A Kiss of Shadows (48 page)

I laughed, I couldn't help it. I knew he wouldn't like the laughter, but I just couldn't help it.

His face grew arrogant, distant, eyes cold but still angry. “What do you want of me, Meredith?”

“Frost, forgive me, but you can't rape the willing.”

He frowned at that, as if he didn't understand the phrasing.

“I want to have sex with you tonight. That's the plan. How can that be rape?”

He shook his head, sending the hair sliding around him, sparkling in the light. “You do not understand. I do not trust that I can control myself.”

“In what way?”

“In every way!” He turned away again, hugging himself.

I finally began to get an inkling of what he was trying to say. “Are you concerned that you won't last long enough for my pleasure?”

“That and . . .”

“What, Frost, what?”

“He wants to fuck you,” Kitto said.

We both looked at the goblin still kneeling by the bathtub. “I know that,” I said.

Kitto shook his head. “Not sex, just fucking. He's been so long without, he just wants to do it.”

I looked at Frost. He was avoiding my eyes. “Is that what you want?”

He hung his head, hiding behind all that hair. “I want to strip off your panties, put you up against the sink, and just be inside you. I don't feel gentle tonight, Meredith. I feel half-crazed.”

“Then do it,” I said.

He turned and stared at me. “What did you say?”

“Do it, just the way you want it. Eight hundred years, you're entitled to a little fantasy.”

He frowned. “But it won't be enjoyable for you.”

“Let me worry about that. You forget that I'm descended from fertility gods. As many times as you go inside me, I can bring you back to need with a touch of my hand, a tiny use of power. Just because we begin the night here, doesn't mean we have to end it here.”

“You would let me do that?”

I looked at him, standing there with his broad shoulders, the swell of his chest peeking through that glorious hair, the narrow waist, the tight hips encased in those so-tight pants. I thought about him dropping those pants, of seeing him nude for the first time, of having him push himself inside me, urgent, so full of need that he would touch nothing, do nothing but shove himself inside me. I had to let my breath go in a sigh before I could speak. “Yes.”

He crossed the room in two strides, lifting me off the counter, setting me on the floor. I had to balance on the bad ankle, but he didn't give me time to protest. He pulled the dress off my arms in one abrupt movement. I had to grab the edge of the counter to keep from falling. He jerked the dress down, letting it pool on the floor around my feet. He grabbed the black satin of the panties and pulled them down, too.

I could see Kitto in the foggy mirror. He watched everything with eager eyes, utterly silent, as if he didn't want to break the spell.

Frost had to unlace the pants, and it took time. He was making a small noise low in his throat by the time he had gotten them unfastened and peeled down his body. The shirt was fastened over his groin, and he ripped the material away. He was long and hard and more than ready. I had a glimpse of him over my shoulder, then his hands were on my waist, turning me to face the fogged mirror.

I had a moment of feeling him sliding against me, then he was inside me. He shoved against the tightness of my body, forcing himself into me. I'd given him permission, wanted him, but with almost no foreplay it was still pain with the pleasure. A bruising, almost tearing pressure brought my breath in a gasp that was both pain and desire. When he was sheathed inside me as far as he could go, he whispered, “You're tight—not ready for me—but you are wet.”

My voice came out breathy. “I know.”

He drew himself out, part way, then in, and after that there was nothing but his body inside mine. His need was large and fierce and so was he. He thrust into me as hard and as fast as he could. The sound of flesh hitting flesh punctuated every thrust of his body. It forced sounds from my throat, from the sheer force of it, and from the sensations as he moved inside me, over me, through me. My body opened to him, no longer tight, just wet.

He used his hands to force my body down on the counter, then lifted me so that most of my body was on the counter. My feet were no longer touching the ground. He pounded himself into me, as if he were trying to force his way not just into my body but through and out the other side. A tightness began to grow low in my body, my breath coming faster. Flesh into flesh, so hard and fast with such strength that it danced that thin line between pleasure and pain. I kept expecting him to finish his need in one long glorious burst, but he didn't. He hesitated, using large strong hands to move my hips along the counter, a small adjustment as if he were looking for just the right spot, then he thrust inside me again in one long hard movement, and I cried out. Frost had found that spot inside my body, and was running himself over it, and over it, and over it, as hard and as fast as before, but now he drew small sounds from me. The tightness began to grow, swell, like a warm thing growing inside me. It grew large and larger, flowing outward along my skin as if a thousand feathers were being drawn down my skin to send me shivering, twitching, drawing noises from my mouth that were wordless, thoughtless, formless. It was the song of flesh, not love, not even desire, but something more primitive, more primal.

I looked into the mirror and found my skin glowing, my eyes startled full of green-and-gold fire. I could see Frost in the mirror. He was carved of ivory and albaster; a glowing, shining play of white light pulsed against his skin as if the power would burst from him. He caught me looking at him in the mirror, and those glowing grey eyes like clouds with moonlight behind them turned angry. He put his hand on my face, turned me away so I couldn't watch him, kept his hand there, trapping me, his other hand on my back, his body pinning me. I couldn't move, couldn't get away, couldn't stop him. I didn't want to, but I understood. It was important to him that he be in control, that he say when and how, and even me looking at him was an intrusion. This was his moment—I was just the flesh that he drove himself into. He needed for me to be nothing and no one except someone to fill his need.

I heard his breathing quicken, his thrusts taking on an urgency, harder, faster, until I cried out, and still he didn't stop. I felt the rhythm of his body change, a shudder run through him, then I was gone. That swelling warmth spilled over me, through me, pulsing deep inside my body, making my body contract, jerking, unable to control it, only his hands on my body kept me still, kept me whole. But if my body couldn't move, the pleasure had to come out some way; it spilled out of my mouth in screams, deep, racking screams, over and over as fast as I could draw breath.

Frost cried out above me, sending his cries after mine. He leaned over the counter, a hand on either side of me, head down. His hair spilled over my body like warm silk. I lay totally passive, still pinned under his body, trying to relearn how to breathe.

He found his voice first, though it was a ragged whisper, “Thank you.”

If I'd had enough breath I'd have laughed. My throat was so dry, that my voice sounded stiff. “Trust me on this, Frost, it was my pleasure.”

He bent over and laid a kiss on my cheek. “I will try to do better next time.” He moved his hands away from me, letting me move, but stayed sheathed inside me as if he were reluctant to let that go.

I looked at him, thinking he was joking, but his face was utterly serious. “It gets better than this?” I asked.

He nodded solemnly. “Oh, yes.”

“The queen was a fool,” I said softly.

He smiled then. “I always thought so.”

Chapter 35

 

I WOKE TO A SPILL OF SILVER HAIR STRETCHED LIKE GLISTENING SPIDER
webs across my face. I moved just my head, leaving the hair to trail across my face. Frost lay on his stomach, his face turned away from me. The sheets lay in a twist around his waist, leaving his upper body bare. His hair trailed to one side like a second body lying between us, and half across me.

Of course, there
was
a second body in the bed, or rather a third. Kitto lay on my other side. He was curled on his side, facing away from me, his body huddled around itself as if he were hiding from something in his dreams. Or maybe he was just cold, because he lay naked beside me. His body was pale, like some perfect china doll. I'd never been this close to a man that brought to mind words like petite. My shoulder ached where he'd left his mark: a perfect set of his teeth marks set in the flesh of my shoulder. The skin had bruised wonderfully around it, reddish purple, almost hot to the touch. It wasn't poison, just a really deep bite. It would leave a scar, and that was the point.

Sometime during the third or fourth time with Frost I'd invited Kitto to us. I had waited until Frost's body brought me to a point where pain and pleasure merge, and let Kitto choose his bit of flesh. It hadn't hurt when he did it, which told how far gone I'd been last night. It had hurt a little as we finally drifted off to sleep; this morning it hurt more. It wasn't the only thing that ached. My body hurt, telling me I'd abused it last night, or rather that I'd let Frost abuse it.

I reveled in the small pains, stretching my body, exploring exactly what hurt. It was like the ache after a really good workout with weights and running, except the muscle soreness was in different places. I couldn't remember the last time I'd woken with the feel of sex riding my body like a silken bruise. It had been too long.

Kitto had been honored that I allowed him to mark me so that all would know I was his lover. I don't know if he realized that he was never going to get intercourse from me, but he hadn't asked last night. In fact he'd been utterly submissive, doing only what was invited, or asked, never intruding. He was the perfect audience because he simply wasn't there until called, then he followed directions better than any man I'd ever been with.

I sat up and Frost's hair spilled down my body like the brush of something alive. I ran my hands through my own woefully short hair. Now that I was outed as Princess Meredith, I could grow it out again. My wrists hurt as I touched my hair, and it had nothing to do with the sex. The bandages at my wrists hadn't survived the bath last night, and we should have re-dressed the wounds, but this morning the marks of the thorns were scabbed over, nearly healed, as if they were a week or more old, instead of hours. I ran my fingers over the healing wounds. I had never healed this fast before. Kitto must have bitten me after the fourth time, otherwise it would have healed more. Assuming that the sex was what was healing me. We still didn't know that for certain.

I had a small corner of sheet, but the rest was wrapped around Frost. He was a cover hog. It was chilly in the room. I tugged at the covers, and got only a small protesting noise for my troubles. I stared down at the smooth expanse of his back and had an idea for how to get the covers away from him.

I ran my tongue down his back, and he made a small sound. I leaned over him, drawing my tongue up his spine in a slow wet line.

Frost raised his head from the pillow, slowly, like a man drawn from a deep, dark dream. His eyes were slightly unfocused, but when he looked at me a slow, pleased smile curled his lips. “Haven't you had enough?”

I draped my naked body the length of his, though the covers kept us from touching below the waist. “Never,” I said.

He laughed, a low, pleasant chuckle, and rolled onto his side, propped on one elbow to look at me. He also freed the covers. I pulled them over the bed to cover Kitto, who still seemed to be deeply asleep.

Frost's arm encircled my waist, drawing me back down on the bed. I laid back against the pillows, and he bent down to place a soft kiss across my lips. My hands slid over his shoulder, his back, pulling him against me.

His knee slid over my legs, between them, and he'd made that first movement of his hips to slide on top of me, when he froze, the look on his face totally changed to something watchful, almost frightened.

“What is it, Frost?”

“Quiet.”

I was quiet. He was the bodyguard. Was it Cel's people? This was their last day to kill me without costing Cel his life. Frost rolled off the bed, snatching the sword, Winter Kiss, from the floor and crossing the room to the windows in a movement like blurred silver lightning.

I got my gun from under the pillows. Kitto was awake, looking wildly around.

Frost jerked the drapes back from the window, and his sword was in midmotion toward the glass, when he froze. A man with a camera was on the outside of the window. I had an instant to see him raise a startled face, then Frost's fist smashed through the window, and grabbed the reporter by the neck.

“Frost, no, don't kill him!” I ran across the room naked, the gun still in my hand. The door behind us burst open, and I turned, gun pointed, safety off, at the door.

Doyle stood in the doorway, sword in hand. We had a moment of eye contact where he saw the gun in my hand. I pointed the gun at the floor and he kicked the door shut behind him and strode into the room. He didn't sheathe his sword, but tossed it on the bed as he moved toward Frost.

The reporter's face had turned that violent red-purple that said he wasn't able to breathe. Frost's face was unrecognizable, torn with fury, enraged.

“Frost, you're killing him.”

Doyle came up beside him. “Frost, if you kill this reporter the queen will punish you for it.”

Frost didn't seem to be hearing either of us, as if he'd gone to a distant place and all that was left was his hand on the man's throat.

Doyle stepped behind him and kicked him in the small of the back hard enough that Frost fell into the window, cracking more of the glass, but he let go of the reporter. He turned with blood running down his hand, the look in his eyes feral.

Doyle had gone into a fighting stance, bare-handed. Frost threw his sword on the floor and mirrored him. Kitto huddled in the middle of the bed and watched it all with wide eyes.

I went for the drapes, intending to close them, and I saw the reporters running like a pack of hounds toward us. Some were snapping pictures as they ran, others screaming out, “Princess, Princess Meredith!”

I closed the drapes, so there was no gap for them to peer through, but it wouldn't last. We had to get into the room next door where Galen and the rest had slept. I sighted the gun on the wooden headboard of the bed, to one side of the two guards. Kitto saw me and dived on the other side for the floor.

I fired the gun just once, the report thunderous in the room. It whirled the two men around, staring and wild-eyed. I pointed the gun at the ceiling. “There are about a hundred reporters about to descend on us. We have to get to the other room, now!”

No one argued with me. Frost, Kitto, and I grabbed sheets and clothes, and made it into the other room before the reporters started climbing in through the broken window. Doyle brought up the rear with the weapons. He, Galen, and Rhys went back for the luggage. I called the police and reported the reporters for breaking into our room.

The three of us who were naked took turns dressing in the bathroom, not for modesty's sake, but because there were no windows in the bathroom.

When I stepped out of the bathroom with an armload of toiletries, Doyle and Frost were sitting in the room's only two chairs. No one else was here. They were both doing their typical guard face, unreadable, inscrutable. But there was something about the way they held themselves, something odd.

“What's happened?” I asked. I was walking normally—I'd forgotten my ankle was supposed to be sprained until Galen had remarked on it. Neither of them spoke, and that made me nervous.

The men glanced at each other. Doyle pushed to his feet. He was wearing black jeans today, spread over the tops of ankle-high black boots. You'd almost mistake them for dress shoes if you didn't know what you were looking at. The shirt was a black dress shirt, long-sleeved. It was silk and looked it, shimmering against the blackness of his skin. The black of his shoulder holster blended in perfectly with everything. Even the gun was black. A Beretta 10 mm, the older model.

His hair gave the illusion of being very short and cut close to his head. It was in his usual tight braid, curling down his back to be lost in the blackness of his jeans. His high pointed ears gleamed with silver earrings in a shimmering display. Those and a small silver belt buckle were the only things that distracted from the total monochrome of his look. He'd added a silver chain on one ear with a small dangling ruby.

“We have a problem,” he said.

“Like reporters taking pictures through the window of Frost and me in bed together. Yes, I'd say we have a problem.”

“It is not just the one reporter,” Frost said.

“I saw them, like a pack of sharks on the scent of blood.” I started to put the small armful of toiletries away in the open suitcase that lay waiting on the bed. “I've been the subject of media attention, but never like this.”

Frost crossed the legs of his grey dress slacks, showing pale grey loafers but no socks. Frost would never wear dress slacks short enough to flash sock—so déclassé. The tailored jacket matched the pants and had a small pale blue show hankie in one pocket. The shirt was white and held in place with a dove grey tie, complete with a silver tie tack. He'd pulled his hair back in a tight ponytail, leaving the strong, clean lines of his face bare to the eye. He was dazzlingly handsome without the hair to distract the eye. He looked cool, perfect, not at all the same man who'd nearly ground me into the bathroom tile last night. But I knew the other Frost was under there waiting for permission to come out.

I shoved the last of the toiletries in the suitcase, closed it, and started to zip it up. I looked at the two men. “You guys look like something really, really bad has happened. Something I don't know about yet. Where is everybody else?”

Frost answered, “They are guarding the door and the window. They are trying to keep the media at bay, but it is a losing battle, Meredith.”

Doyle leaned his hands on the dresser, head hanging down. The thick braid of his hair slid around his legs like some sort of pet.

“You're scaring me. Just tell me what's happened.”

Frost touched the paper that was lying on the table next to him. An idle gesture, but . . .

“Is that the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
?” I asked.

Doyle darted a look at Frost, who raised his hands showing them empty. “She has to know.”

“It is,” Doyle said, voice tight.

“I talked to Barry Jenkins yesterday. He said he'd out me as the faerie princess. I assume he was as good as his threat.”

Doyle turned, leaning his butt against the dresser, arms crossed, so that his right hand caressed his gun. It was a nervous gesture for him. It looked like a threat when he stood behind the queen stroking his gun, and it could be, but it was also a nervous gesture.

I walked over to the table. “What is the big deal, guys? Jenkins is an asshole, but he wouldn't actively lie, not in the
Post
.”

“Read it, then tell me we have nothing to worry over,” Doyle said.

The picture of Galen and I at the airport was the lead photo, front page. But it was the caption that got me.
PRINCESS MEREDITH RETURNS HOME TO FIND HUSBAND
. In smaller letters under the photo, it read “Is this the one?”

I turned to Doyle and Frost. “Jenkins could be guessing. Galen and I knew there were photographers at the airport.” I stared from one to the other of them, and they were still solemn, worried. “What is wrong with the two of you? We've all been in the papers before.”

“Not like this,” Frost said.

“It gets better,” Doyle said, “or worse. Read the article.”

I started to browse the article, but the first full paragraph stopped me. “Griffin gave Jenkins an interview.” My voice sounded breathy, and I suddenly had to sit down on the edge of the bed. “Goddess save us.”

“Yes,” Doyle said.

“The queen has already been in contact with us. She will see that he is punished for having broken your trust. She's scheduled a press conference for tonight.”

“Please, Meredith, read the article,” Doyle said.

I read the article. I read it twice. I didn't mind that Griffin had given personal details, but that he'd done it without my permission. He'd shared my private life with everyone. The sidhe have strange rules about privacy. We don't value intimate secrets as humans do, but our own personal life is not to be spied on. Spying on us used to bring a death penalty. For Griffin, it still might. The queen would think it very déclassé to have tattled to a reporter.