0449474001339292671 4 fighting faer (11 page)

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“I can see,” she hissed, grabbing hold of his wrist and trying to pull it out of her shirt. He didn’t budge, except to move to the other breast and coat that nipple in turn with a thin film of cinnamon oil. When he flicked his nail over the little nub, both nipples immediately contracted into tight beads.

He leaned forward to whisper against her ear. “See what I mean? About the tingling. I’ll bet your nipples feel hot and tight and buzzing right about now. Don’t they, Corinne.” He saw the shiver she tried to repress, and the way her hips almost shifted restlessly before she brought them back under control. She pulled back to stare at him, her teeth clenched in frustration. “Why are you doing this?”

He shrugged. “It seems like the only time you manage to deal with me, face to face, with no baggage and no bias between us is when we’re making love,” he said. “And since I want you to be honest with me now…”

He let the sentence trail off and watched as his words sank in. Her eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened, but at least this time he knew she had a basis for her anger.

“You’re a bastard, you know that?”

“How much choice are you giving me?”

“I didn’t ask for this,” she said suddenly, eyes meeting his directly and openly for the first time. “I didn’t ask for this story. I didn’t ask to discover the world of Faerie, or for the Queen’s idiot nephew to go gallivanting through Manhattan, and I sure as hell didn’t ask for you. So cut me a little slack, okay?”

“No.”

Her eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “No?”

“No,” he said. “I’m not cutting you a damned thing. You’re not the only one in this situation, Corinne, so stop looking at it from the point of view like you’re the victim. I didn’t ask for it either, but it’s my job and I’ll do it anyway. Sometimes that’s the way it works, after all. Sometimes no matter what you want to do, you can’t do anything but what you have to do.”

“And I have to be happy about helping you find the Faerie Queen’s idiot nephew?”

“No, but you do have to get used to me being around.”

“Because you’re not leaving until this is finished.” She sounded tired and worn out. “Right. I get it. So let’s get the hell on with it.”

Damn it, she just wouldn’t understand until he laid it all on the line, would she?

“No,” he said, catching her chin in his hand, and holding her gaze with his. “You have to get used to it because I’m staying whether this gets finished or not. I’m not going anywhere, Corinne, because you and I are together from now on.”

He watched as his words registered with her and enjoyed the parade of expressions across her face.

Excitement, lust, shock, confusion and terror all made an appearance as she studied him. His brain told him he should gloss over it, pretend that it hadn’t happened, or that he’d been joking. When his heart and
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other assorted parts encouraged him to just rephrase it from, “you and I are together” to, “you’re mine and I’m going to spend the rest of our lives fucking you senseless,” he thought his words made a good compromise. Because his other parts offered a really good argument in favor of option number two.

She pursed her lips, and he banished the thought of what he’d like her to purse them around. “You certainly work fast,” she said, slowly, almost visibly fighting the desire to panic.

He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m decisive.”

“And you’ve decided this?”

I’ve decided lots of things, including that the best way to keep you from fighting with me is to get inside you as soon as possible and to stay there as long as possible. “Fate has decided it. I’m just along for the ride.” Tact, he reminded himself. Tact. “I’m as shocked by it as you are.” She barked out a laugh that didn’t sound at all amused. “Somehow I doubt it…”

“I swear it, Corinne. I’m not trying to make your life difficult. That seems to be an unavoidable byproduct of having met you. But if it’s any consolation, I’m as gobsmacked by the whole thing as you are.” He saw her hesitate and tried an engaging smile. The captain of the Queen’s Guard rarely bothered with engaging smiles, but if his looked rusty, maybe she wouldn’t notice.

“I don’t see how you can be.” She shifted her weight, the move cocking one hip to the side and drawing his eyes down like a lodestone. She had gorgeous, curvy hips, not large, but distinctly feminine, and he imagined them cradling his own, tilting higher as he sank his cock deep inside…

“You at least seem to know the rules of this,” she continued, “but I don’t. I have no idea what’s happening. I feel like I’m on some sort of roller coaster in the dark so I can’t even tell when I should be getting ready to scream.”

He jerked his mind out of the gutter—or out of her, anyway—and scowled. “Why should you scream?

Is the idea of having me in your life really that terrifying?” She sighed. “No. And yes. I don’t know. You’re just…” She hesitated. “You’re not what I was expecting in a lover.”

“You mean I’m not human.” He didn’t mean it as a condemnation, just as a truth. He knew Corinne was wary of the Others, including him, and he couldn’t really blame her for it. After all, he hadn’t exactly held the best possible opinion of humans in the past.

“That sounds so…”

“Yeah, it does. But it’s understandable.” He sighed, set aside the cinnamon oil and took her by the shoulders, cupping the curves in his hands. “Look, I’ll make you a deal. You stop turning into a goblin every time you get scared about something, and I’ll try my best not to scare you, okay? But if I’m going to do that, you’ve got to tell me what’s going through your head, not just push me away and assume I’m on the opposite side of the war here. Deal?”

She hesitated, her wide brown eyes searching his face for something. She must have found it, or found something she wanted because she pursed her lips and nodded slowly. “All right. It’s a deal.”
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“Thank the Goddess,” he sighed, flashing her a grin and tugging her neckline back into place before lifting her from the table and setting her back on her feet. “Now, should we get back to business?” Before Corinne could respond, Shiny reappeared from the back of the store, followed closely by a bald head that peered around the heavy curtain and fixed on Corinne.

“You’re the reporter?”

* * * * *

The head disappeared and Corinne blinked. “Who was that?” Shiny shrugged. “The owner. You better hurry up. He won’t wait around for you.” Corinne couldn’t decide whether to feel upset by the interruption, or intensely relieved. Luc might have been ready to steer the conversation back to business, but she still had a few questions she was dying to ask. Like, “What the hell are you talking about?” Still, apparently Shiny was right and Hibbish didn’t intend to wait around for them.

Cursing fate, she pushed through the heavy drape and hurried through a short entry and around the corner of a shelving unit. She took advantage of the privacy of that small entry to pluck at her bra and shift the material over her nipples. Damn Luc! The stupid things were still taut and tingling from his application of cinnamon oil, and the sensation of arousal had leaked south. She fought the urge to press her thighs together and hurried to catch up with Hibbish. She took about three more steps before freezing in place with the abruptness of a gunshot. Good Lord! What had she just walked into?

She heard a chuckle behind her and a gust of warm breath against her ear. “When he said he was in the middle of something, I didn’t think he meant anything quite so…literal.” Corinne swallowed and felt Luc’s hands settle on her shoulders. He had stepped into the back room right on her heels, and since he was so much taller, he had an unobstructed view of the sight that greeted them. She could only wonder what it looked like from his angle. “Um, me either.” She did try to look away. She even wondered if she should have stared at the hideous pink walls outside for a little longer so she could have been struck blind by the garish colors. That way she would have been unable to see the horrific sight now before her. Sheesh, she thought, can this day get any weirder?

In the back room of the shop, the man she assumed was Walter Hibbish stood hip deep in a pile of mostly naked bodies with a camera pointed straight at some of the most naked bits. Okay, the most
unclothed
bits. Naked might be a bit misleading, since they all seemed to be covered with something that looked like pastel-colored whipped cream.

“Sorry I can’t take a break to talk to you,” the shop owner said in between snaps of his shutter, “but this stuff is gonna be on the shelves next week and I need to get these shots done and printed up for the display. A little to the left, Hildie. Good. Is that okay?”
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Corinne blinked and grabbed for her composure. “Well, I would have said to try it with that top leg a bit more bent, but yeah, it looks fine to me.”

Luc snorted behind her.

“Oh, I meant—hey, wait. I think you may be right. Deb, try bending your top leg just a little further toward Maura. Great.” The camera snicked again. “Hey, good call, Ms…?”

“D’Alessandro.” Corinne stepped forward, figuring that if she pretended she wasn’t in a room with a pile of naked women, a man she wanted to jump on and spend a few hours licking, and a weird middle-aged man with a camera, then she should be able to conduct this interview just fine. As long as her damned nipples would calm down. “Corinne. From the
Chronicle
. Sorry, but I thought you were expecting me.”

“No. Should I be? We already run a regular spot in your paper. More tongue, Lil. Fabulous!” He glanced over his shoulder at her and spotted Luc standing beside her. “Who’s he?” Luc beat her to the punch. “Luc Macanaw. I’m an associate of Ms. D’Alessandro’s. Thanks for agreeing to meet with us.”

Corinne’s eyebrows shot up at hearing that. She supposed he could call the mad bunny fucking they’d indulged in last night “associating,” but she could think of a few other words to describe their relationship.

Still, she supposed none of them would shed a lot of light on things for Hibbish. Nor did he really need to know about them. She was about to forget it and forge ahead with the questions, but something distracted her. Specifically, five pair of feminine eyes distracted her when they turned at the sound of Luc’s deep voice and took on the bright gleam of interest. She fought back an urge to curl her fingers into claws or to slap a sign on Luc’s back reading, “MINE!” And just in case they missed seeing that one, she’d put another, permanent one someplace lower. But now that she’d had time to think, she decided the second tattoo wouldn’t be on his ass, and it wouldn’t be made of chocolate.

Shit. This jealousy thing was going to get real old real fast.

Hibbish seemed to notice the looks, too, but he had a slightly different reaction. He crowed. “That’s it!” he shouted, camera snapping frantically. “That’s
exactly
the look I need. Hold it. Hold it. Perfect!

Wonderful!”

Corinne’s teeth clenched so hard she feared lockjaw, but Luc didn’t seem to have any such trouble. In fact, he flashed the heap of women a playful grin and reached for a tall, black can from the assortment on a nearby table.

“Kissy Kreme?” he asked, his eyebrows rising.

“Yeah. Great find. Come on, Jennie, smile for me.” Hibbish paused to adjust a flash umbrella, then resumed shooting. “It’s brand new, but I know it’s gonna be big. It’s fun, colorful, all natural. Customers are gonna eat it up.”

“I think that’s the point,” Luc said, his voice low and clearly intended just for Corinne. That damned murmur of his was lethal. She watched, feigning disinterest while he flipped the can over and began reading from the blurb on the back. “‘Sweet, creamy and sensual—just like the perfect lover should be.’” He looked up at her with an intent expression that she’d have to be dead not to be affected by, but she covered her melty-ness with a snort. The last thing he needed was another advantage over her. At least,
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she hoped she’d done sufficient melt-coverage, but his eyes just sparkled at her as he continued to read.

“‘Kissy Kreme brings a new dimension to your love play in five unique flavors that blend wholesome ingredients with wicked intentions. Cover your lover’s tastiest bits with the sweet flavor of raspberry, mint, chocolate, orange or strawberry flavored genuine cream and delight your senses to the fullest.

Because kisses taste better when they’re creamy. Bon appetit!’ Hmm, sounds yummy,” he said, looking back up at her with speculation and intentions that went well beyond wicked. “Don’t you think, Corinne?”

“Come on, girls, act like you’re having fun, will ya? It’s great stuff,” Hibbish said. “Go ahead. Give it a try.”

Luc’s mouth twisted into a subtle curve, the one that seemed to eat away at the ability of her knees to actually do the job of supporting her weight. “Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.” The man’s mouth ought to be outlawed, Corinne decided as she watched him check labels until he found the one he wanted. Lifting it from the table, he extended his free hand to her and made her stomach to a little back flip or thirty.

“What do you say? Care to try?”

When she found herself all but blushing like a virgin, Corinne drew the line. She hadn’t let a man intimidate her with sex appeal since Tony Melitti in the ninth grade. Squaring her shoulders, she cocked one eyebrow, put her hand on her hip and let the other brush teasingly across Luc’s upturned palm.

“Absolutely,” she purred in her best Jessica Rabbit impersonation. “But you go first. So I can watch.”