Page 289 of House Ignis

My cheeks ignited, but Asher didn’t even flinch. He just looked at Ezra with a lazy, unbothered stare, his hands still gripping my ass with a painful, possessive intensity.

“Practice starts soon,” Ezra said casually, his gaze dancing between us.

I didn’t move an inch. I couldn’t—not with Asher’s hard length pressed firmly between us and my own nipples peaking against my shirt. I was trapped by the heat of him and the sheer mortification of being caught.

“I’ll be down soon,” Asher murmured, offering his friend a jagged, lazy grin.

I watched, utterly mortified, as Ezra gave me a quick wink and pulled the door shut. The silence that followed was heavy, charged with the scent of sex and the lingering shock in my veins.

“You want to continue?” Asher asked, his eyelids hooded and dark with a lethal kind of hunger.

He moved against me, but I couldn't focus on the pleasure.

My heart was still hammering against my ribs, my mind stuck on that single, hidden mark.

That crown.

“Actually,” I blurted, practically jumping off him.

His brows furrowed at my sudden departure, his arms left hanging in the empty air where I'd just been.

“I, too, have practice,” I said with a sweet, sharp smile.

I turned toward my dresser, scrambling through the drawers for my cheer uniform while my heart continued its frantic staccato against my ribs.

I felt him before I heard him.

He was behind me in a heartbeat, his hands sliding down to grab my ass and grind me back against the heavy, insistent length hidden by his sweatpants.

"You sure you don't want to continue?" he murmured, his breath hot against the shell of my ear.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I did.

I wanted to drop the clothes and let him ruin me right there on the rug, but my mind was a chaotic mess of crowns and shadows.

I turned around in his arms, flattening my palms against the heat of his bare chest to create an inch of desperate space.

"I think you should wait," I said, my voice dropping into a darker, challenging register.

He grinned, the silver in his eyes catching the light.

"Wait for what?" he asked, his hand already roaming, finding my nipple through my shirt and kneading it with a slow, agonizing pressure.

I had to grind my teeth together to keep from moaning out loud. He saw the struggle, his grin widening into something predatory.

Bastard.

I swatted his hand away, trying to regain some semblance of control.

"I want you to squirm a bit. Wait for after practice," I said simply.

I began to undress, moving with a slow, deliberate rhythm that had his gaze tracking every inch of exposed skin with hungry, lethal eyes.

He watched, unblinking, as I slipped into the pleated skirt and the tight vest of the uniform.

His expression went dark.