Page 24 of Prince of Masks (Hearts of Bluestone #2)

I’m scrambling halfway across the foyer when Oliver comes striding down the main hall. “Where are you off to?”

I glower over my shoulder at him. “London.”

His stride is cocky and draped in tailored Versace.

Hands in his pockets, he advances. “I’ll come with.”

I make a face. “No.”

He falters. His brow arches. “No?”

“No,” I echo, firm.

“You’re passing up the opportunity to dip into my allowance?”

“I don’t need your money.”

His mouth tilts into a mocking smile. “How much of your allowance have you spent already?”

I don’t answer that.

A lot. I have spent a lot since Father let me come home early.

And that’s of course not counting the gifts I bought for New Year.

Monte Carlo really took a club to my black card.

In the Metropole Boutiques, I managed to splurge on a gold frame, an antique paperweight that looks like a book, a beaded gown and a new swimsuit.

I probably went over my allowance, but Father doesn’t seem to mind much whenever I do. He’s not so fussed about teaching me the value of money, like he does with Oliver.

Guess that’ll make it harder for me to transition into gentry status.

I grimace at the thought.

Oliver makes a face back at me.

“I’m headed into town anyway,” he says and strides across the foyer for the front doors. He looks over his shoulder at my moody scowl. “You’ll have to ride in the car with me if you want to get to the veil.”

I cross my arms. “I’ll take the Royce.”

He backsteps for the doors. “Mother has the Royce.”

“Then I’ll take the Bentley.”

He smirks over his shoulder at me. “Father.”

That leaves one.

The Range Rover.

“Fuck.”

I catch a servant rushing for the doors like a mouse skittering down a corridor under a cat’s watchful gaze.

“Fret not, little sister, I am gracious enough to offer you a ride.”

I thump into stroppy steps behind him. “I’m not your little sister.”

“Well you are smaller.” He pauses to look me up and down like I’m a wet rag, then smirks something infuriating. “And I was born first.”

Yeah, and stole all my magic.

Maybe.

Probably not, but… maybe .

Also, he’s only older by an hour, so I am told.

Doesn’t stop him from lording that over my head whenever he’s in a playful teasing mood.

Playful Oliver is a version of him I was once close with, a favourite side of him, but one I have seen so little of over the years, so now, I can hardly stand it.

It just reminds me of how ill he’s been to me all these years.

I push into step and make sure that, as I pass him, I swing my bag over my shoulder and whack him on the arm.

My tone is as moody, “We can share the car until Stonehenge, go through the veil, but as soon as we are in London, we go our separate ways.”

Oliver follows me to the car.

The stocky servant who scurried like a mouse now hovers beside the Range Rover, and I assume he’ll be the one to drive us today. He’s a house servant, so his nerves show in the sheen over his bushy brow and the jittering of his fingers.

He can be as sweaty with nerves as he likes, so long as he doesn’t crash—or if he does, only on Oliver’s side.

That thought guides me into the seat on the driver’s side. It’s instinct. In the event of a crash, the driver will protect their own side.

I buckle in.

Oliver follows.

The ride to Stonehenge isn’t exactly silent.

Oliver has no apparent issue talking here and there, or attempting to bribe me: ‘ One albino magpie in exchange for your help shopping for the New Year gifts .’

That’s a hard offer to pass up. But I have to.

Can’t wander the boutiques with Oliver today.

I have a date.

And I made sure to dress my best for it.

There might be something a little shameful about the short hem of my dress, especially when—after I part ways with Oliver in London—I dip into the powder room of a restaurant and stumble out of my tights.

I catch a taxi the rest of the way.

Eric arrived first.

As I take the steps up to the grand entrance of the museum, I spot him loitering near the ticket booth.

It’s a busy spot in a busy city—and there could be any number of witches around here to see if I threw my arms around him and planted a smacker on his lips.

So I don’t.

Neither does he.

His thoughts mirror mine—and our hands don’t so much as touch as we wander the exhibition.

It’s a long, tedious two hours.

Honestly, I enjoy a good day at the museum, but not when my mind is unravelling with all the ways I need to lure this witch into some pseudo love with me.

I’ll settle for lust, at this point.

I need any kind of leverage.

So, with a plan in mind, I suggest a walk in Regent’s Park after we leave the museum.

Still, we haven’t touched.

I really need to up my game.

The stakes are too high now.

The Debutante Ball is around the corner.

And any time I bring up my contracts around Father, he goes quiet, shuts me out—and it’s clear I have lost the privilege of being a part of the decision, if I ever was.

My mind has already laid out the details of my scheme.

Eric and I aren’t openly warm with each other, not affectionate, we don’t stand in loving gazes with each other or exude chemistry.

We are awkward, walking the tightrope between student and teacher, back and forth, over and over.

Father will sense that at the ball—and it will influence his decision. This guy I’ve gushed about, the one I claim to be close to, but one look at us and we are so clearly just acquainted, not close.

I need to take it further.

Our bodies need to go further.

That is my scheme for the day.

Eric and I need to, literally, get closer.

And then, come time for us to cross paths under Father’s gaze at the Debutante Ball, we will be much more familiar. We will be warmer. Our smiles sneakier, our blushes hotter.

The chemistry will change.

Father will notice.

And that will serve me better, because then he will return his consideration to Eric’s offer.

Regent’s Park is the only place I could think of that wasn’t a hotel of some kind. Not that accommodation works, since Eric is the type of guy who needs it to feel organic to overcome his guilt.

So, after the museum, Regent’s Park it is.

I have been here many times, wandering the lush greenery, soaking up the sunrays, weaving around the hedges and the trees.

Eric doesn’t know it, of course, that I am guiding him to a particular spot beyond the boating lake, tucked away in the Queen Mary Gardens.

He has no clue as he babbles on about his apprenticeship, and that he’s sure he’ll be offered a permanent position at Bluestone, that the role of Master Milton is full enough that the load would be better shared.

I nod and smile and hum when appropriate.

Eric thinks I’m listening, and I sort of am, I hear the words droning on and on, but I just can’t unstick my mind from the route: Left at the cherries, right at the old toilets, around the gazebo that’s often filled with teenagers, but not today, not this cold, grey day.

I lead him into the thicker parts of the gardens, where the trees are willows, and cute little bridges arch over the smallest streams, and the flowers are often bloomed all around, but not now, not in winter.

Once we’re over the bridge and past the flock of ducks, I let my wandering steps guide me under the drape of the willow.

Eric ducks to follow, his words failing him as his brow starts to crease. “Where are we going?”

I turn to smile at him, my steps unfaltering, slowly backstepping over the soil. I touch my finger to my lips, a hush, before I turn my back on him.

Eric’s frown remains, but he shadows me through the winter garden, deeper into the shield of trees.

“Here.” I gesture to the grass so light and long that it’s somewhat shaggy looking.

I love the grass here. Willowy .

Soft.

Eric peels off his coat, then drapes it over the dewy grass. I’m quick to drop onto it—right in the middle.

The coat shields my dress from the dampness of the grass, the soil.

Eric hesitates.

His gaze cuts around the coat, as though he searches for a spot to sit down.

But I take up the whole thing.

His lashes flutter with a rapid blink, then he throws his gaze to mine.

My smile tugs.

Slowly, I fall onto my back.

His face shutters.

The surprise, the shock, it has him hesitating .

A cold flurry spreads through my chest.

The nervous pinch of his mouth, sucking his lips inwards as he casts a swift look around our private nook of the park, it ices me.

He’s going to reject me.

Reject what I am so clearly offering.

Asta…

That name thrums through me.

It thrums through him.

I know it.

I can’t let it settle, can’t let it take root in his guilt.

If he and Asta are anything solid, then he wouldn’t be here with me at all—his letter this morning would have been a cancellation.

But he confirmed. He said he worried—worried that the silence on his end would have me thinking the whole thing was off, and thus I wouldn’t show.

No, he wrote me; he wanted to see me.

I can’t let him back out now.

On my back, I keep my hooded gaze on him and, slowly, glide my fingertips down my dress.

His gaze catches on the movement.

Motionless, frozen, he watches as I reach for the hem, then slip my fingers under my dress.

His face is quick to heat. Crimson spreading over tanned cheeks in blotches.

My fingers hook on the edges of my underwear, flimsy blue lace, embroidered with butterflies, and completely transparent.

I tug them down my thighs.

Eric’s throat bobs.

His gaze is hooked on the reveal; and he can’t tear his focus away as the panties glide down to my knees.

I lift a leg, gentle, then start to wiggle the underwear down to my boots. I kick myself free.

The panties dangle off one ankle—and I spread my legs.

Eric shatters.

He drops to his knees at the bottom of the coat, and he’s quick to fall over me.

I feel his body press against mine.

My head lolls back as his mouth trails down to my neck and his hand grabs at the hem of my dress.

Hooking my leg over his hip, I invite him closer.

I invite him in .

A wispy sound is lured out from me as his hand slides up beneath my skirt, his fingertips brushing over the apex of my thigh.

His mouth finds mine, and he swallows my moan, the exact moment that his fingers find my wetness.

His tongue sweeps mine with the flavour of tea.

I shudder as he pulls me against him and his fingers slip inside—for only a moment before they are gone.

I still, expecting that he’ll tug away from me and declare the whole thing a mistake.

Instead, I hear the rush of his hand at his belt, the metal clang of a buckle, then the pop of a button.

Oh. His fingers weren’t delving into me to build my pleasure, I realise. Those fingers were merely checking that I was ready before he released himself.

And he does. His weight hits my pelvis a heartbeat before he’s grabbing the hilt and pushing the head of his cock against my opening.

He pushes in, his face finding the nook of my neck, buried, and his hot breaths tickling my skin.

He slams in to the hilt.

A grunt catches in my chest.

Eric grabs my legs and pins them to his hips, then purposely grinds himself against my aching core.

A shuddering groan escapes me, tangling with his hiss of pleasure, and he repeats.

I angle myself just right, hip lifted from the ground, and I hold onto him with an arm around his neck.

It’s… sufficient.

My face is twisted in concentration.

I jolt with the thrusts of his cock spearing in and out of me, and the frantic feel of his breaths on my neck tells me he’s building much faster than I am.

I squeeze my eyes shut—and just as I mean to focus, eyes like crushed glass flicker in my mind.

My breath hitches.

A flutter clenches around Eric’s cock, luring a moan from him.

I blink on it, the invasion of Dray into my thoughts. Then, again, I try to focus on the sensation, the grinding of Eric’s pelvic bone against my clit, the jut of his cock into my tensing core.

Still, his face is buried in the nook of my neck, his lips barely touching my skin. His breaths are choppy, suppressed, but he’s quiet—much too quiet.

I hate that.

Quiet men in the sack.

I want to hear him moan, whimper, mutter my name over and over, I want him coming for me in a long, drawn-out cry.

I don’t get that from Eric.

He’s lost in the sensations, feeling only his own pleasure, but he stifles any sounds that might come from him.

I throw my head back and tilt my hips that bit more—and there it is, the angle, the grind.

I let my lashes shut again.

Dray returns.

He haunts me.

A ghost I can’t banish.

I feel him, still. I feel the touch of yesterday, his hand gliding up my side, fingertips stroking me, the warmth of his gentle tongue over mine, his bulge pushing too hard against my core—

Then more comes to mind, things that are untrue, that never happened. His hand reaches my breast, thumb flicking over the hardness of my peaked nipple. A whimper escapes my parted lips, and he swallows it, greedy, hungry, desperate.

He’s in me now.

Holding me to him, thrusting, long and deep strokes. His moans build, they rise with my own.

But it’s Eric who picks up the pace; though I smell Dray, I taste Dray, I feel him desperate for me.

I arch against him, a cry lured out of me—then my body stills.

I choke on a sound, a moan, a whimper, something pathetic before that sensation comes crashing down on me.

I tremble against Eric.

He accelerates the pace, trying to catch up with my climax, and he juts against me. He’s quick and, a few more grinds, he’s coming with a spill of warmth.

Eric’s harsh breath, a pathetic excuse for a shout, a moan, it is muffled by my neck as he jolts once more against me… then slumps as the pleasure peels away.

Slowly, the tingling sensation in me starts to dissipate. And as it does, the shame starts to rise.

We don’t move.

Eric stays nuzzled against my neck, his warm breaths brushing my skin, his body limp on mine.

And all I can think about is how glad I am no one will ever know that I came to the thought of Dray.