Lyon. Elizabeth Amber
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the place on the bridge where he’d first seen her, prepared to placidly await her employer.
Lyon looked down and found the woman’s gaze on him. He ducked his head close. “Bon soir, Madame.”
“Bon soir,” she whispered.
He pressed her back against the base of the statue—against inscribed words which explained that it was a bronze King Henri IV who rode majestically above them—the very monarch who had seen this bridge finished.
“Ici? Here?” His lover’s rapt attention had never once left his face, but now an uncertain frown puckered her brow and she glanced about them.
He touched the underside of her jaw with two fingertips, lifting her to his kiss. His hand slid into her hair, his palm so broad that it encompassed the back of her skull. “No one will see. Nor care,” his husky voice promised against her parted lips. “Just enjoy.”
His body crowded hers flush against the gritty stone and still he spoke to her—low reassuring words that warmed her ear and readied her for what was to come. Here, he would take his clandestine pleasure of her under sky and, later, star.
Her body was Human and would require considerable time to adjust to the size and strength of his. Even then she would be unable to take all of him in as well as the half-Faerie he’d come to Paris to find might have.
Annoyed that thoughts of that duty had intruded, he shook them off. Still, it was true that women in EarthWorld were frail and he could safely join himself to this one no more than a half dozen times here in this alcove. It would have to be enough.
With gentle lips, he brushed the tendon that ran from her ear to the hollow at the base of her throat. His pawlike hands roamed lower, gathering and lifting the front of her skirt and petticoat in great fistfuls, baring her to the cool air.
Her bosom rose on a sharp indrawn breath and her fingers fluttered to clutch the chiseled muscles of his shoulders. He leaned in, surrounding her with his body and scent.
Long, knowing fingers slipped under her skirts—first warming a thigh, then sliding between them and roving even higher to thread through soft, feminine bristle. A strangled moan escaped her as the first finger brushed her clit. At the second brush, she closed her eyes on a sigh.
He stroked her again and again, knowing all the while that it wasn’t a kindness he would be doing her in this act. Far from it. For after this night, a remembrance of their joining would remain with this woman, a new constant in her physical makeup. Though he would wipe the specifics of the hours they spent here from her mind, a small part of her would hereafter always pine for him, not knowing why or for whom she longed. And though this was a hurt he was reluctant to give her, he needed her too badly to let her go. The least he could do was to make sure that any impression he left was an extremely pleasant one.
She was panting now, emitting a tiny whimper each time he caressed her. Her arms had gone lax, hanging on either side of her hips against the stone. Slender wrists were turned upward in a pose of vulnerability, a sign she’d placed herself at his mercy.
His desire to possess her ratcheted higher. Heat pooled in his scrotum, tightening his balls into fists and thickening knotted blue veins that corded the length of his cock. He drew one of her hands to his groin and taught her the shape of him. She groaned against his neck.
His middle finger pressed urgently at the brink of humid feminine folds that gated what he sought. She was wet. Ready. He pushed her hand aside and found the fastening of his trousers, releasing himself.
Gods! Relief could not come soon enough!
Abruptly, an eerie crooning broke the air around them, reaching him even through a haze of lust and the surrounding din. A breath away from his sweet goal, he faltered. His head lifted and cocked to better listen.
The song came again. Eyes narrowed, he tipped his face in the direction from which it had issued. The river.
It came yet again familiar and feminine.
Nymphs. From the sound of things, they, too, were out hunting tonight. And they’d scented his presence. Voracious lovers, their bodies would be well able to handle all he had to offer. And they were noted gossips as well, a fact that might prove beneficial to his purpose in coming to Paris. Perhaps they’d gotten wind of the whereabouts of a certain female with a mix of both Faerie and Human blood in her veins.
He glanced at the willing woman before him. Her soft, experienced fingers warmed his cock. His body urged him to take her, to finish what he’d scarcely begun. But some latent sense of compassion impelled him to let her go. Now, before they mated and he gained a lasting hold over her.
Biting off a curse, he tamped his need and lay a palm against her cheek to bespell her. Silently, he commanded her to go. Willed her to forget her desire for the act they’d left unconsummated as best she could.
Tugging her hand away, he refastened his trousers. For long seconds, her brown eyes only blinked up at him, wounded and confused. He stepped back and her skirts swished into place again, covering thighs, dimpled knees, then ankles.
Her flushed face was a picture of reluctance, but she nevertheless straightened and turned away as he’d bid her. As she retraced her steps toward her waiting servant, her eyes followed him. Within hours, the particulars of their encounter would fade, but a vague yearning for him would remain with her for far longer, like a bruise on her heart.
Thoughts of her already fading, Lyon took the worn stone steps on the Pont Neuf’s north side two at a time. Descending to the brick walkway on a level with the river, he then veered under a wide arch, passing the clochards—harmless beggars who huddled in the nooks and crannies of Paris.
Behind him stretched the bulk of the island called Île de la Cité. Ahead of him, at its western tip lay the Parc Vert Gallant, a triangular spit formed by centuries of sediment deposits. Jutting into the Seine from just below the bridge, it pointed downstream like the prow of a ship.
Stepping into the park, he quickly swept the banks with his eyes, but saw nothing move. Where were they?
The crooning reached him again, louder and more beguiling this time. He walked the perimeters of the park where land met water, searching more keenly.
Here, the fresh natural odors of loam and vegetation filled him, offering a welcome respite from less pleasant smells of brick and smoke above in the bustling city. Cities were entertaining in their own way and on occasion, but why anyone of means would choose to inhabit an urban area in preference to the vast expanses of rural terrain that lay outside its borders was beyond his reasoning. Something in his soul tied him to the land.
Suddenly, he whipped around. The crooning had come again, this time from the park’s north bank. An unanticipated thrill engulfed him, prickling his skin, and hardening his cock to ever-greater dimensions.
For this time, the sound had brought with it something new. A precious fragrance. It entwined the call, separating itself from Human smells and marking itself as peculiar. It was an unmistakable scent. That of Faerie. Aroused Faerie.
Was it possible he’d so easily located the very female he’d come to Paris to find? He paced the length of the north shore again, more impatient than ever for a first glimpse of the river nymphs. Convinced now, that King Feydon’s third daughter was among them.
Never mind that until this moment he’d been aggrieved at this duty and reluctant to meet her. Never mind that having her find him the very night of his arrival in Paris seemed an errand too easily accomplished. Never mind that it appeared she was inexplicably of the sea, rather than of the land.
One thought and one only rode him—that within minutes, in this very park, he would make her his. Reason could wait until after his cock had found a haven in her.
His eyes scanned the bank. Where was she, damn it all?
Something stirred the river just beyond a patch of grassy silt beneath a plane tree. A lithe form rose from the depths, water streaming from its dark hair and slicking over shoulders and full, tipped breasts. Silhouetted