Swallowing Darkness   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

He nodded, but reached out to touch my cheek. "And brownie in there somewhere, though it does not show."

I looked away from his face, out into the night. "My cousin, Cair, hated her brownie looks enough to kill our grandmother in a bid for power."

"We heard you hunted her down with the wild hunt. Named her kinslayer."

I nodded. "Yes."

Holly wrapped his arms around me, all that scarred muscled strength so gentle. He held me, and whispered in my hair, "When we are alone we can say how terrible for you. That we're sorry for the loss of your grandmother."

Ash moved closer to us, moving my face with his fingers so he'd be sure of my gaze being on his face. "But in the world, in front of anyone, Meredith, and I mean anyone else, we are goblins. We will have to behave as goblins."

"I understand," I said.

"The other is not an act, Meredith. It is us, too."

Holly pressed his face into my hair. "You smell clean and sweet, like everything good. Good enough to eat."

I tensed a little in his arms. "Goblins would mean that as a threat."

"Never be fooled, Meredith," Ash said. "We are goblins, but we are also ourselves." He frowned at his brother.

"I'm a little more goblin than my brother," Holly said.

"If you were sidhe, I'd say that you don't get to give me oral sex, but I know the goblins see giving oral sex as an insult. I can perform on you, but you won't perform on me."

"True," Holly said, "but my brother's a pervert."

It took me a second to understand, and it made me smile. Ash actually looked embarrassed. "There's no one to see, no one to tell," he said. "I can do what I want."

I spoke from the circle of his brother's arms. "And what do you want?"

"I want to taste you until your pleasure makes you shine for me."

"Then can we fuck?" Holly asked.

Ash frowned at him, but I laughed. "Yes, eventually we'll fuck."

"I'd rather make love," Ash said, and there was a longing in his face that I never thought to see. A longing for things he didn't get a chance to do much. There was almost no privacy in goblin society for sex. To hide away meant you were embarrassed, or bad at it in some way.

I leaned toward Ash. Holly let me go, enough so I could put a gentle kiss on his brother's lips. "Taste me, make love to me, Ash, please."

He kissed me back, his hand sliding down to cup my breast and play with the nipple until it hardened and I made a small sound into his mouth. He drew back enough to whisper, "On your back, Princess.