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“Kissed me?”
“Told them.”
He pulled his hand from my grasp, but instead of withdrawing, he stroked down my neck, then teased his fingers between my shirt collar in a wholly suggestive way.
I’d told our classmates he’d kissed me, told the others he was queer, because he’d pulled away, because he’d looked at me as though I was the wrong one, as though I was broken. “I had to tell them,” I whispered, “before you did.”
“I wouldn’t have told a soul.” He teased down my chest, still over my shirt, so tantalizingly close that the thin cotton between us had me hungry for more. Need burned over my heart, under my skin. I’d dreamed about him touching me a thousand times. This was just a dream now, a fantasy—but I was hard for him. His fingers dove lower, becoming insistent, and unlaced my fly. He looked up through his lashes as he grasped my erection, and his smile was full now, his gaze asking permission.
“Yes,” I breathed, the desire too much to bear.
Firm, warm fingers tightened and stroked, delivering delicious oblivion with every pump. Then his soft, wet lips sealed over my cock, and it was all I could do to thrust my hands into his hair and bury myself into his sucking heat.
ChapterThirteen
Devere
It was a wonder I hadn’t yet been accused of killing Lord Rochefort, although the accusations would come. Of course, I had an alibi, as did Valentine.
He’d made a liar out of me, a rare thing.
Yet another reason to hate him.
If only I could.
I reopened the toy store on my return from running errands, but like most days since my father’s death, nobody came. Few wanted to buy toys from the toymaker’s son. The irony was so thick it choked me.
I retreated into the workshop, building and mending, but nothing fit together, nothing worked like it should. Hours passed, the countless clocks ticked away time, and all I could think about was Valentine and his face when he’d appeared at my door in the storm. The blood on his cheek, the tousled clothes.
I dropped my tools and leaned back in the chair.
One of the store clocks chimed three times.
He was in my head again, like he had been years ago. Burrowed into my thoughts. Next, he’d be in my dreams, which likely meant I was in his.
“This is cruel,” I said aloud. “He escaped. He’s not yours to play with.”
Nobody answered.
The beetle scurried out from behind the framed photograph of my father and me, the photograph Valentine had seen—one I hadn’t yet burned.
“I thought you’d be with him,” I told the beetle. “Isn’t he your new plaything?”
The beetle buzzed her wings.
I should go to Val and tell him to leave before it’s too late—if it wasn’t already. But Valentine would come back again and again. Escape was an illusion, water down a drain. He hadn’t escaped. He’d been allowed to leave.
I tapped my fingers on the countertop and the beetle climbed onto my hand. As I lifted her, she scuttled into my palm and buzzed her wings again.
“You know, this would be far easier if you talked.” I sighed through my nose. “Such magic is beyond my skills.”
She had been with Valentine, likely for days, but now she was here, with me. Where she belonged. But why return now? Unless he was in trouble? Surely not. Not even Valentine could find trouble again so quickly.
The beetle’s antenna twitched.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
It had been hours since the carriage had dropped him off at the inn.
