I shut up. Who am I to ruin the night?
We reach Ashford House, less a mansion and more a monument. From the outside and in most rooms, it reminds me of the grandest estates in the Garden District of New Orleans, of the elegant plantations in the Deep South. It’s all wrought-iron balconies and graceful columns, its windows flickering with candlelight like watching eyes.
The dining hall, where the party is held, is the one exception. There, the aesthetic shifts from Southern Gothic to medieval fever dream. Vaulted ceilings arch high above us, impossibly tall. Stone walls shimmer with glowing sconces and stained-glass windows. Wooden banquet tables, massive, carved, and ancient, have been shoved aside for dancing. It’s like a place where knights feast and kings watch jesters perform, only tonight, the court is young and wild and half-naked.
Music blasts from speakers, something laden with bass and hypnotic. The crowd dances with it. Bodies press close, movements sensual, college students lost to the beat. Red solo cups carelessly spill beer and scarlet-hued wine. It vanishes as the ancient stone drinks it down, like the floor is alive. Like it’s thirsty. Someone’s passing around a bottle of dark liquor. I watch as a tray of glittery jello shots floats by, the contents sparkling like fairy dust.
Brothers lounge bare-chested, with their shirts tucked lazily into waistbands, muscles flexed and gleaming under the lights. Sisters whirl in short skirts and bare shoulders, giggling, flushed, twirling into hands that grip their waists too tightly. They’re spun, dipped, kissed.
Cicley’s already barefoot. Abbie’s taking shots, halfway through a game of flip cup on a table that looks like it belonged to a sixteenth-century war council. I don’t know how everyone got here so fast, but the cavernous dining hall is packed, loud, sweaty, and chaotic. Like the rules have all been stripped away, and something older, more primal, has taken their place.
I feel it.
A prickling awareness across my skin, as if someone lit a match and held it an inch from my back. Rough hands slide around my ribcage, skimming lower until they find the sliver of bare skin where my shirt doesn’t quite meet my pants.
A voice, low and dark, curls in my ear like smoke. “Play along, Kitten. Everyone’s watching.” Lips brush my neck, analmost-kiss, and my breath stutters, traitorous.
“The brothers have been restless,” Carrson murmurs against my skin, every syllable a slow release of hot breath. “Asking questions. Wondering why they haven’t seen me with my Bonded.” From the outside, I’m sure it looks like he’s whispering sexy, filthy promises in my ear, not veiled warnings and conspiracy theories.
“Time to give the masses what they’ve been waiting for,” he says, and his body starts to move. Slow. Sinuous. Deliberate. He rolls his hips against mine in time with the music, each movement a threat, a seduction, a command. “Dance with me, Laurel.”
His hands tighten on my hips, pulling me to him, my back pressed to his chest. His grip isn’t rough, but it isn’t gentle either. It’s possessive, like he knows I won’t stop him.
“I don’t dance,” I manage, though my voice comes out breathy, uncertain.
“You do now,” he says as the music pulses around us. I feel every beat in my chest, in the hollow beneath my ribs, in the place low in my belly that shouldn’t ache for him but does. He moves against me, guiding me, and my body follows. Heat floods my cheeks. I’m hyperaware of his touch, of the way our bodies fit together too easily, too perfectly.
His chest brushes my back, solid and warm. When the bass drops, he moves faster, brushing his hips against me from behind, each motion drawing mine with it, like we’re tied together, his body coaxing mine to follow, to surrender. I feel every shift of muscle, every inch of heat between us, the friction unbearable.
My back arches slightly, instinctively, and he’s right there to fill the space. One hand drifts up, skimming my waist, my ribs, stopping just beneath the curve of my breast. Close enough to burn. One song in and already our bodies have fallen into a rhythm so fluid it’s as if we’ve done this a thousand times before.
My breath falters as his lips graze the shell of my ear. “Good girl,” he murmurs, his voice thick with dark praise. “That’s it. Follow the music.”
He grinds against me, slow and sinful, and I feel himeverywhere. I follow his instructions and give myself up to the song and the sensation of our bodies moving in synchronicity. Slowly, I raise my hands over my head, let my arms sway, and push back against him so that we contact, connect, in as many places as possible. I dance faster now, losing myself, and he holds me steady.
The room vanishes.
It’s just us.
Touching. Finally.
It feels too good. Better than I ever imagined. I try to remind myself this is an act. Just for show. When I glance up, I see us reflected in the stained-glass windows, my head tilted back, his mouth on my neck, our bodies locked together, and it doesn’t look like dancing.
It looks like seduction.
It looks like foreplay.
He must feel it too, that pull between us, tightening, sharpening, snapping, because the control Carrson clings to so tightly slips.
Not all the way.
Just enough.
His lips go to my shoulder, to the bare skin next to the strap of my tank top. He kisses me there. Lightly. Softly, but definitely a kiss. There’s no mistaking it.
I inhale sharply, my pulse jumping, and tilt my head to the side. I don’t have to say a word.
It’s an invitation.
