Burnt Offerings - Laurell K. Hamilton [94]
He laid his lips against mine in a trembling kiss. A sound came from low in his throat, and he was suddenly pressing his mouth against mine, until it either bruised or I opened my mouth to him. I opened, and his tongue plunged inside me, his lips feeding on mine. The cut inside his mouth filled my mouth with the taste of him, salty, sweet. I held his face in my hands, my mouth searching his, and it wasn’t enough. A small high keening sound crawled out of my mouth into his. The sound was made up of need, frustration, a desire that wasn’t civilized and never had been. We’d been playing Ozzie and Harriet, but what we wanted from each other was more Hustler and Penthouse.
We moved to our knees, mouths still pressed together. My hands slid over his chest, his back, and something deep inside me clicked and relaxed. How could I ever be this close to him and not touch him?
His power tried to spill outward, but I held it back. I held it like I could hold my own magic, letting it build until I couldn’t hold any longer.
Richard’s hands slid up my legs finding the lace top of the black panties. His fingers traced my naked spine and I was undone.
The power spilled upward, outward, filling us both. It flared over us in a rushing wave of heat and light, until my vision swam in pieces, and we both cried out with one voice. His beast slid inside of him. I felt it crawl out of me, pulled like a large, thick string, spilling inside of Richard, coiling into his body. I expected to feel the last bit of it spill between us, like draining the last drop of wine from a cup, but that drop remained.
Somewhere in that rush of power, I’d felt Richard take control of his beast and send that pulsing warmth outward into Jamil. I wouldn’t have known how to do it, but Richard did. I’d felt Jamil heal under the thundering rush of power.
Richard knelt with me in his arms, my face pressed to his chest. His heart beat against my cheek like a living thing. Sweat had broken over his body in a light dew. I licked the sweat from his chest and stared up at him.
His eyes were heavy-lidded, dazed. You’d almost have mistaken the look for sleep, but not quite. He cupped his hands on both sides of my face. The wound on his mouth was healed. The rush of power, his beast, had healed it. He lowered his soft lips to mine and just barely brushed my mouth. “What are we going to do?”
I held his hands against my face. “We’re going to do what we came to do.”
“Then what?” he asked.
I shook my head, rubbing my face against his hands. “Survive first, Richard. Worry about the niceties later.”
Something filled his eyes with a sudden rush of panic. “Jamil, I could have killed him.”
“You also healed him.”
He let that take some of the panic from his face, but he still got to his feet and went to his fallen enforcer. An apology at the very least was needed. I couldn’t really argue with that.
I stayed kneeling, not sure I could walk yet, for a variety of reasons.
“Not the way Gideon and I would have done it,” Thomas said, “but in a pinch it will do.”
I felt heat rush up my face. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Gideon growled. “It was a lovely show.” He crawled towards us, one arm cradled against his body. Blood dripped down the arm and shoulder. The red showed brilliantly against the white shirt. I had absolutely no desire to lick the blood off his body. I was grateful for that.
“Richard did that?” I asked.
“He was beginning to change form when you called him. You drank his beast and he calmed.” He sat leaning to one side, bleeding a little puddle on the floor, but he never asked for help, not by word or expression. But Thomas reached out to him. Touched his shoulder in a neutral, almost brotherly gesture. Their power strengthened in a skin-prickling rush that oozed over me like a cold wind, but if I hadn’t been able to sense it, I’d have never known.
“Is this just European reserve,” I asked, “or are Richard and I doing something terribly wrong?”
Thomas smiled, but it was Gideon who answered. “You