Authors: M.J. Scott
Shadow Kin (32 page)
Now what? My throat tightened. I didn’t know how this worked. Oh, the mechanics, certainly, I was aware of those. I had seen plenty of couplings in my time. You couldn’t walk through walls without coming upon a few unwary lovers. And the Blood tend to mingle sex with feeding. As do those who seek them. Growing up in the warrens beneath Lucius’ Court precluded being ignorant of sex.
So I knew how flesh moved on flesh. What I didn’t know was how it felt or how one went about moving from this point to the next. Did he kiss me? Should I reach out and kiss him? I remembered the taste of him all of a sudden, and the need gripped harder, sending a pulsing ache through my stomach and lower.
Heat flared in my face, and my nipples went hard against my shirt. Unnerved and uneasy, I reached up and pulled pins from my hair, freeing it to fall forward, sheltering my face from his gaze. Then, embarrassed, I hid the reason for my movement by reaching for the top button of my shirt.
Simon’s hand captured mine. “There’s no rush.”
“I—”
“Shh.”
He pressed his mouth to mine, solving at least one part of my problem. I wasn’t going to have to make the first move.
He pressed his mouth to mine, solving at least one part of my problem. I wasn’t going to have to make the first move.
I let him lead for a while. His kisses started soft. Teasing, even. Barely brushing my lips until mine began to tingle and burn and I leaned toward him, wanting more. His hands drifted through my hair, easing the last few pins and unwinding the strands as delicately as his mouth moved on mine. I reached and fisted my hand in his shirt.
He moved in closer and I wrapped my arms around his neck, drawing him in tighter against me as the kisses deepened. Hotter. Wetter. His tongue flicked against mine and the taste of him flooded my mouth as other sensations flooded other parts of me.
This was what I wanted.
This. His mouth against mine.
This. I grasped one of his hands and brought it round to my breast, pressing against him.
This. For a moment his hand stayed still, merely rounded to my flesh, but then it tightened suddenly and fingers flicked across my nipple.
I gasped and Simon laughed. “I like that,” he said.
“What?” I managed.
“That noise.”
He liked the noise? Strange. But maybe that was normal for human men?
“Although,” he continued, “we need to be quiet.”
“Worried about what Guy might think?”
He stopped what he was doing. “Actually, I thought you might prefer it if we were discreet.”
Discreet? For a moment I didn’t know what he meant and then I remembered. Humans could be peculiar about sex. Many of them considered it taboo unless they were married. Though the brothels in the Night World and boroughs like Brightown seemed to do well enough, so perhaps it would be more correct to say that many of them did do it, they just didn’t admit to it.
Sex was also one of the main attractions of the Assemblies. Or rather, satisfaction. Not all Blood slept with their food. Or gave their blood to be consumed for pleasure.
I shivered suddenly, remembering Lucius and blood pouring down his wrist.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I reached up and flicked my tongue against Simon’s lower lip. I didn’t want to think anymore.
He gasped, then followed it up with: “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Kiss me again.”
He did. I let his mouth carry me away again, driving the bad memories from my head, let his touch teach me new sensations.
But I couldn’t relax completely. Maybe it was the light, reminding me of the hall and all the Blood watching.
“Blow out the candle.”
“Why?”
I didn’t know how to explain it, so instead I pulled his head down toward me and kissed him, hard. “Just do it.”
His brows drew together. “I want to see you.”
“There’s the moonlight.”
In the darkness, I would feel like I could wrap the shadows around us and make a space for just the two of us. No room for doubts and indecision and the nagging fear that kept swimming up from beneath the other much pleasanter sensations he invoked.
Simon shook his head. “That’s not fair, you see better in the dark than I do.”
I kissed him again. “Do you want to argue or keep doing what we were doing?”
“Good point. But how about a compromise?” He climbed off the bed and crossed to the window. The curtains rustled as he pushed them halfway open to let in more of the moonlight.
He hadn’t yet blown out the candle and the flickering light played over his skin, outlining each muscle almost lovingly. I wanted to put my hands on his body. I wanted to run away screaming.
I settled for lying on the bed pretending my heart wasn’t racing and extremely glad Simon had human hearing and couldn’t hear the frantic beat.
He doused the candle as he came back to me. He paused at the end of the bed, slid his belt free of his trousers. He was just as pretty in the moonlight.
Just as terrifying.
I tried to smile as the mattress dipped.
“Hello again.” He lowered himself next to me. There wasn’t much room on the narrow bed, but for now a few inches still separated his body and mine.
I pressed a little farther into the mattress as my mouth dried. He smelled delicious. Clean male desire. Not bloodlust.
He wanted me.
I wanted him.
So why was I so hells-damned terrified?
Really, my virginity was a mere technicality.
It wasn’t as though I hadn’t had orgasms before. I’d just never had one involving two people that hadn’t included vampire blood and humiliation.
Which really was another reason to just get on with it and give my brain another memory to attach pleasure to.
Simon must have read something in my expression, as he made no move to close the gap between us. “If I was going to be clichéd right now, I’d say something about your skin and moonlight and pearls.”
“Pearls?”
He nodded. “You gleam.” Very gently his hand trailed over my bare arm. His skin did look darker against mine though the moon cooled it, hiding the golden warmth from sight. He felt plenty warm, though, and, as his fingers traced patterns over my skin, I began to warm up again as well.
He knew how to touch, this man. Like he had a precise map of all my nerve endings. Come to think of it, maybe he did. Healers would have to have a thorough knowledge of anatomy and physiology.
Pleasure bloomed across my skin under his touch. Across and beneath and between as he pulled me closer and set his hands roaming. Different from the need. Slower and more . . . more . . . I didn’t know what the word I searched for was.
More human perhaps?
But that didn’t make sense, because I wasn’t human.
The silvered darkness wrapped around us and my shirt hit the floor about the same time as his.
Yet despite the delight I felt when he touched me, I could also feel myself holding him off somehow. It wasn’t quite enough. I was still thinking.
Still scared, a little. Still held by years of denial and fear of letting someone so close.
And I didn’t know how to overcome that apart from confronting it. Taking it higher and faster. Letting the need take over and take me under.
I rolled, slightly, carefully, given the limited space we had to maneuver, but I still gained the upper position pretty easily.
Simon grinned up at me, clearly not bothered by the change in perspective. His hands sought and found my breasts again, flickering fingers seemingly knowing exactly what spots to touch to make me writhe against him, taken for a moment by pure sensation.
That.
That was what I needed.
I bent my head and scraped teeth against his neck. Not biting but not exactly gentle either.
“Oh? It’s like that, is it? Impatient, my lady?”
I growled briefly against his neck and he laughed again. Then he moved with lightning speed—faster than I’d thought he could—so that he was once again above me, my hands held above my head. For a brief moment the sense of being trapped, held down, panicked me, but then his hips pressed against mine, the hardness of him hitting me exactly where I needed the pressure, and I suddenly didn’t care.
“I’m getting a tad impatient myself,” he admitted, and set to work again.
I never thought I’d regret not wearing a skirt, but the delay caused by the need to get rid of my breeches seemed endless. With Simon’s help I managed it. His breeches were a lot easier to deal with and this time when he pressed me down to the bed, we were flesh to flesh.
He was warm against me, burning hot almost in one particular spot where his cock lay against me, hard and insistent. I arched against him and it was Simon who groaned.
“Not yet or this is going to be all too fast.”
“I don’t care,” I said, arching again and pulling his head down to me.
“But I do.” His voice was rough. “I want to touch.”
His hand slid down my thigh as he half rolled so we ended up lying on our side. Nerve endings ignited. And then flared hotter as his fingers returned on the inside of my thigh. Trailing up. Up. Up. Slowly. Too slowly.
I bit my lip as those clever fingers traced the crease of thigh and body and then started stroking across the hair that lay between. When they finally slipped against me, hitting that part of me that had been burning and throbbing for far too long, the part of me where the need burned most fiercely, I thought I’d lost the ability to breathe.
He toyed with me then. Fingers dancing an infuriating pattern. First against me, then lifting and flickering to stroke somewhere else and returning again.
Until finally they slid inside me and the sensation was so startlingly intense that I couldn’t help it, I slipped into the shadow.
“What in the name of—” Simon jerked backward, voice shocked. “Gods and suns, Lily, where did you go?”
I froze where I was, embarrassment flowing over me in a fiery tide that burned everything else away. Sweet lords of hell, what had I done? I was fairly certain that vanishing during such a moment was just not done.
“Lily? Did I hurt you?” Now he sounded horrified rather than shocked.
“No,” I whispered.
His head jerked. “You’re still here.”
“Yes.”
His eyes closed for a moment as if he was trying to gain some control before he spoke again. Then he shook his head and propped himself up on one elbow. “I should’ve known this wouldn’t be straightforward.”
He didn’t sound angry; that was a start. Lucius would have broken something by now. Me, in all likelihood.
“Lily? Would you . . . come back, please?”
“No.”
“No?” His brows drew down. “Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
The tide of embarrassment washed higher. Even in the shadow I felt I must be glowing bright red. I was going to have to tell him. “You . . . surprised me.”
“Surprised you?” He blinked, and then his face went peculiarly blank. “Gods and suns, you’re a virgin.”
It wasn’t possible to disappear any more thoroughly than I already had done without actually leaving the room, but I wished I could. “Yes.”
He laughed.
Now it was my turn to be surprised. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s just that—” He broke off into laughter again, the richness of the sound echoing around the small chamber, but eventually brought himself under control. “It’s just that if you’d heard all the stories about you . . . and now, no fangs, no claws, and, despite growing up in the Night World, you’re a virgin.”
He was still smiling, the moonlight turning his dimples into dark slashes in his cheeks. I still didn’t understand what was so humorous. “I have standards, that’s all.” I tried to keep the edge of anger out of my words. He had no idea. . .
His cheeks sucked in as if he was trying not to smile any wider. “Of course you do. And I’m very glad of them. But you could have told me.”
“It didn’t occur to me.”
He blew out a breath. “Of course not.” He looked skyward as though seeking guidance, or patience. “Lily, will you please come back? This is a very strange conversation to be having with thin air.”
“I feel . . .”
“Silly? Embarrassed? Lily, sweet, everyone feels silly at some point during sex. It’s the nature of the beast. Even more so the first time. It doesn’t matter. Just come back.”
It suddenly occurred to me that he could’ve used his sunlamp at any point up to now to force me out of the shadow. But he hadn’t. And he wasn’t angry. He was right. The only thing stopping me right now was my own embarrassment. Which wasn’t going to solve any of my problems.
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