"Will it stain my dress?"
He actually seemed to think about that, face becoming thoughtful, intelligence showing through. "I'm not sure, but I'll buy you a new one if it's ruined."
"Men will promise anything in the heat of the moment," I said.
"Let me see the oil run down that pure white skin. Make them glisten for me." He handed the bottle to me, wrapping my hands around it. He kissed me again, mouth lingering on me, his tongue probing, opening my mouth so the kiss could be more. He drew back, slowly. "Please Merry, please."
He moved back, but not far, hands at his belt again. He drew the leather tongue slowly through the gold buckle, drawing out each movement while he watched me. It made me smile because he was doing what I'd asked. He was slowly unveiling himself.
The least I could do was do what he'd asked. The push-up bra left enough of my br**sts bare so that I didn't have to lift anything out of the dress. I drew the stopper out of the bottle. It had one of those long g]ass rods on the end of it, to glide along your skin. I sniffed the oil. It smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. There was something familiar about the odor but I couldn't place it. The oil was nearly clear. "Aren't you supposed to warm it first?" I said.
"It reacts to your body's heat." He pulled the belt out of the last loop and tossed it between us on the bed. "Your turn."
I lifted the stopper out of the bottle. The oil clung to it in a heavy strand. I touched the end of the glass rod to the top of my breast. The Oil was already warm, body temperature. I trailed the rod across the mounds of my br**sts and tiny trails of oil followed it, tracing like thick tears across my skin. The smell of cinnamon and vanilla seemed to soak into my skin like a warm rush. .
Alistair undid the snap on his pants and slowly drew down the zipper. He wore red bikini underwear, like he'd dressed to match the bedroom. The scarlet was very bright against his skin, clinging over the front of his body like a second skin. He lay down on the bed to get the pants off, gazing up at me so that I towered over him on my knees as he had towered over me earlier.
He reached up, still flat on his back, running his fingertips across the oil, spreading it over my skin. He came to his knees, hands smoothing over the tops of my br**sts, fingers trying to get inside the dress and touch more, but it was too tight. Prior planning prevents embarrassing groping. He rubbed his oiled hands down his own chest, then took the bottle from me and trailed the glass stopper across my mouth like he was putting on lip gloss. It was sweet upon my lips, thick and sweet. He kissed me, both his hands still holding the bottle, so that it was just his mouth on mine. He kissed me like he was going to eat the oil off my lips. I melted into the kiss, hands stroking over his oiled chest, feeling the muscles of his stomach moving under my hands. My hand slid lower, over the front of him, finding him hard and ready. The feel of him thrilled through my body like a jolt of energy. That was when I realized that I was enjoying myself and had forgotten why I was there.
I drew back from the kiss and tried to focus, to think. I didn't want to think. I wanted to touch him and have him touch me. My br**sts ached to be touched. My mouth almost burned with the need to close the distance between us. He leaned in for another kiss, and I crawled backward, falling onto my back in my rush to put distance between us.
Alistair crawled to me on knees and one hand. The other hand held the bottle. He straddled me the way a horse stands over her colt. My gaze kept sliding down his body to the hard front of him. I couldn't keep my eyes on his face. It was embarrassing, and frightening.
"Stupid," I said, "so stupid. It's in the oil. There's a spell in the oil." 1 His voice came in an almost harsh whisper. "The oil is the spell."
I didn't understand what he meant at first, but I knew I didn't want anymore of it on me. He started to open the bottle, and I sat up, taking his hands in mine, keeping the lid on the damn thing. The moment I touched his hands, I lost. We were kissing again, and I hadn't meant to. It was as if the more we kissed, the more I wanted to be kissed, like it fed on itself.
I threw myself back on the bed, hands covering my face. "No!" I knew what it was now: Branwyn's Tears, Aeval's Joy, Fergus's Sweat. It could make a human into a sidhe lover for one night. It could turn even a sidhe into a sexual slave, if that sidhe had no access to other sidhe. No fey, no matter how talented, how powerful, can rival the sidhe, so it's said. You can forget what the touch is like. You can fight not to dream of glowing flesh and eyes like molten jewels, a sweep of ankle-length hair across your body. But the desire is always there just under the surface, like an alcoholic who can never take another drink for fear that one drink will never be enough to satisfy that thirst.
I screamed, loud and long and wordless. There was another side effect of Branwyn's Tears. No glamour can stand against it. Because your concentration can't stand against it. I felt my glamour leaking away, felt my skin as if my entire body took a deep breath.
I lowered my hands slowly until I was staring up into the mirror on the ceiling. My eyes glowed like tricolor jewels. The outer edge of my irises was molten gold, within that was a circle of jade green, and last came emerald fire to chase around the pupil. Only the sidhe, or a cat, could have such eyes. My mouth was a mixture of crimsons: the remains of my lipstick, and the scarlet gleam of the lips themselves. My skin was a white so pure, it shimmered, like the most perfect of pearls. Again there was light coming out of my skin, like a candle behind a veil. The red-black of my hair fell around the shining colors like a spill of dark blood. If my hair had been pure black, I'd have looked like Snow White carved from jewels.