ritkin said, a bit more frantically.
“I didn’t think you knew that word,” I gasped, because that hadn’t been a translation. And because he’d confused it for my name, the last time we were here.
“Figured it out,” he said, and slammed us back against a wall.
This one didn’t have a door, or if it did, we missed it. It did have a tapestry, a rich, vibrant thing in mostly greens, a hunting scene. I knew that without turning to look, because an enchanted deer had just scampered up my arm. And then another and another, a whole herd flowing across my body, fleeing a hunter. Symbolism that was not lost on me when a mob of fey suddenly appeared in the door, weapons out and eyes flashing.
Or no, I realized, it wasn’t their eyes. It was the overhead lamp we must have hit on the way in, which was swaying, swaying, swaying on its little chain, telling them we were here or just had been. But they didn’t know which, so they spread out, beginning a search of this room and the ones around it.
They didn’t see us, because Pritkin’s camouflage was that good. Hell, it was better than good, to the point that I could barely make out my own limbs unless I moved. And even then it wasn’t easy, since the tapestry was already doing that. But the rooms weren’t that big, and there were too many fey, and we had to be out of time.
All of which was suddenly less of a problem than the return of that dragging warmth.
It hit me like a blow, as strong as if it had never left, and maybe it hadn’t. All I knew was that I wanted—needed—his hands on me. Not his arms, which were already around me, but his hands, rough and callused and—I picked them up and guided them where I wanted them to go.
God, I thought, as that grip took me, clenching unconsciously, making me moan. And then press back against him as the callused grip turned into caresses, which turned to strokes, which turned to kneads, and then back into clenches again. Before one hand pushed down my front and clasped something lower. And then he was stroking there, too, in a way that had me spreading my legs, had me writhing back against him, had me biting my lip so the groans in my throat stayed behind my teeth.
“What. Are. You. Doing?” Pritkin asked, which seemed a little strange, all things considered. But his voice was a hiss in my ear, and, oh God, that didn’t help.
“What?”
“Did you cast a spell?”
“No. I—no.” I was pretty sure. Like I was pretty sure we’d left Rosier back in the hall, so this couldn’t be him. Could it? I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything right now, not with him pressing against me from behind, still hard, still eager, still—
God!
A fey came closer, checking behind a curtain, but I barely noticed, because something had just slipped between my legs from behind. Not inside, not yet, but he was warm, so warm, and he was right there. And moving now, stutteringly, haltingly, as if he was trying to stop, as if he realized how crazy this was.
And yet, like me, he didn’t seem to be able to.
“We can’t do this,” Pritkin whispered urgently.
“Okay.”
“We can’t. I can’t . . . maintain the illusion . . . if I’m . . . distracted.”
“Okay,” I agreed. And then bit my bottom lip when the strokes suddenly became longer and sweeter, rubbing along the full length of me from behind, like his fingers were still doing in front. And the twin torture was more than I could stand, ripping a soft moan from my lips before his head came down, silencing me with his mouth.
This . . . was not a huge help, I thought wildly. Because now there were three things stroking me, as his tongue joined the other two sources of madness, curling around mine, caressing the inside of my mouth and eating the sounds I was making, because I couldn’t seem to stop. Not with shivers and shudders and then all-out quakes causing me to buck hard back against him, causing him to slip, not inside but against me, against the full length of me, and God, that was almost as good!
“Your name,” he gasped as I shook violently.
“What?”
“Your name!” It was urgent. “Your real one!”
I tried to concentrate, but the question seemed irrelevant and anyway, my brain was busy: tightening my thighs, clenching down, making him work for it. I began to ride him on the outside of my body, and felt him shiver. Arched back against him, like a cat, and heard him groan. And then I was the one shivering, and shuddering, and losing all control as he started hitting that spot, that oh, so sensitive spot, with every stroke, his hands tightening on my body as the friction between us built and built and—
And now his groans were flooding my mouth, spilling over along with my own, and that was bad, but I couldn’t remember why, and didn’t care, didn’t care, and then someone was yelling and someone was grabbing my arm and—
“Your name!”
And then nothing.
Chapter Twenty-five
I woke up dry-mouthed and fuzzy-brained. With no idea where I was, or why I was lying facedown on cold stone, in a small puddle of drool. Not that this was exactly a first.