Page 96 of Trick

Then he sank further in. Approaching the crook where my leg abutted the seam of my body, he grazed a single fingernail over the sensitive flesh.

Oh, my Seasons.

My mouth parted, though no sound came out, because I couldn’t let it. Yet that didn’t matter. Everything loud occurred within me as Poet’s hand scorched my flesh.

While everyone rambled, their words blurred, fraying at the edges. The jester’s hand rose higher, higher still to the heat emanating from the fabric under my skirt. He stalled mere inches from my undergarments, where the slit would give him access to me.

To my wetness.

As though aware of the temperature rising from there, those dexterous fingers pinched the material and skated across the lace trim, rowing back and forth. My head rolled from Eliot’s and craned toward the dark abyss sprawled above. My hips begged to move, to squirm, to dosomething. I dug my fingers into the ground, my knuckles bending.

Too many frustrating desires thrashed inside me at once. I shifted my backside, unsure whether my hips wanted to nudge away or shove themselves closer to him.

Poet paused near the slot cutting through the intimate fabric. His fingers idled like a torment, so close to the liquid slickening in my crease.

He could spread the textile like a curtain. He could slip those fingers inside me right here, right now. He could do to me what I’d done to myself while thinking about him. He could fill the root of my body so smoothly, so easily.

The possibility of him whipping his finger in and out of me, with everyone none the wiser, was so tangible I felt its penetration. I milled my backside into the floor, which prompted his hand nearer. Purposefully, Poet circled his finger around the slit, outlining its shape, tracing the oval as if it were my core. He did this repeatedly, then switched direction, on the brink of slipping through the panel.

My teeth fanged into my lower lip, trapping a painful moan inside. I gushed between my thighs, so evident his tracing finger could discern the wetness. The point of his digit rolled over the damp edge, as if attempting to coat itself in me.

My eyes tipped to the back of my head. That shackled moan pushed against the roof of my mouth.

The conversation ceased. The absence of voices hit me like a splash of frigid water.

Movements broke us from the trance, snapping the moment in half. As everyone shuffled to get up, Poet withdrew his hand from the juncture of my thighs and dragged the skirt down my limbs slowly, as though he was moving through tar.

My lungs emptied, yet my body continued to ache. Fortunately, a cool breeze buffeted my face.

Disappointment and relief flowed together, until it was impossible to tell the reactions apart. Nonetheless, my joints unlocked, allowing new impulses to spring free.

We helped one another to our feet. Eliot strummed a melody on his lute while Vale and Posy flanked him, the sultry trio swaying in tandem. Cadence urged me into the maelstrom by yanking on my wrist, then let me go and joined Poet.

More to discover. More to savor.

The moon’s reflection bathed my skin. I raised my arms and spun. I didn’t care if I tripped. Because if I did fall, I would simply pick myself up.

Poet and I kept apart. But from the place where he twirled Cadence, he watched my ungainly movements. Fascination gripped his face as he stared at me, through me, into me.

Hyperaware of my body, I whirled faster, my breasts and hips out of reach and but visible to his dark gaze. Under the wild sky, I threw back my head, my skirt pinwheeling.

That I was fully clothed didn’t matter. The jester had an imagination.

That same imagination had nearly led his fingers inside me, and at my invitation. Public discretion be damned. If he had succeeded in breaching that silken place, I couldn’t say if I would have changed my mind and stopped him.

23

Poet

Many things happened to us that night.

Many things I never saw coming …

*

She spun, losing herself in the haze and this maze. I took her in, mesmerized and memorizing. At the stroke of dawn, Briar would change and cast herself into the role of an expensive Royal, pissing me off with her reserve.

So be it. We had our parts to play.

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