A Caress of Twilight(47)

The door opened behind us, and Rhys looked in. Doyle growled at him. Rhys said, "You screamed?" His face was serious. There was a gun in his hand, held next to his leg, not pointed but there.

Doyle growled, "Get out!"

"I leave at the princess's order, not yours, sire." He shrugged. "Sorry. You having a good time, Merry, or..." He made a vague motion with the gun.

"I'm... I'm not sure." My voice came out breathy. The feel of Doyle pressed tight and firm against me was exciting, even the promise of violence was exciting, but only if it was the promise of it, a game.

His hands on my thighs were shaking, his entire body quivering with the effort not to finish what he'd started. I touched his face gently. He startled as if I'd hurt him, then turned, looked at me. The look in his eyes was barely human. It was like looking into the eyes of a tiger, beautiful, neutral, hungry.

"Are we having fun here, Doyle, or are you going to eat me?" My voice was a little steadier, firmer.

"This first time I would not trust myself to put my mouth to such tender places."

It took me a second to realize that he had misunderstood me. "I don't mean eat me in the euphemistic sense, Doyle. I mean, am I food?" My voice sounded utterly calm now, ordinary. Pinned to the bed by his body, his eyes still animalistic and wild, and I sounded like I was in the office, talking business.

He blinked and I saw the confusion in his eyes. I realized that I was asking him to think too deeply. He'd given himself over to a piece of himself that he rarely let out. That part didn't think like a person.

He did something with his legs that pressed him tighter against me. It made me cry out, but not in pain. "Do you want this?" His voice was almost normal, breathy, but almost normal.

I searched his face, tried to read something there that would comfort me. There was a glimpse of him in the eyes, a sliver of Doyle left behind. I took a deep breath, and said, "Yes."

"You heard her. Get out." His voice began to fall into the growl again, every word lower and lower.

"You sure, Merry?" Rhys asked.

I'd almost forgotten him standing there. I nodded. "I'm sure."

"So we just close the door and ignore the noise and trust that you'll be all right?"

I stared into Doyle's eyes and found nothing but need, a need like nothing I'd ever seen in any man. It went beyond desire and became a true need, like food, or water. For him, tonight, this was need; if I turned from him now, we might come together as lovers, but he'd never let himself go this far again. He might close this part of himself away forever, and it would be a little death.

I'd endured that little death for years, dying by inches on the shores of the human sea. Doyle had found me and brought me back to faerie. He'd brought back all those parts of myself I'd had to leave behind to pass for human, to pass for lesser fey. If I turned from him now, would he ever find this piece of himself again?

"I'll be all right, Rhys," I said, but I wasn't looking at him, I was looking at Doyle.

"You sure?"

Doyle turned and spoke in a voice that was almost too low and animal to understand. "You heard her. Now get out."

Rhys gave a small bow and shut the door behind him. Doyle turned those eyes back to me. He growled more than spoke, "You want this?" He was giving me one last chance to say no. But his body ground against mine, his fingers digging into my thighs, as he said it. His mind and mouth were trying to give me a way out, although his body didn't want to.

I had to close my eyes as I shuddered under the press of him. He growled against my face, and the sound traveled through his body, vibrating along mine, as if the sound could travel places that his body hadn't touched yet.

Even as his body ground into mine, forced small noises from my throat, he growled, "Do you want this?"

"I want this."

One of his hands slid from my thigh to the side of my panties. The silk tore with a wet sound like skin being cut. My body jerked as he stripped the silk away and pressed the rough material of his jeans against my naked body. He ground himself against me until I cried out, half in pleasure, half in pain.

He scooted me onto the bed just enough so that he could tear at his pants. The belt opened, the button, the zipper, everything slid down until I saw him nude for the first time. He was long and thick, and perfect. He slid a finger inside of me. It made me cry out, but that wasn't why he'd done it. When he found me wet and open, he pushed himself inside me, and even wet, he had to work himself in. I was screaming underneath him before he'd managed to get himself all inside me. He seemed to fill me up, every inch, and I writhed underneath, just from the feel of him stiff and large inside me.

Then he began to drag himself out of me, and push himself into me, and the small waves of pleasure began. I watched the dark length of him sliding in and out of my white, white flesh, and the sight alone made me cry out.

My skin began to glow like I'd swallowed the moon, and his dark skin gleamed in answer, filled with all the colors that had been in his eyes. It was as if he were still black water reflecting the glow of the moon, and I was the moon. The bright dancing colors flowed under his skin, and the room brightened, brightened, flickering as if we both burned with colored flame. We cast shadows on the wall, the ceiling, as if we lay at the center of some great light, some great flame, and we became that light, that fire, that heat.

It was as if our skins melted into each other and I felt those dancing lights flow across my skin. I sank into his dark glow as he was swallowed by my white shine, and somewhere in all of that, he brought me screaming, screaming, screaming, drowning in pleasure that was so intense it was like pain. I heard him cry out, heard that bell-like howl, but in that one moment I didn't care. He could have ripped my throat out and I'd have gone with a smile.

I came to myself with Doyle collapsed on top of me, his breathing labored, his back covered in a sheen of sweat and blood. I raised my hands and found blood on my white skin, glowing like neon against the fading glow. In that last moment when I hadn't been aware, I'd bloodied his back. I felt the first stinging trickle of blood and found his teeth marks in my shoulder, bleeding, hurting a little, but not too much, not yet. Nothing could hurt too much with Doyle's body still on top of mine, him still inside me, as we both relearned how to breathe, how to be in our own bodies again.