“How can I when I lack the proper equipment?” Ellina protested.
“What makes you think your equipment isn’t right?” he countered. “In females of my own kind, there is no third breast or second sacred mouth, but they’re perfectly capable of sexual pleasure. Why should you be different?”
“Well…because I’m a whole different species from you,” Ellina protested.
“The Goddess made us all,” Ty told her. “I know, I know—you believe in Thufar,” he went on. “But I believe we are all her children.” He frowned. “Even those of us who are made…differently.”
Ellina had the strangest feeling that he was speaking about himself as much as about her. But she still couldn’t agree with his conclusions.
“It’s nice of you to say I’m not deformed—even though by Chorkay standards I certainly am,” she said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I lack what—for my people—is the necessary equipment to experience sexual pleasure.”
“Then why did you tingle when you touched me?” Ty countered. “And why did you kiss me so eagerly last night when you milked my fangs?”
Ellina felt herself blushing again—her cheeks going hot in the firelight.
“I…don’t know,” she admitted. “That’s why I’m confused—it doesn’t make sense.”
“I think it does, though.” Ty looked at her intently. “My Lady, would you allow me to try a little experiment?”
“Experiment? What do you mean?” Ellina asked, looking at him uncertainly.
“It’s easier for me to show you than to tell you,” Ty said. “Although I confess that it might involve me touching you…rather intimately.”
Ellina felt her heart start to pound and hot blood rushed in her ears.
“Intimately?” she asked. “How…how intimately?”
“No more intimately than you touched me a little while ago,” he promised in a low, soft voice. In the firelight, his pale eyes were once again half-lidded. “Don’t worry, little one—I won’t try to breed you,” he added. “But I’d like to prove a point to you, if I may.”
Ellina took a deep breath, wondering what she ought to say. When he said he wouldn’t touch her more intimately than she had touched him, it wasn’t much of a reassurance. After all, she had actually had her fingers inside him while she stroked his shaft. That was much more intimate than she’d ever expected to get with her Kindred bodyguard.
But I want to do this—want to let him touch me, she realized, as she looked up at him. And I trust him—I know Ty would never harm me.
“All right,” she heard herself saying at last. “Let’s do it—let’s try your, uh, experiment, Ty.”
“Good.” He smiled at her, a slow smile that seemed to do strange things to her insides. Just looking at it made her feel warm and melty all over. “Then climb in my lap, little one and let’s get started.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ellina couldn’t believe she was doing this. She was still only wearing the long, thin drying sheet knotted above her breasts. She was completely bare beneath it and yet she was climbing into the big Kindred’s lap—straddling him as she had the night before when she was milking his fangs to taste his essence.
You mean when you were kissing him, whispered an accusing little voice in her head. And it looks like you’re about to do a lot more than that right now. You shouldn’t, Ellina—you know it isn’t right!
But somehow she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She pushed the accusing little voice away and made herself comfortable in Ty’s lap, making certain that the drying sheet still covered her modestly, hiding both her breasts and her sex.
“Now then,” Ty said, when she was situated. His own drying sheet was wrapped around his trim hips, leaving his broad, muscular chest bare.
“Now then,” Ellina echoed his words. “What are we going to do?”
“Just this.” And his big hand came up to cup her breasts through the drying sheet.
“Oh!” Ellina gave a little gasp but didn’t move to get away, even when he cupped her more firmly and his thumbs found the hard points of her nipples and began to circle them slowly.
“Oh…” she said again and this time the sound was more than half moan. For the gentle motion of his thumbs seemed to do something to her—caused a strange, hot pleasure she had never expected in the tips of her breasts before. Her nipples grew suddenly even harder as he circled them and the sparks of pleasure seemed to get even more intense.
“Do you feel that?” Ty murmured, looking at her. “Do you feel me touching you?”
“Y-yes,” Ellina admitted.
“Good.” He nodded. “And does it feel good or bad?”
“G-good, I think,” she whispered.
He arched an eyebrow.
“You think?”
“I…it’s hard to tell…hard to know with…with the drying sheet in the way, I think,” Ellina heard herself say.
The big Kindred nodded thoughtfully.
“It would seem that our experiment would be more accurate with skin-to-skin contact. Would you agree?”
Ellina could barely speak so she just nodded.
“Very good,” Ty murmured. “So maybe we should take this down, just a bit?”
As he spoke, he tugged at the top of the drying sheet until it loosened. Ellina’s heart lurched in her chest and for a moment she wanted to clutch at it—to hide herself as she was so in the habit of doing. Then she reminded herself that Ty thought she was lovely—that the women of his people all had two breasts, not three. So it was all right to let him see her.
He thinks I’m beautiful, she told herself as she let the top of the sheet fall to puddle in her lap, baring her breasts to him in the firelight. He likes the way I look.
From the look in Ty’s half-lidded eyes, he certainly did like the way she looked. He was staring at her like a hungry man stares at a feast, Ellina thought. Or maybe
