Chapter 27
The next day,Isolde returns to the museum. I’m not allowed in the archival room, and so I spend four or five hours in the hallway outside, my mind replaying every instant of last night. The crude movements of Mark’s arm, the shine of Isolde’s nipples after she touched them. It’s a good thing I have a long hallway to pace because I’m trying to walk off the world’s most insistent hard-on the entire day.
By the time night comes and we say good night, I’ve already resigned myself to what I’m going to do. After I’ve given her enough time to get upstairs and get on the phone, I creep up to the terrace and find the spot behind the boxwoods again. She’s wearing a long-sleeve top with shorts this time, but Mark has her pull up the top to expose her tits and then pull down her shorts so he can see her pussy while he strokes himself.
I leave another spray of seed on the terrace.
On the third night, Isolde brings a rolled-up towel with her and straddles it on the sofa. Mark croons soft, evil words to her as she fucks it, telling her what a beautiful slut she is, what a perfect whore. She lifts her hand toward the phone as she comes, as if she’s trying to touch him.
I might set the record for the most depressed orgasm ever just then.
I finish coming as she says goodbye to Mark, and then after she hangs up, she adds, “Tristan, I know you’re there.”
I go still. A cowardly part of me wants to hide or even attempt to skulk off the terrace altogether and then deny ever having been there, but despite all the imperfect things that I am, I try not to be a coward. I step out from behind the boxwood.
She’s in the silk robe again tonight, tying it as I reveal myself. It’s the first time while spying on her that I’ve seen more of her face than just the flushed apple of a cheek or the pert tip of her nose. Her eyes are pupil-dark and her lips are pink and her lashes are still caught with glittering tears after Mark made her pinch his initials onto her breasts.
“I know I shouldn’t have watched,” I say. “I’m so sorry, Isolde.”
“Don’t be,” she says quickly. “I liked it. I knew you were there last night too and the night before. But I didn’t want to scare you away.”
She didn’t want to scare me away? I’ll never understand her.
“Still, though, it was wrong, and I?—”
“Did you come?” she asks, stepping forward. “When you watched?”
“All three times,” I admit.
We stare at each other, too far apart to touch. The wind has a nip to it.
“You’re shivering,” I tell her. “We should get inside.”
I reach for her elbow, like we’re doing something utterly mundane. Like we’re walking through an airport and not stepping over the wet evidence of orgasm I left on the terrace.
“I really am sorry,” I try again as we go downstairs. “I know—I know you and Mark have rules.”
She bites her lip. “We didn’t break any rules,” she says after a while. “You just watched. That’s not—no one would consider that cheating.”
We reach the ground floor, and I realize I’m still holding on to her elbow. I drop my hand, sheepish, unhappy.
“Isolde—”
“I can hear your nightmares,” she cuts in. “From your room.”
I give her a sad smile. “I can hear yours.”
“I don’t have them when I sleep with Mark,” she says, looking away. “At least, not as badly, I think.”
“I didn’t have them with him either.” The heavy cage of Mark’s embrace was the best sleep I’d had since killing Sims. Until… “I also didn’t have the dreams when I shared a bed with you. On the yacht.”
“Same.” Her voice is a whisper.
The bad idea hovers between us, unspoken and intoxicating.
“If we—” I start.
“It would be totally innocent—” Isolde says.
“Just while we’re here,” I say, like I’m being reasonable, temperate. “Just so we can sleep.”
God, it’s been ages since I’ve slept the whole night through. The ache in me is dangerous because of it—a craving that’s bound and tethered with exhaustion.
“It’s not breaking any rules.” She says it like she’s trying to convince herself. “It’s something friends would do.”
We’ve never been friends. We were polite to each other for a week and a half, and then I knew what her pussy tasted like. There was no in-between.
But I’m as ready to lie to myself as she is.
“Right,” I say, and then I pull her into my bedroom.
She tightens the sash of her robe as she sits on one side of the bed and I sit on the other.
“On the yacht, it—it helped when we held each other,” she says. My room is dark, apart from whatever city light is drifting in through the window, and I can only catch the shimmer of silk on her shoulder, a stray tendril of hair. “So I won’t say no touching. But we shouldn’t…”
“I know.” My voice is deep. Graveled. “We shouldn’t.”
We both climb into bed, hesitating only a moment before moving together. She fits as perfectly in my arms as she did on the yacht, and she smells just as sweet. Like honey spilled on soft, fresh earth.
We’re both stiff at first, holding ourselves still. I’m aware of every single inch of us under the covers, where our feet touch, where our knees touch, where her breasts graze my chest. Her back under my hands is taut, firm, the back of someone who’s dedicated hours of every day for years to martial arts. I try to forget that under her silk robe, she’s wearing nothing but the bruises Mark made her give herself. I try to forget that I could have her underneath me so easily, that I could part her thighs with my knee and then suck on her breasts while I pressed my dick against her clit and made her buck against it.
I try to forget, but I can’t. But the weight of her, the warmth of her, is so comforting and so sweet, and for a moment, the darkness doesn’t hold the memories of war but the promise of sleep.
And then I’m gone, melting into unconsciousness like ice in the sun.
* * *
When I wake up,Isolde is still in my arms, her hands on my bare chest and a little bit of drool on my bicep. Her robe has ridden up in her sleep, and I know that because one of her thighs is flung over my waist. I can feel the heat of her cunt through my athletic shorts.
My cock is so hard that it’s trying to fight its way free of my clothes. When I extricate myself and look down, I see the swollen, shiny head peeping above the waistband. Fuck.
At least I slept well.
By the time I finish my shower—and finish in my shower, so that I don’t terrify Isolde with my erection—Isolde is already in her own room getting ready.
My phone rings, and I nearly hit ignore without even looking at it—I’ve already had my monthly check-in with my dad, and I don’t particularly care to be grilled on the ethics of working for Mark Trevena today—before seeing that the call is from Mark himself.
My immediate and ridiculous thought is that somehow Mark knows that Isolde and I shared a bed last night, that I’ve been watching their nightly sessions on the roof. Even though I know for a fact that there are no cameras of any kind inside the penthouse because I spent the first few hours here combing through the leaves of every plant and checking behind every mirror.
There’s no way he knows, and besides, Isolde and I haven’t done anything wrong. We haven’t broken any rules. Technically.
“Good morning, sir,” I say as I answer.
“Good morning, my knight,” purrs Mark, and my skin heats. Even though I just engaged in some thorough self-abuse, a low stir in my groin tells me that I could get it up again in a heartbeat. “I wanted to see how the trip was going.”
“Fine, sir,” I say. “Safely, at least. I can’t speak for how Isolde’s work is going.” I’m so grateful it’s not a video call. Mark has that way of making me feel like he can see every thought I’m having, like he knows everything I’ve ever done and ever will do.
Again, not that I’ve done anything wrong. Technically.
“That’s good,” Mark says. The phone crackles, like there’s a gust of wind.
“Are you outside, sir?”
“Did you know it snows in October in Sweden?” asks Mark conversationally.
“I could have guessed. Why are you outside again?”
Another gust of wind. “I’m treating myself to some sightseeing while I’m here. Off-the-beaten-track kind of places, obviously. I’m not some everyday tourist.”
“Of course not, sir.” I hesitate. “Is anyone else with you? Goran or Nat?”
“Worried for my safety, Tristan?”
“Eternally,” I mutter. Mostly because Mark doesn’t seem to worry enough about it.
“I’m without security, but I assure you I’m fine. I’m with an old friend who’s as capable as Goran or Nat in a pinch. But we have no plans to get into any pinches, only to explore the countryside a little. In fact,” he adds, “I visited a farm yesterday. There weren’t any adorable lambs like you described, though. Just some rams with kinky harnesses on.”
I could laugh at his one-track mind. “They’re not kinky harnesses; they just have a crayon attached to the front so the farmer can track which ram mounts what ewe.”
“A crayon?” Mark sounds skeptical.
I laugh for real now. “It’s not like—okay, it’s not what you’re thinking. It’s a block of wax, and it’s strapped to the ram’s chest. When he mounts an ewe, the wax is smeared on her back. Then the farmer can tell by the color whose lambs she’s carrying.”
I’m wandering into the kitchen now, pulling out a small pot of overnight oats left by the hospitality crew and kicking on the coffee machine.
Mark’s voice is musing. “You know…”
“Are you thinking of ways to try this at Lyonesse?”
“It might play well with certain crowds.”
“Next time, take me with you to a farm, and I’ll point out all the potentially kinky things, sir,” I say.
“I’d like that,” he replies. Simply. Warmly.
My heart is suddenly too big and in the wrong spot. I’m defenseless against these honest little admissions of his.
I hear the roar of a vehicle—a truck maybe. “I should go,” says Mark, and I hear someone else speaking rapid-fire Swedish on his end of the line. “Goodbye, Tristan.”
“Goodbye, sir,” I say with as much normalcy as I can manage, and then he’s gone.