Page 6 of Taste of Thorns (The Firestone Academy #3)

Chapter Five

B riony

Dray rests his chin on my shoulder, his arms linked around my waist, one of his panty-destroying smiles stretched across his face, breath panting, shoulders heaving up and down.

“Seems I’m as sweaty as you now.”

I spin around in his arms and wrap my own around his neck. I kiss him. My body tingles with my two recent orgasms, that strange new sensation – my magic? – buzzing in my veins. I feel alive. And, yes, maybe even happy. “I guess you’re going to have to join me for that shower, then, huh?”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” He chuckles, scooping me up again and walking me straight into the giant cubicle.

He clicks his fingers and a torrent of heavenly warm water comes raining down onto our heads. It’s scented and colorful bubbles float out from the water.

He kisses me some more, as the warm water slides over our faces and our bodies and I can’t help smiling against his mouth.

He must feel it, because he leans back and peers down at that smile.

“Your smile is beautiful too. Fucking radiant. You should smile more, Kitten.”

“I haven’t exactly had a lot to smile about.”

He cocks up an eyebrow.

“Two orgasms not enough to make you smile, huh?”

“I am smiling, aren’t I?” I laugh.

“We could always go for a third. And a fourth,” he suggests, his eyes shining with wickedness.

“Oh no, I don’t think I could.”

But I should know Dray Eros is never going to turn down a challenge like that.

He places me down onto my feet and then he’s pushing me against the tiled wall and drops down onto his knees.

Before I can protest again, his face is buried between my thighs and his mouth is already doing crazily wicked things to my clit.

The water continues to splash down on us. Running down his long platinum hair and his broad back. He has my legs pinned open and seems oblivious to the water running over his face. I wonder how the hell he can actually breathe.

But that’s my last sane, coherent thought, because soon everything in my head is scrambled by the way he’s licking and flicking at me with his tongue.

My legs seem to dissolve away and I’d be a puddle on the shower floor, swirling towards the drain, if he didn’t have me restrained against the wall.

I screw up my eyes and cry out again and again, writhing against the slippery tiles.

“Nearly there, Kitten,” he says against me. “Nearly there.”

He flicks me brutally hard with his tongue and everything sparks inside me.

“Stars!” I groan, trying to find purchase against the tiles.

“That’s three, Kitten. Shall we go for the fourth?”

I peer down at him, blinking up at me through the water and shake my head feebly. I’m wrecked. Boneless, my limbs jello, my brain mush.

“Oh, come on, where’s the fun in that!” And he’s back there, this time all his attention directed at my pussy as he licks around and around the entrance, dipping his tongue in and fucking me there, soothing away the sting from where he fucked me earlier.

Every now and then he deviates, to plant a gentle kiss against my clit, but I’m wound so tightly now, even that little action is enough to have me sobbing and begging him to make me come again.

The fifth kiss, long and lingering, has his face contorting in concentration but his eyes bright and dancing. It tips me right over the edge into oblivion. My vision disappears completely and I slide down the wall, meeting him on the floor.

“I reckon you could probably go for more, six, seven, even eight.”

“No,” I say sternly, like I’m talking to a misbehaving puppy dog and not a full-grown shifter. “You’ve wrecked me. I am destroyed. I won’t be able to walk straight for the rest of the day.”

“Perfect. You can spend the day here then, in my bed with me. We have a day off after all.”

“I think the others might complain.”

“Tsk, they can always join us.”

I shake my head sadly. “No. Thorne can’t.”

Dray looks away and we’re both silent for a moment. I’m glad for it. I need a moment to recollect my senses, to catch my breath and calm my racing heart.

Finally, Dray drags us both onto our feet and pumps a sweet-smelling lather into his palms.

Dray Eros may be as mischievous as they come, but I should understand by now that there are some things he doesn’t joke around about. He said he was going to clean me up and he sticks to his word.

When he’s scrubbed me from head to toe, washed my hair, dried me down with a towel, moisturized my entire body and blow-dried my head, the shifter collapses on his bed face down and promptly falls asleep. I can’t help another smile. He definitely gives off over-excited toddler vibes.

I rummage through his drawers and pick out a pair of his sweat-pants and one of his T-shirts, then pad down the stairs, finding Thorne and Beaufort sitting round a feast of a breakfast laid out on the kitchen table.

By the manner in which Thorne’s plate is piled high with food and he’s shoveling it into his mouth, I can conclude Dray is correct.

Whatever was going on with Thorne yesterday has passed.

He has his appetite back. He is feeling better.

Beaufort places down his knife and fork, leans back in his chair and rakes his gaze up and down my body.

“Been enjoying yourself, sweetheart?”

I shrug one shoulder and tiptoe over to the table, helping myself to a crispy piece of bacon. “I feel refreshed,” I say.

“I bet you do,” he says. “We could hear you being ‘refreshed’ all over the damn tower.”

I will myself not to blush, plopping down in one of the chairs and sliding a plate towards me.

“I try to be quiet,” I say, “I really do. But it’s just impossible.”

“Maybe I will have to find you a gag,” Beaufort says, eyes darkening.

Definitely, definitely kinky.

My gaze flicks to Thorne

We’ve been spending a lot of time together out in the forest with Blaze.

I’ve grown more and more fond of him. Heck, I may even be falling in love with the grumpy dude.

But we’ve never really spoken about the whole sex thing.

Definitely never acknowledged that I’m sleeping with his two bond brothers.

I know it must hurt his feelings and right now his feelings aren’t in the best of shape.

“How’s your breakfast, Thorne?” I say gently.

He backs his chair away, letting his cutlery clatter onto his plate, and lumbers to his feet.

“Actually, I’m done,” he mumbles, not meeting my eyes as he picks up his plate, dumps it in the sink and stomps from the room.

Both Beaufort and I watch his retreating back.

“I thought he was better. Was it something I said?” I say, my voice cracking with emotion, all the happiness I was feeling moments ago gone in an instant. “I shouldn’t have done that stuff with Dray – it was insensitive–”

“Briony,” Beaufort covers my hand with his. “Thorne’s heard you plenty of times before. He’s heard you with us.”

“He has?”

“Yes, that isn’t the reason for whatever that was.” He shakes his head.

“But Dray said he was better.”

“He is.”

“Should I go after him?” I go to rise up.

“No.” Beaufort tugs me back down. “Just give him some time and space. He’ll be okay, Briony.”

I peer towards the now empty doorway. I’m not so sure about that. Things have shifted between me and Thorne – I’d even go as far as to say we’re friends. But the way he just responded to me – it feels like we’ve returned to how things used to be.

I chew on my cheek, feeling hurt.

However, Beaufort obviously isn’t interested in letting me mope in my emotions. He’s straight down to business.

“We need to find out who manipulated the trial and why,” he says, layering food onto my plate.

From his tone, I’m guessing that is how we are going to be spending our day off.

There’s no ball this time. That delight was reserved for the start of our time at the academy.

There’ll also be one after the very last trial – before we’re all carted off to our respective Quarters. All those in between trials? Nope.

“You really think it was manipulated?” I say.

“Fuck, Briony, you’re the most skeptical, suspicious person I’ve ever met–”

“I have my reasons,” I mutter, a little defensively.

“Are you telling me you don’t think it was manipulated?”

“Well, yes, I think it’s weird that I got sucked into Thorne’s trial somehow.”

“Exactly, Thorne’s entire trial was manipulated.”

“The whole of his trial? Why do you think that?”

“Because I got snakes, Dray got ghosts or ghouls or something fucking stupid, you got your stepmom and Thorne – Thorne got actual monsters torturing him with his past. That isn’t a fair comparison.”

I close my eyes and take a deep inhale. Maybe if Thorne hadn’t hurt my feelings two seconds ago, I’d let Beaufort’s comment slide but I’m all up in my feelings now.

“Beaufort,” I say, my voice trembling ever so slightly.

“My stepmom once beat me until I was unconscious. She once pressed a hot iron against my skin until I could smell my own flesh burning. She once yanked on my hair so violently a whole clump came out in her hand. Just because she was one woman, just because I somehow didn’t break down in that trial yesterday, does not mean I wasn’t terrified. ”

I open my eyes. Beaufort’s eyes are full of horror.

Dray says we’re all the same. That we’ve all experienced trauma, that it’s marked us all.

Thorne’s demons, my scars, Dray’s bite mark.

Beaufort on the other hand seems to have lived a gilded life.

One with nothing but freaking snakes to have bothered him.

I can’t help but feel a little bitter about it.

Isn’t it what I’ve suspected about shadow weavers all along?

“Just because your own trial involved snakes,” I say, “doesn’t mean mine wasn’t as horrifying to me as Thorne’s was to him.”

“I will kill her,” he whispers.