Gabby blanched. “You mean, you think if I became corporeal again while someone was in me . . .” She couldn’t finish the thought.
He nodded. “That someone might be . . . er, incorporated. But then again, they might not. It might work like sifting, where things come out on top of each other. Wouldn’t that be a laugh? Can you imagine the look on that woman’s face if you’d suddenly appeared on top of her? Unless . . .” he mused thoughtfully, “with a Sidhe-seer it’s so difficult to predict; Fae power doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to around you, which is what we find so unacceptable about your kind. Perhaps some part of the confusion element would—”
“I don’t think it would be a laugh at all,” Gabby snapped. “It felt really bad to be sat in. Like I was a ghost or something.”
He nodded. “I know.”
Her eyes narrowed. “So help me understand this. When you’re touching me, I can’t be seen or felt by any other humans?”
“Right.”
“But the Fae can still see us?”
“Right.”
“But when you’re touching me, and I’m not solid to other people, I can still feel everything else. And I could feel you. So am I actually there, or not?”
“It’s difficult to explain, ka-lyrra; I have no human terms. Your race does not yet possess ones sufficient to discuss in any useful detail”—he broke off, frowning, searching for words—“well, this is a near approximation, though not really at all: complex, element-specific, event-contingent, multidimensional shifting in, er . . . you’d say ‘spacetime,’ but give it thirteen dimensions instead of four. Humans have simultaneity issues and don’t deal well with breakdown. Your concept of the universe is not yet advanced enough, although your scientists have been making progress. Yes, you’re real. No, humans can’t feel you.” He shrugged. “The féth fiada doesn’t affect animals either. Cats and dogs can see and feel us just fine, which is why they often seem to be staring fixedly at nothing, hissing or barking for no apparent reason.”
“Uh-huh. I see. Adam?”
“Yes?”
“If you ever let somebody sit in me again, in any freaking dimension, you won’t have to worry about the Hunters, I’ll kill you myself.”
His dark eyes glittered with amusement. A full foot shorter than he, lesser by at least a hundred pounds, she was bristling up at him, undaunted. Only one other mortal woman had similarly stood her ground before him. Over a thousand years ago, in another time, another world, in ninth-century Scotland. Circenn’s mother, Morganna: the only woman to whom he’d ever offered immortality.
Let me die, Adam. I beg of ye, let me die, a smoky feminine burr swirled through his mind.
He tossed his head viciously, shaking the voice away. That was a memory best left in those dark times where it belonged.
Striking without warning, giving her no chance to react, he fisted a hand in the fabric of her shirt, pulled her close, ducked his head, and brushed his lips to hers. Though at the merest touch of his mouth to hers, his cock surged painfully in his jeans and his body raged for more, he kept the kiss light.
Merely rubbing his lips back and forth over hers, with a husky little purr.
The hand not holding her shirt clenched into a tight fist at his side as he battled the urge to crush her to him, shove his tongue into her mouth, drop her back onto a seat, strip her jeans down, and thrust himself between her thighs.
But he gave her only the barest taste of a kiss. Savoring the erotic friction. Feeling her lips soften beneath his. Relishing the tiny catch in the back of her throat.
Then letting her go.
When he released his grip on her shirt, she stumbled back slightly, looking utterly dazed, much to his satisfaction. Her lush mouth was soft, her green-gold eyes startled and confused and very sleepy-sexy aroused. And he knew if he reached for her again, she’d not fight.
Good.
He wanted her wanting. Wanted her wondering why he’d not taken more. Wanted her primed for the next time he reached for her.
Hunger for me, ka-lyrra, he thought silently, get addicted to me. I will be both venom and antidote, your poison and your only cure.
Aloud he only said softly, “Yes, Gabrielle.”
13
They disembarked that evening in Atlanta, Georgia, and “checked into” a hotel Adam-Black-style.
Only for the night, he said, as they needed to keep moving. But tonight they would shower, rest, and eat “real” food (by which she guessed he meant his usual fare: five-star dining).