Page 107 of Secrets of Graves and Gold

Ivy shrugs, but she leans into my touch with a muted sigh. Tension twines through her muscles even as my light massage starts to loosen a few of them. “I’m just glad to have the chance to rest.”

“Did anything else come up during your trip to the city that worried you?”

She pauses for just long enough for me to believe there was and then gives a short laugh. “What is there that doesn’t give us reason to worry these days? I’m getting by.”

I brush some of her pale amber hair aside in a gentler caress. “I just want you to know that you can talk to us about anything, no matter what’s on your mind. We’re here for you in every way.”

Her shoulders stiffen slightly, but then she glances at me through her eyelashes with an arch of one eyebrow that makes my heart skip a beat despite my intentions. “You know, it’s been too long since I’ve gotten to enjoy you being here in one particular way.”

She leans over to claim a kiss, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw.

Heat flows across my skin with the gesture. I can’t help kissing her back.

I’ve missed our most physical intimacies too… but I can’t shake the impression that she’s dodging the question.

When our lips part, I keep my head bowed close to hers. “Ivy?—”

Before I can do more than murmur her name, she glances toward Alek with a beckoning motion. Her gaze slides to Stavros in turn.

Both of the other men step closer and then hesitate. Ivy lets out a soft huff—and reaches for the tie of her robe.

She tugs it loose and lets the fabric slip from her slim form, leaving her sitting naked in a pool of linen. There’s still a little self-consciousness in the way she holds her arms as if to partly cover her breasts, but I can’t help smiling at the confidence she has gained since our earliest encounters.

“We’ve come this far,” she says in a low voice. “It’s about time you showed me that I really am your Signy.”

A sharper heat rushes through me and condenses in my groin. This isn’t how I intended our private moment to go, but—if I’m not meant for this kind of request, what am I good for?

With a slight flex of my jaw, I reach for my gift, fixing my attention on Ivy. Taking in the stream of images that follow, which should tell me what I can do that would really make her happiest right now.

The swell of sensation only heightens my desire, fed by what I can sense of her own. There really is nothing that would set her more at ease than tapping into my greatest talent.

Nothing I could do, anyway. But how can I refuse what I’m able to offer?

Alek is already in motion, sinking down next to Ivy with his arm tucking around her back beneath the worst of her scars. His voice comes out rough. “You’re more than our Signy. You’re our Ivy.”

She beams at him in the instant before their mouths collide. Another niggling thought passes through my head—that he fits her better than I ever could, with their scars and the ways they’ve kept themselves hidden.

She still wants me too. And it’s beautiful watching them together, feeling their way through the sort of intimacy I almost take for granted.

Ivy clearly isn’t in the mood to draw things out. She breaks from the kiss only to swing her legs around so she can straddle Alek.

As she kisses him again, yanking at the tie on his robe, I scoot closer and dapple kisses over the peak of her shoulder and down her arm. My hand strokes her back in tender circles with the wish that I could smooth away all the remainders of her mother’s abuse.

Then I glance past her toward the final member of our quartet. Stavros stands poised just a couple of paces away, his hands flexing at his sides, his gaze smoldering.

Oh, he wants to be a part of this interlude. The hunger is written all over him.

But I suppose the only practice he’s had at navigating this kind of sharing is when he joined Ivy and me toward the end of our encounter at the Haven.

I catch his gaze and lift my eyebrows as if to say, Well, are you getting over here or what?

After a momentary and only half-hearted glower, he kneels at Ivy’s other side. He rests his hand on her bare waist and tilts his head to kiss the side of her neck. I can tell he’s being careful not to impose too much on her attention to Alek.

When Ivy trails her fingers down Alek’s lean frame to grasp his cock, he groans. I slip my hand around her thigh to tease between her legs. The slickness I find there makes my own dick jump to sharper attention.

“Already so ready for us,” I murmur. I give her earlobe an affectionate nip before gazing past her toward Alek. “Maybe you have some suggestions from that poetry book for how we can best please our woman together?”

A ruddy cast has formed beneath the scholar’s rich brown skin. He wets his lips, his eyelids drooping as his hips rock with Ivy’s attentions. “There is… It’s sounded as if it can be quite satisfying for a woman to be entered from… ah, both directions. At the same time. I’m not sure how easy that is outside of poetics.”

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