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THREE DAYS LATER I WAS STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF JEREMY’s OFFICE wearing nothing but a black lace push-up bra, hs Adown the front of the bra Nor to sleep with apersonal, just business Maury Klein was a sound expert, and he was trying to fit a tiny ith a tiny ht breast where the underwire of the bra would keep Alistair Norton fro it if he brushed his hand acrosswith the wire for about thirtyto find the best place to hide the wire inin front of ue bitten between his teeth, eyes behind the wire-fraed al the material of the bra away fro the bra out, he’d exposed ht breast to the room

If Maury hadn’t been so obviously oblivious to bothso long because he was enjoying himself, but he had that inner stare that said he wasn’t really aware of what he was doing, except for the job part I understood why he’d had complaints from female undercover people before The co all this in private He wanted witnesses that he hadn’t overstepped the bounds Though frankly, if all the witnesses had been huht have been on my side anyway He’d poked, lifted, and otherwise manhandled my chest as if it weren’t attached to anyone What he was doing was very intimate, but he didn’t mean it to be He was the proverbial nerd or maybe the absentminded professor He had only one love, and that was his hidden eles if you wanted the best, you went to Maury Klein He put in security systems for Hollywood stars, but his true passion was undercover work How to get the equipment even sgested that the wire ht be best hidden inside my body I’m not shy, but I vetoed that idea Maury had shaken his head and muttered, "Don’t kno the sound quality would hold up, but I wish someone would let me try it" He did have an assistant, read "keeper," and probably eency diplomat

Chris-if he had a last name, I’d never heard it-had cautioned Maury not to be so rough or so indelicate He’d hovered until I assured hiical nurse ready to hand him whatever esoteric piece of equip the show, fingers steepled, an amused smile on his face He’d shown polite heat in his eyes when I first took erie, but after that he’d just tried to keep fro at Maury Klein’s total lack of heat Jere contrast between the perfect white of erie You’re always supposed to say so nice the first time you see so on the corner of Jere in the air in a soft unconscious movement, as he, too, enjoyed the show He didn’t have to cohts before that His eyes are the first things you notice about hie, liquid brown orbs that doht sky Then it’s a toss-up whether you notice his dark auburn hair, and the way it clings to his face, rolls down the back of his collar, or his lips, which are a perfect red-tinged pouting bow You’d think he used lipstick to get the color, but he doesn’t It’s all natural His skin looks white, but it isn’t really, or not pure white It’s as if someone took my own pale complexion and added a drop of the red-brown of his hair When he wears brown or other autuht exactly, and it lance, but the body that showed under the black clothing he’d donned for tonight looked firm andHe was li his back and shoulders, like white calluses on the smooth silk of his body The scars had been caused when a fisherman burned his sealskin Roane was a roane, one of the seal people Once he’d been able to don his sealskin and become a seal, then slip the skin and be human, or rather human form Then a fisherman had found his skin and burned it The skin was not just aIt wasn’t even just part of Roane The skin was as much him as his eyes or his hair Roane is the only seal person I’ve ever heard of that survived the destruction of his other self He survived but he could never again change form He was doomed to be forever land-bound, forever denied the other half of his world

Soht I’d find the bed e out theat nothing If ere at his place, he’d be looking out at the ocean or vanishing into the waves as I watched from the balcony He never woke me and asked uess it was fair because in the two years we’d been lovers, I’d never droppedscars The injuries would have ht have been hopeless at offensive spells, but there were few better at personal glamour in all the courts than me It helped me hide, but not much else Roane couldn’t breech my shields, but he knew they were there He knew that even in that moment of release, I held back If he’d been human, he would have asked why, but he wasn’t human, and he didn’t ask, just like I never questioned him about the call of the waves

A human wouldn’t have been able not to pry, but a human lover also wouldn’t have been able to sit calmly while another man fiddled with my breasts There was no jealousy in Roane He knew thisto him

The only other woman in the room was Detective Lucinda - call me Lucy-Tate We’d worked with her on several cases where the perpetrator wasn’t hu bewitched, bewildered, or killed In fact, having Jeremy and the rest of us as teical Dispensation Act had been stretched to include police work But we’d all ical abilities that made us ideal for the job, which ic cop would have needed and just put us straight on the job Sort of like eot to be a detective fresh off the bus, so to speak, with none of the hours and hours of training that you noret your license in California

Detective Tate leaned against the wall, shaking her head "Jesus, Klein, no wonder you’ve got sexual harass to draw his attention back fro way off It was the way people looked at the end of a powerful spell, like they were just waking and the dream hadn’t finished yet You couldn’t fault Maury’s powers of concentration He finally turned to the detective, hands still in my bra

"I don’t knohat you mean, Detective Tate"

I looked at her over Maury’s kneeling head "He really doesn’t," I said

She s, Merry If he wasn’t the best at what he did, nobody would tolerate him"

"We don’t use sound equipment and hidden cameras much," Jeremy said, "but e do I like to pay for the best"

Tate looked at him "The department certainly couldn’t afford hi his attention from my chest "I’ve done free work for the police in the past, Detective Tate"

"And we really appreciate that, Mr Klein" The look on her face didn’t quite match the words -a more mischievous twinkle in the eye and cynicism in the face Cynicism seemed to be an occupational hazard The mischievous twinkle was pure Lucy Tate She always see I was pretty sure it was a defense mechanisured out what she was hiding from None of my business, but I will admit to a certain amount of very unfeylike curiosity about Detective Lucy Tate It was the very perfection of her cae, the fact that you never saw beyond that faintly amused shield, that made me want to breech it I could see Roane’s pain, so I could leave it alone But I could see nothing in Lucy, and neither could Teresa, which meant, of course, that Detective Tate was a psychic of considerable power But soe that made her hide her powers so far under that even she didn’t know she had them None of us had explained this to her Detective Tate’s life seemed to ell She seemed happy If she tore the scar open that had forced her powers underground, that could all change It h that she’d never rebuild from it So we left her alone, but ondered about her, and sometimes it was harder than it should have been not to poke at her with ic or psychic feints, just to see ould happen

Maury leaned back, hands to himself at last "There, I think that’ll do I’ll put just a touch of tape to make sure it doesn’t shift, and you’re set" Chris handed hio, anticipating the need Maury took the tape without comment "You’ve seen what I had to do to put theto find it" He actually had me hold the bra out so he could tape with both hands It was the kindest thing he’d done in the last forty-five minutes

He stood and moved back "Fix the bra the way you’d normally wear it"

I frowned at him "This is the way I normally wear it"

He made a small motion with his hands at about chest level "You know, fluff that one, so it matches the other one"

"Fluff," I said, but I shed and moved forward "I’ll show you"

I held a hand out "I don’t need help" I bent over and shookto useinto place The bra was push-up enough that my already nice chest looked positively obscene, but when I ran my hand over the area where I should have felt the mike, all I could feel was the underwire and material

"It’s perfect," Maury said "You can strip down to this, just keep your bra on, he’ll never know" He cocked his head to one side, as if he’d just thought of so "I’ve taped the mike to the bra so if you have to you can take it off, just leave it within a five-foot radius Closer is better If Iup your heartbeat and the clothI can filter it out, but it’s easier to do after the tape’syou want to be able to hear tonight, in case your bad guy gets out of hand"

"Yes," Jeremy said, "it’d be nice to know if Merry needs help" The sarcasht have been able to tape the mike to the elastic top of the hose, but I couldn’t swear that the hose wouldn’t roll down and flash the mike If you take the bra off, make sure and roll the cloth so theit off"

Maury shrugged "Just wanting to give you all the options I can"

"I appreciate that, Maury," I said

Maury nodded Chris was already picking up the bits and pieces that had gotten scattered on the floor

Roane ju my folded dress from the top of it He held the square of black cloth out to me I’d had to buy a black dress on the advice that it was easier to hide things in black than in lighter colors I never wore unrelieved black if I could help it, even though it was a color that looked good on me It was the color favored by the Unseelie Court because it was their queen’s favorite color to wear

Roane let the silk dress unfold froan very slowly, very deliberately to roll the dress up in his hands, watching my face the entire tiing fro the dress open so I could step into it

I placed my hand on his shoulder for balance and stepped into the circle of cloth Roane began to let the dress slide fro his hands at the same ti down When his ar, the dress was to htly on my hips The movement put him kissably close His eyes were exactly at the same level as mine There was an intimacy to the eye contact that I’d never had with anyone else I’d never been with anyone as short as I was before It made missionary position unbelievably intimate

Roane raised the dress until I could slip h the sleeves, then he raised it overaround me until he was at an to zip the dress up in back The dress tightened as it zipped, like it was slowly constricting across my waist,V, which was another reason for the uplift bra It was the only one I’d found that you could wear under the dress and not flash the bra The dress was sleeveless and fit like a shiny second skin, leaving ainst the dark fabric I’d chosen the tightness very deliberately The bodice looked like it was barely there and all it left was a view of my breasts, but if you tried to slide your hand into the top, you couldn’t do it without risking ripping the dress If Alistair Norton wanted to play with my breasts, he’d have to keep his play to the exposed tops, unless ere planning a rape scenario, and according to Naomi the rape fantasies had only come out at two months or more The first month had been a perfect affair Since this was the first date, Alistair would probably be on his best behavior I’d have to take the dress off for hi thethe dress off

Roane finished zippingthe small hook at the top He traced his thumbs over the bare skin of my upper back, the barest of movements, then stepped away from me He actually ran his thumbs over the scars on my back that he could neither see nor feel I was confident enough in my abilities that the dress would have shown the scars, except for lamour They were like ripples in the skin, frozen forever Another sidhe had tried to changea duel Many of the fey can shape-shift, but only the sidhe can change the fore ainst me in the courts

"How do you do that?" Detective Tate asked

The question startled lancing up as he repacked equip with aat it with a tiny screwdriver The rest of us ht as well not have been in the roo but your underith ayour breasts, but it’s not sexual It’s like an R-rated comedy routine Then Roane helps you on with your dress, never touches your bare skin, just zips you up, and suddenly the sexual tension in the rooh to walk on How the hell do you do that?"

"Us, as in Roane and ht trail off "Us as in the fey," she said "I’ve seen Jereuys can walk around buck naked andin the sa small and suddenly I feel like I should leave the room" She shook her head "How do you do that?"