I’d never heard this song before, but I’d spent enough time in the center of these parties that intuition guided my feet. My fingers latched onto his forearm, and I unfurled from his side. Then recoiled just as quickly to trade my weight between my feet, hips and heels popping more than swaying.
He flung me away, our movements fast. Then drew me in, slowing as our bodies touched.
Twist. Turn. Pivot. Then a decadent slide, draping my weight across him.
The couples that had surrounded us began to empty from the floor, unwilling to attempt the unfamiliar beat.
Pheolix twirled me into his body, my legs straddling one of his, and then threw me into a low dip. My thighs ground against his, heat pounding into my core where our bodies joined. Every spin fast, every drag slow, smooth, firm.
Fire ripped through my blood. Feral heat roared in my veins. He rolled me against his angled leg, sending a wave through my hips, my waist, my spine, hand secured against my back.
Then snapped me upright, swinging me away again.
I let him spin me in place, landing with my back to his chest. He arched us backwards together, unwilling to lose an inch of space between his body and mine.
His calloused hand traveled up my abdomen, grazing my ribcage, but I was still turning, rotating in his grip. He clung tight, a planet caught in my orbit, hands and arms and legs curving around my every horizon.
We didn’t speak a word. It was too loud on the dance floor, too close to the music for conversation.
And yet.
Yet we tossed challenges back and forth in silence, each twist a dare, each turn an unspoken provocation. Beads of sweat glistened along his collarbones, so close I could have followed their trail with a fingertip. A thrill flashed through my chest as I wondered at the taste of it, the texture of his skin under my tongue.
I watched his mouth as he reeled me in and spun me away. He watched mine as well. In. Out. Close. Far. He threw me against his chest, and his lower lip grazed mine. I dragged my mouth just faintly, a taunt in my eyes.
Do it,a voice in my head whispered to him.Do it.
Kiss me.
He smiled darkly and tossed me against his side, hooking a hand under my knee and bending it into a sharp corner. Then drove his opposite hand up my neck, splaying around my throat, cupping my jaw.
My skin smoldered as he guided my face into his, eyes locking into mine for a torturously slow moment. Our mouths hovered a brushstroke apart. I panted, uncertain if I was breathless from the dance or the way he easily threw me against himself, every aching muscle of his body a hard landing, a burn I suddenly longed to chase.
I whipped against his side, my hair lashing my cheek and neck, sticking to my skin. Pheolix reeled me in so fast my feet left the floor. He caught me there against his hips,there,against the hard apex of his pants, and a shudder lighted along my bones, undulating through each nerve.
His hand snaked up the flare of my dress. Hard. Greedy. Possessive.
Past my knee and into the sensitive dip of my inner thigh. I felt my jaw unhinge, my exhale sharp and jolting.
Then he continued, abandoning my bare skin for the contour of my waist, the edge of my corset, but my flesh burned where he’d explored. Burned and writhed and thirsted for the return of his rough touch.
Arm over our heads, he sent me in another wild spin, our hands losing contact for only a moment. Then the feeling of him returned.
But it was wrong.
His skin wasn’t as hot, nor as coarse, but it was just as hungry. I came out of my turn, facing him again, and ash-brown eyes waited in his place. Hair no longer russet, mask no longer lace. I fell against a royal cobalt suit, hands catching over a chest more robust, and as my mind whirred to catch up, Pheolix stood in the corner of my eye.
He looked like he’d inhaled a deep breath and couldn’t release it. Tendons in his neck stretched beyond their normal size, teeth hard-set through his parted lips. I only caught his gaze for an instant, but a feral darkness flickered in his gaze as he watched me twist and turn with the King just as I’d done with him the moment before.
Emilius’s turns were tighter than Pheolix’s. More precise and honed to the music. But that fire I’d been chasing evaporated in an instant. The dance floor was empty but for us, though I wasn’t sure if dancers had abandoned it because the King stepped foot inside its boundaries or if they’d left before.
The entire ballroom watched. Nobles gathered in a giant circle, glee and amusement stitched in their eyes through the small windows of theirmasks. The Queen sat in her place of honor on the narrow dais, expressionless, one leg crossed over the other, her spine straight and tall.
Pheolix turned, weaving his way through the observers until he fell so deep within the crowd that I lost sight of him.
35
Cebrinne
