Page 75 of Gemini Queen
Damn me. She’s done it. She’s shut me out.
And for some blooming reason, I don’t like it.
I don’t like it one bit.
“That’s brilliant. You’re doing it.” I crush my bizarre antipathy for the whole notion of this queen shutting me out (which is good self-preservation on her part). Her quick grin of triumph stokes the mating fever I’m likewise trying to ignore. “I’m going to probe a bit now. Your job’s to reinforce those bricks wherever you feel me pushing to keep me out.”
I’m not using all my strength, but I’m making some effort, and she’s mostly managing to keep me out. The more we practice doing this, the better she’ll get. I offer a few words of grudging praise and some pointers to boost her confidence and hone her technique. And I’m not paying much attention to the fact that, during this whole tutorial, I’m wide open to both of them and projecting myself.
Until a furrow appears between her brows.
“Ronin,” she says softly. “You’re hurting.”
Fuck. I knew she’d be a quick study.
She’s picked up that my blasted bite is aching again, just like Lucius said it would if I kept away from him too long. And now Zara’s entire wall has collapsed into rubble and she’s projecting all that concern and distress straight at me.
“It’s nothing.” I shrug, which is a bad idea because the movement makes me wince. “Just need a spot of tending for the, uh, disciplinary bite after class. Let’s try again with that wall.”
It’s actually time to put up a wall myself so they don’t know it’s a mating bite, a truth Lucius has insisted needs to stay our guilty little secret. He blasted his own rules to rubble when he fucked me, and even the fact that Vasili knows is giving Lucius fits.
Anyway, I need to protect Lucius. And, wall or no wall, both Zara and Neo are frowning at my evasion.
“You’re hurt?” Behind his dark-rimmed glasses, Neo’s big earnest eyes search my face. Which gives me a funny feeling in my chest.
“It’s honestly not an issue,” I say gruffly. “Who’s teaching this lesson, anyway?”
“Let me see that bite, Ronin.” Zara lets go of my waist and actually starts unbuttoning my fucking shirt.
“Now wait one bloody tick—”
“I have shifter blood, don’t I? Along with all the rest?” She completely ignores my efforts to fend her off and unknots my tie with a few twists of her capable fingers. “Might as well put it to use. I can’t shift or anything, but I bet I can help with this.”
Well, fuck. I wanted to get us both naked, didn’t I?
This aspect of her heritage might be new to her, but I can feel her certainty pulsing at me through the link. Clearly she’s never tended a bite, but the damn thing is aching. If she wants to try, she can bloody well have at it.
It’s not like I’ll mind having her mouth on my body.
In fact, I don’t mind at all.
“That’s the spirit,” she murmurs, with a quick upward glance brimming with turquoise heat that gives me an instant hard-on. Because, yeah, I’d want her on her back for me again even without the mating fever. Or my boundless thirst for vengeance.
“You’ll have to put the bloody tie back on me then,” I grouse. “I can’t manage without a mirror.”
“No worries. I’ve got you,” Neo says easily, hands still resting on Zara’s waist. I search the link between us for jealousy or some shit, but he truly does seem fine with what Zara’s proposing.
“Iamfine with it,” he says with a smile.
She gives me a little backward push and says firmly, “Now sit.”
Which is how I find myself parked on the gazebo bench with Zara perched on my thigh and my shirt and jacket open. Before I’m half ready for it, her lush Hollywood mouth grazes my half-healed bite.
The first hot lick of her tongue makes me groan in mingled pleasure and relief.
The double whammy of that slick of pleasure—intense as a blow job given my sexed-up state—and the instant easing of the pain makes me sway a bit. Neo sits alongside and grips my undamaged shoulder to give me a brace. Which is decent of him, even when I’m so turned on all this physical contact is torture. His knee brushes my thigh and he starts to shift away.
I squeeze his knee to hold him right there and say roughly, “Stay.”
