Page 66 of Trick

I hurled my own stone, then rounded on him and scowled. “You’re trying to get a reaction from me.”

Those pupils deepened. “Is it working?”

Damn him. He knew where he was steering my thoughts. I remembered what he’d said in the forest, after he caught me following him.

You haven’t begun to learn what my tongue can do.

Also, what he’d said last night.

Need something to wet your tongue, do you?

So do I.

My bloodstream accelerated. It sweltered in my navel, then lower, and lower still. This fiend didn’t need to reach out and touch me. His words did plenty, sunk deeply enough.

“I can wiggle my ears,” I blurted out.

His features transformed, shifting from molten to jovial. “I insist you show me.”

“Certainly not,” I clipped.

“Why? Can’t stand to indulge the notorious whims of this jester?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Worried I’ll never let you live it down?”

“Definitelynot.”

“Thank Seasons,” he sighed. “I’ve developed a fetish for your strength of will. It does things to me.”

“I don’t want to do things to you.”

The protest jumped out of me and filled the atmosphere to capacity. Water trickled down the brook, and an owl flitted through the trees, the raptor’s trajectory rustling the leaves. Yet my words lingered much louder than any background noise.

“Oh?” Poet queried. “I’m glad you cleared that up.”

His puckish expression didn’t alter, yet the pulse at his neck sped up.

Either that, or it was a trick of remaining light from the twilit sky. Nearly an hour had swept by, the sunset long over and mellow blue shadows draping over the woods. Soon, darkness would fall. After that, we wouldn’t be able to see the water anymore.

I shook my head and grunted, “This is foolish.”

“I’ll be the judge of what’s foolish,” he remarked. “That’s what I’m known for. Then again, I’m off duty.” His lips slanted. “Be foolish with me, Briar.”

I wavered. While avoiding his amused gaze, I flapped my ears once and swiftly. Unable to believe what I’d just done, I dropped my face into my hands. Mortified laughter tripped from my mouth, the chuckles muffled against my palms.

Silence.

Thick, heady silence.

I lifted my head and met a pair of turbulent eyes, which reflected the proof that I’d gotten carried away. He gazed back, rapt as though he’d never heard that noise before, the sound of laughter—and pleasure.

“You should do that more often,” he said. “Make those noises.”

A deprived sensation clenched in my chest. I cleared my throat. “I won.”

Poet blinked, then flung his head back and chuckled. The echo of his mirth slid between my ribs.

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