I stood and petted my dogs, letting some of the tension bleed off into the gesture. "We should get inside," I said at last.
Sholto nodded. "Yes, we should." He offered me his arm and I took it. He led me inside as Royal whispered in my ear, "The sluagh like the goblins still eat us like prey."
It made me stumble up the small steps to the porch. Sholto caught me. "Are you all right?"
I nodded. I could have asked Sholto, but if the answer was yes, I didn't want to know, and whether it was yes or no, it was still an insulting question. How do you ask a man who you are supposed to love and who is the father of your child if he commits a little cannibalism on the side?
"You're afraid to ask," Royal whispered like one of those cartoon devils on my shoulder.
That made me lean in against Sholto and whisper just inside the door, "Do the sluagh still hunt the demi-fey?"
He frowned and then shook his head. He looked at Royal, now hiding more seriously in my hair. "We do not hunt the small ones for food, but sometimes they are very irritating and we have to cleanse our faerie mound of them. How my people clean our house of them is their own business. I don't tolerate them in my kingdom, because you're right, you forget they are there, and I don't tolerate spies."
Royal slid completely behind my neck so that he put his arms and legs on either side of my neck and held on as if I were the trunk of a tree.
"Hide all you want, Royal, but I won't forget you're there," Sholto said.
I could feel Royal's heart thudding against my spine. I was about to be sympathetic, but then I felt him lay a kiss against the back of my neck. It can be a very erotic spot, and as he laid soft kisses against my skin, I felt that totally involuntary reaction low in my body. I made him move.
Chapter Thirty-five
I was in the bedroom changing for dinner when there was a knock on the door. "Who is it?"
"It's Kitto."
I was down to my dark brown bra with its lace trim, and still in my skirt, hose, and heels, but he was on the list of people who I didn't have to hide from. I smiled and said, "Come in."
He peered around the door as he opened it, as if unsure of his welcome. I'd managed a few minutes alone and he knew I valued my rare privacy, but I hadn't seen him in two days, nearly three, and I'd missed him. But the moment I saw his black curls and his huge almond-shaped eyes with their swimming blue color, like looking into one of those perfect pools that dotted the neighborhood, I smiled more widely. The thin black of his elliptical pupils no longer detracted from the beauty of his eyes for me. It was just Kitto's eyes, and I loved all of his face, the delicate bones in that soft triangle. He was the daintiest of all my men. He was four feet even, more than a foot shorter than I, but it was four feet of broad shoulder, narrow waist, tight ass, and everything he needed to be male, just done in a perfect miniature package. He was wearing designer jeans and a tight T-shirt that showed off the new muscles that weight-lifting had given him. Doyle made all the men work out.
My face must have shown how pleased I was to see Kitto, because he smiled in return and ran to me. He was one of the few men in my life who didn't try to be cool, or in charge, or even worry about being manly. He simply wanted to be with me and didn't try to hide that. There were no games with Kitto, no hidden agendas. He simply loved being with me, in the way that most people outgrow, but since he had been born before Rome became a great city, he would never outgrow the childish enthusiasm that he had for life, and I loved him for that, too.
I had a moment to brace my heels before he flung himself on me, climbing me like a monkey to wrap his legs around my waist, his arms hugging me tightly, and it just seemed natural to kiss him. I loved that I could hold him as the other men held me. I let our combined weight carry me backward to the bed, so I was sitting on the edge of it while we kissed.
I had to be careful when I slid my tongue between his teeth, because he had a pair of retractable fangs tucked neatly against the roof of his mouth, and they weren't just there for decoration. His tongue was thinner than human tongues, red and black-tipped, and it, like his eyes and the thin play of rainbow scales down his back, marked him as part Snake Goblin. He'd been the product of rape. His sidhe mother had never acknowledged him, but left him outside the goblin mound, even though at that time the sidhe were still food for the goblins. She hadn't left Kitto to be saved by his father's people. She'd left him to be killed by them.
He was also the least dominant of my men, so I knew that I had to be the one to pull his T-shirt out of his belt and let my hands trace the smooth coolness of the scales that traced his spine. But the moment I undid some of his clothing, his small, strong hands slid down the back of my skirt so he could cup my ass and trace the edge of the dark brown lace panties that matched the bra.
I pulled his T-shirt up and he raised his hands so I could lift the shirt off and let it fall to the floor. He was suddenly nude from the waist up, still sitting in my lap. I liked his new muscles and the fact that he was tanning, ever so slightly, like a wash of brown over all that paleness. Goblins didn't tan, but the sidhe could sometimes, and when he'd discovered that he could tan, he'd started sunbathing by the pool.
"You're beautiful," I said.
He shook his head. "Not sitting this close to you, I'm not." His hands started for a button of my skirt, and then he hesitated. I understood, and I undid the belt of his pants so he'd feel free to undo my buttons and zipper. He folded the top of my skirt down, and then hesitated again. I could see his eagerness to take the skirt down, but I'd have to cooperate by lying back on the bed so he could slip it over my hips. He was still in his pants, and among the goblins whoever undressed first was the submissive, and that could mean even more among the goblins than at a human BDSM event.