Chapter 41: Volume 1- [ - 42]
He released Lira’s hair. His other hand found Sera’s face — turning it toward him, his fingers cupping her jaw, his thumb brushing her lower lip. He kissed her. Hard. His tongue met hers, and Sera — the practical one, the analytical one, the one who managed crises and counted figures and did not cry — made a sound that was nothing like a moan. It was a whimper. Small, broken, the sound of a wall crumbling.
While he kissed Sera, his hand found Lira’s breast. The left one — the fuller one, the heavier one — and he kneaded it with his palm, his fingers closing around the nipple, pinching, rolling, pulling. Lira gasped against his shoulder, her body pressing into his hand, her internal voice a cascade of fragmented sensation:
’His hand — on my — he is touching — his fingers — the nipple — it hurts but it also — I have never — no one has ever — his mouth is on Sera’s — he is kissing my sister while touching my—’
He broke the kiss with Sera. Turned to Lira. Kissed her again — deeper this time, his tongue exploring her mouth with the slow, thorough attention of a man cataloguing a new flavor. His other hand found Sera’s breast — the right one, the perkier one — and he kneaded it with the same firm, rhythmic pressure, his thumb circling her pink nipple.
Both sisters. One on each side. One being kissed, one being touched. Then switching — mouth moving from one to the other, hands never stopping, the rhythm building, the bathroom filling with the soft, wet sounds of lips and tongues and the quiet, involuntary moans of two women whose worlds were being rewritten.
"Mmmh—" Lira, against his mouth.
"Nnngh—" Sera, against his neck.
He pulled back from Lira. Looked at both of them — their flushed faces, their swollen lips, their heaving chests, their eyes glazed with a combination of grief and arousal and the chemical override of proximity to a man who knew exactly which buttons to press.
"Let me make you forget," he said, and his voice was low, rough, the voice of a man whose own arousal was pressing against his control. "The death. The monsters. The fear. Let me replace it with something warm."
He guided Lira’s head to his neck. She went — willingly, helplessly — her face pressing against the warm skin of his throat, her lips finding his pulse, her tongue tasting salt and the faint mineral tang of bathwater. She breathed him in — the scent of his skin, the heat of his body, the masculine reality of him — and her internal voice dissolved into a single, aching thought:
’He smells like — like safety. Like something I did not know I wanted. Like—’
He kissed Sera again. Deeper. His tongue found hers, and she met it — tentatively at first, then with growing hunger, her hands finding his shoulders, her fingers digging into the muscle. Her internal voice was a battlefield — duty and desire, grief and need, the memory of her father and the feel of a lord’s lips on hers — and the battle was being lost.
’He is — he is kissing me — while my sister is — his neck — her tongue — this is — this is wrong — this is — I should—’
But the thought broke. Cracked. Fell apart in the warm water and the warm hands and the warm mouth, and what was left was not thought at all but sensation — pure, overwhelming, undiluted sensation, the kind that burned away everything else and left only the present moment, only the skin, only the heat.
The bathroom filled with moans.
Soft ones, from Sera — muffled against his mouth, swallowed by his kiss.
Deeper ones, from Lira — vibrating against his neck, her lips on his pulse.
And beneath them both, the steady, patient rhythm of Caelum’s hands, kneading, caressing, claiming.
’What a hunt... fuck, these two feels delicious.’
The moans faded.
The warmth of the water did not. It hung around us like a second skin, the steam rising from the copper tub, the lamp flickering on the shelf, the world outside the bathing chamber window reduced to a darkness that held monsters and memory in equal measure. My hands were still on their waists. Lira’s lips were still against my neck. Sera’s mouth was still swollen from the kiss I had taken from her.
Then — as these things always do — the moment cracked.
Sera pulled back first. Her hand found my chest and pressed — not hard, not violently, but with the firm, shaking insistence of a woman whose rational mind had just caught up with her body and was screaming at her to stop.
"We cannot," she whispered. Her green eyes were wet, wide, the arousal in them warring with something older and deeper — the part of her that had been raised to be sensible, to be the one who counted the coins and checked the locks and told her sister not to run with scissors. "My lord, we cannot. My father is — he just — we were just crying and—"
Lira pulled back too, her face lifting from my neck, her lips parted, her chestnut hair stuck to her damp cheeks. She looked at Sera. Looked at me. The flush on her face was so deep it had reached her chest, the rose of her nipples darkening as the blood rushed to the surface.
’She is right. We cannot. Father just died. We were mourning. And now we are — in a bathtub — with a lord we just met — and I was licking his neck — what is wrong with me — what is wrong with—’
"It is fine," I said, and my voice was soft, understanding, the voice of a man who would never push, who would never press, who would simply exist in the space until they decided to fill it. "I understand. I should not have—"
"No," Lira said suddenly, and the word surprised her as much as it surprised Sera. Her hand found my arm — not pushing, but holding. "No, it is — it is fine. It is. I just — it has been — I cannot—"
’Lira.’ Sera’s internal voice was sharp, the voice of a sister who had spent eighteen years pulling her younger sibling back from ledges. ’Lira, we should not—’
’I know. I know. But — Sera, we cannot go alone. The monsters — outside — the goblins — father is dead — the guards are dead or scattered — if we leave this room, if we leave this house — what happens to us? Two women, alone, in a town full of corruption and monsters and—’
Sera’s internal voice faltered. The logic was sound. The fear was real. And beneath the fear — beneath the grief and the horror and the rational mind that was screaming at her to stop — there was the other thing. The thing she would not name. The warmth of his skin. The taste of his mouth. The shape of him beneath the water, growing, thickening, a presence that demanded attention the way a fire demands it in a cold room.
"We cannot go alone," Sera said aloud, and the words were directed at me but the meaning was directed at herself — a justification, a permission, the first brick in a wall she was building to separate what she wanted from what she was allowed to want. "It is dangerous. The monsters. We need — we need someone to—’
"You need me," I said simply. "And I need you."