“Dying of what?” he asks, threading his arms into a shirt and beginning to do up the buttons.
“To know the details. All the fucking freaky, dirty details.”
“A gentleman doesn’t tell, Dray.”
“Fuck off,” I tell him. “I’ve told you loads of stuff. I’ve never held back from you, man.”
“If I remember rightly, Dray,” he points out, now strolling toward me and motioning for me to move off the chest of drawers so he can fish out underwear from one of the drawers, “I never asked you to tell me the details. You volunteered the information.”
“So volunteer the information right back, dickwad,” I whine. “Tell me what you did. Tell me how you did it. How many times you did it. Tell me if you ate out her pussy. Tell me if she sucked on your cock. Tell me if she cried out your name and?—”
Thorne takes ahold of my arm and marches me to the door, pushes me through the doorway, and slams it shut behind me. I hear his magic locking it into place.
I stand stock-still, staring at the opposite wall of the hallway.
Thornejust touched me.
Thorne fuckingjust touched meand I didn’t die. My skin didn’t sear off my bones.
I didn’t turn to dust.
I laugh, clapping my hands together, spinning on my toes, then hammering my fist against his door.
“You fucking touched me, Thorne! You fucking touched me!”
“I’ll touch you again,” he says through the door, “I’ll pummel my fist right into your mouth if you don’t go away and leave me alone.”
“Sure,” I say, his words brushing right over me because I’m in a fucking great mood now.
Does this mean he’s cured?
But my thoughts are interrupted by the clicking open of the door down the hall and Little Kitten’s scent sailing up the staircase to meet my nose. I’m sprinting that way like a hunting dog in the next second, meeting Briony and Beau as they kick off their boots and slide off their coats.
“Thorne touched me!” I announce proudly to them both.
“Right,” Beaufort says. “I didn’t realize you were that way inclined. I thought you liked girls and girls only and?—”
“Shut up, dickwad,” I growl. “You know what I’m saying.”
“Then how exactly did he touch you?” Beaufort asks with a smirk.
“Kicked me out of his room,” I say. “I was up there interrogating him about what he and Little Kitten got up to last night.”
Beaufort peers at Little Kitten with curiosity. Her cheeks are pink.
“What did you get up to last night?” he asks, smirking harder, staring at Little Kitten.
She goes to open her mouth, but we’re interrupted by Thorne’s loud footsteps on the staircase behind me.
“I am here, you know,” he says. “And it’s none of your business.”
“It is kind of our business,” Beaufort points out. “We’re all in this together, Thorne. All bound together by fate. It’s going to be hard to keep secrets in a situation like this, even if we wanted to.”
“And I don’t think we should,” Briony interjects. “I think that could lead to trouble between all of us. I think we have to try and be honest with each other, especially about our feelings. Otherwise there’s a chance, with this many people involved in whatever this is…” She gestures vaguely.
“A relationship,” I tell her.
“Yeah, I guess – a relationship. If we’re not honest about our feelings, people are going to get hurt. And I don’t want that.” She shakes her head.
