Chapter 12
Feast of Temptations
By the time dessert arrives, the world has contracted to the span of the dining table and the charged inches between its occupants.
Whitby enters with the final course balanced on a silver tray: berries macerated in blood-dark wine, arranged on the plate in five-pointed clusters, their white edible blossoms unmistakable.
Hemlock, rendered in sugared form. The message is not lost on anyone.
She sets the plates before us, then lifts her glass, filled with a liquor so clear it refracts the candlelight into prisms along the rim. “A toast,” she says, voice softer than I have ever heard it.
Larkin’s eyes flick to Lane, then to me, then to the glass in his hand. He raises it without hesitation. Lane copies the motion, but his hand is unsteady; the wine ripples in the goblet, a warning signal.
“To the living,” Whitby says. “And to the lingering.”
The phrase sits in the air, dense and sweet. We drink. The liqueur tastes of anise, or maybe something older, a flavor that reminds me of licorice and lightning. It hits hard, then fades into sugar.
Whitby stands at the head of the table, arms folded. Her gaze lingers on me for a moment, searching, and then she bows—just a fraction, but enough to register. “The house is yours, Miss Vale. May you do it justice.”
She leaves the room, the click of the door loud as a gavel.
No one moves. The flames in the candelabras are low now, throwing wild, erratic shadows across the plates and the ruined tablecloth.
I scoop up a berry, watch it bleed onto the white, and taste it: sour, sweet, cold as a kiss.
I feel the electricity under my skin, the way it hums from fingertip to tongue to the soft place behind my knees.
The silence is immense, but it is a new kind of silence, one that hovers just before the break.
Larkin is the first to stand. He crosses behind my chair, slow as ceremony, his hand trailing along the back of my neck, the touch feather-light. He bends, mouth close to my ear, and says, “You realize, of course, what comes next.”
I turn to look at him, and his face is illuminated from below by the dying candle, eyes green as glass. He smiles, the expression all intent, no mockery.
Lane rises, too, but it is a different kind of movement: careful, as if he is testing the floor for weakness. He approaches, but does not come close, choosing instead to lean against the marble sideboard, arms folded.
Larkin’s hand slides down the length of my arm, slow, and finds my wrist. He holds it, thumb circling the vein just below the surface. “She is the one,” he says to Lane, voice reverent and cruel. “The one we’ve been waiting for.”
Lane’s jaw goes hard. “Shut up,” he says, but it carries no real heat, only a tired affection.
Larkin leans down, lips at my temple. “It’s true,” he murmurs. “You feel it, don’t you?”
I do, though I could not articulate what it is: a sense of falling, of the rules having been rewritten in real time.
I am aware of the wine, the hunger, the way the velvet of the dress catches at the small of my back when I breathe.
I am aware of Lane’s eyes, storm-colored and intent, and the weight of Larkin’s hand on my skin, both heavy and ephemeral.
Larkin guides me to stand, his palm at my elbow, and then, with a practiced movement, he lifts me onto the edge of the table, clearing the empty plates and silver with a single, elegant sweep of his arm. The sound is an avalanche of crystal, but none of it breaks. The candles flutter in the draft.
He kisses me. This time it is not a question, but a declaration. His tongue tastes of anise and salt and the aftertaste of power. I kiss back, hands tangled in his hair, pulling him close enough to feel the tremor in his spine.
Larkin unzips his pants and frees his cock, stroking it with one hand, while caressing my thigh with the other.
I’m not myself. I’m under the influence. Of these men, the wine, this house. I don’t know what I’m agreeing to, why I’m agreeing to it, but I do.
Lane watches, unmoving, the kind of stillness that is not resignation but containment. He waits until I look at him, until I say his name.
“Lane.”
He crosses the distance in three steps, and suddenly he is there, pressing against me, the heat of him burning through every layer of fabric.
He doesn’t speak, he just cups my face in both hands and kisses me, rougher, deeper, the kind of kiss that leaves bruises.
I let myself be consumed, opening to the taste and the force of him.
Larkin’s hand is still at my thigh, sliding up, the velvet riding higher with every inch.
He leans down, drags his mouth along my cheek, down my neck, biting at the tendon where it meets the collarbone.
The sensation is lightning and then nothing, a surge of pain and pleasure that leaves me shivering.
Lane is still at my mouth, his tongue demanding, his fingers digging into my hip. I am sandwiched between them, their bodies hard and real, their attention absolute. It is not a contest—it’s a collaboration, each feeding off the other’s hunger.
In a flash, Lane lifts me to standing, and Larkin unzips the back of my dress. The air hits my skin, cold and exhilarating, and I gasp. Lane’s mouth is at my shoulder, teeth scraping the bone, while Larkin’s fingers slide the straps off, letting the fabric pool at my feet.
They do not speak, but their eyes meet above my head, a flash of rivalry, of old secrets. Larkin grins, the edge of his mouth curling up, and Lane shakes his head, his eyes flashing with hunger.
“Go ahead,” Lane says, voice gravel.
Larkin runs his hand down my back, tracing the knobs of my spine, and then he lifts me, lays me flat on the polished mahogany. The candlesticks cast double shadows along the length of my body, the cool of the table a shock against my skin.
Larkin leans over me, his hand at my neck, thumb stroking the hollow there.
His other hand cups my breast, gentle at first, then harder.
He palms his cock, and I look at him. He’s long, thick.
Not quite as big as Lane, but still impressive.
He lines the tip up with my entrance and pushes in with one swift thrust.
I call out his name, almost unintelligible, but then he’s moving, thrusting a slow, steady, devilish pace, and I can’t think straight.
Lane frees his own cock, jerking it, mouth slack as he watches Larkin move in and out of me.
I reach for him, and he leans down, his mouth is on my belly, kissing a path, teeth grazing, tongue circling the navel.
He reaches my clit and Larkin leans back so he has room to lick me while Larkin thrusts.
I can barely breathe.
They are coordinated, a machine built for this moment, each movement amplifying the other.
I arch into Lane’s mouth, gasp when his tongue finds the perfect rhythm. Larkin is whispering things I can’t hear, but know without a doubt, they’re dirty, depraved. I crave more.
The sound I make when I come is not human. It is a thing born of hunger and desperation, the kind of noise that haunts old houses, along with the ghosts.
Lane sits up, and I see his cock in his hand is hard and throbbing. He adjusts me, sliding me over to the edge of the table without even disturbing Larkin’s thrusts.
“Open up, sweetness,” he says, taking my jaw in his hand and guiding his cock to my lips.
I obey, not even questioning the order. Needing more of him, all of him.
Needing all of them both. Larkin’s thrusts get faster, harder, deeper, and when I manage to look at him, I see a wicked look in his eyes as he relishes the show I’m giving him, sucking Lane’s cock while he fucks me.
“Too bad there’s not a third of us to fill all her holes,” he says and Lane moans. “You’d like that, little one, wouldn’t you?”
I moan too.
They move me, turn me, lift me as if I weigh nothing. I lose track of whose hands are whose, whose mouth is where. I am dizzy with sensation, with the total lack of control.
At some point, Lane lifts me from the table, carries me to the marble of the sideboard.
Larkin sits first, spitting in his hand and soaking his dick with it.
Lane positions me in Larkin’s lap, my ass lined up with his cock, and forces me down onto him.
I take him deep, the sensation filling me in a way I’ve never experienced before.
Lane watches, his hand on my throat, applying just enough pressure to remind me who is in charge, before he joins us, thrusting into my pussy from the front as Larkin fucks my ass from behind.
This is madness, wild, wanton madness, but it’s the best thing I’ve ever felt in my life.
It goes on for hours. Or maybe minutes; time has no meaning. The room is a blur of candlelight and shadow, the air thick with sweat and something sweeter.
I watch as Lane’s eyes shift from mine, to behind me.
To Larkin’s. He leans forward, kissing me, then moving behind my head to kiss Larkin, too.
We’re one now. The three of us. And as their cocks pump into me, and our sweat mingles, and out skin sizzles with each others’ touches, I come again, fierce and frenzied.
“You ready?” Lane asks Larkin.
“Just about,” he says as he leans down to bite my shoulder.
“Let’s fill her up,” he grunts.
“Larkin reaches for Lane’s arm, and they come together, pumping me full of cum, thrusting their pleasure as they groan out in ecstasy.
When it’s over, I’m limp, skin marked with fingerprints and teeth, breath coming in shallow, ragged bursts.
Lane lifts me into his arms, holding me, steadying me, kissing my face with reverence.
Larkin is on his back on the floor, laughing, hair wild, chest rising and falling in time with the dying flames.
We do not speak. There are no words for this.
After a while, Lane sets me down, wraps the velvet dress around my body, ties it at the neck with a gentleness that makes me want to weep. Larkin finds his shirt, shrugs it on, buttons only the middle three.
Whitby appears at the door, silent as always. She surveys the wreckage—the fallen plates, the wine-stained cloth, the three of us in varying states of undress—and her lips twitch at the corners, not quite a smile.
“Tradition,” she says, and closes the door behind her.
Lane leads me from the room, his arm heavy around my waist. Larkin follows, whistling under his breath, a tune I don’t recognize.
The house is quiet now. There is no storm, no wind, only the slow, contented sigh of beams and boards settling into themselves.
I sleep that night in the Blue Room with Lane beside me, an arm slung over my ribs. Larkin lies on the sofa, one foot on the floor, snoring softly.
I dream of the table, the taste of berries the heat of the candles on my bare skin. I dream of hands, of mouths, of the sweet, inevitable loss of self.
In the morning, the house will remember everything.
But for now, I am alive, and the hunger is sated.