A Stroke Of Midnight   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

“If you are leaving, then you need to put her down,” Doyle said.

He let me slide down his body, and I let him do it, this time I did. My knees were a little unsteady, and he had to keep his hand on my arm for a moment, before I could stand on my own.

He laughed, a purely masculine laugh. “Goddess help me, but I do love you.”

“Enough, Frost,” Doyle said, “we have other work to do tonight.” He motioned for the door, and this time Frost went where he was told. Doyle turned to me at the open door. “I will not try to compete with that.” He said it with a smile.

I raised up on tiptoe, my hands on his chest, and said, “It isn’t a competition.”

He lowered his face to mine. “In the mortal words of the human world, the hell it isn’t.” He kissed me, firm and thorough but chaste compared to what Frost had done, then he drew back from me. “Do you wish me to send in the demi-fey?”

“Let us get the blood off of us first. I’ll send Nicca or Kitto for Royal.”

“As you wish.” His eyes flicked behind me, then he touched my face, and closed the door behind him.

I turned around to find that two of the other men in my life had undressed while I was preoccupied. Galen’s body was covered in patches of dried blood. It wasn’t lust that made me go to him and wrap myself around his nude body, it was fear. Later there’d be time for lust, but in that moment I just wanted to hold him, wanted to feel him warm and alive in my arms. My hands couldn’t seem to avoid feeling the dried scratchiness of blood. It was everywhere on the smooth perfection of his skin. My hands found the still-healing wound in his back. I shivered.

He hugged me. “Are you cold?”

“A little,” I said aloud. To myself I acknowledged that it wasn’t the kind of cold that a coat or a bath would help.

“Let’s get in the water then.” He smiled down at me as he said it, as if a little hot water would solve everything. If only life were that simple.

Something must have shown on my face, because he frowned at me. “Are you all right?”

I nodded and sighed. So much to do, so many alliances to forge and strengthen, so many enemies to find. I should have been hurrying, should have had my list of goals and been breaking my back to get through them. But in that moment I couldn’t think of anything that seemed more important than holding as much of Galen against me as I could manage. Naked in a bathtub doesn’t solve everything, but naked with someone you love doesn’t hurt anything either.