Serpent’s Kiss

by Harrison, Thea

  His handsome features were blurred like the memory of a dream, and the giant invisible force that had been propelling her forward these last several years, faster and faster, shoved her into a realization and then she really was moving at the speed of light.

  What was this feeling? She had sensed it before in so many others. She felt shards of it, for dogs and other creatures, nations and ideals, and old lovers who had been gone for so many, many years. She had always felt those shards were pieces of something that was bigger than anything she would ever be able to understand, until just now, as they coalesced and made a whole.

  Love. This feeling was love.

  She sat back on her heels, dragged the back of one hand across her face then leaned forward to kiss him. Stop worrying, she told him gently. I’m fine.

  He frowned and rubbed her back. Okay. Here, let me help you.

  She buttoned her caftan unsteadily as he finger-combed her hair into some semblance of order. He tried to twist it into a knot at the nape of her neck and tuck it in on itself the way that she did, but he didn’t have the knack and it fell down her back again. Damn. You’ll have to let me know how you do that.

  She gathered it up swiftly again and tucked it into place. Or maybe I’ll just cut it. It’s been a long time since I’ve had it short.

  Really? He helped her to her feet. A short haircut would show off the gorgeous bones of her face, but that long extravagant fall of dark hair cascading to her hips was flagrantly feminine and outrageously beautiful. Could you grow it back if you cut it?

  How did he do that? How did he manage to tuck that crazy out-of-control passion out of the way and act almost as if nothing had happened? She could barely stand on her feet, and even though she had climaxed, her body still felt empty and aching and unfulfilled.

  Or maybe she was the only one who had experienced the crazy out-of-control passion, just as she was the only who had realized she had fallen in love. Falling in love was such a lonely business.

  They had achieved an understanding back at the island cottage. They had made a pact, and she was very aware she had agreed to it. This was supposed to be a love affair with a built-in expiration date. Clearly he had been in control the entire time.

  Well, he had discovered too many of her secrets already. He could not have this one as well. She would keep her epiphanies and realizations to herself.

  She realized he had asked her a question and answered absently. My hair and fingernails stopped growing when I stopped taking in physical nourishment. If and when I cut it, it’ll be gone for good.

  That would be tragic. Your hair is one of the wonders of the world. She smiled with pleasure at the compliment in spite of herself. He bent to pick up their bags. He asked, Are you ready?

  She assumed a composed expression, twitched the skirt of her caftan to make sure it fell into place, and told him, Yes.

  She felt his Power flex in a kind of release, and the shimmering cloak fell away. They strode toward the hotel’s front desk.

  Gradually all the noise in the lobby died away. As far as everyone else was concerned, they had apparently appeared out of nowhere. Carling knew what they must look like, half dressed and disheveled, like shipwreck survivors. Rune was still shirtless, and her feet were bare. Sooner or later someone would recognize one or the other of them. Eventually somebody would call the paparazzi and all possibility of discretion would go to hell. After this kind of entrance, and especially after stopping at home, she really needed to make a point of calling Julian sooner rather than later.

  None of it meant a thing to her. She certainly didn’t care what she looked like, and it was clear Rune didn’t either. She glanced sideways and down at his long legs keeping pace with hers. What struck her most was how she and Rune moved together, hip-to-hip in a smooth, ground-eating stride. They must look like they were a couple. She ignored the pang she felt at that. Feelings were so often an inconvenience to the rest of one’s life.

  She focused on the front desk. A man in a charcoal gray suit rushed over to join a uniformed employee standing at attention in front of a computer. As they approached, the man stared, his face filled with wonder.

  “Good morning, I’m Harry Rowling, one of the assistant managers,” he said in a hushed whisper. “Councillor Severan, what an unexpected honor.”

  She nodded a greeting and watched as he turned his attention to Rune. The man went white and started to babble. “Sir, ah—Sentinel Ainissesthai . . . what a pleasure, I mean it’s an honor to have you here as well—”

  Well yes, of course the rock star of the Wyr did not have just female fans. She would not let herself sigh, although she indulged in a pointed glance at Rune.

  She went still and stared like the hotel manager.

  Rune glittered everywhere with a barely restrained tension. His face was a loaded weapon, the bones standing out in stark relief, and his eyes were lambent with a dangerous, unpredictable light. One hand was clenched in a white-knuckled grip on the straps of their bags, the other fist pressed against his thigh. He breathed with such measured evenness, she found herself taking a step back.

  Perhaps his control had not come as easily for him as she had thought. She started to smile.

  Rune’s voice was soft as he said to the man, “I would like the key to my suite, please.”

  “C-certainly, uh, would you like for me to check for any messages?”

  “Later.” Rune glanced at Carling, who was staring at him in fascination. Rune turned his attention back to the man and waited a moment. Nothing happened. The man stood frozen like a rabbit in front of a wolf. He raised his eyebrows. “The key?”

  Rowling started. “Of course! Sorry! Yes, the key!” He whirled to the uniformed employee and hissed between his teeth, “Get the key!”

  They scrambled and fumbled, and within moments the key was offered to him. He held the hand that had caressed Carling’ s—Carling’ s—most private place clenched against his side, the fingers curled against his palm, and even then he could still catch the faint lingering scent of her arousal.

  He wanted to lick his fingers. He wanted to punch the hotel employees for standing too close. It was a good thing they were just humans with weak human senses, or he might have. He felt like he was going crazy, and he did not dare look at her or the insane beast that bucked so wildly against his control might slip loose.

  He took the key gently with his other hand. The assistant manager started to bleat something. Rune said in an iron-hard voice, “That will be all for now.”

  Much nodding and more bleating. He pivoted away in the middle of it, grabbed Carling’s hand and stalked to the elevator. She came along, choosing for whatever reason to be acquiescent.

  They rode up to the suite in silence, and strode down the hall. His pulse picked up speed as they reached the door. He had too much blood in his body. It roared through his veins, and his skin could barely contain it. He felt like he was speeding down a winding mountain road with his car in overdrive, just barely holding the tires onto the pavement, with his brakes liable to fail at any moment. He swiped the keycard and held the door open for her, still not trusting himself to glance at her.

  Then he was stepping in, and throwing the security bolt, and setting aside their two bags. He ran a shaking hand through his tangled hair, and only then did he dare to look at Carling’s face.

  She was already watching him. Her long, dark, gorgeous eyes held an emotion he hadn’t seen in them before. It had something to do with shadows and gentleness, and an odd, quizzical understanding.

  Then she smiled that subtle, mysterious Mona Lisa smile of hers that tilted the corners of her lush mouth and caused the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes to crease, where that bastard mortality had stroked her velvet skin with skeletal fingers and carved his mark on her before she had kicked him in the balls.

  And Rune’s brakes failed. He lunged at her and took her over the mountain cliff with him.

  THIRTEEN

  I don’t have
to stay in love with you, Carling thought as she smiled at Rune. Falling in love is just a passing realization. Merely the by-product of some brain-cooking heat shared with a world-class, five-star sexy male. Passion is a choice, and staying in love is a decision. I can walk away from you like I have had to walk away from virtually everything and everyone else, because only one thing holds true over time.

  Nothing ever lasts and everything always changes. . . .

  As if he could hear her thoughts, Rune’s handsome, wild face hardened. Then suddenly he blurred as he moved so fast, and he tackled her to the floor, and hell’s siren bells, she did not know how she had ever thought he had handled her with such delicate care, because he tore her caftan off of her body with such savagery she cried out, a sharp wordless sound that was cut off as he slammed his mouth down onto hers.

  And she found herself shocked all over again at her own naiveté. She had thought that what had happened before in the lobby was apocalyptic, but it didn’t hold a candle to what erupted inside of her now.

  Rune drove his tongue into her mouth, as he yanked at the fastening of his jeans. Naked at last and pinned with his body weight, she widened her legs and arched up to him. She raked fingernails down his broad back, scoring him as he rubbed the broad head of his erection at her slick entrance. The rich, burning liqueur scent of his blood filled the air. It smelled so intoxicating her mouth tingled, almost as if her fangs would descend.

  She wanted to bite him. She wanted to bite. She growled, confused at the predatory impulses that had been dormant for so long, and he growled back as he grabbed hold of her hips and surged inside.

  His penis was huge and his abrupt invasion of her body was so outrageous, she screamed into his mouth. Her feral response shuddered through him. When he would have pulled back to look at her, to check to see if she was all right, she sank her fists into his hair and held him to her, kissing him with such ferocity he lost track of everything except for the overwhelming need to drive into her.

  He had to hand it to her, with a bow and flourish. It really was never anything mundane with her.

  He withdrew, the slide liquid smooth and torturously tight, and he slammed into her again, into that lush velvet sheath, and he couldn’t get far enough inside so he ground against her pelvis, pushing harder. She bucked underneath him as another climax skyrocketed through her.

  He felt her inner muscles start to spasm as she groaned into his mouth, and it was so fucking perfect and somehow so much more than what he had imagined, he was already climaxing as well, climaxing too soon even as he pulled out to slam back in again. He snarled in frustration against her lips, a raw guttural sound as animalistic as everything else they had done to each other, as he spilled into the clenched, welcoming bowl of her body.

  Then silence sprinkled around them like the drift of winter snowfall, as they gripped each other with shaking limbs and tried to come back from the alien place they had just taken each other. Rune pulled his mouth away to press his cheek against hers, his eyes closed. Carling stared at the ceiling blindly. There was no making sense of what had just happened. It was as far outside of sensible as a person could go.

  Say something. Her mouth worked.

  “That was classy,” Carling said.

  He reared his head back, his expression arrested.

  Rune said, “Just wait until you see what I can do with the fancy stuff, like a bed.”

  Their eyes met. She quirked an eyebrow at him. His sexy mouth twitched. Then they both exploded. He hugged her tight and rolled around the floor with her, laughing.

  Listen to us, she thought. We sound drunk. We sound like crazy people. She clung to his neck and wrapped her legs around his hips, and her emotions careened on a ride that was some kind of mash-up between a spook house and a roller coaster.

  Underneath Rune’s amusement, he studied himself with sharp attention. The hook was still in his gut, still yanking him forward to a strange, undefined place. He was not sated. His body screamed that he was dying of starvation, that he had not had nearly enough, that he needed to take her again and again, until she had given everything she had to him, until he had spilled everything he had into her, until he had given her everything he was. Even though he was still hard, he fought a vicious battle for control and forced himself to pull out. He hissed as his cock came free of her body.

  For a moment he balanced on the knife edge between a passionate affair and mating. He clenched his arms around her and shook with the conflicting forces inside of him. He felt like he had slammed into some kind of crisis and he was being torn apart inside. Then somehow he managed to yank himself back from that final place.

  I cannot mate with you, Rune thought as he kissed her temple and cradled her delicious, addicting body against his. I like you so terribly much, so much more than I ever thought I would, and I am even growing to love you, but I cannot throw my life away on something that cannot last, that has nowhere to go.

  She sighed and leaned her face against him, and he steeled his still racing heart.

  I cannot, darling, because you would never need me as much as I would need you. Your desire is beyond lovely, but it isn’t enough. I need to be needed. And I cannot become a supplicant to that kind of inequity and hope to survive.

  • • •

  Several minutes later, Rune let go of her to tuck himself back in his jeans and stand. Unself-conscious in her nudity, Carling curled like a cat on the floor and watched him. He prowled into a bedroom and returned with a complimentary hotel robe, which he handed to her. She sat, dragged it on and belted it.

  Rune watched her with a moody expression but kept prowling restlessly around the room. She studied him thoughtfully. It was an interesting reaction to . . . well, to what she thought of as mind-blowing sex.

  If she recalled right, and it had in fact been quite a long while, most men yawned, rolled over and went to sleep. Or they ran away. But what had just happened—both here on the floor and before, in the lobby—was beyond anything she had ever known. Since Rune was neither running away nor sleeping, she wasn’t actually sure she had done things right. She knew at the most mundane of times she got a bit too fierce for most people, and nothing of what had just happened between her and Rune could be called mundane.

  And then something had happened to him, something profound and disturbing. His laughter had died away, and a strange conflict had raged through him. He was a man of intense emotion anyway, and both the intensity and the emotion were increasing, along with the flare-ups of aggression. Sometimes he looked at her and felt torn, and for the first time in a long time she regretted that age had turned her into a succubus, because no woman wanted to know her lover felt such things when he looked at her.

  Maybe she should ask him what was wrong. Maybe she should tell him to go away.

  Maybe the wisest thing she could do was wait, to see if he would tell her what he was feeling in his own time.

  She rubbed her forehead and turned away to hide any sign of what she was thinking. Insecurity was vulnerability, even more so than desire, and the moon was no longer complicit in hiding her secrets. Unkind daylight exposed everything it touched, and the shy mist outside was burning away in the sun’s immolating light.

  She looked around to take stock of her immediate life. “So much to do,” she muttered. “So little time.”

  Didn’t that have a wicked ring of truth to it.

  Outside the living room was a filigreed wrought-iron terrace, the city’s skyline clearly visible against a bright blue sky. The suite was elegantly decorated in muted gold and cream, offset with a blue couch. While the furniture was modern, the claw-foot design to the legs and the brocade cloth gave it a hint of old-world charm. A vase of fresh-cut flowers adorned a nearby dining table.

  While pretty, the suite did not have the most durable of design themes. The angle of her mouth twisted as she remembered how she, her entourage and Tiago had trashed the Regent Hotel in Chicago. Perhaps the Fairmont would fare better.
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br />   She picked up the shreds of her caftan. There wasn’t even enough intact material to tie together in a temporary covering like the last one. She sighed, tossed it aside, and went to the couch where Rune had tossed their bags.

  Rune stopped pacing. Sensing his scrutiny that was as intense as a physical touch, she kept her face averted. She hadn’t thought to stuff any clothes into her leather bag along with the journals, sketches and other items. She should have at least grabbed a change of clothes when she was at home, and now she had no personal servant to think of such matters. At least she’d had the forethought to tell them to send over some of her things. She pulled out Rune’s duffle.

  “I have nothing to wear until Rufio sends my clothes over,” she said. “Literally nothing. We have things to do. We have phone calls to make, a medusa to consult, and I have a Djinn to summon, and God only knows what else we’ll have to do after that or where we’ll have to go.”

  She jerked open his duffle bag and started to rummage through the contents. She pulled out a Ziploc bag filled with several green packets. She peered through the plastic. Wrigley’s chewing gum, spearmint flavored. She tossed the bag of gum onto the couch, reached into the duffle and dug out a book. Stephen King’s Christine. She threw that on the couch as well. What did he have in this bag that made it weigh so much?

  Suddenly the wide expanse of his bare chest was in front of her. She tried not to notice or care, but with one thing and another, she hadn’t had enough time to give that bare chest the kind of close, leisurely attention she really wanted to. She kept her head lowered as her gaze wandered over the broad expanse of his muscled pectorals. His suntanned skin was a warn inviting brown, his darker flat nipples surrounded with the crisp hair that sprinkled the rest of his chest and arrowed down that long, ripped torso to disappear into the top of his zipped but still unfastened jeans. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes. She knew how warm his body was, and she was beginning to crave it like she craved the vivid warmth of a fire.