Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [202]
He sat in my lap with his legs wide around the chair, his hands still on the back of it. If he’d just sat, I could have handled it, but of course he didn’t. He moved his hips around my lap, like he was stirring something, but the movement didn’t stop at the hips, it danced up his body, so that it was a bigger movement and more of the crowd could see it, as if there was any doubt what he was pantomiming.
My face was hot, as if my skin would burn if you touched it.
He leaned in against my hair, where I’d hidden my face, and whispered, “I’ll stop and pick someone else if it’s too much.”
I raised up enough to meet his eyes. “Pick someone else?” I said.
“The act doesn’t change,” he whispered, “just who’s on stage.” The smile was gone from his eyes. He was serious again. I’d killed the smile in his face, or my embarrassment had. God.
I touched his face, cupped the edge of his cheek against my hand. I looked into those suddenly serious eyes, while the music beat and pulsed around us. In that moment there was no crowd. There was nothing but his face and my decision. I forgot the people, forgot that I was supposed to be embarrassed, forgot everything but that I wanted him to smile again.
“No, don’t pick anyone else. I’ll try. I’ll really try.”
He gave me that flash of smile that I’d only recently known he had in him, and he dropped to his knees in front of me. His hands played lightly on my knees, and he began to spread my legs apart, but he was still dancing to the music, even on his knees, and he saw the problem before the rest of the audience did.
He put his body between my knees and leaned in enough to say, “You’re not wearing anything.”
I had to smile at the almost surprised embarrassment on his face. It was nice to know that he could be embarrassed. “Nope,” I said.
He laughed again, and raised up high on his knees, his hands on the back of the chair again. He thrust against me, not touching, but it must have looked worse to the audience, because they yelled and screamed and began to throw money onto the stage.
He didn’t so much fall down my body, as spill down it, again that sense of liquid grace that the wereanimals had when they wanted to. He ended with his face in my lap, across the stretched fabric of the skirt, his upper body actually hiding the rest of me from the audience. The skirt had ridden up enough that everyone knew I was wearing black lace thigh-highs. His hands traced up my hose, above the boots, across my knees, and up my thighs, until his fingers came to the edge of the lace.
His fingers traced just above the lace, played along the bare skin of my thighs. He turned his head in my lap, just enough so that his lips were close to my bare thigh, and he kissed the inside of my thigh. That one small touch made me shudder, and close my eyes in a sigh.
He was up while my eyes were closed, hands putting my knees together so when his body moved, I wasn’t flashing anyone. He danced behind me, and suddenly his hair feel over my face and body like an auburn waterfall. I was suddenly drowning in the vanilla scent of his hair.
He whirled around me, touching me only with his hair, then he had my hand in his and pulled me hard and fast out of the chair, so that I was forced against his body. It was like a move in a dance but more forceful, if you wanted your partner to stay on her feet. If he hadn’t caught me, I might have fallen, but his body was there, and my hands were on that body, I couldn’t help it. I just caught myself with his arm and chest, but the sight of me touching him like that sent more money onto the stage, and raised the frenzy of the women grouped around the stage.
His other hand had gone to the back of my skirt and tugged it down. He made it look like he was taking liberties when it was the exact opposite. Whatever they thought he