My eyes return to the street below, but my logical mind has been defeated by my arousal. How could it stand a chance against those three filthy voices, the two sets of shadowed hands that skitter over my skin. I don’t care that we have an audience. I don’t care who watches me unravel. My answer comes out with a whimper. “Yes.”
Lust and Pride close in around me, one bringing a set of lips to my neck, the other a tongue across my clavicle. Pride’s hand cups my ass while Lust’s slips under my bodice to squeeze my breast. There’s hardly any room for a hand, not even a shadow one, but he still manages to tease my nipple, circling it with his light touch, making it scrape against the fabric of my chemise. My lashes flutter shut and a moan nearly climbs from my throat, but I bite my lip to stifle it.
“Eyes open, sinner,” Dominic says through Pride. “Keep those eyes on me. I want you to know exactly who’s pleasuring you.”
I do as I’m told and meet Dominic’s gaze across the balcony. Heremains leaning against the balustrade, but his arms are no longer crossed. Now his hands are braced beside his hips, fingers gripping the railing so hard the veins on his hands and forearms stand out. There’s a strange blend of desire and focus on his face, and I realize how much effort it must take him to act through his Shades like this. Especially as Pride’s hand is suddenly no longer cradling my ass through my skirt and is now flush against my skin. Lust’s fingers release my nipple, curving around my breast before skating down my ribs, my stomach. Which means his Shades are currently in two states at once, both fluid and solid—fluid enough to move through the fabric of my clothing, yet solid enough to interact with my flesh.
“How much of this can you feel?” I ask, my voice hitching as Lust’s fingers reach the mound of curls at the apex of my thighs.
“All of it,” Dominic says, his voice tripled by Lust and Pride. “This is all me, love.”
His Shades grip me tighter, kissing up my neck, over my jaw, while Dominic’s eyes grow heavier with desire. Lust’s fingertips find my clit just as Pride’s slide down the center of my ass until they reach my slick core. I’m dripping wet, and his fingers circle my opening, teasing my sensitive skin. Lust presses down on my clit. A squeak of pleasure erupts from my lips and I have to slap a palm over my mouth to keep from making another sound.
“I thought you said you could be quiet,” Dominic says, this time speaking out loud, his voice carrying over the space between us.
“I—” My attempt to insist I can is cut off as Pride plunges his finger fully inside me. I arch my back against the door, then get control of myself. To onlookers, we may just look like two people conversing on a balcony, and maybe the awning casts me in enough shadow that I don’t stand out, but if I writhe too much, I’ll surely draw someone’s attention.
Yet…for the strangest reason, that doesn’t bother me. Not now, when stars are forming behind my eyes and Pride is pumping inside me faster. Not when Lust is expertly circling my clit, the way Dominic did in the cave. Not when the man before me pants heavily as if he really is touching me, feeling me. The intensity of his gaze has me convinced he could coax me to climax with the heat of his eyes alone.
“You feel so good on my fingertips,” Dominic says, his voice returned to a whisper carried through his Shades. “You look so good when you whimper with my Shades inside you.”
Pride slips in a second finger. The next sound that tries to crawl up my throat succeeds, muffled by the hand I still clamp over my lips. I can’t keep my body from rocking, can’t stop the subtle roll of my hips as I ride the fingertips that strum me, fill me. My pleasure builds, radiating through my entire body, ready to erupt.
“That’s it, love. Show me what you look like when you come.”
Just like that, I unravel, my climax rolling through me like a tidal wave, pulsing against Pride’s fingers, rolling with Lust’s expert motions against my clit. The Shades surge with me, bring me down, down, down the wave of pleasure until I’m spent.
I heave a breath and turn my weight over to the door behind me, my legs like liquid. Dominic pushes off the railing and gathers me to him, framing my face in his hands, pressing a kiss to my lips. It’s laughable how chaste we must look, just a gentle kiss in the daylight, when in reality my undergarments are soaked in the wake of the release I just had in public.
“Is that all we can do?” I ask as he pulls me into an equally chaste embrace, save for the rock-hard bulge between us. I wish I could give him what he just gave me, but without his rather convenient shadow-wielding ability, I can’t get him off in any inconspicuous way. Gods, there’s so much more of him I want to experience. I want to feel him deep inside me. I want to ride him to my heart’s content in a bed of our own. I want to burn through my desire for him until I’m sick of it. “I want more of you. More than stolen moments and public orgasms.”
“Inana fucking Westwood,” he says, tone teasing as he smiles down at me. “Don’t tell me you’ve been a romantic all this time. Is it an intimate date you’re asking for?”
My heart flips, first with surprise that he mistook my lust-addled question for something sweeter, then with a flutter of joy. Though my mind is quick to recall that’s more than what I want from him. More than what we can have. And yet…I don’t correct him. Instead, I give in to that flutter of joy, squeezing him tighter. I can let myself have this for now. Can’t I?
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Inana
After five days of what becomes a beautifully mundane routine, five days of performing our duties together as a team, five days of sleeping on the opposite end of the room from Dominic, five days of him whispering filthy words in my ear and giving me fleeting, teasing touches with his Shades, he wakes us up from our daytime slumber when the sun is still high in the sky.
“Get dressed, sinners,” he says as I rub sleep from my eyes. “We’re going to the market.”
I do a double take as my bleary eyes focus on him. For once, he isn’t dressed in all black and strapped with weapons. He appears to have borrowed some of Calvin’s clothes—or perhaps he was gifted common garb like the rest of us—and wears linen trousers, a cream shirt, and a brown waistcoat. His hair is tied back, and he finishes off his ensemble with a greatcoat. I stifle a laugh. Not because he looks odd, but because even without his dark leathers, knives, and vials, he stilllookslike a fucking Shadowbane. A confident, powerful man, at the very least. I don’t know who the hell he’s trying to fool, but I find it oddly charming.
“Why are we going to the market?” Harlow says with a yawn. Her ash-brown hair is a tangled halo around her head, and she absently smooths it with one hand.
Dominic tosses a small pouch on her bed, then one on Bard’s, then Calvin’s, then mine. As I catch it, I find it’s heavier than it looks. Inside it, there’s…
“You’re giving us money?” Harlow says.
“Ah, I love money.” Calvin shakes the purse’s contents into his palm. “We should get cream puffs.”
“What’s this for?” mutters Bard, a glint of suspicion in his eyes. He’s been more relaxed lately, as if telling his story freed him from at least a few demons of his past. Yet I can’t blame him for not fully warming up to Dominic, after what he went through. It probably feels like he’s being paid to keep silent about Dominic’s secrets.
“We won’t need many supplies for our next post,” Dominic says, “since it’s only twenty miles east. So we have some extra. Spend it or don’t, but it’s yours.”
I stare down at my purse full of glittering coins. I doubt it amounts to much, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had money of my own to spend, so it feels like a fortune. My eyes lift to Dominic’s, and his are already on me. His mouth quirks, and I think I know what this is really about.
