Page 109 of Prince of Masks
I choke on a sound, a moan, a whimper, something pathetic before that sensation comes crashing down on me.
I tremble against Eric.
He accelerates the pace, trying to catch up with my climax, and he juts against me. He’s quick and, a few more grinds, he’s coming with a spill of warmth.
Eric’s harsh breath, a pathetic excuse for a shout, a moan, it is muffled by my neck as he jolts once more against me… then slumps as the pleasure peels away.
Slowly, the tingling sensation in me starts to dissipate. And as it does, the shame starts to rise.
We don’t move.
Eric stays nuzzled against my neck, his warm breaths brushing my skin, his body limp on mine.
And all I can think about is how glad I am no one will ever know that I came to the thought of Dray.
Eric is warmer now that he’s come inside of me (thank gods for the potion) but there is an edge of shame he carries with him as we leave Regent’s Park for a cocktail bar.
There, we share a couple of drinks and some fries that my waistline can’t afford so close to the ball.
The longer Eric meets my gaze, the hotter his cheeks get, until he just has to look away.
I don’t mention Asta. No need to nurture the thought of her in his guilty mind.
I need his focus on me.
And I need a scalding bath, but that is a thought for later.
Eventually, later comes.
It’s nearing five o’clock when we walk the rest of the way back to the Stonehenge veil.
Eric takes the same veil as I do, but he lives just twenty minutes in the opposite direction I take to Elcott Abbey, since he’s only in Salisbury.
So we go together.
My face falls as we round the corner for the queue—and my hand is quick to yank out of Eric’s.
The queue isn’t long, only about halfway down the alley, but that’s not what startles me, what cuts a sharp breath through me, or what has Eric taking an instinctual side-step to grow the distance between us.
It's that Oliver stands some witches ahead.
And he’s not alone.
Beside him, Dray Sinclair fixes the collar of his black coat, as though to shield his neck from the dropping evening temperatures.
If the threat of my brother lingering too close wasn’t enough, the risk that he might have turned at the precise moment to see Eric and I hand-in-hand veer off the street, then Dray is the nail in my coffin.
He might have his back to us, but the threat of his presence isn’t eased inside of me, where my lungs are starting to constrict.
I throw a wild look up at Eric.
He meets my gaze, then nods, an ‘I understand.’
And just as I think it, just as Eric and I move for the back of the queue but keep a distance between us that might suggest we ran into each other, not that we fucked in a park, Dray looks over his shoulder.
That guy has a fucking radar for me, deadblood sensors that prickle and enrage him whenever I’m around. Probably has little voices whispering all around him, ‘waif, waif, waif, waif.’
Or it’s my perfume, custom made, that he picks up on—and I have the fleeting thought to change my fragrance to something more common.
