Page 102 of Twisting Beauty

I moaned around him, the vibration making him curse, making his whole body tighten. Whatever he’d been barely holding on to started to break.

I kept going, emboldened by the way he was unraveling, by the wild and awful thrill of having that kind of power over him from my knees.

His sounds were getting rougher and his hand in my hair was shaking.

“Fuck… Gray.”

For one heartbeat, his mask slipped completely. His pupils had blown wide, lips parted, vulnerable in a way I’d never seen before. Something raw sat right on the surface, too human, too real. The kind of expression that had no business existing on Lorcan Lasair because it looked like this mattered to him.

Like I mattered.

I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t hide behind indifference when his gaze held mine with such raw intensity.

We were both caught, exposed, like we were truly seeing each other for the first time.

Then his expression slammed shut. His eyes went flat. He snatched his hands off me as if I’d burned him.

“That’s enough.”

The abruptness of it left me stunned, frozen with my lips still around him, some needy part of me waiting for him to change his mind.

“I said that’s enough.” His jaw tightened further and he stepped back, pulling his cock out of my mouth. “Get up.”

I stood slowly, my legs trembling, burning with unsatisfied need and the humiliation of wanting more from someone who had just decided he was done.

For a moment I just stood there, head spinning over his abrupt change, scrambling for what could have possibly happened to flick this switch in him.

He leaned against the mantle, refusing to even look at me.

“Go to bed, Liath.”

My real name hit me like a slap.

I left his bedroom, my feet unsteady underneath me.

Out in the corridor, I pressed my back against his closed door and stood there in the dark with my whole body lit up.

I was confused, unsatisfied, and needy.

And far too aware that whatever this had become, it was no longer just debt collection.

31

DEARGÁN

In the dark, I scaled the ivy on the east wall of the Lasair Manor hand over hand, the cold working into my fingers where they gripped the stems.

There was a persistent unease that had been building in me for days.

My asset had gone quiet. My soldier was overdue for a report.

That was all this was.

I reached her window and peered in to make sure she was alone before I triggered the catch I’d installed so I could let myself in at any time.

But the room was dark and empty, her bed undisturbed.

I steadied my feet on the ledge and checked our drop point, working my fingers behind the loose stone beside her windowsill.