A Kiss of Shadows - By Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,200

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