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“Sort of like the Berlin wall of alternate realities, then.” Luc gave an amused snort. “Well, I suppose there are worse analogies. Anyway, all but five of the doors in Ithir were permanently sealed, and the five that were left were all charmed so that while they opened at different corners of the world in Ithir, in Faerie, they all open into one room in the Queen’s palace.”

“And she’s a one-woman border patrol?”

“She makes the decisions of who passes, yes.”

Corinne frowned. “Then how did Seoc get here to begin with? For that matter, how could you have gotten here in the past?”

“I had permission,” he said. “And we think Seoc snuck through a door when the room was left unguarded.”

Her eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. “I bet you’re the head of the Queen’s Guard, aren’t you?” He scowled. He should have known she’d make that damned connection. “Yes, I am. And while I had a man stationed there the night Seoc went through, he was distracted from his duty, and it is ultimately my responsibility to make sure that kind of thing doesn’t happen.”

“I wasn’t saying it’s your fault. I just want to have my facts straight.”

“Well, the fact is that it doesn’t matter how Seoc got here, because he’s here now.”

“And he’s the reason why we’re having this conversation.” She frowned. “Wasn’t the point of this conversation originally to discuss why Walter Hibbish disappeared?” He had to give her points for persistence. “I’m getting to that.”

“Get faster.”

“Fine. I think Hibbish disappeared because Seoc was trying to cover up what he’s been doing here and Hibbish saw something he wasn’t supposed to.”

Her eyes widened. “You think Seoc killed Hibbish?”

“No, I think he sent him through a door.”

* * * * *

She shook her head. “But you just said that the Faerie Queen closed all the doors between Ith—um, between here and Faerie. So how did Seoc send Hibbish through one?”
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“He didn’t. At least, he didn’t send Hibbish through to Faerie. I think he sent him into limbo.” Her jaw dropped so hard, she almost heard a crash. “He sent that guy into eternal nothingness?” Luc’s mouth curved in a brief grin. “Not exactly. Limbo isn’t any one specific place. It’s what we call the place between any two worlds. It doesn’t technically exist, so a being who can do magic can shape it to be anything he or she wants.”

Corinne grimaced. “You sound like a theoretical physicist.” She knew whereof she spoke. She’d dated a theoretical physicist for a while in college. She still got occasional flashback headaches. “Okay, so Hibbish is…somewhere that’s not here and not Faerie. But what was Seoc doing that it was so important for no one to see him do it?”

“I think he’s looking for the door.”

“What door?”

“One of the five remaining Faerie doors is here in Manhattan,” he explained, topping off his tea and adding a fresh slice of lemon. “That’s how I’ve always gotten here in the past. This time, Mab opened a new door for me, but she’s the only being I know capable of still using that kind of magic. Seoc needs to know where the permanent door is, and I think he’s trying to find it.”

“But what’s so bad about that? If all of you want him to go back to Faerie, and he’s trying to find his way back there, why not just let him? Or better yet, help him find it and get him home even quicker.”

“Because I don’t think he’s looking for it so he can use it to go home. I think he’s looking for it so he can prop it permanently open.”

He said it so gravely and with such a forbidding frown on his face that Corinne could only speculate.

“And that would be a bad thing.”

He nodded. “
That
would be the thing I told you about last night.
That
would allow anyone and anything that wanted to travel between our worlds to do it.
That
would upset the balance between them.
That
would do all of those other bad things I told you about last night.” Corinne blew out a breath. “Right. So then it’s important for us to stop him.”

“You could say that. But first, we have to find him.” Chapter Eleven

They ended up back at her apartment for a brainstorming session, but Corinne was very careful to put the bag of goodies from the Pink Pillow in her closet, out of sight if not out of mind. They had definitely
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not
picked up any cinnamon oil, though. She didn’t trust Luc with it. She saw the way his glance strayed every so often toward the bedroom while they sat on her sofa and tried to figure out what to do next.

“Do you have a last reported location for Hibbish?”

She shook her head. “Well, not unless you count the Pink Pillow.”

“The name of someone who may have spoken to him recently?”

“Aside from his business partner, who I didn’t know about before today, I’m guessing maybe the PI who my editor got the original information from.” She flipped through her notes. “Actually, hold on a minute.” She skimmed over the information she’d jotted down and raised an eyebrow. “It looks like one of the other witnesses is the one who originally convinced Hibbish to talk to the PI. Marc Ingram. The bartender.”

Luc looked up from the notes he was making for himself. When he’d started to do the note-taking thing, she’d looked at him a little funny. Somehow in her head, the brilliant, rugged detective didn’t need to make notes on his cases. It seemed somehow…soft. Maybe she’d watched too many Humphrey Bogart movies. “Really? Now that’s interesting. I wonder if maybe we should talk to Ingram.”

“I’m way ahead of you, big guy.” She had the cordless phone in her hand and had already started dialing. Luc watched her curiously.

“Landslides, can I help you?”

The voice over the phone was feminine and brusque, but polite, and Corinne held up her finger to Luc to indicate he should be quiet. “Hi, um, can I talk to Marc, please?” The woman on the phone sighed. “He’s not scheduled until eight,” she snapped. “And since he already missed one shift without calling, I doubt he’s going to have time to talk to anyone tonight. Not if he wants to keep his job.”

The receiver clicked in her ear, and Corinne hung up with a half-shrug. She told Luc what the woman had said and watched him process the information. “Maybe we need to go down to that club tonight and talk to Mr. Ingram.”

She checked her watch. “It’s only one o’clock now. That’s a hell of a lot of time to kill.” He cast her the sort of sidelong glance that made her simultaneously suspicious and horny. Of course, the way things were going, she wasn’t sure he had any glances that didn’t make her horny. “Well, you could tell me what it is that you plan to do with those silk scarves you picked up earlier.” She smiled at him, a small and mysterious shift of her lips. “Fat chance, buster. I don’t share my secrets easily.”

Luc leaned forward until she felt his breath tangle with hers. His own smile was slow, intent and predatory. “I’ll bet I can convince you to tell me every single detail.”

“Betcha can’t.”

She licked her lips, and watched his eyes darken, as if he could barely restrain himself from catching the
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pink tip of her tongue between his teeth. She’d love for him to prove her wrong, especially if he were inclined to use forceful methods of persuasion. Forceful, naked methods.

“Want me to try?”

Corinne fought the urge to wrestle Luc down onto the carpet and sexually assault him in defiance of rug burn and stiff muscles and all the other downsides to floor sex. As it was, she could feel her palms itching and her pussy getting damp. Some people might find the news surprising, but she never had been into overpowering her partner. Maybe she’d been missing something.

Still, she couldn’t resist just one tug to this particular tiger’s tail. “Better men than you have failed.”

“Honey, I can guarantee that no man like me has ever tried.” She opened her mouth to retort, but the words died in her throat when she felt the tip of his tongue dart out and stroke over her lower lip so quickly she almost thought she had imagined it. Until she looked into his eyes and saw the amusement there. She pursed her lips and test-drove her come-and-get-me-big-boy purr. “How about we see who convinces who first,” she suggested. “Winner gets a prize.”

“What’s the prize?”

“The loser.”

“You’re on.”

They dove for each other so fast, Corinne was surprised their skulls didn’t collide in mid-air, but their lips did, and they kissed deeply and frantically as they tumbled around on the sofa cushions. Their tongues tangled, teeth nipped, lips crushed as if it had been weeks since the last time they’d touched instead of just hours. She couldn’t believe any man could make her this frantic, but Luc could.

The instant she touched him, her body began screaming for him, as if he were water and she’d been lost forever in an arid wasteland. It frightened her to need him this badly this quickly, and she wondered if this was how addicts felt about their fixes, this bone-deep
need
to have him, as if she couldn’t draw another breath unless he gave her the power to move her lungs.

He tore his mouth from hers and buried it against her breasts, drawing in her scent and laving the soft skin along the deep vee of her neckline with long strokes of his tongue. “Lady, I can’t believe I need you so badly,” he groaned. “What have you done to me that I need you this much?” Corinne moaned, the only reply she could make. Their little game of who can do what to whom no longer mattered. It seemed kind of silly when both of them were writhing on her sofa for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. Clearly neither of them could claim immunity to the other’s charms.

Neither could they claim immunity from some rather animalistic impulses either, it seemed. They tore at each other’s clothing until fabric ripped, buttons popped and garments went sailing across the room to land in all sorts of locations. When Luc cast his jeans aside, she thought she heard a crash as they flew into some unsuspecting object, but she couldn’t have cared less. She was too busy exploring the flesh that had been concealed under those jeans.

She wrapped her fingers around his cock and moaned her approval. He was rock-hard and hot to the
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touch, the silky-smooth skin stretched taut, the mushroom-shaped head swollen and blushing red. A drop of moisture beaded on the tip like sugar syrup, and Corinne needed to taste the sweetness. Squirming out of his grip, she bent her head and pressed the flat of her tongue against the head of his cock, letting that tiny drop roll down her throat like a taste of nectar.

He moaned almost as loud as she did. “Corinne…”

She smiled and let her tongue flick against the tiny opening in his cock head before she parted her lips and took him fully into her mouth. He filled her mouth as snugly as he filled her pussy and she paused for a moment to let herself adjust to the feel of him inside this part of her. Her jaws felt stretched, but not uncomfortably so, and she could feel every beat of his heart against her tongue. It fascinated her, and she eased him a little further inside until she could feel that same pulse against her palate as well.

His hands sifted through her hair, pulling it to the side to keep it from hanging like a curtain around her and concealing the sight of her sucking on him like a lollipop. She stroked her hands up the insides of his thighs, savoring the softness of his skin before reaching down to cradle his balls in the palm of her hand.

She weighed them like a sack of gold, smiling a little at the analogy. Pulling her mouth free of his cock, she bent further and stroked her tongue over the contrasting texture of his scrotum, feeling the soft skin and the hard jewels within. Gently, she sucked on each in turn, taking them into her mouth and teasing them with her tongue. She listened to the change in his breathing and gloried in the power she exerted over him. No matter how crazy he drove her, all she had to do was touch him like this and the balance returned to their relationship.

Sex made them equals.

As she pulled her mouth from him and kissed a trail up the center of his smooth, sculpted abdomen, the truth of that hit home to her. When they touched, it didn’t matter who was Fae and who was human, who had powers and who didn’t. It didn’t even matter who was in control. All that mattered was that the magic they made together was stronger than what the Faerie Queen herself could wield. On a good day.

She pressed her lips against his, softly, felt his part in welcome. Slowly, tenderly, their tongues tangled, no longer frantic or wild, but hungry and wanting and reverent, as if Luc too understood the epiphany she had just experienced. She opened her eyes as they kissed and found him watching her. Their gazes locked as she drew slowly back and shifted to straddle him.

This time, she didn’t ride him; she worshipped him. Sinking slowly onto his erect cock, she whispered with her body of his strength and virility, his courage and intelligence. With her body she compared him to a god, and he responded in kind.

Grasping her hips in his hands, he held her tightly against him as they rocked slowly together, not thrusting or withdrawing, but gently rocking like the ocean waves as with his body he worshipped her in return. Silently, he compared her to a goddess, showing her the ripe promise of her form, the depth of her tender heart. He showed her the capacity of her body to receive, and the capacity of her heart to give.

They stared into each other’s eyes for hours, days, lifetimes, all the while joined together by cock and pussy in a union both elemental and sacred.