Her mouth caught the first burst, hitting the back of her throat, closing her lips around his head just in time to catch the second rope. For the rest, she had one of the takeout containers handy, empty now that they had eaten the bread. Thick fingers sunk into her hair, gripping her skull, his hip thrusting lightly against the ring of her hands as he emptied. Lurielle was glad his office was big enough and far enough down the hallway that there was unlikely to be anyone lurking outside the locked door. Khash began to methodically squeeze her scalp, in time with the pulsations of his orgasm. Her hair was going to be a mess.
"Lurielle, I don't know what tick's gotten into your britches, but I'm gonna send it a thank you note."
He was boneless in his chair when they were done, his deflated cock tucked away, clothing righted. His head lolled against the backrest, and she had a feeling he'd not be brokering anything else for the rest of the afternoon.
"I'll see you tomorrow night," she reminded him, leaning over to press her mouth to his, feeling her cheeks heat as he deepened the kiss. "I love you. Don't work too hard."
When she caught sight of her reflection striding through the brokerage firm's lobby, much more confident than she had upon her arrival, Lurielle smiled. Her hair was, in fact, a bit disheveled. But, she considered as she swung the restaurant takeout back into the trashcan near the door, hoping that the two styrofoam containers she had used to encase the sloshing breadbasket would be enough, it wasn't as if she was very good at styling her hair in the first place. If it was going up like a bird's nest, she couldn't think of a better reason why.
Silva
The last people she expected to run into in the parking lot at Gildersnood and Ives were Ris and Ainsley.
Tate rolled his eyes at Ainsley's amazement to find him there, and Ris exclaimed at the sight of them, their twosome becoming a foursome as they turned toward the door.
Silva smiled, but she couldn't pretend that her teeth weren't grinding a bit as she did so. She was still hurt over the incident in the break room with Tannar, and time spent with Ainsley was hardly her favorite thing to do.It doesn't matter, he's Tate's friend.She had decided some time around Tate's party that she was done trying and failing to change Ainsley's mind about her. He had decided to dislike her, for whatever reason, and Silva was inclined to let him.
"Is a booth okay? If it is, I can seat you right now."
AJ, a satyr who was one of their regular servers, gestured towards the back of the long pub, the bar and every high-top table they could see already bursting with bodies.
"A booth is fine with me," Ris said, glancing back at the rest of them questioningly.
"I suppose I'll just have to tolerate him playing footsie the whole night." Tate’s sardonic words simultaneously earned Silva’s giggle and Ainsley’s gasp of offense.
"I will not!" Ainsley exclaimed. "It's not my fault I have long legs!"
They followed the satyr across the dining room, through a huge booth on the end of the aisle. "These were designed for ogres," AJ said to Tate as he took Silva's bag, allowing her to slide in first. "So if he tries anything, you know it's intentional."
"I am being attacked!"
Once Ris and Ainsley were settled across from them, the latter looked from Silva to Tate, his dark eyebrows drawing together in a gleam of metal. Beside him, Ris’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline. The dimly lit parking lot had shielded the worst of it, clearly, and the area around the host stand had been too crowded for either of their unexpected companions to take too close of a look.
Now, though, Silva knew exactly what they were seeing. Their lips were healing, but the initial red puffiness of the bite marks had blossomed to bruises on her and Tate both. A dark purple flush on her, and a deep green stain on him, their lips still swollen.
"What the fuck happened to your faces? Like, no offense or anything, but really, what the fuck?"
Silva shared a swift glance with Tate, who was already shaking his head, resolutely saying nothing. "Piercing party," she explained, barely able to get the words out before dissolving in laughter. "Not a very good one. Clearly."
She didn't offer any further response, finding his hand beneath the table and squeezing.
"Is this your first time visiting?" Ris asked Tate with a smile.Are they serious?Sorry, I can’t think beyond my own terrible choice in men to answer . . ."Someone who shall remain nameless is back at his main campus in the city this week, which he is just thrilled to pieces over. But the bonus is he gets to stay with me."
"You should've told me you were coming," Ainsley added, "I would have designed a whole tour for you. All the important sights, annotated by me, of course. I fancy myself a bit of a Cambric Creek expert now."
Ris rolled her eyes, shaking her head. “You’re mostly an expert at parking badly.”
“Howdare—”
"First off," Tate interrupted, "fuck off. It's not me first time here. And you park like fucking muppet, everyone already knows that. Secondly —"
Ainsley had just thrown up his hands in offense when their drinks were delivered to the table, pausing the conversation for the briefest instant.
"Perfect, now I have something to hold and slosh at you as I tell you to fuck off. I don’t need you to lecture me about some Kitteridge Clague book you read, Ains. I’m already an expert. Let me tell you about this mad town, lad. The whole thing was almost burned to the ground by a fuckin’ dragon."
"That was just one house!" Silva laughed, batting at his shoulder. "And it was a dragonborn!"
"And she fuckin’torchedthe place. Used this pathetic human as her kindling. And as a reward for a job well done, there’s a whole bleedin' room devoted to her at the museum.Andan observatory."
