Page 23 of Taste of Thorns (The Firestone Academy #3)

Chapter Twenty

B riony

Things maybe be right again between me and Beaufort and me and Thorne, but I still struggle to sleep that night.

Even snuggled up against the strong body of the man I am falling for, safe in his strong arms, arms painted with the fated mate marks, my mind continues buzzing with the death of Esme Jones.

I can’t shake it from my head. Nor this suspicion that, just like my sister’s death, something isn’t right about it. It makes my insides uneasy.

In the end, I decide to go in search of something to settle my churning stomach.

Carefully, I lift dead-weight limbs and sneak out of the bed, wrapping myself in a silk robe I find hanging on the back of the door, and padding down the staircase and into the kitchen. I’m halfway across the room, when a voice says my name and I leap ten feet off the ground.

Thorne.

He’s sitting on a stool in the corner in the pitch blackness.

“You scared me,” I say, pressing my hand to my suddenly racing heart.

“Sorry,” he says. “Can’t sleep?”

“Yeah,” I say, coming to sit on the stool a few feet away from him. “You neither?”

“Too much on my mind.”

I spin my gaze around the darkened room. It looks a lot less spectacular in the gloom, ghostly and haunting even with its shining cupboards and gleaming utensils.

“Yeah,” I say, shivering slightly and tugging my robe more tightly around me.

His gaze drops to my hands, lingering at the place where the tie holds the robe closed across my body and then gliding slowly down my bare legs.

“Are you cold?” he asks.

I shake my head.

We sit in silence. But it’s not the friendly silence of before, it’s filled with unspoken words and the newly gained knowledge I have about his past. It’s painful and I close my eyes and whisper into the darkness.

“I meant what I said earlier, Thorne.” He doesn’t answer and when I open my eyes, I find agony spread right across his usually blank face.

I used to think that void expression was one of arrogance – it never occurred to me that a powerful, privileged man like Thorne could be suffering in the same way as me.

“I care about you. You are important to me. Stars, I think it’s the reason the lumomancy happened. ”

“It never happened before?”

“No, not until that moment. And I think it happened because of you. Because I couldn’t bear to see you hurt like that. Because I couldn’t bear to lose you. I was so desperate in that moment to save you and then it just … happened.”

He stares at me and I can’t read if he’s happy about this confession or damn disturbed by it.

Finally, I can’t take the silence anymore.

“Stars, Thorne, please say something.”

“You couldn’t bear to lose me?” he whispers.

“No, I couldn’t. It would break my heart.”

“I will never leave you, Briony. I’ll be by your side for as long as you need me. For as long as you want me. For as long as you’ll have me near.”

My eyes prickle with tears but I smile at him. “Just be prepared then, because I’m going to want you by my side forever.”

“Forever,” he repeats.

Something passes in the air between us. There’s no magic but the words we’ve just spoken seem stronger than a sacred promise.

Despite my efforts, a lone tear slides down my cheek. “Don’t do that again, okay? Don’t give me the cold shoulder like that. No matter how bad it gets or how hopeless it seems, don’t shut me out. It’s too painful, Thorne.”

“I’m sorry, Briony. I’m … I’m not used to this.”

“Me neither.” I wipe the tears away from my cheeks. “At least you’ve had friends – your bond brothers. I’ve had no one. This is all new to me too.”

“We’re probably going to mess it up occasionally then.”

“Probably,” I say. “I think that’s okay.”

He nods. “Briony, the lumomancy, can you do it now?”

I shuffle on my seat then take a deep inhale and lift my arm, holding my hand palm up to the ceiling.

Focused on Thorne’s face, I search for that sensation in my veins and beckon it outwards. It is easier than it was but I still have to let my gaze blur and my mind do the same. If I try too hard, I can’t quite find the sensation, it skips away. I have to beckon it but not too eagerly.

“Show me, Briony,” Thorne says, and as if responding to his invitation, my magic dances through my veins and a beam of light illuminates my palm.

“Beautiful,” Thorne says as we both watch the silent flickering light. “Don’t let it go.”

I nod and Thorne’s shadows slip from his gloved hands and slither toward my light.

I gasp because my light illuminates the flecks in his shadows and they sparkle brightly like a thousand diamonds. His shadows spin around my hand and as always I’m mesmerized by them. By the power and by the beauty.

“Thorne,” I whisper and his shadows creep closer and closer to the light. So close the distance is almost indistinguishable. “Touch me,” I say, but no sooner have I said the words than his shadows race away back to his hands.

I gasp again and the light in my hand goes out.

“I can’t,” he says, meeting my eyes. “You know I want to, Briony.”

“Me too,” I say. “I want you to touch me so badly.”

“You do …” His eyes turn hungry. “Where?”

Keeping my gaze locked with his, I untwist the knot at the front of my gown and slide the material open, letting it hang loose around me.

I’m not wearing anything underneath and Thorne’s eyes leave my face and once again weave down my body, lingering at my breasts, hovering over the scars on my belly and loitering between my thighs.

“Everywhere,” I whisper, opening my thighs so he can see me more intimately.

“Bring back the light, little one,” he whispers, more hoarsely, “so I can see you more clearly.”

This time I find the light easily and it glows down on me, illuminating all of my skin.

“I want you to touch me here, Thorne,” I say, sliding my hand down my throat, imagining his soft lips pressed there. “And here.” I glide my hand over my clavicle and down to my breasts. His breathing hitches and I take a breast in my hand and squeeze.

“I want to place those nipples between my lips, I want to suck them into my mouth,” he groans.

“Uh huh,” I gasp, pinching my nipples between my fingers and feeling the skin wrinkle and stiffen.

“So pretty,” he murmurs.

“I wanna touch you too,” I whine as I massage my tits in both hands now. “I want to see you and I want to touch you.”

At my words, he lifts his arm over his head, takes a grip of the back of his collar and tugs his shirt off in one movement.

The light falls across him too, illuminating every groove and ridge of his muscular chest and the tight abdomens in his stomach. He glides his palm over his body and I whimper again, creeping my own hand down my body and reaching between my thighs.

“I want you to touch me here too,” I tell him

“Oh yeah,” he says, his voice low and throaty. “Show me how, little one. Show me exactly how you’d want me to touch you.”

I lean back on the stool, parting my legs further and pinching my pussy lips open.

He growls, kneading himself through the front of his pants.

“That looks so … I’ve imagined this so many times, Briony.”

“Me too,” I whisper as I press a finger to my stiffened clit, already so sensitive. The action makes me flinch.

“You like to be touched there?”

“Yes, I love it.”

I ring my clit, slowly, a glorious sensation skipping through my skin.

“You like it slow and gentle like that, do you?” He shakes his head.

“I’d like to do that to you with my tongue.

” I whimper. Thorne isn’t like Dray. He never talks dirty.

In fact, I’ve barely heard him swear. To hear him say these things now has arousal trickling from my entrance.

“But I’d like to suck you up into my mouth too.

I’d like to flick at you until you’re coming. ”

“Like this?” I ask, rubbing at my clit.

“Yeah.” His eyes are transfixed on the place I’m touching myself.

It’s so hot – he’s so freaking hot – I’m coming against my fingers in the next minute. I don’t hold back. I come as noisily as I can, letting my body ride each judder and shudder of bliss.

When my eyes refocus, his gaze is locked on my face. He’s watching me intently.

“Wow,” he says simply. “That was …”

I giggle. “You say that like you’ve never seen a girl come before.”

“I haven’t,” he says earnestly. “It was my first time.”

My cheeks, already flushed from my orgasm, grow even hotter. “And … did it live up to your expectations?”

“It blew them all away. You’re truly beautiful when you come, little one.”

“Thorne,” I say. “I want to see you come too.”

He mumbles to himself, then he’s undoing his fly and tugging himself free. I bite my lip and moan. Just like the rest of Thorne, he’s beautiful and big here as well. His cock curved and striking.

“You like it?” he asks, almost a little shyly.

“Hmmm,” I say, “I want that inside me so badly.”

Gripping his cock firmly, he closes his eyes, and exhales deeply; for a moment his shadows flicker around him and then they’re gone.

“Okay?” I ask him gently.

“Yeah … yeah … I just needed …” He opens his eyes. “Put your fingers inside yourself, Briony. I want you to imagine that’s me.”

“Oh stars,” I mutter, sliding two fingers inside myself. It makes a wet, squelchy sound that has Thorne growling and rubbing his fist up and down his shaft, twisting when he reaches his head.

“For once, I understand that psycho, Dray. I can smell your arousal, Briony. I can hear how wet you are too.”

“Does it smell nice?” I giggle.

“So good,” he moans.

For a moment, we simply watch each other, me thrusting my fingers in and out of myself, him stroking his fist up and down his cock.

“Briony,” he pants, “how do you like to be taken? Hard and rough, or slow and gentle?”

“All of it. I like it all.”

“Lift your leg, little one. Let me see more.”

I bend my leg, resting my heel on the edge of the stool and showing him even more.

“I can see your other hole too. Do you like it there too?”

“I think I might,” I admit. “Beaufort put his fingers inside me tonight.”

He growls and his fist becomes more frantic. I match his pace, moving my fingers in time with his hand, and we both imagine.

He comes first. His features tighten, he grunts, then his jaw slackens and ribbons of come shoot from his cockhead, splashing onto the floor.

As he does, his shadows glide from his body and swim in shimmering circles around my light, the feeling of it electrifying not only against my skin but all the way through to my bones.

I didn’t think anything like that could look so beautiful, but it does. And I come right after him, squeezing around my own fingers.

“I can see your pussy clenching, little one,” he growls.

“Yeah,” I moan, “I want to clench around that beautiful cock of yours so badly, Thorne.”

I ride the last few aftershocks of pleasure and then I’m catching my breath.

He’s still watching me, his eyes swimming all over my naked body.

“Have you ever jerked off in front of a girl like that before?” I ask him.

“No,” he says. “You’re my first for everything, Briony.”

I don’t know why, but that makes a warmth spread through my chest.

“It was special,” I say. “If I can’t touch you, Thorne, I want to at least do this.”

A rare smile dances across his face. “You’ve opened Pandora’s box, Briony. Of course, we are going to do this again.”