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Sighing, I stand and reach for my hastily discarded panties.

“What are you doing?” Wicker asks, using the t-shirt he’d come in here wearing to wipe off his dick.

“Going to clean up.”

He gives me a look. “Don’t bother,” he says, flopping onto the bed.

I watch him stretch, my eyes narrowing at the shift and flex of his muscles, weirdly feline. “What areyoudoing?”

His blue eyes are absent of the frantic, single-minded focus he’d shown when he burst into my room. Now they’re lazy and hooded as he yawns, fluffing my pillow. “Getting comfortable.”

I scan the bed, and then glance at the door, and then back at him. “Here?”

He laces his fingers behind his head, eyes closing. “We’ll go again in ten minutes. Like I said,” he cracks an eye, “don’t bother cleaning up.”

Scowling, I toss my panties on the floor and lay as far from him as possible, my muscles stiff as I wait for round two of god-fucking-knows. I spend it reciting facts in my head, willing my center to stop burning with need.Wisteria. There was something else about it, wasn’t there? What am I forgetting?

Wicker shifts, and I watch in my periphery as he fists his cock, which has already sprung back to life, hard and flushed at the tip. He makes a low, eager sound, turning his head to look at me.

“Against the dresser,” he says, nodding to it. “That’s where I want you this time.”

Later, when I’m bent over the dresser, fingers clutching hard at the back edge as Wicker slams into me, I try not to look in the reflection to see our flushed cheeks. I try not to think about the way I push back into him, the sensations driving me mindlessly. I try not to be in the moment at all, and when he comes with a gnarled grunt, the dresser banging noisily into the wall, I remember what it was I’d forgotten.

Wisteria seeds.

They’re poisonous.

He finds me at dinner.

I’m eating alone, as usual, and watching a video about rose pruning on my phone as I attempt to force down something that could either be mushrooms or tofu. I try not to think about it much as I swallow it down.

I try not to think of anything.

Which is difficult when Wicker stands beside me, unzipping his fly. “We have ten minutes before I have to leave,” he says, patting the table. “Right here.”

I don’t know where Wicker is going, but he and Lex are in and out like a revolving door, always looking flustered and harried. Hockey. Performances. Interviews. Whatever work Ashby has them doing probably takes up what little time is left for them. This means ‘deposits’ made during the day are rushed and without any warmth or consideration.

Not that I get any of that at night, either.

Sighing, I stand. It’s been roughly eighteen hours since I wore a pair of panties. Not because it’s sexy, or because I want Wicker to have easy access. Just because it’s the most practical way to be.

This will be round five for the day.

Sliding up on the table, I spread my legs.

Wicker pauses with his cock halfway out of his boxers, his blue eyes flashing in confusion. “What are you doing?” he asks, gaze dropping to my spread thighs. “Turn around and bend over.”

“No,” I say, voice firm. “I’m sick of being fucked into every surface in this house. My hips hurt.” I raise my chin defiantly. He hasn’t fucked me face-to-face since the party.Orgotten me off. “I want to do it like this.” He looks startled by the request–so much so that he blurts out his next words with a stunning display of unfiltered, DKS-esque honesty.

“I don’t want to look at you!” He seems nearly as taken aback by the admission as I feel. His eyes shutter just as quickly, and he stares at me with that cocky look on his face, chin raised just as high as mine. “But if youreallywant to look at me, then–”

Jumping down, I spin and bend over the table. “Never mind.”

It’s almost toomuch to take in all at once.

I’m in the solarium the following evening, taking stock of the condition of it all. The garden has crept in, but it’s all dead, leaving vines and detritus clutching at it like a skeleton to its perilously sought treasures.

The quiet here is different from the stagnant silence of the rest of the house, though. Even in the January chill, the stillness is somehow warmer. Peaceful. Restful.