CHAPTER 20 #2
Carefully setting my water glass down, I looked across at Thorne and said, “Am I just here to amuse you?”
The slight edge to my voice didn’t seem to faze him, making the food I’d just eaten sink to the bottom of my stomach like lead. Was I seriously just entertainment to them?
Before I could get up and storm off—let’s see how they liked that—Thorne replied, “You were brought over here to make a statement. Anyone who messes with you now messes with us. Simple yet effective communication.”
I stared. Stared and stared. Did he say what I think he just said? That by sitting at their table, I’d just announced to the entire student body that Arcane Three had my back? Not sure how to process this news, I didn’t say a word.
“You’re going to quickly find out how fickle politics are, Bambi,” Riku drawled, leaning back in his chair. “I can singlehandedly change your social status at this school in a second flat.”
Breaking my staredown with Thorne, I glanced at Riku with a frown. “How?”
“Like this.” Reaching over, he deftly plucked me off my seat and onto his lap so that I was facing him. Straddling him. My hands automatically shot to his shoulders, my lower half sinking into his. Something hard twitched against me, against my core, and my eyes flew wide.
An explosive movement behind me announced that someone had just jumped to their feet, followed by a loud bang of a chair crashing over.
Before I could look to see who it was, before I could so much as blink, Riku slid both hands beneath my skirt.
“See?” he purred, sliding them up, up, up, smirking when his thumbs grazed my underwear, and I gasped.
“Everyone now knows that two of the most powerful warlocks at Heartstone are dying to get inside your panties. One second flat, and you’ve been upgraded from social pariah to most desirable female on campus. You’re welcome.”
The bulge beneath me moved again, and I knew without a doubt that it was his dick.
He was clearly aroused by this unexpected power play, uncaring that every eye in the dining hall was gaping at us.
I felt his thumbs shift again, dangerously close to touching me through my underwear, and I finally moved.
The moment I scrambled to get off his lap, an arm snagged my waist and hauled me off him.
Before my feet could fully connect with the ground, I was whisked away from the table at a fast clip.
An angry clip. Without even looking, I knew it was Thorne.
He practically carried me out of the dining hall, my legs unable to match his furious strides.
Realizing I couldn’t pull away from him, I kept up as best I could, trying and failing to think of something that would calm him.
Riku had definitely crossed a line, but he shouldn’t be this mad.
It was my reputation in question right now, not his.
It wasn’t like I’d sat on his lap in front of the whole school.
As we stormed down the hall just short of jogging, I finally settled on, “I had no idea Riku was going to do that.”
Silence.
Wait. Did he think this was my fault? I hadn’t asked for this. Any of this. When Riku had said he could change my social status, no way in hell had I thought he meant the school’s most desirable female. I didn’t even want that.
“Thorne, this isn’t my fault,” I tried again. Silence. “Thorne.”
He didn’t respond. Didn’t even look at me.
His arm stayed locked around my waist, dragging me to who-knew-where.
So distracted by his furious state, I lost track of where we were.
The halls and stairwells were empty, the only sound Thorne’s angry footfalls.
Suddenly worried that he was taking me somewhere quiet to punish me, my heart picked up speed. I had to do something. Anything.
I was just about to say his name again when he whipped us around a corner and shoved open a door. Dragging me inside, he shut the door behind us, and we plunged into darkness. My heart lurched into my throat, and when he finally let go of me, I blindly backpedaled to get away.
“Thorne—” My backside hit something solid, cutting off my escape.
Before I could move around it, I felt Thorne enter my personal space again.
Lightning quick, he grabbed my hips and hoisted me up onto the solid surface.
A desk, by the feel of it. I tried to squirm away, but his grip was ironclad. “Thorne—”
“Where did he touch you?” he finally spoke, his voice like rolling thunder. Before I could fully grasp his words, he released my hips and slid both hands under my skirt. “Here?”
I jerked at the feel of his fingers on my inner thighs, at the thrill that shot through me. When I tried to close my legs, he wedged his body between them, prying my thighs further apart.
“Where, Snowflake? Here?” His hands went higher, dragging a path toward my suddenly aching center. “Answer me.”
“Yes,” I said, the word little more than air.
A growl vibrated his chest, vibrated his hands. The sensation wrung a startled gasp from me.
“How about here?” he demanded, sweeping his thumbs along the edges of my underwear.
I nodded this time, too breathless to speak.
He couldn’t see the action, but he must have felt it.
A savage curse left his mouth, right before he slid both thumbs over my underwear, over my center and pressed down.
My hips bucked off the desk, and I grabbed onto both his hands with a sharp cry, pleasure spiking through my core.
“Here?” he asked me. “Did he touch you here?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out.
“I need an answer, Winter,” he growled, that same vibration from earlier now going through my clit.
A moan of pleasure rolled up my throat, and with it a barely intelligible, “No.”
He immediately responded by pressing harder on the sensitive flesh and rotating his thumbs in a circular motion. I moaned again, dimly aware that he wasn’t punishing me after all. I’d passed some kind of test, and this was my reward. And, oh, what a wonderful reward it was.
As every inch of me began to burst awake with pleasure, everything else disappeared.
Thought. Reason. Sanity. I didn’t care about any of that, only what he was awakening in me.
Certain he was going to keep the barrier of my underwear between us like last time, I wasn’t prepared when he said, “I’m going to push aside your panties now, Snowflake. ”
He was going to . . . what?
His hands shifted beneath mine, tugging my underwear aside just like he said. Just like he—
One of his fingers touched my bare clit, and I almost lost it. Shaking, trembling, gasping, the foreign sensation crashed into me, robbing me of air.
“Relax, or you’ll pass out,” he murmured above me, tracing the tip of his finger over the sensitive flesh. When he suddenly flicked it, I jerked against the desk with a cry. Something that sounded way too much like satisfaction rumbled from him, then he flicked me again. And again. And again.
Overwhelmed by the new sensations spiking through my body, pretty sure I was going to pass out if he kept doing it, I let go of his hands and grabbed onto his shoulders instead. Something grazed my forehead, something warm, soft. His mouth.
“I’m going to check if you’re ready now, Snowflake,” his lips moved against my skin, but the words were lost to me. What he was doing between my legs was all I could focus on, the need, the desperate ache completely taking over.
His finger suddenly left my clit and slid further back. When it touched my pool of arousal, I jerked again. His mouth still on my skin shifted, stretching into a pleased grin.
“Oh, you’re more than ready for me.”
Ready. Ready for what?
Instead of pulling back, the finger slid further into my wetness, slipping into, slipping inside my entrance. Every inch of me tensed, and I gasped out, “Thorne!”
He paused, the tip of his finger still inside me. “You don’t want this?”
I struggled to breathe. To think. Two things that were extremely difficult knowing that a part of him was inside my body. “I . . . I . . .”
“Tell me to stop, Winter, and I will.” The words were strained, almost a plea. Making it sound like he wanted me to stop him.
“I . . . I can’t.”
I hadn’t expected that confession to fall from my lips, but the second it did, he sucked in a hiss and pressed closer, forcing my legs even farther apart. The fingertip continued to inch inside me, penetrating a part of myself that had never been touched before.
“Relax, Snowflake,” Thorne breathed against my forehead. “I can’t enter you when you’re so tense.”
Drawing comfort from the calm reassurance of his voice, I relaxed my thighs as best I could, relaxed my walls, and his finger slid all the way in.
“That’s my good girl.”
The praise, combined with the feeling of his finger starting to curl against my tight walls, had another moan bursting from me. “Dear ancestors, save me.”
“They can’t save you from this,” Thorne rumbled, slowly sliding his finger back out. “If you seek salvation, pray to me.”
He pulled the finger all the way out, only to drive it back in again, firmly pressing on my sensitive walls as he did.
He pumped in and out a few times, slowly, as if to prep me, to acquaint himself with my body.
His finger explored, slipping farther and farther inside as if to reach something, pressing and curling, trying to—
He suddenly hit a spot deep inside me, and an immediate shockwave rocked my body. I gripped his shoulders for dear life, a ragged cry leaving me as my pussy fluttered and pulsed over his finger. It didn’t feel like an orgasm, but hell if it didn’t feel amazing.
“There’s your sweet spot,” he hummed, approval thick in his voice as I continued to spasm around his digit. “You’re most definitely a virgin, Snowflake. Receptive to the slightest touch. Deliciously tight. Pure as snow and entirely untouched. But you won’t be the same when I’m done with you.”