“They are…adequate, I suppose. As far as fruits go.”
She skips into the parlor, a red-gold apple in hand, which she holds in front of my face. “Look at this like you want to ravish it.”
I lick my lips, and that’s as far as I get before I burst into laughter. “This is ridiculous. How am I supposed to look at an apple desirously?”
Her grin tells me she’s greatly enjoying my discomfort. “What else can we use? Something to inspire a serious yet desirous expression.” She wanders to a table strewn with loose papers. “Oooh! Want to see my breasts? I’m not sure they’re much to look at, but they might do the trick.”
Heat floods my face as I struggle to process her question. I’m stammering by the time she returns to me, a piece of paper in hand. I drop my gaze…
And it all makes sense.
My panicked shock shifts into amusement. “Drawingsof breasts. Notyourbreasts.”
Her eyes go wide. “Well, they’re my drawings. I didn’t mean mine as inmine. Though…some of these are mine.”
I ignore that last part and study the sketches that crowd nearly every inch of space on the paper. Breasts in all shapes and sizes grace it from every angle. “You’re trying to arouse me.”
“If it makes you look less constipated, yes.”
“They’re nice,” I say, returning the paper to her, “but it’s a little strange trying to get aroused by drawings of breasts in front of my friend while she sketches me.”
She nibbles a thumbnail as she stares down at the paper. “Would it help to see real ones? To see mine?”
I’m struck dumb all over again, my mind draining of its faculties.
“Maybe that’s not appropriate,” she rushes to say. “Nudity is confusing to me. I’m not covering anything in my pine marten form. If I lift my tail, my entire sphincter is on display and no one is offended by it.”
I lower my head, relinquishing my pose to brace my hands at the edge of the bureau, stuck between a fit of laughter and my stupor over the subject matter at hand. Good God, Daphne is destroying me. Did she always have such an unfiltered way of speaking?
She continues. “What I mean is, why could Marshall Bruisemaker fight shirtless but Gabby Stabbington couldn’t? I understand it’s all part of the rules of seelie society…but I don’t trulygetit. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Welcome to misogyny and the good old double standard,” I manage to say, my head still hanging low, eyes closed as I fight to regain my decorum.
“So you agree? I can see your nipples. They’re right in front of me. So why can’t you see mine?”
I push away from the bureau, forcing myself to straighten. If we don’t change the subject soon, I’m going to lose my composure entirely. “Can we change?—”
My gaze locks on her right as she shrugs free of her suspenders and tugs her blouse over her head. I expect to see layers of clothing beneath it. A chemise. A corset. Yet there’s none of that. Instead, I find her bare, broad shoulders, her soft abdomen, and a flimsy layer of pale blue silk covering her breasts in two meager triangles lined with lace. This is very much a fae-style undergarment—a bralette, I believe it’s called—and not anything I’ve seen in person.
My heartbeat pulses to a crescendo, a rush of blood pounding through my ears. I need to tear my gaze away from that silk, from the small dip of cleavage above it and the peaked buds of her nipples behind it, but my eyes won’t obey.
“This should work, right?” she asks, oblivious to the cacophony my heartbeat is making in the space between us. The way my chest lurches with every beat. She rambles on. “Just pretend they’re someone else’s. Someone you like.”
Her fingers move to the bottom hem of her bralette, ready to tug it upward.
I step forward in a rush, my hand landing firmly on top of hers.
She freezes.
I freeze.
The whole fucking world freezes around us save for the riotous slam of my heart. Her eyes lift to mine, and color flushes her cheeks as if she only now realizes what she was about to do. Meanwhile, I’m too aware of her nearness. My hand on hers, the bottom of my palm skimming the lace hem she was about to lift. My other hand…on her hip. When the fuck did I put it there?
And her face. So close I could count every one of her dark eyelashes. The freckles I never knew she had.
That’s when I feel it. The tightening in my trousers. The desire pulsing low in my abdomen. The pleasure and pain that comes from want.
This is dangerous.
