“Pheromones,” he answered distractedly. “I confess I have no idea what the broom closet is for, other than the obvious.”
“The obvious?” I repeated, feeling like the drinks were making me daft.
“For holding brooms,” he answered dryly.
I snuffled a laugh into his fluff. “I believe they use it for sex,” I explained with a giggle.
“What?” he squawked, causing me to recoil slightly at the pitch. “That is foul! I’m not going to havesexwith you in abroom closet. There’s a dirty mopright here!” Something clattered to my right, presumably the dirty mop.
“Oh,” I responded through my giggles, as if that was a completely reasonable reaction. My brain locked onto the fact that he didn’t object to sex with me, just with doing it in a broom closet. “Then what are we going to do?” I asked him.
He grew very still, and I held my breath, biting my lip as I waited for him to answer.
“What—what else—I mean to say, what else can we do?” his voice cracked as he stammered. The wall of him seemed to lean infinitesimally closer.
I grinned up at him in the darkness, feeling like a teenager again, with just enough tequila in my blood to make me bold. “You could kiss me,” I suggested breathlessly. Poor Alistair was clearly out of his depth, but this was a predicament of his own making. He was the one who dragged me off to a broom closet like a caveman.
“But it’s dirty in here—wait,” he gasped. His whole body started to vibrate under my touch, and I felt all four of his hands close gently around my shoulders and upper arms, his talons barely grazing my skin. “You want to kiss me?” he squeaked. “Oh, no. Are you drunk?” His voice dropped, full of suspicion. I couldn’t see a thing in the pitch black of the closet, but I could hear the frown in his voice. “You didn’t have very much, but you are very small. Too small. What if —”
“I’m not drunk,” I lied, cutting him off. I wasn’tdrunk-drunk.Tipsy at best. I was still in full possession of my faculties. He did smellreally good,though. Maybe I was drunk on that. “Are you drunk?” I asked him, a plan forming in my head.
“Of course not!” He sounded offended. “Do you know how much alcohol it would take to make someone like me—”
I reached as high as I could in the darkness and grabbed him by the fluff, pulling him down by his neck and aiming for an approximation of where I thought his mouth would be with my own.
Chapter 9
Lilith
He met me halfway,and I only fumbled a little as I brushed my lips ever so gently against his. The excited buzz he gave in his chest made my heart hammer inside my own. The dense, soft, musky smell of him was thick in the air. It tickled the back of my brain and drove out all my self-consciousness as desire curled between my thighs. I kissed his soft bottom lip, nibbling and licking at it before moving to his top one, exploring his mouth with sensual presses that only left me wanting more. When I touched my tongue to the seam of his lips, he pulled back slightly, the frantic buzzing in his chest ending in an ascending chirp that nearly sounded like a question.
“Oh…Do that again,” he breathed against my mouth before firmly taking control. He pressed me back against the wall, one hand gently tugging my chin higher as his tiny fangs nibbled at my lips. He had another hand in my hair, one tracing the column of my neck, and another trailing lazily across my collarbone. It was everything I could have dreamed of and more. And I had dreamed of it. A lot.
I moaned into his mouth and melted against his body, and he intensified his enthusiastic buzzing, his whole body vibrating with excitement, his fingers tightening briefly on my body. The low, swooping sensation in my pelvis made my breath hitch as I wondered what that vibration would feel like between my legs. Alistair’s mouth was deliciously silky as he plied my lips before tentatively tapping at the tip of my tongue with his own. I’d always wondered what his tongue would feel like, and my nipples tightened at my new knowledge. Slippery, nimble, and hot. I sucked at it, eliciting a groan that sent a spark of heat up my spine.
He broke our kiss to catch his breath, as I stood weakly braced against the wall, the dense, shaggy fur of his mane pressing into my front repeatedly as he heaved for air. I released my grip on it and let my fingers trail down his massive shoulders to his chest, and finally to the fine, satiny velvet that covered the muscles of his abs. His vibrations turned into a purring rumble, and he pressed a chaste kiss to my cheekbone before dragging his lips down to my jawline and neck.
I arched to give him access and felt his sharp claws prick my scalp and neck. His tongue began its tapping exploration of my neck alongside the nibbles of his kisses. “Alistair,” I gasped, as his tongue trailed back up my neck, “you have so many hands, and yet none of them are where I want them to be.”
He paused in his exploration, giving me a nervous sounding click.
I released a breathless laugh. Of course he was nervous. I would have to be more explicit. Reaching for his hand in the dark, I grabbed the one on my shoulder and tugged it down to my breast.
He gave a happy sounding click that made me laugh in earnest and proceeded to wrap every one of his hands around each of my breasts and ass cheeks. He enthusiastically massaged,groped, plucked, and fondled while sucking at my neck. Faster than should have been possible, I was writhing against him, mindlessly seeking pressure with my hips.
Could he even…? I’d spent more time than I’d like to admit wondering how this mothman mated and what his plumbing looked like. Several races within the Boundlands had internal genitalia like he did, but I didn’t know what it consisted of or how it worked. I felt my way down the bumps of his abs with my hands, pausing between his legs when I found a large bulge beneath his skin that hadn’t been there previously.
He shifted against me, sucking harder on my neck, and I added more pressure as I rubbed at this new mound.How to coax it out?He released my breast and cupped my cheek, then responded as if he’d heard my thoughts. “Lilith. Darling. As much as that piece of my anatomy fervently wishes to make your acquaintance, I would prefer to do so somewhere a little more private. And sanitary.”
I turned my head and nipped at his thumb, feeling restless and wound up. “That sounds good. Let’s go somewhere more private. And sanitary.” I still hadn’t given up my exploration of this curious new development below his abdomen.
He gave a little shiver as my fingers discovered a depression in the middle of the mound, almost like a seam. “You want to—”
I cut him off. “Yes. Right now, even.” My voice was husky. What I’dmeantwas that I wanted him to take me right here in the broom closet, because I was just babbling at this point and had forgotten the train of conversation. But he scooped me right up off the floor and tossed me over his shoulder like a caveman—Alistair,myAlistair, hadlost his mind—and was out the closet door in an instant, his long legs eating up the ground. I heard him pick up my handbag as we passed the bar. “I must bid you farewell. We’re leaving now,” he said to his friends.
“What?” Solandis squawked through her outraged laughter. “You’re just leaving us?”
“Goodbye!” he called back, even louder, not bothering to turn as he reached the door.
