What did Kiernan want, and why did part of me hope the answer involved me?
10
OPHELIA
Ididn’t remember much of the walk from the Thorned Thistle to the castle. Exhaustion had made my legs unsteady, and I’d leaned against Oliver most of the way. Kiernan had been ahead of us, silent the entire time.
Oliver had brought me to my room. “Get some rest,” he’d said, echoing Kiernan’s clipped instructions. I’d heard his footsteps fade down the corridor, heard a door open and close, then nothing.
Now, I lay in the darkness and stared at the canopy above my bed. My body thrummed with an energy I couldn’t release.
Kiernan’s rule echoed in my mind.Your pleasure belongs to me. Neither of you comes without my presence and my explicit permission.
I pressed my thighs together and tried to think about something else.
It didn’t work.
Every time I closed my eyes, I was at the club, in that shadowed alcove with Oliver’s fingers sliding between my thighs.
She’s aroused. Feel it.
Kiernan’s voice had been so calm. So controlled. Like he was conducting an experiment, and we were his willing subjects. He’d guided Oliver’s hand beneath my dress and ordered him to touch me, and I’d nearly collapsed from the intensity of being handled like that. Directed. Used.
I’d loved every second of it.
The woman in the first scene had surrendered so beautifully, and the whole time, Oliver’s fingers had been inside me. He’d held still because Kiernan told him to, and my own arousal built without relief.
Not yet. Patience. Watch the scene.
I’d wanted to scream. I’d wanted to grind against Oliver’s hand until I came apart. But Kiernan’s command had held me in place more effectively than any restraint.
That was the part I couldn’t stop thinking about. Not the physical sensation—though, God, that had been intense—but how his voice had wrapped around my will and squeezed. How I’d obeyed without question,without hesitation, because pleasing him had become more important than my own release.
I rolled onto my side and hugged a pillow to my chest.
The second scene we watched had been between two men. Oliver went rigid behind me the moment we’d stopped at that window. His chest rose faster, and when I glanced in his direction, his arousal was evident.
I sensed before he did that it wasn’t only the power exchange that had his hardness straining against his trousers, but the men themselves.
No doubt Kiernan had picked up on it before I did, since he seemed to pick up on our every response as though he was filing it away for future use.
My thoughts drifted, then and now, to how much IknewOliver’s responses to Kiernan ran deeper than he’d acknowledged. Kiernan had made his desire known too when he told him that what he wanted, Oliver wasn’t ready for. God, that thought alone had my pussy weeping.
Seeing them together, being part of that dynamic, Oliver finally surrendering to what he so obviously needed—I pressed my hand between my legs.
This was what I’d fantasized about that night, alone in my room. Before the club, before Kiernan had touchedme. I’d imagined them both commanding me together, and my body had responded with a need that terrified me. Now, I understood why.
The memory unfurled as I touched myself.
After the second scene, Kiernan had guided us onward. More windows. More dynamics. A woman with a strap-on fucking another woman who begged for more. A rope suspension that made the bound man look like he was flying. A sensory-deprivation scene where the blindfolded submissive responded to every touch with a full-body shiver.
Through all of it, Kiernan had tracked our responses with predatory focus. Every gasp, every flush, every shift of weight—he’d noted it all.
At one point, I’d felt eyes on us that weren’t Kiernan’s. When I’d turned, I’d caught a figure near the bar watching our group with an intensity that felt targeted rather than curious. Not the idle interest of club members observing newcomers. Something sharper. When I’d looked again, they’d disappeared into the crowd.
I’d mentioned it to Kiernan. He’d scanned the room, seeing nothing suspicious. “Probably a member curiousabout new faces,” he’d said. But his jaw had tightened almost imperceptibly, and he’d kept us closer after that.
Oliver had barely spoken. When I’d reached for his hand, he’d squeezed mine with urgent pressure, like I was the only thing keeping him grounded.
