“All right,” he said. “Come with me. Just remember to be quiet now. The cloaking only works on the visual, not on the auditory senses.”
He took the bags from her again and slung them onto one shoulder, kept his other arm around her, and walked with her to the flagged, well-lit portico at the front of the hotel. She stayed silent, watching the street that was busy with honking traffic and pedestrians as Rune steered them down the sidewalk. This time they came closer to other people, and not one person glanced their way.
Even with the fog, the late morning was too bright for any of the more photosensitive of the Nightkind, and there wasn’t a Vampyre in sight. All of the people they passed were human.
Are you convinced now? Rune asked telepathically.
She smiled to herself. She liked walking down the street with him. She liked moving together and basking in the warmth of his Power as it wrapped around her. She liked his clean, masculine scent. And maybe she liked teasing him a little too. I might be a bit more convinced than I was. But you know, San Franciscans are used to some pretty odd sights, nudist parades, the Vampyre Exotica ball. It could just be we’re boring.
Never, he said, his arm tightening on her shoulders. We’re never boring. Let’s step inside.
They had to pause to wait for someone else to walk through the front doors, and then they slipped in after, Rune urging Carling to go in front of him.
The lobby was massive, filled with gold brocade furniture, towering plants in huge floor pots, marble-veined columns that supported a two-story-high ceiling, patterned marble floors polished to a high gleam and rich cream lights. It was also quite busy, filled with people dressed in designer and shabby chic clothes, and sleek, tailored business suits. The lobby was filled with random noise, from the street traffic outside to conversations and sudden trills of laughter, and the unpredictable ping of cell phone ringtones. After the relative peace and quiet of the windswept island, civilization was jarring.
Rune guided Carling adroitly to one side near a wall, where there was a quiet clear space out of the way of traffic. He set their bags down and stood with his arms crossed. He told her, Feel free to commence praising at any time.
She chuckled under her breath. The lobby traffic wasn’t all human. A couple of Light Fae were checking in at the desk, tall slender figures with their signature pale blond hair and elegantly pointed ears. The Light Fae would have the ability to sense magic, but they were busy with their own affairs and never noticed Carling and Rune. Nobody looked their way. She had to admit, she was impressed.
Not that she was going to commence praising on cue. The eagle in him was perfectly capable of preening his own feathers. She grumbled, Okay, I’ll concede you might have something here.
He murmured, At last, success.
But what’s the catch?
He squinted at her. There is no catch. Nobody can see us. You could tear off all your clothes, jump up and down, and wave your arms, if you like. Nobody can see a thing we do.
There’s always a catch, she said. And I’m not talking about the auditory. There’s always a drawback or some kind of limitation to matters of magic and Power.
You’re just a glass-half-empty kind of girl, aren’t you? He cocked his head in exasperation.
Girl, she said, mulling over the word.
Very much a girl. Rune swiveled and paced in a circle around her. She turned her head to track him. His Power changed and tightened on her. It was a heavy, sultry feeling as vivid as a physical caress. He moved behind her, so close his hard chest pressed against her shoulder blades, and his hands came over hers and curled on her slender wrists. His hands were corded with strength, broad along the back and long in the fingers. They were heavily calloused from sword work and other physical labor. He stroked those long, clever fingers of his up her arms lightly. A spiky, beautiful girl. The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.
The tiny friction of his touch raised goose bumps along her bare skin, and she shuddered. I bet you say that to all the spiky, beautiful girls.
Never. I’ve never said it before. He spoke with such conviction she was actually tempted to believe him. He took her shoulders and pulled her back against him. Then he bent to put his lips against her ear and said in a whisper against the delicate shell of flesh, “There is one catch to the cloaking. Anyone with Power can look and see a shimmer where we’re standing. I’m told it looks like a heat haze rising off asphalt. But that happens only if they’re looking in the right direction at the right time, and are paying attention enough to question what they see. And nobody is looking at us.”
The Light Fae finished checking in and headed for the stairs. She watched them climb upward and disappear. Rune’s whisper was the barest thread of throaty sound. His breath tickled along her sensitive skin, and she shuddered harder as her knees weakened. She fou
nd herself leaning back against him. She breathed, “What are you doing?”
He felt it again, the sense that here was some keystroke password to an unbreakable code. He put his lips against her neck and mouthed, “What do you think I’m doing? I said I was going to come after you again.”
“Yes, but here? Now?” She tried to turn around, but his hands tightened and held her in place.
“What can I say, I’m an opportunist,” he murmured. “And you’re making me crazy. I loved the feeling of your legs gripping me tight when you knocked me down at the cottage. I love the fact that you could knock me down. I love your strength and confidence.” He realized the depth of truth in that statement. Back on the island it had hurt him to see her so profoundly shaken, and he would do just about anything he could to avoid seeing that happen to her again. He whispered, “Look at the couple that just walked in the door. They don’t have a clue we’re standing here. Or the doorman over there, standing just outside. He can’t see a thing as I do this.”
Unable to resist, Rune’s hand slid around and he cupped her full, round breast.
Even though he had given her plenty of warning, acute shock still bolted through her, washing her from head to toe. She made a small, strangled sound and suddenly Rune’s other hand was clapped tight over her mouth.
“Shh,” he whispered. His breathing had roughened. “We can’t make any noise.”
She gripped his forearms tightly, shaking, as she watched the couple, a man and a woman, walk by obliviously. The heat from Rune’s hand on her breast burned through the thin barrier of the cotton caftan. He stroked along the firm, weighted flesh until her plump nipple jutted between his first and second fingers. Then he pinched her gently, and the sensation speared right down to the juncture at the top of her legs.
She jerked in his arms and sucked in a useless, frantic breath. Her fingers dug into the muscled flesh of his forearms.
And she did not push away either the caressing hand at her breast or the hand that covered her mouth.
His mouth felt taut against her skin, at the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder. “Tell me to stop,” he breathed. Because he could not stop himself. The compulsion he felt kept driving him toward her. Dimly he was aware of warning bells going off somewhere, but they were far off in the distance, cloaked by a sensual haze that covered everything in his head.
Her head fell back against his collarbone. She gazed blindly at the ceiling and mouthed the word soundlessly against his broad palm. Stop?
He massaged her breast, rolling her nipple between his fingers, and good fucking hell, once again he almost came in his jeans. The luscious heavy weight of her breast filled his palm just right, and her nipple was a delicacy his mouth watered to taste, but the by-God real ass-kicker was how she shivered in his arms and held on to him like he was the last stable thing on earth, how her gorgeous, healthy scent bloomed with feminine arousal. That was his scent. That was for him.
And she breathed for him, in ragged, telltale gasps.
“You need to say that word again,” he whispered roughly against her neck. “Because I’m feeling a little thick right now and I’m not processing too clearly. And this time you need to say it like you mean it.”
The gears in Carling’s head ground as she tried to understand what he said. Word. He wanted a word from her. What was it?
Girl. No, that wasn’t it.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a teenage boy slouching through the hotel’s front doors, wearing ripped designer clothes and goth makeup, and carrying an iPad under one skinny arm. He glared at the world as if it owed him an explanation. Yeah, good luck with that one, kid.
Then Rune opened his hot mouth on the sensitive skin of her neck and suckled at her, and she lost the ability to get any word out. He grazed her lightly with his teeth as he let go of her nipple. His infernally clever fingers moved to the front of her caftan.
All of her caftans were hand-stitched, of varying designs. Some were simply fashioned to pull over the head, and others were fastened down the front with a row of small buttons carved of either bone or wood. None of them contained zippers, as she used them so often for work and metal could sometimes interact or interfere with magic.
This caftan was fastened in the front with a row of buttons. As he suckled at her neck, Rune slipped one of the buttons free of its hole. His hand was clamped so tightly on her mouth she couldn’t turn her head. She tried to track his movements by just moving her eyes.
The buttons ran close together. He unbuttoned another and slipped his hand inside to cup her breast again. They both hissed as his calloused palm came in contact with her heavy, naked, sensitive flesh. Every muscle in his body felt ridged with tension. When he pushed his lean hips against the rounded curve of her ass, she could feel the long thick ridge of his erection. She could sense the blood hurtling through his body like a stealth bomber, and his jagged breathing sawed against her skin. He massaged her breast and scraped the tip of her nipple with his fingernail.
Every pulse point on her body screamed in response, the sexual need ratcheting higher. Normally so cool, she was shocked all over again when she broke into a sweat and her sex moistened in a liquid gush. The sense of urgency, of possible exposure, was agonizing.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
She started shaking her head. Somehow she found a paltry scatter of words. I—I don’t think—I can’ t—
Can’t what, beautiful girl? Can’t relax and enjoy this? It’s wicked but not bad. It’s just a little naughty fun and even if it doesn’t feel like it, it’s perfectly private. Rune whispered temptation in her head with as much wily wisdom as the snake in the Garden of Eden. He pinched her harder, and she strangled a squeal as her back arched. You’re safe, trust me. I would never let anyone see you like this. God, your breast feels like it was made for my hand. Such a perfect, perfect fit.
She was going to push him away. She was, any minute now, but then he pulled his hand out of the caftan, which left her blinking in disappointment.
She twisted to face him, her arms going around his neck even as his mouth came down on hers. He kissed her, hard and hungrily, and she let her eyes fall closed as she kissed him back. His heart pounded. She loved the sensation of his blood coursing throughout his long, powerful frame.
He turned them and pushed her back against the wall, covering her with his body, and fresh shock detonated as he ran a hand down her torso between them to unfasten the two buttons of her caftan that were over her groin. Before she quite knew what happened, he had slipped his hand inside and slid his fingers into the moist silken tangle of private hair.
He was touching her. Right there in the hotel lobby. He was touching her. The pleasure of it had her so crazed it escaped in a high, thin, nearly inaudible scream as she clutched his hand against her. He swallowed the sound as he fucked her mouth with his tongue.
And nobody noticed. Nobody saw. The indifferent world wheeled on its clockwork way around them.
Shh, darling, Rune said. His mental voice sounded as ragged as she felt. His big body bowed over her, lungs working like bellows. He was so hot, the feel of his body burned through the caftan. Holy gods, I’m finding religion here. You feel like heaven on earth, you’re so soft and wet and silky. What I wouldn’t give to be able to taste you right now.
She let go of his hand and gripped one of his rock-hard thighs as she sank the other fist in his hair, and somehow she managed to find her telepathic voice again. Okay okay okay. This has been really amusing—
Amusing. More like apocalyptic.
—but I don’t think I can take any—any more of this—
Even as she stuttered, he found the small stiffened bud of her clitoris and stroked it with a forefinger.
The climax sucker punched her, a left hook that came out of nowhere and clipped her on the jaw. All the strength ran out of her body and her legs turned to rubber, and she went down for the count.
She slid to her knees and he came d
own with her. He cupped her between the legs and kept a firm steady pressure on the tiny throbbing pulse of her pleasure, bracing his weight on one forearm against the wall as he bowed over her. He was panting as if he were running in a full-out sprint, his Power a fiery cascade around them. He pulled his mouth from hers to sink his teeth into her neck as she shuddered through the throes of the climax. He was swearing steadily in her head, and the jagged curses sounded like poetry.
Then the cataclysm racking her mind and body eased. They both held still, breathing heavily.
Rune asked, Are you all right? I didn’t push things too far, did I? Even his mental voice seemed hoarse, as though he had been shouting.
She had to think about it. She had witnessed many things, always holding herself separate from the sexual excesses of history, but she had never seen or heard of anything like what she had just experienced. It was not just the exoticism of the act itself. It was the exoticism of him, that playful, affectionate, dangerous on-the-edge man.
Just a little bit of naughty fun, and perfectly private. You’re safe, trust me.
A ghost of a chuckle escaped her. He poisoned her with affection and compassion, and he taught her what it meant to play again. He gave her hope and tore down her past, all with a fierce laugh in those remarkable eyes. He had already taken her soul on an impossible moonlit flight. She might as well give him her shredded, useless heart too, since she hadn’t been using it all these years.
She whispered, “I’m okay, you lunatic. But I really cannot go any further out here . . .”
He was already shaking his head. “I don’t think I could hold on to the cloaking and take you at the same time,” he growled. “And I will not risk exposing either of us like that.”
Because she was safe, and she really could trust him. She really could.
She hiccupped in a silent sob, a physical reaction as involuntary and shocking as the climax had been.
He smoothed the tangled hair away from her face. Are you sure you’re all right, darling? he asked again, sounding concerned.