There were two bathrooms on the bedroom floor, and I shared one with Corbin. I knew him well enough not to expect him to leave the library until the early hours of the morning, so I had it to myself. I peeked out of the door and – seeing it was empty – crept down the hall, slipped inside, and shut the door behind me.
I turned the water on as cold as it went and got undressed. I pushed my pants down, my cock springing free, so hard that even pulling my pants off made it ache. I stepped under the freezing water, letting the stream pummel my body. White hot pain arced across my skin, raising goosebumps down my arms, but it wasn’t working. I was still hard.
I could still taste Maeve on my lips.
I closed my eyes. Maeve appeared in my mind. Her naked body – which I’d seen only in my dreams but knew would be the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen – reclining on a velvet sofa.I approached her, awed by her beauty and the way she carried herself with such dignity, even with her legs spread wide.
With the freezing water still pummelling me, I grabbed my cock, squeezing my fingers around it as I pictured myself sliding my body over Maeve. She reached up and pulled me against her, wrapping her legs around me and guiding me inside her. I yanked on my dick as I imagined sliding into her warmth, her walls tightening around me.
Cold water streamed over my body. The pain of it was my punishment, my penance for these ugly thoughts.
My shoulders tensed. I pumped faster.
Maeve’s lips on mine. Maeve’s ankles crossed behind me as she pulled me deeper into her warmth. Her neck arching, her breath coming out in frenzied gasps.
Oh fuck, oh fuck…
In my mind, I bent my head to pull her nipple into my mouth, but my chin jabbed into someone else’s skull.
Blake turned around and grinned up at me. Corbin licked and sucked on her other tit. Behind her head, someone moved in the shadows, and Maeve stretched her mouth open to accept a waiting cock.
Blake’s grin widened. “Share and share alike, Arnold.”
No, get out of my fantasy, you bastards.
But it was too late. Maeve’s wide eyes burned into mine, and her lips curled back against that dark cock – Rowan’s cock – as her orgasm slammed into her.
She came apart with me inside her, with my friends pleasuring her. And she wasmajestic.
I slammed my fist against the wall, cracking one of the tiles. Jizz pumped out the end of my cock and splattered on the bottom of the shower.
Fuck. That was amazing.
No, disturbing.
Definitely disturbing.
Hands sticky, skin burning from the cold, eyes red with shame, I cleaned the evidence off the bottom of the shower with my foot. Turing the water off, I rested my dripping back against the cold tiles.
Is this how it’s going to be, jerking off in the shower while I imagine debasing the girl I care about with my flatmates?
I remembered the sword hanging above my bed, and my blood turned cold. My elbow throbbed with phantom pain.It’s better than the alternative.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MAEVE
Iwondered if any of the guys might try to visit me that night, but no one did. I kept my light on for another hour, staring at the page of one of my physics books, and listening for the sound of footsteps on the stairs.
It occurred to me that I could go and visit one of them in their rooms, but the agony of choice froze me in place.
I was usually so decisive, so sure of myself. But these guys had got me completely turned around inside. I already saw them as family – as precious to me as Kelly was, as my parents had been. They were essential to my understanding of myself and to uncovering this power I never knew I had.
More than that, but they had started to heal me. I’d come to Briarwood a shadow of myself, broken apart by grief and loss. When I looked into their eyes, I saw my own pain reflected back at me. But rather than shattering me into a million pieces, digging into their pasts and discovering their secrets helped me to put myself back together again. We were all broken people trying to find our pieces in the rubble. I had pieces of all of them now, just like they had pieces of me.
And then, there was this other layer – this deep ache inside my chest and quickening of my pulse whenever I was around them. I didn’t know how much of it was me and how much of it was spirit magic. But then, the magic was part of me, wasn’t it?
All I knew was that I wanted all of them – how fucked up was that?
