“I’m not playing.”
“Neither am I!”
“Well, I’d like to know what you call it, then,” Marlowe grumbled. “You know we can’t drop the Blarestri. We have to have allies, particularly now.”
“Indeed?” Mircea asked me. “Then what are we doing here?”
“Wasting our time!” Kit snapped. “I’ve said it all along.”
“You tell me,” I gritted out as Mircea suddenly leaned back, taking the chair to a steep recline. And pulling me over him, onto the sweet spot where slim hips met thickly muscled thighs. And where the heavy weight of his sex was barely concealed by a thin layer of silk. It was more an enticement than a barrier, a soft, seductive caress as I fought to find purchase on the slick material.
“Some people specialize in trouble,” Mircea said, as warm hands curved around my hips, steadying me. And then pulled me up until his lips rested against my stomach.
Marlowe was still glaring at the map, his back to us, and Mircea took full advantage. Those wicked lips began to move, slowly, draggingly, openmouthed against my lower belly. Followed by a hint of tongue, sliding across my skin, tasting me. Making me shiver.
And who was supposed to be teaching who a lesson here? I thought dizzily.
“Some even seem to prefer it,” Mircea told me, sounding amused.
And then he made another sound as I shifted position slightly, deliberately dragging over him.
And suddenly, things weren’t so soft anymore.
“Like those triple damned Svarestri,” Marlowe agreed, freshening his drink. “They don’t mingle with us lesser beings, oh no. Except when that bastard Geminus offered them carte blanche, even bringing them in through the official portals, since who would suspect a senator of smuggling?” He made a disgusted sound. “Me, for one! I knew he was up to something, but I thought it was those illegal fights he’d been running for decades. Should have known he’d branch out sooner or later, with that many contacts. . . .”
I stopped listening.
Mircea’s hands had tightened, holding me in place. But my hands found his shoulders anyway, because the support wasn’t enough. I didn’t know why; he was nowhere near an erogenous zone. Except that suddenly everything was, and my knees kept trying to buckle.
I had a moment of disconnect, of utter, mind-numbing disbelief. I wasn’t kneeling here, naked and dripping, in Mircea’s office. And he was definitely not licking the drops of water from my skin.
Only I was and he was, and I couldn’t seem to move, could barely breathe as the strokes became longer, slower, wider. Or when he followed the swell of a breast, the warmth of his breath only tightening my body more as he stopped short of the nipple, even though a drop of water trembled on the tightly furled tip. It shone in the lamplight, reflecting the room for a few seconds. And probably a tiny version of my increasingly desperate face.
Until gravity had enough and it finally dropped onto his lips.
He held my eyes as he licked it away, as he laved the skin around it, as he—
My head went back, staring at the wall behind his head because I couldn’t watch him anymore. But it didn’t matter. I could still see his shadow mingled with mine, moving together softly. Could still feel every stroke of the warm roughness dragging over me. Could still hear the sound he made, low in his throat, as he started to pull.
My back arched, my fingers in his hair tightened to fists, needing something, anything to ground me.
And trying to hold that damned head still before I went crazy.
But, of course, that did nothing about his hands, and they were busy. Smoothing down my back, over the curve of my butt and down my thighs, to the sensitive skin at the back of my knees. Only to retract their course in reverse a moment later. And every trip pushed me against that not-so-soft bulge, simulating something that wasn’t going to be simulation much longer, because I was going to rip those damned trousers off him and—
“Explain. Now,” I gritted out.
“That might be difficult,” he said, shooting Marlowe a look.
“‘Difficult’ isn’t the word I’d use,” Marlowe groused, returning to his chair with what looked like a triple. “Trying to plug up a city leaking like a sieve with damned portals everywhere. Even if we succeed, what have we done? Stopped some smuggling, maybe made things a little less convenient for the other side. But we aren’t going to win this playing defensive, and we both know it!”
“And the alternative would be?”
“You know damned well. Our enemies are in faerie, not here. We either go after them where they’re holed up, or—this isn’t going to go well, Mircea.”
Actually, I thought it was going perfectly. Mircea’s technique, formidable as it was, was also limited with his friend sitting right across the desk. But mine wasn’t. Kit couldn’t see me, couldn’t hear me.
Which left all kinds of possibilities, didn’t it?