As Yoni and I crossed that palatial hotel lobby to the express elevator to her suite, I found I couldn’t look her in the eye. Her scents were driving me crazy. I could smell every single cosmetic and hair care product she had used today. I could smell sweat on her neck from our recording session this morning, and a faint hint of the humid earth of the conservatory on her shoes. I could even smell the patches of stink where I’d leaned on her, reeking of sweated-out tequila and vomit and slept-in clothes, when she magicked me out of bed and into the ladies’ room at the recording studio.
And I smelled that she was horny.
I couldn’t look her in the eye.
No door-dragon waited at the foot of the elevator. At the penthouse, Yoni laid her ear to the crack before she put her keycard in. When she opened it, she turned to me, and her eyes met mine, full of hope and guessing and vulnerability and certainty. I almost fell over backward.
“I don’t bite,” she said, showing a dimple.
“Oh, well, in that case, no deal.” I sounded a lot calmer than I felt.
She grinned, making me feel like fireworks were exploding in my chest. She slipped inside and I sauntered in after her.
She hadn’t turned on the lights. Afternoon sun came in through the windows. The bar and living room area were rose-petal free, but the walls, carpet, ceiling, cabinets, bar top, and even some of the living room furniture still looked as if somebody with incredibly good aim and a powerful airbrush had sprayed them gold in soft rays radiating from . . . .
. . . Right where we stood.
She noticed me noticing. I swung toward her and she gave me her hand, as if we were about to dance.
I said, “Are you ready for anything? Because we’ve got nowhere to go but weird.”
We put our arms around each other and danced a little two-step cuddle. She smelled great.
I noticed suddenly that I was relaxed. I never relaxed like this with women—with the guys yes, with tequila, sure. This was a drug and a homecoming. There was something absolute about it.
Her hand slid up my jaw, and I murmured, “Careful. Feels good now, but the clean-up’s a bitch.”
She giggled. “Let’s try.” She pulled my face down. “Little kisses,” she said. “Contain the mana.”
So we tried little kisses. It was harder than I thought to touch lightly, give a lick to her mouth, kiss with soft pressure over and over. My lips became more sensitive. After a few kisses I could feel hers half an inch away, as if I had whiskers, as if I was leaning out of my body in my hunger for her.
My dick burned like a frozen flagpole. I was afraid to go full clinch. We might get stuck.
She moaned and leaned into me. I was gathering her up into a bear hug that would get my burning dick up against something solid when she pulled her head back. “Listen, I don’t feel comfortable here.”
“Okay. Bedroom?”
She shook her head. “I never know when someone’s going to come back here.” She ran her hands down my arms and laced her fingers into mine and bumped against me, setting off my dick again. “Let’s go somewhere else.”
I frowned. “The Lair is compromised.” Dammit, the city was full of beds. I thought of Veek and Sophie breaking into some guy’s house to fuck on his satin sheets. The whole world was full of beds. This very building—oh, of course.
“Why don’t I rent a room here?” I said. “Downstairs.”
She beamed. “Perfect. You call for the room. I’ll pack some stuff for the club gig tonight.”
“What?” How could she remember work with her brain clouded by lust?
“Well, I won’t have time to come back to the suite after you and I have been—you know.”
“Jesus, you’re organized.”
She pecked me on the lips and pushed off again. “I know, right? Hopelessly.” She disappeared into the bedroom.
Thinking of that bedroom only a few feet away, I sighed and got out my cell phone.
They were efficient down there. By the time I got down to the front desk, they had the charge sheet and my key ready. I told them, “No turn-down service,” and pranced to the elevator, where I phoned my goddess and told her the number of my room.