Fuck, how I wished Corbin was here.
I swallowed.
Maeve patted the bed again, but I couldn’t move.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked me.
I shook my head. Finally, I managed to move my tongue again. “It’s complicated.”
“I know, Rowan,” she said sadly. Her look confirmed my worst fears.She knows. “You and I have something in common. We both care about him. We both see the way he stretches himself too thin trying to keep this coven together. We see the person he is underneath all that bravado.”
My heart hammered against my chest with such force I thought it would crack my ribs.
Maeve’s next words sliced right through my heart. “I see him, and I seeyou, Rowan. I see the secret you hide and how it eats at you. I wish I could give you what you dream of, but not even I have that power. But I can give you the next best thing. We can pour our love for him into each other.”
Her words shot through me like darts of fire, breaking apart the vice, burning away the anxiety that whispered the ugly things. She was right. She loved him as I did, and that made her a part of myself, a part I wished so dearly I could embrace.
Bloody hell, how did this girl know exactly what to say to heal me?
Maeve sat up, swinging her legs underneath her, pushing her face toward me. “Do you want to make love to me?”
“I already used up my condom.”
Maeve laughed as she bent forward. I lowered my head, bringing my lips to hers. The kiss lit up every part of my body, bearing down with all my hidden feelings, drawing them to the surface, baring them the way Maeve bared her skin.
I fancied I could taste a masculine saltiness on her lips.Corbin. My cock grew harder.
Maeve broke the kiss, gasping. “Look in the top drawer.” She pointed to the tiny chest of drawers beside her bed. A stack ofphysics volumes and a slim book calledSacred Polyamorywere stacked on top.
I pulled open the drawer. There, nestled on top of a stack of neatly folded underwear, was a box of condoms. A wholebox.
I stared at it, unsure of what it meant, if it meant anything at all.
Did I really want to do this? Did I want to be with Maeve, knowing how I felt about her, knowing how she felt about…all of us?
Yes.
More than anything, yes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
MAEVE
Rowan wrapped me in his arms, nestling his head against my chest, fast asleep after our frantic, frenzied lovemaking. I kept expecting him to realize where he was, to get up and leave and return to his neat bedroom with everything where it should be.
But he cradled me closer, his lips moving as he fell asleep.
I couldn’t sleep. My mind whirled with a million thoughts and emotions. A hot throbbing in my veins kept my body awake,alive.I’d never felt more alive. Was it the thrill of sleeping with three guys in one night? Of having my first threesome, and liking it?
Or was it the hum of ancient magic in my veins?
After an hour of staring at the wall, I knew sleep was not going to find me. I slid out from under Rowan and padded down the steep tower steps.
Even though it was supposed to be the middle of summer, a sticky rain fell from the sky, pattering against the roof of the covered walkway and splashing down the gutters into the courtyard below. I walked close to the wall, trying to avoid getting hit by errant droplets.
At the end of the walkway, I went inside and stopped in front of the picture of my mother, my heart hammering as I looked up at her face. But once again, she stared back at me with those glittering, playful eyes – no hint of the horror I’d seen earlier.
Had I imagined it?
