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Hywel scoffed and shook his head. "In a battle, you'll be fighting for your life. Having a gallery of opinionated lovers barking contrary orders at you will be the least of your worries, and much easier to block out. Unfortunately…Rolant is right about your balance. Come, let's do some stretches."
I grinned, shuffling my steps after my dragon.
* * *
"Laszlo,I'm—"
"Shhh," the gryphon whispered in my ear. "They're returning."
I shivered and bit my lip, turning my face into his chest and biting down on a button of his shirt.
Male voices from the balcony grew louder, turning away from the view of the sea and marching back to the study, where we all gathered after dinner. And all the while, Laszlo's fingers swirled softly over my clit, buried in the heavy flounces and folds of my satin skirt. I tensed as the approaching footsteps softened from stone to carpet, entering the room, and the hazy, hot height of pleasure that'd been rising up with Laszlo's touch suddenly burst.
I shuddered on his lap, quaking with my release, biting off my cry, as Hywel rounded the back of the chair and stood in front of the fire.
"Oh dear,blodyn bach, you look quite flushed."
Laszlo's fingers pulled away from my core while it still throbbed, leaving the frustrating promise that I might've enjoyedmoreif only we hadn't been interrupted.
"I'm f-fine," I answered, stuttering as Asterion crossed to sit in the armchair opposite Laszlo and me.
"You do, though," Conall said, smirking down at me and then throwing himself into the corner of the couch. "Come over here, you'll be farther from the fire."
Hywel was reaching for me at the same moment Laszlo was lifting me from his lap.
Rolant paused behind the couch, sniffed the air, and wrinkled his nose. "I'm going to bed. You lot smell like questionable decisions."
I blushed as Laszlo set me down, my back settling against Conall's chest, my legs draped over Hywel's lap as he joined us.
"He knows better than to think I'd share you with him," Hywel whispered to me.
While that was surely true, I also thought Rolant and I had settled on mild mutual respect and disinterest. I appreciated the help he'd offered in retrieving Excalibur, and I knew Asterion and the others valued his information, but I couldn't shake the sense that he was a bit more venomous than Hywel, if not as powerful.
Speaking of Hywel, he wasted no time in sliding his arm under the flouncing cover of my skirt, hand stroking and grasping my inner thigh.
I jolted, trying to slide my legs to the floor but finding them tight in Hywel's grasp. "I'm exhausted from training, perhaps I should also—"
Conall draped his arm over my chest, and I glanced down to realize that Laszlo had loosened my collar too, leaving it to gape open and reveal a good stretch of my chest and the flesh of my breasts. "Just stay and rest here,mo chroí," he said, his fingertips grazing absently along the line of that wide collar. "We'll go up together later."
This is a trap, I thought.
And then I looked up and found Asterion's eyes on us. He was settled deep in the armchair, a cut crystal glass of liquor cupped in one large hand, leg folded and hoof resting over a knee. His gaze was warm, and I couldn't tell if it was the shadow making him smile or if that was really his expression. But he was still here, waiting to see if I would stay. He must've smelled my arousal, my release, like Rolant had, but instead of fleeing the room he'd sat down to…watch.
I sighed and shivered as Hywel's fingertips spread, and his hand turned, one digit at a time rubbing between my folds. I relaxed back into Conall's chest, and my surrender had him sliding his hand inside of my gown, just barely skimming the outside of my nipple. Under the full spread of my skirt, Laszlo tucked his hand against Hywel's cock, and I bit my lip as his rubbing knuckles grazed my thigh too.
And then Conall picked the conversation up, asking about a sphinx.
Asterion answered and Conall's hand burrowed deeper, making no secret of the way he pinched the hardening tip of a nipple between his fingers. My eyes fell shut and my lips parted on a single, strangled whimper. Hywel's hand stroked up, two fingers hunting for an opening, his thumb skimming against my swollen clit, and I squirmed in place.
Around me, the conversation carried lightly, with obvious pauses—Hywel's breath catching as Laszlo's hand burrowed into his trousers, and Conall humming as he flicked playfully back and forth over my nipple. Was I meant to pretend they weren't tormenting me? I opened my eyes and panted as Asterion's thick tongue circled the rim of his glass before he took another sip. My dress slipped off one shoulder, just a scant inch away from exposing my ignored breast as I breathed too heavily, teased and touched and needingmore. But he didn't acknowledge what was happening, not with words, and he didn't leave.
I wanted him to watch.
I gasped as Hywel pinched my clit, arched, and the shoulder of my gown slid down. Conall murmured, amused, and then cupped the revealed flesh, gripping my nipple between his knuckles, pulling on it until it was sharp and swollen. I tried to stay quiet, but small cries fought in my chest, murmurs of protest as Hywel and Conall pulled their touches away for scant seconds. And the more sounds I made, the more I jerked and trembled, the less Asterion spoke. Laszlo and Conall parried back and forth, nonsense conversations about acquaintances I didn't know, nothing about what was happening here in this room, this strangely beautiful and stilted moment.
Asterion moved suddenly, body bowing forward, eyes intent. "Lift up her skirt."
There was a pause of movement, a crackle of the fire, and I raised my own shaking hands before Hywel pulled his touch away and he and Conall bundled my outrageous skirt up to my waist.
