Olivia by R. Lee Smith Page A

they were not plummeting through space to the solid rock floor below even half as fast as they would be if he didn’t have wings.  No, she didn’t mean to, but she did, and right in his ear, too. He landed with a thud that might have been more graceful if her added weight and involuntary scrambling was not putting him off balance, but he didn’t chastise her, only held her gently until her whooping gasps had calmed and her death’s grip on his neck had eased.  At last, she’d recovered enough that she was able to mumble a shame-faced apology, and he set her down, turning her toward the wide mouth of a tunnel.
    She saw light ahead, yellow light from candles set all along the walls ahead in unappealing lumps anywhere there was a jut of rock wide enough to hold one.  Now he let her go before him, tapping her shoulder to indicate turns whenever they came to one of the few forks, and soon they had come to a low-roofed cavern pocked with pools of lightly steaming water.  More of those fat, foul-smelling candles were arranged high on the walls, casting flickering eerie light over the otherwise empty room.
    “Oh wow,” she blurted, forgetting her English.  “You have hot springs!”
    “A bath,” he corrected, watching her with faint pleasure.
    Olivia knelt by the side of one of the pools and dipped her hand inside.  The water was white, opaque when she cupped it in her palms, smelling strongly of earthy minerals when she splashed it up against her face.  It wasn’t as warm as she’d liked her baths back in her nice, normal, human days, but it was hell and away warmer than the water that trickled down the wall in her captor’s bathroom.  Eagerly, she stripped off her clothes, slipped her legs over the edge and slid in up to her neck, moaning at the welcome warmth as it enveloped her.
    He came in beside her with a low grumble of satisfaction.  He turned to her, the water lapping at his chest, and smiled, showing his teeth.  “My Olivia,” he said huskily.
    She closed her eyes, arching back to wet her hair.  “Mmmm,” she replied.
    She sensed rather than saw his interest pricking when he heard that.  She heard a low thrumm escape him, a sound which seemed to surprise him some, and then he retreated to the far side of the pool where he could watch her.
    “This is so nice,” she murmured, spreading out her arms and legs so that she could float.  Her body bobbed on the surface of the water, her fingers and toes bumping against the walls.  She turned her head and saw him standing, staring at her body as milky bubbles burst against her skin.
    He lifted a hand out of the water and brushed it over her thigh.
    “Mmm,” she said again, closing her eyes.
    He thrummed again and bent to nuzzle her neck.
    She twitched, started to sink, and tried to straighten and drop back into a standing position.
    He caught her leg as she sank into the water, pulling her closer to him.  He hummed into the thin skin of her throat as his hard shaft brushed her thighs, caressing her in one of his clumsy sweeping strokes just once before he put his hand against her sex and rubbed at her.  “My Olivia,” he murmured.
    The heavenly comfort of the hot springs made it impossible for her to resent this.  She hummed again instead, opening her legs a little wider and wrapping them with weightless ease around his hips.  He turned, pushed her back against the wall of the pool and thrust inside her.  In the blissful grip of all this warm water, even that felt surprisingly good.  Buoyant in the bath, Olivia rocked, water lapping in warm sheets over her breasts, splashing at her shoulders, beading on her face.  She slid her arms around his neck, flexing her fingers through his spiky-wet pelt in time with his thrusts, and he bent at once to press his brow to hers.  The mating hum that issued from his throat was hoarse and restrained, blowing in tense puffs against her lips, scarcely audible.
    He was afraid someone was going to walk in on