Page 86 of Wingless Crow: Part 1

He remembered that, too, yanking the ends of his robe closed. But not before I got a glimpse of his entire, gloriously naked front. The wide planes of his chest. The hard, squared ridges of his abs. And the thin trail of black hair, as if painted with ink on his pale skin. It marked the way from his belly button down to his thick length, resting flaccid in his groin.

It didn’t remain flaccid, however. As if led by my glance, it jerked, then rose toward me, swelling in both girth and length.

Even when Voron closed the robe, his hard-on refused to settle, poking against the thin fabric from the inside.

“I… I’m…” I tugged at my ear with one hand, clutching my notebook in the other. Forcing my eyes away from his crotch, I blurted out, “The lesson?”

If my sudden intrusion had knocked Voron’s composure out of balance, he regained it quickly. Folding his arms across his chest, he gave me an amused look.

“I applaud your eagerness to learn, little bird. But will you at least allow me to put some pants on first?”

“Sure,” I mumbled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how early it was.”

The clock in a gilded frame over the fireplace showed I’d barged in here almost twenty minutes before our scheduled time. And now, I felt stupid.

“I can come back.” I gestured at the door behind me.

“Stay,” he said firmly in a voice used to giving orders. “There is no need to apologize, either. Normally, I’d be up and fully dressed at this hour. But I arrived late last night and slept in this morning.”

His words didn’t make me feel any better about my intrusion. The man came home late, after possibly a long exhausting journey, and there I was, springing on him first thing in the morning, before he even had a chance to get dressed.

I had half a mind to flee. Only the fear of making this even more awkward if I ran now kept me in place. That and the fact that it felt…nice to see him again.Verynice. I was really looking forward to spending the next hour in his room, the only place in the entire palace where I felt completely safe.

“If you’ll excuse me.” With a polite bow, he headed to the door that must lead to his bedroom or to his dressing room.

Sunlight slid down his back, playing in the shimmering fabric of his robe. The blue shimmer suddenly gathered into lines, forming the image of folded wings. They stretched from his shoulders all the way down to his backside, the tips curving over his firm buttocks.

I blinked, and the wings were gone as Voron strode through the door and into another room.

“Make yourself comfortable, Sparrow,” he said from behind the wall. “I won’t be long.”

Was Voron aware of what had just happened?

He must have felt the light on his back. Only he didn’t react to it at all.

Maybe nothing happened, after all? Maybe the sunlight just played a trick on my eyes. I couldn’t even tell for sure whether the image of the folded wings had flashed on the back of Voron’s robe or directly on his skin underneath it.

It had to be just an illusion. Voron wouldn’t be acting as if nothing happened otherwise. My nerves were strung too tight. It was no surprise my jumpy mind would be conjuring up things.

Perching on the chair by the unlit fireplace, I opened my notes. I figured I’d go over them since it’d been a few days since my last lesson. My thoughts, however, refused to stay in the room with me. They wandered off, following Voron out through the door and feeding my imagination with the images of him getting dressed, separated only by the wall from me.

I happened to be one of the very few people Voron allowed into his suite. And even then, I had never made it past this sitting room. I wondered how many women had seen his bedroom. I tried to imagine what Voron’s bed looked like—the bed where he’d slept in this morning. I didn’t think he wore that long robe to bed. And since he hadn’t been wearing any pajamas either, he probably liked sleeping in the nude…

Warmth tingled through my chest at the mental image of Voron spread out on his sheets, gloriously naked. Those long legs of his and his muscular arms—

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you missed me.” Voron’s cheerful voice snapped me out of my daydream that was highly inappropriate on so many levels, including the fact that he was currently my teacher and I was his student.

He entered, straightening the silk ruffles of his cuffs over his hands. His black coat remained undone, but the same color vest underneath was fully buttoned. A pristine white cravat was tied around his neck. The lacy ends of the cravat were neatly held together with a pin decorated with a tiny feather carved from a black stone.

“You rushed in here first thing in the morning, dear Sparrow, catching me in a scandalous state of undress,” he continued with an amused smile hiding in the corners of his mouth. “Please don’t tell me you missed me.”

“I didn’t,” I lied, quickly averting my eyes and likely fooling no one.

He chuckled at my flustered state but mercifully didn’t call me out on the lie. With an elegant hand gesture, he made the crystals in the wall burn brighter. Their glow, however, could not compete with the sunshine spilling into the room through the open patio doors.

“I propose we do the lesson outside today,” he said. “The weather is finally nice for a change. It’d be a shame to miss out on a day like today.”

I didn’t want to dwell on the reasons for the nice weather, following Voron outside to the patio and to the game table standing by the marble parapet. The wide pillars of the parapet were hollow and filled with dirt. White and pale lavender flowers grew from these outdoor flowerpots.

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