11. The Dance Beneath Watching Eyes #3
Because this is not polite. Nor decorative. This is hunger sharpened by terror. This is every almost between us becoming now.
Dorian breaks the kiss just enough to breathe against my mouth. “Fate.”
My name in his voice is a mistake I would like repeated immediately.
“Do not talk,” I whisper.
His eyes are dark, wolf-bright beneath the gallery lights. “Was that an order?”
“It was a public safety measure.”
His thumb moves once against my back. Tiny. Catastrophic.
My red-thread sight flares. Not around the room this time. Between us.
A thread pulses into view, deep red and gold, winding from my chest to his with a strength that steals the air from my lungs. It is not like the threads I see for other people. Those have direction, pull, compatibility, hope.
This one has gravity.
This one knows me.
It wraps through the space between us with a slow, living pulse, then flickers with something darker at the edges, as if the curse has pressed one cold fingertip against it.
I stiffen.
Dorian feels that too. His hand steadies me, but his gaze sharpens. “What?”
A soft rustle rolls along the walls. Canvas.
Varnish. Old frames settling. Painted faces turned toward us with expressions I cannot quite read.
Near the far wall, a portrait of two women in wedding blue seems to brighten.
A harbor painting glows warmer at the horizon.
Even the pears look less smug, though I do not trust them and never will.
Then comes a sound like applause.
Faint.
Impossible.
Not from the guests, though a few of them are definitely staring as if they paid for premium seating. This sound comes from the walls. From painted hands. Painted waves. Painted trees.
Supportive.
Delighted.
Encouraging, which is frankly rude coming from art that has contributed nothing useful to the investigation.
“Oh, absolutely not,” I breathe.
Dorian’s eyes flick past my shoulder. “The paintings?”
“They appear to be shipping us.”
His mouth twitches despite the danger. “Shipping?”
“Rooting for our relation-ship with inappropriate enthusiasm.”
“Is that bad?”
“Dorian, when haunted artwork applauds your love life, yes, it raises concerns.”
His gaze drops to my mouth again, and for one reckless second, the entire curse, the room, the witnesses, the senator, the murdered couples, all of it blurs beneath the impossible fact of wanting him.
Then the thread between us pulses hard.
The dark edge thickens.
I step back.
“We need to get out of here,” I say.
Upstairs, my bedroom is dim, lit only by the soft amber glow of the bedside lamp and the pale wash of rain against the window.
I stand in the middle of the room with my merlot dress half-unzipped, one hand caught awkwardly behind my back, and my heart beating so hard it feels less like an organ and more like a tiny, panicked creature trying to escape custody.
This is fine. This is completely fine.
I am a grown woman. A weaver of fate threads. A fox shifter. A magical professional with excellent lipstick and a long history of making terrible decisions sound whimsical until everyone agrees to them. I can change clothes while the man I want more than oxygen waits downstairs. Probably.
The dress loosens another inch. My breath catches.
Dorian is downstairs. In my cottage. After that dance. After that kiss. After his hand at my waist and his mouth on mine and the thread between us pulsing like a second heart, bright and dangerous and far too honest for a public event with canapés.
I let the zipper slide lower. The silk slips from one shoulder. My reflection stares back at me from the mirror: flushed cheeks, wide eyes, swollen lips, and the expression of a woman standing at the edge of something she has wanted for so long that wanting it has become a habit.
Choosing it would be different.
I thought I had.
Taking it would be different.
I wish I could.
Letting Dorian Wolfe look at me without a room full of witnesses, without a case file between us, without fear pretending to be good judgment? That would be dangerous.
Not because of him.
Because of me. Because I might not be able to pretend afterward.
The dress falls. Silk whispers down my body and pools at my feet like a confession.
I stand there in my bra and underwear, cold air brushing my skin, every nerve awake and mutinous.
“Terrific,” I whisper to my reflection. “The curse is murdering couples, the walls are eavesdropping, and I am considering seduction like it’s a reasonable scheduling choice. ”
No one answers.
Good.
If my mirror starts offering advice, I’m relocating.
I reach for the robe hanging over the chair, then stop. My fingers hover above the fabric.
Downstairs, the cottage is quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes me aware of every old board, every ward, every plant Mina has accused of having “low but present opinions.”
I should go down. I should talk to him. Tell him to go. Tell him we need to slow down, think clearly, be careful.
Careful.
I am so tired of that word. Careful has kept my hands empty. Careful has made Dorian stand close enough to ruin me and far enough away to make survival possible. Careful has done absolutely nothing to stop the curse from hunting love through Everwilde Bay.
The thread in my chest pulses. Hard.
I grip the back of the chair.
The room tilts. The cottage falls away.
Suddenly, Dorian is next to me in my bedroom.
He’s not downstairs anymore. He’s right here, his body solid and warm against mine, the scent of rain and clean male skin filling my senses.
His hands are on my body, tracing the curve of my waist, sliding up my ribs to cup my breasts through the thin lace of my bra.
My hands are in his hair, the strands soft and thick between my fingers.
We are tangled beneath blue lights, mouths desperate, bodies pressed close, every barrier between us gone.
Heat rolls through me, fierce and intoxicating, a wildfire that consumes all the fear.
For one impossible second, I forget everything but him.
“Fate,” he groans against my lips, and the sound is raw, broken.
It’s not his usual polite, reserved tone.
This is the voice of a man pushed past his limits.
His thumbs brush over my nipples, and they pebble into tight, aching points.
I arch into him, a silent plea for more.
He answers by hooking his fingers into the cups of my bra and pulling them down, baring me to the cool air.
A shiver wracks me, part cold, part pure, undiluted lust.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, his gaze hot on my skin.
“So fucking beautiful.” He lowers his head, his mouth closing over one peaked nipple.
The wet heat of his tongue is a shock. I cry out, the sound swallowed by the velvet-draped darkness.
He sucks, hard, sending a bolt of pleasure straight to my clit, making my pussy clench and drip.
I grind against the hard ridge of his cock, frantic for friction, for relief, for him to just fuck me already.
“Please, Dorian,” I gasp, my hands fumbling with the button of his trousers. “I need you inside me.”
He rips my panties away with a sound of tearing fabric that seems impossibly loud in the silent theater.
Then his fingers are there, sliding through my slick folds, teasing my entrance.
“So wet for me,” he growls, his voice a low vibration against my chest. “You want this? Want me to fuck you right here?” His words are filthy, perfect, exactly what my body craves. “Yes,” I moan, shameless.
He frees his dick, thick and heavy. I am taken back by its magnificence as he guides it to my entrance.
He pushes in, slow and relentless, stretching me open until he’s buried to the hilt.
The feeling is overwhelming, a perfect, exquisite fullness.
I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper as he starts to move.
His thrusts are deep and punishing, each one driving a gasp from my lungs.
The blue light washes over us, painting our sweat-slick bodies in shades of indigo and shadow.
His name becomes a prayer on my lips, a chant. “Dorian, Dorian, Dorian.”
The pressure builds, a tight coil in my belly, winding higher and higher with every snap of his hips.
He reaches between us, his thumb finding my clit and circling it with merciless precision.
That’s all it takes. The coil snaps, and my orgasm rips through me, a blinding, screaming wave of pleasure that makes my vision white out.
My cunt clenches around him, milking his cock, and with a hoarse shout, he follows me over the edge.
I feel him pulse, feel the hot flood of his cum filling me, marking me.
Only then do I notice that we are laying on the main stage of a playhouse.
Not Harborlight. Somewhere older. Darker.
Velvet curtains hang in blood-red folds.
Footlights burn with blue flame, casting long, dancing shadows.
Rows and rows of shadowed seats stretch into darkness, every one occupied by faceless watchers.
They are silent, but their attention is a physical weight, a collective gaze that prickles my skin.
Above them, paintings float where walls should be, frames opening like eyelids, their subjects turned to watch us in our nakedness.
For a long moment, we just breathe, tangled together on the stage floor.
Then, from the darkness, a sound begins.
It starts as a single clap, then another, until the entire theater is filled with the sound of applause.
It’s not polite, golf-clap applause. It’s thunderous, raucous, a roar of approval.
All eyes are on us. I look up into the faceless crowd, my body still humming with the aftermath of my orgasm, and the sound washes over me, both terrifying and exhilarating.
Audience applauds.
Slowly. Politely. Hungrily. The paintings open their eyes.
All of them.