A light breeze creeps toward me as I feel a cold draft float through the air from an unknown origin. It causes my hair to stand on end, and though I somehow know he won’t hurt me, this is vastly different from any other encounter we’ve had before. From the corner of my eye, I watch him take purposefully slow, threatening steps toward me until he’s so close I’m certain he can feel me trembling.
He dips his head until his mouth is level with my ear.
“Everleigh...” Whispering, he draws the sound of my name out as though he can’t bear the idea of it not being on his tongue.
A chorus of hushed, “Everleighs” floats through the room. At first I think it’s an echo he’s created, but each time it’s spoken in a different tone, as though there’s more than one person in the room with him. Each one drawn out just like the first, with a palpable ache to them that’s both staggering and alluring.
My eyes close, unable to face him when he’s making me feel the way he is right now. The way he made me feel just before I…
Started fingering yourself...
“Stop it...” He allows me to speak but only at a volume that’s barely audible.
You can’t deny you didn’t like what you felt. How you felt doing it.
As he recites my truth to me, he pulls my curls away from my ear so he has better access to it My body tremors with anticipation. A slight tug of an errant strand of hair never fazed me until it was his fingers doing the wrenching.
Is Henri still at the door? Still twisting the knob? Still calling out for me? I don’t know anymore. I can’t hear anything, can’t see or feel anything other than...
Him.
“Why are you punishing me? You obviously know what happened at dinner, what a horrible letdown this evening has been. Isn’t that punishment enough?”
“This isn’t a punishment, Everleigh. It’s an awakening.”
Gripping my chin firmly in his hand, he forces my attention on him. When we’re face-to-face, I whimper at the man looking back at me. Hidden in part by a mask that covers the left side of his face, the half of him I can see is handsome, chiseled... Dangerous. His mysterious, midnight blue eyes gleam in the dim light of my room, and my body begs to get lost in them. I yearn to know why he feels the need to keep any piece of himself hidden from the world.
Is this why he never let me see him before? Is he worried I would judge him? Make fun of him? Think him unworthy?
My fingers itch to remove it to see the man underneath for who he really is.
Before I’m able to move, he grasps my hand. The hand. The one which is still damp with my arousal from its inquest of my wet slit moments ago.
“You’re right, tonight you deserve to be celebrated.”
He brings my fingers to his nose, and I can feel my face heat with embarrassment as I realize what he’s about to do. After flooding my cheeks, blood shoots straight to my core the moment he inhales the scent left behind on my skin. If that wasn’t torture enough, the dilation of his pupils coupled with the smug smile he flashes me as his tongue slides over my fingers, gathering my essence as it goes, causes my nipples to harden.
“Oh, Everleigh...” he moans before closing his lips around the base of my fingers and sucking what’s left into his mouth.
Our eyes stay firmly locked onto one another’s as he laps away at my arousal, one hand holding mine firmly at his lips so I’m unable to pull away until he’s had his fill. The other hand begins to bunch the fabric covering my legs together, lifting it to allow him better access to parts of me no one else has ever seen or touched.
I don’t know whether I should stop him or plead for him to go faster, but I find myself unable to fight against what’s happening. For the first time in my life, I don’t want to resist something that feels so … good. So right. So perfect.
So don’t, Everleigh. Don’t deny yourself... Don’t deny us... Let us celebrate you the way you want and deserve to be celebrated. The way you’re craving to be celebrated.
“Us?” I question with a shaky breath.
When he ignores my query, his finger brushing over the drenched fabric of my panties, there is nothing I can do to quiet the moan his touch elicits from me. My eyes break free of his and slide down my body to where his hand is swallowed by my skirt. I’m unnerved by the way I’m feeling … embarrassed by the noises escaping my lips, but the pleasure he’s giving me, even having barely touched me, is too strong for even a prude like me to ignore.
“You’re not a prude.” His words reassure me as my eyes meet his again. They hold me captive as he runs the tip of his tongue between my middle and pointer fingers slowly … seductively. “You have standards. And class.”
I watch as a look of savage intemperance shadows his stare.
“And that is nothing to be ashamed of.”
Another lick as his sly stare holds me hostage as much as his hands do. As much as his mind does.
“But we’re looking forward to introducing you to the darkness. Our darkness. The only place we’re free to be our true selves. Where we get to dabble in madness and lose ourselves in debauchery.”
We?
“We.” He nods to a place behind me, and I can feel my heart rate quicken.
Is someone else here? Who is it? Have they been here this whole time? How did they get here? Before I get any answers, three of the most dangerously attractive men I’ve ever seen—besides the one in front of me—step around us and stand shoulder to shoulder next to him.
