Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Briony
We arrive back at the Princes’ Tower, just in time to find Thorne serving up an elaborate dinner of Beef Bourguignon, Beaufort and Dray already seated at the table.
I hurry down into one of the chairs, suddenly aware how hungry I am, and then it’s me and the four men I love sitting together, eating together.
After all that’s happened, it seems surreal.
We may literally have declared war on the Empress only hours ago, killed a second headmaster, and forced soldiers from the academy, but right now I’m feeling pretty good. More than good. My heart is full and brimming over.
Despite my hunger, I barely touch my food, spending most of dinner looking at each of the men in turn as they talk to each other about plans to fortify the academy, to prepare for a battle, to rally their allies.
Each of them is handsome in their own right and their own way.
Each is varied in their ways and personalities.
I wonder how it’s possible to love four such different people, to find each so damn attractive.
I bet there are people out there who wouldn’t believe me – who’d claim there must be traits or habits I hate about them, things I dislike.
They’d swear I must secretly have my favorite.
But I don’t. And I could no more easily pick my favorite than I could let any of them go.
It’s just the way it is. And I don’t care if that makes me different. I’m pretty used to that now.
Eventually, Thorne notices I’m not eating.
“Are you okay, Nini?” he asks.
I lean back in my chair and beam at him, whispering as the others continue their conversation.
“It’s probably crazy, but I feel like the luckiest girl in the whole wide world.”
He stares at me, clearly dumbfounded by this crazy exclamation, After all, the Empress of this realm wants me dead.
“Okay, I know not many people would agree with me right now,” I concede, “given my circumstances. But I get to be with you. All of you.”
Thorne hesitates for a fraction of a moment and then reaches across and covers my hand with his – the simplest of movements, the simplest gesture of affection – and yet it has butterflies fluttering in my stomach and my magic buzzing in my blood.
A touch from Thorne feels like such a gift, and I think, even if by some luck of fate I live to one hundred, I could never get bored of this.
It will never seem old. Each time he touches me will feel like a miracle all over again.
For a moment we simply stare into each other’s eyes and I’m amazed all over again at how damn handsome the man is. I could spend a lifetime just gazing at his face, noticing the strange array of dark colors that swirl in his eyes.
I curl my fingers around his and then I stand, dragging him up after me.
“You’ve hardly touched your food,” he says as the others fall silent.
“I’m not hungry,” I tell him, “but I could really do with a shower.”
Not letting go of his hand, I walk toward the doorway, the other three watching us as we go. His gaze darkens as he follows me up the stairs, his hand still tight in mine, and I swear I can hear his heart thumping.
I don’t go all the way up to the room on the top floor – my room.
I stop outside Thorne’s bedroom, pushing open the door and pulling him inside after me.
I haven’t been in here since that time after the trial when I’d rescued him from his own shadows.
But I don’t stop in the bedroom; I pull him right through to the bathroom, clicking my fingers so the dim light springs on as we enter.
Inside, I spin to face him.
“No more waiting, Thorne. I want to go all the way.”
“Now?” he asks me.
“Yes.” I giggle, my nerves getting the better of me. “Only not quite yet. I really do need a shower.”
His shoulders heave, his nostrils flare, those eyes are so dark now and swirling with passion. He simply nods.
I go to take the hem of my sweater, but he brushes my hands away and takes the hem himself, lifting the item slowly over my head so that I feel the fabric brush against my skin.
He tosses the sweater to one side and then draws my shirt off too.
He growls when he catches sight of my bra and my breasts, crumpling the shirt in his hands and simply staring at me.
He’s seen it before – heck, he’s even touched me there now – but it’s the tension in the air, tight between us, the anticipation of knowing what’s to come.
He takes a steady inhale.
“Okay?” I ask him.
“More than okay.” He growls, pulling me closer. I can feel his shadows straining to break free, but there’s not even a hint he’ll lose control.
He sweeps my hair away from my shoulder, and then his hands are at the waistband of my pants, pushing them down over my hips, down my legs, until I’m kicking them away.
“Wow,” he says when he looks at me standing there in my underwear, a lacy pink set, another of Dray’s buys.
“You’re still wearing an awful lot of clothes, Thorne,” I point out, which seems especially cruel, seeing as I haven’t got to touch him yet.
He exhales, shaking his head, and I find the hem of his shirt and pull it up over his head, letting my hands trail down afterward – over his strong shoulders, the muscles in his chest, the ridges of his abdomen.
He’s all hard, compact muscle, and I realize it isn’t just his magic that’s strong – the whole of the man is too.
I shiver with desire, unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning his flies, yanking his pants down his thighs. He toes off his socks, and now we’re both in our underwear.
“It’s so good to touch you,” I say, letting my hot hands roam all over his body. His skin is smooth. And maybe my shifter mate is rubbing off on me, because I have the strangest desire to drag my tongue up his chest, to drag it all over him and taste him.
The idea is simply too irresistible, and I step even closer, rising up on my toes and kissing his shoulder. He tastes masculine, a little salty, just like Thorne should taste.
I kiss him right along his shoulder to the crook of his neck, wrapping my arms around him, stroking my fingers through his short hair. He simply stands there, breathing hard, his pulse racing against my skin, and I realize he’s not touching me back.
I rock back down onto my feet and peer up at him.
“You’re not touching me,” I say.
“Can I?” he asks me.
I smile up at this wonderful man, so terrifying to so many people and yet so sweet, so tender, so kind to me.
“You don’t have to ask, Thorne,” I tell him. “You can touch me any time you want to.”
I take his right hand in both of mine and press his palm against the top of my chest, draw it down to my breasts, encouraging him to squeeze.
At first he’s a little tentative, but when he sees what his actions are doing to me, he brings his other hand to my breasts too, and then he’s squeezing and massaging with more force and more urgency.
I step closer to him, grinding against him, and his hands fall from my breasts over my waist and down to squeeze my ass.
“Your ass is so…” He groans.
I take the globes of his ass cheeks in my hands too and squeeze him back. It makes him chuckle and the noise is so good, I wish I could bottle it all up.
Then we’re kissing like it’s the most natural, normal thing in the world, like we haven’t been forced to resist this for weeks and weeks and weeks.
I kiss him like I’m carefree, like I have no worries, no impending doom looming over me.
I kiss him like it’s the first time. It feels like the first time.
It feels so incredibly special to hold this man in my arms.
Before I realize it, he’s walking me backward, and I find myself pressed against the cold tiles of the shower cubicle with warm, hot water cascading down onto our heads. I squeal.
“I’m still wearing my underwear, Thorne. And so are you.”
“Oh,” he says, like he hadn’t realized.
“Do you always shower in your underwear?”
“No,” he says.
I push him slightly away from me, reach around and unhook my bra, and then slowly – never taking my eyes from his – I let it drop away from my chest and down my arms to the tiles on the floor.
Then I hook my fingers into the waistband of my panties and slide those down my legs, still holding his dark gaze.
I stand back up, letting the water cascade over my skin.
He holds my gaze for a moment longer, and then it’s skating down my body, taking me all in.
“You’re so beautiful, Briony,” he murmurs.
I point to his boxers, wet and clinging around his erection. “You’re still wearing yours,” I point out.
He nods, swallows, and then yanks them down his legs. Immediately his cock springs out and up. It’s big – really big – just like the rest of the man. I guess I should have been expecting it, but it’s still a little surprising.
I take a step toward him, reaching out to take him in my hand, but he shakes his head.
“Shower first, Briony.”
I make a frustrated, disgruntled little noise, but he takes no notice of me.
He turns me around and massages shampoo into my hair, digging his fingers into my scalp and rubbing away all the tension and worry I didn’t even realize was lingering there.
When he’s done, he washes all the bubbles away, and then he’s lathering the soap between his giant palms and taking his time to wash every inch of my body – from my belly button, to my armpits, to the rivets between my toes.
It feels divine, the combination of the hot water and his careful hands, the scent of the soap behind it, and him, something altogether more masculine.
When I’m impossibly clean, I motion him forward and return the favor. Sweeping the soap over his chest and stomach first, then walking around him to do his shoulders, his back, spending as much time as he’ll let me on his ass, and then walking back around again.
My hands hover before his cock. I glance up at him.
This time he nods.