"Anthony, Piers - Xanth 04 - Centaur Aisle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

She took a deep breath, inflating herself against him. "I'll scream,"
she breathed in his ear, taunting him.

But Dor knew how to handle her. "I'll tickle," he breathed back.

"That's not fair!" For she could not scream realistically while
giggling, and she was hyperticklish, perhaps because she thought it was
fashionable for young ladies to be so. She had heard somewhere that
ticklishness made girls more appealing.

Irene's hand moved swiftly, trying to tuck the paper into her bosom,
where she knew he wouldn't dare go for it. But Dor had encountered this
ploy before, too, and he caught her wrist en route. He finally got his
fingers on the essay-paper, for he was stronger than she, and she also
deemed it unladylike to fight too hard. Image was almost as important
to her as mischief. She let the paper go, but tried yet another ploy.
She put her arms around him. "I'll kiss."

But he was ready even for that. Her kisses could change to bites

without notice, depending on her mercurial mood. She was not to be
trusted, though in truth the close struggle had whetted his appetite for
some such diversion. She was scoring on him better than she knew. "Your
mother's watching."

Irene turned him loose instantly. She was a constant tease; but in her
mother's presence she always behaved angelically. Dor wasn't sure why
this was so, but suspected that the Queen's desire to see Irene become
Queen after her had something to do with it. Irene didn't want to
oblige her mother any more than she wanted to oblige anyone else, and
expressing overt interest in Dor would constitute a compromising
attitude. The Queen resented Dor because he was a full Magician while
her daughter was not, but she was not about to let him make anyone
else's daughter Queen. Irene, ironically, did want to be Queen, but
also wanted to spite her mother, so she always tried to make it seem
that Dor was chasing her while she resisted.

The various facets of this cynical game became complex on occasion.

Dor himself wasn't sure how he felt about it all. Four years ago, when
he was twelve, he had gone on an extraordinary adventure into Xanth's
past and had occupied the body of a grown, muscular, and highly
coordinated barbarian. He had learned something about the ways of men
and women. Since he had had an opportunity to play with adult equipment
before getting there himself, he had an inkling that the little games
Irene played were more chancy than she knew.

So he stayed somewhat clear, rejecting her teasing advances, though this
was not always easy. Sometimes he had strange, wicked dreams, wherein
he called one of her bluffs, and it wasn't exactly a bluff, and then the