Chapter Three #2
“If he slips up and bites her, she may get that unfortunate man killed.” Samira tutted.
Kadeesha winced because Samira wasn’t wrong.
Passion nicks had long gone out of fashion among all of faekind because the act could potentially allow one person unfettered access to another’s power, which they could then siphon away.
Inexplicably, sometimes this ruinous consequence happened, and other times it didn’t.
Leisha might’ve been fine playing with fire, but Kadeesha watched her dance partner closely and didn’t relax until he finally lifted his head from her neck.
The male then squeezed Leisha’s waist with an invitation in his gray eyes. She smirked, nodded, and turned to the woman behind her. “Are you joining this party too?” she asked her second dance partner.
The woman bit her bottom lip and nodded, lust brightening her brown eyes. Leisha grinned, looping her arms around both her paramours and hopping off the table. “I’ll be in my usual room upstairs,” she called over her shoulder as she hauled them away.
Admittedly, Kadeesha was jealous. Her own desire for smoldering sex flared.
Yeah, it was time to find her own romp.
Samira shook her head and cleared her throat, staring after Leisha making her way to the stairs along the back wall of the parlor.
“She never wastes any time.” Samira spoke it in her usual manner of ridicule of Leisha’s impulsiveness, yet there was a hitch to her voice. Kadeesha’s dear friend was horny too.
Kadeesha laughed, elbowing her sister in the side. “You’re not fooling anyone.”
“What?” Samira asked, the picture of bewilderment.
Kadeesha ignored Samira acting purposely obtuse.
She caught the eye of a male across the room—he was broad-shouldered with tawny skin, pronounced cheekbones, and a jawline that made him pleasing to the eyes.
He came over, walking like temptation on two legs, when Kadeesha crooked her finger toward herself.
Oleander House was the place to go for amazing trysts with strangers that blew your mind, so there was no question about why Kadeesha had called him over when this particular stranger reached them.
He grabbed her hand and placed a kiss on the back of it.
“Whatever type of time you’re looking to have tonight, the answer is yes,” the male told Kadeesha.
Satisfaction hummed through her at the confirmation of his interest. She chuckled.
He was delectable. But she’d find her own fun after she took care of her sister’s months-long dry spell, the result of a rough parting with her last lover.
Kadeesha tugged her hand out of the male’s grasp.
“This is my friend, Sonya,” Kadeesha said, using Samira’s code name for Oleander House while pointing to her.
“You’re a beautiful man, and she’d love to bounce on your cock for a few hours. ”
Beside her, Samira made a choking noise.
But she didn’t refute it, which was all the encouragement Kadeesha needed.
She’d convinced her father to send Leisha and Samira with her to her new home to be part of her Queen’s Council, her own inner court of noble fae ladies she’d be expected to establish as the high queen.
She hadn’t wanted to tie her friends to a new life she damnably did not want, but, refusing to abandon her, they’d pestered Kadeesha until she’d caved and asked the Aether king to bequeath them noble status so they could accompany her to the Hyperion Kingdom.
So, this was the last night of true freedom for all of them, and enjoying what they’d established and cultivated at home seemed the only way to make the future bearable.
Leisha was already among the upper levels snatching one last hurrah for herself before they had to give up the Nkita and be dignified noblewomen, within a society that restricted the freedoms of women far beyond what went on in their own lands, no less.
Kadeesha would see that Samira enjoyed the same uninhibited send-off; she owed her sister that much.
“Shall we head upstairs, beauty, or give the parlor a show?” the male asked Samira, mischief in his light blue gaze.
Kadeesha liked this one; he was deliciously wicked.
Oleander House was known for its sumptuous private rooms that held many delightful toys, but it was also known for the tantalizing couplings that you could witness, or participate in, throughout the common spaces, if that was your fancy.
The establishment had an eclectic collection of patrons, and the secrecy ward Kadeesha had purchased for the building was powerful enough that it allowed them to indulge in any desires without the need to be subtle about what one liked inside its walls.
And yet both of them were still standing on the table. So Kadeesha winked at Samira, daring her to turn down the delectable morsel she’d gifted her. Samira wasn’t a fool, though, and she had eyes. Plus, she’d been without an orgasm that she didn’t bring about herself for months—hence dry spell.
“Will you be all right by yourself?” Samira asked, clinging to stubbornness.
“I would, but I don’t plan on remaining by myself for long,” Kadeesha assured her friend. “Now please get out of here so I don’t have to worry about leaving you behind.”
Samira rolled her eyes, but she finally let go of the reins entirely. She stepped down to the floor beside her lover for the night and linked her arm through his. “I’m a girl who prefers privacy,” she told him.
“Then I will privately make it so it’s hard for you to walk out of here—figuratively and literally.”
Kadeesha laughed at the proclamation, all while hoping it was more of a prophecy for her friend.
Once Samira left, Kadeesha found herself sitting back on the settee, sipping a goblet refilled with liquor and eyeing Oleander House’s patrons, ready to see to her own horniness when she spied someone who would do quite well entering through Oleander’s doors.
He was a fae male of impressive height, seven feet even by her estimation, while the average male was about six foot five.
He had dark copper skin the color of the spiced cognac she drank, dark brown locs styled in narrow twists, broad, powerfully built shoulders, and muscles the length of his body that were sculpted so well she could see the definition of his chest and abs beneath the simple black tunic he wore.
The corded muscles of his biceps and forearms were on clear display from its short sleeves.
The man paused after stepping inside the parlor, surveying the space as if he was looking for something or somebody.
Four men and one woman had entered with him, all with the sturdy build and mien of personal guards.
The body detail meant he had to be someone of relative importance.
Either an extravagantly wealthy merchant or a traveling noble from one of the other kingdoms, perhaps even here for her nuptials tomorrow.
She considered he might’ve been a pirate lord, but he wasn’t gruff enough.
Oh, the ruthless undercurrent was there cloaking him like a second skin, but he carried himself with too much urbanity and lacked the coarseness most pirate types sported.
Kadeesha quickly rifled through her mind, recalling the faces of the high-ranking archnobles she knew of within the Hyperion Court and the lesser elemental courts.
When his face didn’t jiggle free anyone familiar, Kadeesha smiled, sly as a pantheress.
She was near certain he was merely a wealthy merchant passing through Cinta, the Aether Kingdom’s bustling capital and trading port.
Perfect. This was the cock she’d ride tonight before she had to climb off it and drag herself back to the palace to be shackled to Rishaud.
She placed her goblet aside and walked to where the man stood.
He sighted her crossing the room to him immediately, his searing gaze—a prepossessing blend of dark brown with subtle gold flecks—locking on her, dipping down her body, then skimming back up to meet her eyes once more.
She passed him a sultry grin and added a sexy sway of her hips as she neared him to make this extra fun.
“Tonight is your lucky night,” she told the male when she reached him. “I want to fuck your brains out until the sun rises. Are you interested in that?”
The male grinned, eyes dragging over her body once again, eliciting a shiver when he did it up close in a way she didn’t expect.
It took a lot for her to be truly affected by a man, even when she was the one soliciting him for sex.
Usually, she compartmentalized; she got off, hard, but didn’t allow for anything more intense.
Given who she was and what she was meant for, emotions never seemed worth the effort.
That path would only lead to heartbreak, either for one or both parties. But this man …
She clamped down on a second shudder that tried to race through her as the male’s gaze bore straight into her eyes with an intensity that left her unsettled.
Who is he, precisely? a cautioning voice asked, born of her shock.
And as much as she wanted him, she heeded her gut, always.
So, she rechecked each and every face of the high-ranking archnobles who belonged to any of the Six Kingdoms that she’d stored in her mind over the years.
Then, she combed over the many lower-ranking nobles of mild significance.
Like before, she came up with nothing. Satisfied, she shook the caution off, attributed it to her distaste at being so ruffled by a male.
She scowled, realizing the man hadn’t spoken yet.
He only continued to peer at her in that unnerving, too-intense way.
She arched an eyebrow. “Is that a yes or a no?” His extended silence was bordering on supreme arrogance, and she wasn’t too keen on men of that manner, no matter what they looked like.
Finally, some type of emotion flitted across his face. His lips curved ever so slightly in a smile. “Do I get your name?”
“No, because I’m not offering it,” Kadeesha said plainly. She needed to regain her senses, her even footing, and the snark helped with that.
The male’s smile widened into a genuine, unrestrained grin.
The effect was … arresting. “Whispers of the legendary Oleander House have spread far and wide. Clearly, they don’t do this establishment justice.
” He reached out and swept her hair that she wore in a waist-length braid hanging over one shoulder behind her back.
The callused pads of his index and middle fingers skimmed along her bare collarbone and up the column of her throat; he stilled them on her pulse that wretchedly fluttered.
Seriously? Why the hell was she reacting like this?
It beat even faster when he said, “I accept.”
Like the other time he’d spoken, his voice was a rumble, an outpouring of authority and arrogance and power.
She made a mental note to possibly reconsider disliking an excessive ego on men.
Because on this man, she couldn’t deny its draw.
He removed his hand from her throat and held it outward, palm up.
“I’m a first-time visitor, and you seem pretty comfortable, love, in this club. Therefore, I’ll let you lead the way.”
A thrill rushed through her and ended in a pulsing between her legs. That inner caution rose. It sent a clear message: This man is dangerous.
Kadeesha ignored it. Or rather, she relished it. That warning was a given, and she’d be lying if she said it wasn’t part of the thrall.
She forwent grabbing the male’s hand. Forwent touching him at all.
She wasn’t ready for that yet, not after what the first small moment of contact elicited.
An innate knowing told her that once they connected skin-to-skin for any significant length of time, it’d be like standing at the epicenter of an aether bomb, but in the most delicious of ways.
“Follow me,” Kadeesha told the male, then turned on her heels to take him to her private rooms among the upper floors.
She looked over her shoulder. “Your friends can come—or stay. Whatever you prefer.”