Page 207 of A Dance of Water

"No," he said, "nothing about us is wrong. Not the way you look. Not the way you ache. Or the way you look at me. None of it is wrong. We are everything right."

The ribbon grew taut around her wrist, the soft silk cutting intoher skin as her hand was pulled from her lap to dangle at her side. For the first time, she looked away from the sheet and saw the strong line of the mage’s shoulder in the corner of her eye. Her eyes fell to her limp hand. The soft ribbon tied around her wrist, and Tharen’s large fingers wrapped around the silk as he pulled her hand toward him. His skin brushed against hers. She wondered if he was even aware he was doing it…

Bastian’s voice pulled her attention back to the sheet. "You watched me, now I will watch you."

"You mean…"

"Yes," he said. "Touch yourself. Touch my shadow."

"Oh," she managed. "Okay." Suddenly, all her forced bravado was washed away, replaced only by trepidation and tremulous embarrassment.

She tugged her hand, but couldn’t move it from how Tharen kept the ribbon taut. So with one hand stolen by the male behind her, she lifted her other hand and slowly, so slowly, traced the air before the sheet.

Her fingertips shook, and the sheet fluttered from their breaths. His shadow was still as he waited and watched what she would do.

Luella traced over the line of his shoulders, over the shape of his profile, tickled the strands of his hair around his head, fingertips stroking over nothing as if imagining the soft silk of his dark hair was actually between her fingers. And when nothing happened… when the room didn’t implode, and she was not struck by lightning from the gods for her sinful acts, only then, did she feel a sense of power kindle low inside her, mingling with her magic, entwining with the five threads—her Vincire.

Her palm flattened against the sheet—it was cool under her touch. As she stared at his shadow, she wondered what his skin would feel like.

She imagined it clearly. Closing her eyes, she let herself drift, pictured her hand flat against his lower stomach, dipping lower, tracing the ridges of his soft, lithe muscles, tracking invisible patterns into his skin, tapping along his ribs. Swirling lower. Skating past his hipbones to his thighs. Teasing him.

Her lips twitched. Still, she kept her eyes closed.

You’re a little tease then, hm, pet.

Yes,she thought—not answering aloud, afraid to break this haze.But you like it, don’t you?

His whispered admission filled her:I love it. But I would love even more to tease you. To touch you.

Her lips parted, a shaky sigh leaving her. All at once, Bastian left her mind, and she was cold and empty without him inside her.

Luella opened her eyes.

"Oh no," she breathed.

The air shimmered like she was underwater, the sun sparkling across the surface—she had been so consumed with her mind that she had barely focused on the pulse of desire between her thighs and the thready feel of her limbs.

"I think I?—"

And Luella tumbled off the stool and onto Tharen’s lap…

The mage caught her, the stool under him groaning from their shared weight as she wrapped her bare thighs around his waist to keep from falling off. The ribbon cut into her waist uncomfortably, the silk tangled around and around, forcing her hand at an odd angle, held at her back, with Tharen’s arm wrapped around her, keeping her tight to his chest.

The fabric of Tharen’s shirt scratched against her cheek, and she tried to pull away but let out a strangled noise as the action made her arm twist painfully at her back.

Tharen had no such hesitations. He placed his untethered hand on her shoulder and forced her back, shifting so she wasn’t settled so firmly atop his thighs—and thehardnessthat was poking against her. Her arm twinged with pain.

"S-stop!" she managed, cheeks on fire.

Footsteps, and then a rustle as the sheet was parted.

Luella could barely turn her head to look at Bastian from how she was trapped on Tharen’s lap.

"What a precarious position," said the vampire.

A tingle of awareness trickled down the knobs of her spin. She was too vulnerable, clad only in lacy mesh, barely doing anything to conceal the points of her nipples or the curve of her backside.Almost her whole body was exposed, and here she sat, tangled in Tharen’s lap by the ribbon wrapped around their wrists.

"Don’t just stand there," Tharen gritted. He tried to pull away again, and she gasped, making him freeze.

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