Chapter 48 Learning consequences
Hard suction or bites, those were unmistakably hickeys. Crimson blemish, dotting my wife’s skin.
My wife.
My earlier resolve not to fight over her, to act as a bridge between us and that future I saw, was suddenly not enough.
Not enough to contain this furnace door cracking open in my chest.
Human skin or not. I remained a dragon.
And the sight of the only other woman I married, now marked, claimed like this, made me want to burn everything around me.
Inhale, the human-moral voice whispered. I did. Unlock shoulders. Steady heart rate.
Finally, I had better control of my emotions again even though my eyes still burned.
“Come.” I turned around, and my hair swayed at the sudden movement. “All of you!”
I was going to teach all three of them an important lesson tonight. Even my dear Hale will not be spared.
My body teleported rather than walking up the stairs. A dragon was allowed several expressions if he couldn’t even roar anymore.
In the bedroom, I turned to the closet and scanned her section of it. My hand closed around a piece on Hale’s side of it.
Then I picked something from Hale’s half.
A long silk robe that expressed his taste for quiet elegance. A perfect fit for the rich girl ballerina.
I re-entered the bedroom just as they all filed in. “Sit.”
And to her, I said, Come right in her head. Those dainty shoulders shivered.
But as she walked closer, I smelled her desire, I saw it beneath her skin, leaping like lava.
I paused, stunned. Was I reading this differently? She found this appealing, my anger?
Deliberately, I tossed the robe out of her reach and watched that dancer-body twist left like pine to catch it midair.
Shower, ten minutes.
Her eyes, bright with apology and scared because none of them had any idea what I was up to, met mine. And my heart gave that foolish kick.
Now!
She jumped, spun around and half ran for the bathroom.
“And bring me everything you have on now. As they are,” I called out loud, my eyes fixed on Finn.
How had I doubted for even one second that Nymphaea was really in that body?
Only she was so insolent, goddam arrogant and knew exactly how to get under my skin.
Looking at those aqua-colored eyes and full pouty lips, it made sense that he would do something like this.
Only Finn would do something that was the equivalent of pouring a cup of black coffee all over the first edition books I had saved for centuries.
“Did you fuck her?”
“No,” his head jerked up, eyes bright and incredulous. ”gods, no…” He winced now, and his cheeks turned the shade of bell pepper. “Not really.”
My eyes traveled towards Hale where he sat on an armchair near the door.
The relief on his face was so intense it made me squint. I shelved the thought for later.
“Which is it? How do you not-really fuck somebody?” I waved my left hand and put up a listening barrier against the bathroom.
He was silent.
I took in his forest green cardigan, the white shirt underneath, stretched over his wide chest, those curls and the way they fell over his face with his head slightly bent.
“Any more furious than I currently am, and things would get real dangerous.”
His eyes met mine, wide, “You expect me to…”
“Yes.” I lowered to sit at the edge of the bed. My whole attention was on him now, my body turned to his couch.
Placing both elbows on my knees, I leaned closer till I could smell the lilies in his hair.
The fear in his eyes, the intimidation seeping from his pores, the new droop in his shoulders. I loved it all.
It was like narcotics to my ego.
“I can’t.” He sucked hard on his bottom lip. My hand twitched.
“Why not?” My voice dropped, deceptively calmer. “You’ve never been a coward about anything. If you could touch my wife, I want to know exactly how you did it.”
“You bloody asked me to…” He broke, finally lashing out.
“Finn,” Hale called from the other end of the room in that calm, mediating voice.
“Woo her. Love her. Fuel her desires.”
I held his gaze.
“Which part of that sounds like leave your teeth imprints all over where I can see?”
I placed my hand on his knee, and he shivered under my touch. Simultaneously, a jolt went up my arm at how lean his thigh muscles were, toned and taut.
“You wanted to pass a message, pretty boy. I got your message. Now tell me exactly what you did, and did not do.”
Silence.
I squeezed his thigh hard and veins jumped in his neck.
“There was a spell. We weren't ourselves.” He stopped, and a frown crossed those features. “No, that’s wrong. We were ourselves. Just… stripped down. Base.
My eyes narrowed. I knew where they were as soon as they left. That they snuck out to that wolf-prison Hale was so proud of. But before now, I had no idea Donna made it. Spells. Interesting.
“She was burning up. In agony.“ He winced as if he could feel the distress all over again. “I couldn't stand to watch her like that.” His eyes met mine boldly, resolved. “I wanted it. I wanted it too.”
Hale shifted in his seat, but I did not turn.
“Go on.”
My eyes were intent on his as he described what she felt like above him, grinding and hot through her shorts.
How much harder he got when she moaned his name, and how she seemed to like his fingers in her crack.
I darted a sideways glance in Hale's direction and my graceful aristocrat did not look very graceful right now.
His eyes were flaming daggers, and there was a defined line in his pajama bottom that was hard to miss.
He caught me looking at him, ran his hand through that silver mane, and looked away.
“What else?”
Finn shrugged, “She came.”
He said it so casually. Like it meant nothing. Like it was not the most…
I pulled my hand away from his calf immediately before I could crush his bones.
“And you say you did not fuck.”
“It was clitorial simulation all the time.”
Hale and I turned to look at each other from either end of the room.
His voice was hoarse, dangerously hoarse when he said, “How many times?”
That rattled Finn.
Hale was always the calm one, playful, teasing and patient. But now every muscle on his naked chest stood out, those buff arms were taut and flexing on their own.
“Three.”
“Hm.” I could not help smiling now. “You realize you keep getting to be her first with everything?”
He gave me a look that said he thought I was a barbarian, an uncivilized brute who saw these things as medals.
I did not care.
I did not care to explain to him how wrong many of his beliefs about us were. Or tell him the real reason having no other man be her first was important to me.
Instead, my eyes took in the similarities between us, our sizes and demeanor. Everything except his youth.
He was young. Really young.
But it did not make what he did anymore forgivable. It was a challenge, a deliberate affront, and sweetheart or not, he had to understand consequences.
“And I believe you came too,” I rose finally just as the bathroom door opened and Lys stepped out looking every bit the fairy which Hale had dubbed her.
She had let her hair down, damp waves that looked like orange flames, framing her face and flowing down to her back.
Again, I appreciated that ballerina movement, soundless, like she was walking on the balls of her feet. And every step she took caused those luscious curves to ripple beneath her silk robe.
Fluid, rolling figure.
My dick stirred.
“Yes,” Finn responded, and I caught the sideways glance she darted at him before looking away again.
Come forward.
She looked at me from beneath her lashes. And there was that weird thing in my chest again.
That expansion that made me want to run in the other direction. This Ballerina would be our downfall.
Taking the clothes she stretched out, I breathed. “On your knees.”