Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [267]
He rolled onto his side as I watched, propped up on one elbow, one arm slung low across his hips, as if to bring my attention to his jeans and what I knew was in them. But no, Richard wasn’t that aware of his body, at least not for seduction. It was something Jean-Claude would have done, not Richard. Then I had one of those horrible thoughts. What if one of the things that Richard had gained with the tighter binding of the marks was some of Jean-Claude’s skill at seduction. Oh, that just wouldn’t be fair.
I closed my eyes and started for the door again. It was better if I couldn’t see either of them. Jean-Claude called, “Ma petite, you are going to hit the wall.”
I stopped abruptly and opened my eyes, and was inches away from the wall. The door was about two feet to my left. Great, just great.
“Ma petite, do not leave us.” His voice crawled through the tiny hole I’d made in my shields for him. It crawled inside and played along my skin, made me shiver, and God help me, I turned back and looked. Stupid me.
Jean-Claude had crawled up on the bed, near the pillows. He was lying full length across the red silk, with the robe gaping open, barely covering anything. His white, white shoulder was framed at the top with scarlet silk. His long legs spilled half in the black robe and half on the scarlet of the sheets. Only the barest fringe of fur covered his hips.
Richard was still on his side. They were lying in almost identical positions, except that Richard’s head was pointing away from the door, and Jean-Claude was angled toward it.
“This isn’t fair,” I said. “Not both of you, not at the same time.”
“Whatever do you mean, ma petite?” But he looked entirely too pleased with himself to really need to ask.
“You bastard, you knew.”
“I knew nothing, but one lives in hope.”
I was having trouble breathing, or rather breathing nice even breaths. I was shaking my head, and the towel started coming unwound. I caught it, and stood there with it in my hands. The cloth was wet and cold. I was shivering, but it was only partly from the wet hair sliding down my neck.
“Richard, you are getting your shoes on the silk sheets. Has no one taught you that you do not wear hiking boots on silk?” He didn’t even try to make it sound real, it was teasing, but it wasn’t Richard he was teasing.
Richard just sat up, bunching his stomach muscles nicely, and put one foot on his jeans and began to unlace the short boots. He didn’t look at me while he did it, but he knew I was watching.
I needed to leave now. I really did. I knew that, but somehow I was still standing there when Richard threw his first boot onto the floor. The sound made me jump.
He watched me while he took off the other boot, or watched me, watch him. I felt like one of those little birds that they say are fascinated with the snake’s movements. So pretty, so sinuous, so dangerous. He was just taking off his shoes, damn it. It shouldn’t have meant this much to me, hell, to anyone.
When both boots had been thrown to the floor, he took off his thick socks without any prompting from anyone. He lay back on the bed on his stomach with his feet naked against the sheets. He watched me over his shoulder with that wave of hair barely curling around his eye. The look managed to be both coy and knowledgeable. Like a fallen angel, innocence and the promise of sin, all in one look. It was a very good look.
It was not a look I’d ever thought to see on Richard’s face. It didn’t seem very much like him. “How much of this is you, Richard, and how much of it is him?”
He lay flat on the silk and rolled over onto his back in a movement that was doglike and catlike at the same time. Or maybe I’m just prejudiced that dogs don’t move with that same liquid grace when they writhe on their backs. He stretched his arms over his head, stretched his whole, long body out from toes to fingertips, stretched until his body shook with the effort,