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“I’ll forgive you for not telling me if you tell me what happened in very, very graphic detail.”

I waited with bated breath to hear exactly what she said.

“I wanted to, you know, experience something—anything—and I thought that would be the best place. I saw Vikter there,” the Maiden shared. While I wasn’t surprised to hear that, I’d seen him there myself, I was surprised to hear her call him by his first name. “So there was this lady there, and she recognized me.”

“What?” Tawny nearly yelled again.

“I don’t know,” the Maiden said. “But I think she was like a…a Seer or something.”

Huh. I frowned. There were no Seers that I knew of in Masadonia. Or changelings other than Jansen.

“I could be wrong, though. Maybe she just recognized me someway else,” the Maiden said. That had to be it because there was definitely no Seer at the Red Pearl. I would know. “I was probably just so awkward it became obvious. Anyway, I went into this chamber I thought was empty, and he…he was in there.”

“And?” Tawny pressed.

“He thought I was Britta.”

“You look nothing like her,” Tawny explained. A pause. “Her cloak. You were wearing it.”

“I guess the rumors about them are true, because he grabbed me—not in a bad way, in a…passionate, familiar way,” she said, her voice lowering to the point where I had to really strain to hear her. Which meant I was really eavesdropping now.

It was wrong. I knew that.

But I rarely behaved right, so here I was.

“It was…it was my first kiss,” she said.

Every muscle in my body tensed. I knew that already but hearing her say it now… It made my chest feel off. Light and heavy at the same time.

“And did he continue doing so while thinking you were someone else?” Tawny asked. “If so, I’m going to be thoroughly disappointed.”

“In me?” Her voice peaked then.

“No, at him. And I’ll also be concerned for your safety if he didn’t realize after getting all up in your personal space that you weren’t Britta. Nice to look at or not, he shouldn’t be your guard if that’s the case.”

I cracked a grin. She was right.

“He realized pretty quickly that I wasn’t her. I didn’t tell him who I was, but he… I think he must’ve sensed that I wasn’t, you know, that experienced. He didn’t like tuck tail and run. Instead, he…” The Maiden’s voice lowered again. “He offered to do anything I wanted.”

“Oh,” Tawny uttered. “Oh, my. Anything?”

“Anything,” the Maiden confirmed.

And I would have done nearly anything she wanted of me. Who wouldn’t when they had her soft, warm body beneath theirs, her lips plump from kissing, and her eyes bright with desire?

Dammit.

A pulse of want pounded through me, hitting my cock just enough for it to stir.

I should stop listening. It would be really awkward if Vikter arrived and I was rocking a hard-on.

“We just kissed. That’s all,” the Maiden said. But that wasn’t all. I’d kissed her elsewhere.

Not that I needed to think about that at the moment. I shifted my stance, widening my legs as I frowned. For fuck’s sake, her talking about kissing, and me thinking about what had honestly been very tame activities, shouldn’t be getting me hard.

“Oh, my gods, Poppy,” Tawny said after a few moments. “I so wish you’d stayed.”

“Tawny,” she said with a sigh.

“What? You can’t say you don’t wish you’d stayed. Not just a little bit.”

I tilted my head again, waiting…and waiting.

“I bet you wouldn’t be a maiden any longer if you had,” Tawny remarked.

No, she would still be one. I wouldn’t have crossed that line in a godsdamn brothel. I wouldn’t have crossed that line with her anywhere.

“Tawny!” I heard her shock and my lips twitched.

“What?” Tawny laughed. “I’m kidding, but I bet you’d barely be a maiden,” she added, and yeah, she would’ve barely been that. “Tell me, did you…enjoy it? The kissing?”

“Yes,” came the almost-too-quiet-to-hear reply. “I did.”

I knew that, but I still smiled.

“Then why are you so upset that he’s your guard?” Tawny asked.

“Why?” Disbelief dimmed the Maiden’s voice. “Your hormones must be clouding your rational thought.”

“My hormones are always clouding my rational thought, thank you very much.”

I chuckled under my breath.

“He’s going to recognize me,” the Maiden said. “He has to once he hears me speak, right?”

Too late for those concerns.

“I imagine,” her friend replied.

“What if he goes to the Duke and tells him that I was at the Red Pearl?” the Maiden wondered, clearly worried, but she didn’t need to be. “That I…allowed him to kiss me? He has to be one of the youngest Royal Guards, if not the youngest. It’s clear he’s interested in advancement, and what better way to secure that than to gain the Duke’s favor? You know how his favorite guards or staff are treated! They’re practically treated better than those on the Court.”