Thane was quiet for a moment.
Riven glanced at him sidelong, trying to gauge his expression—but it was useless. Thane’s features were carved from stone. Whatever the nameHollow Handhad stirred inside him, he wasn’t showing it.
When he finally spoke, his voice was level.
“If they’re back,” Thane said, “and this escalates, can House Virellien count on Glint? Or will we find you across the table when the knives come out?”
Sorrell’s eyes flashed with amusement, or simply the pleasure of watching Thane ask for something he didn’t want to need.
He waved a hand lazily, adorned with heavy rings that caught the low light like glints of blood. “Don’t insult me, darling. I’ve no interest in destabilizing all of Atlantis. Chaos may be good for business in small doses, but this? This would be collapse. I enjoy my comforts too much for that.”
Thane’s jaw flexed.
“If the time comes,” Sorrell went on, reclining deeper into the plush leather of the booth, “Glint will stand with Virellien. For now.”
Thane gave him a stiff nod. “That’s appreciated.”
“Oh, don’t be so noble about it,” Sorrell said with a wicked grin. “It’s not altruism. If Virellien falls, there will be no one left who can take on the Hollow Hand. And I don’t intend to end up with a knife in my spine in some bathhouse.”
Riven opened his mouth, maybe to ask something, maybe to breathe—but Sorrell was already moving.
“Well, are we done here?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. A perfectly manicured finger tapped the discreet button embedded in the table’s armrest.
The door opened soundlessly.
And the stripper returned.
Still naked, still glistening, his cock still held upright by whatever spell had been looped around his flesh like a leash. He walked in without hesitation, steps fluid and confident. His gaze was vacant, glassy. The mesh thong was gone—there was nothing now to shield him from their eyes. Every inch of his body was sculpted and smooth, aroused and ready, as if he’d simply paused his performance the moment he’d been dismissed and waited until summoned back.
Sorrell leaned back, already freeing his own cock with the same idle grace he used to sip wine.
Riven tried not to look.
But even as he rose with Thane, his gaze flicked down. Sorrell’s cock was longer than he’d expected. Thick, ruddy, beaded with slick at the head. The stripper stepped forward, turning his back to the booth, and with the ease of someone trained or endlessly used, he sank down onto Sorrell’s lap.
There was no sound but a low groan, too raw to be real, and the slow, slick grind of flesh accepting flesh.
Sorrell exhaled through his nose, hands gripping the dancer’s thighs as he sank deeper and deeper until his ass was flush against the Lord of House Glint’s lap.
“Always a pleasure, Sorrell,” Thane said flatly, already turning.
“Mmm,” came Sorrell’s distracted response, his eyes half-lidded as he began to roll his hips upward with more intent. “Give my regards to your mother.”
Thane was already halfway to the staircase, and Riven followed.
But for a heartbeat, he couldn’t look away.
The dancer had braced himself on the table, head tipped back, mouth open in a soundless moan. Sorrell’s hips snapped up once—sharp, punishing—and the sound of skin striking skin echoed behind them like a gunshot.
Riven turned away fast, but not fast enough.
The rhythm, the obscene intimacy, the way it made his own blood thrum—he carried it with him, the images burned into his brain like magic sigils drawn too deep.
As he descended the stairs behind Thane, the wet slap of Sorrell’s thrusts echoed in his ears like a dark, dirty metronome.
Chapter 31
