"The networking opportunities have exceeded my expectations," she says. Clara's tone exactly. Warm, professionally satisfied.
"And?"
A pause. A fraction too long—Clara wouldn't pause, Clara knows what she thinks about networking opportunities. She recovers smoothly: "The mist is remarkable. I didn't expect it indoors."
Truth-sight finds the seam in the half-second before the recovery. Something real underneath, watching me, trying to work out what I actually want from this conversation. The cover comes back before she finishes the sentence but I already have it.
"That's not what you were going to say," I say.
She looks at me. A beat of stillness.
"No," she says quietly. Her voice, not Clara's, for just a moment before she takes a sip and Clara returns. "I suppose it isn't."
I look at her. She looks back. The whole room continues around us.
"Enjoy the rest of your evening, Miss Merris," I say.
I walk away before I don't.
Three nightsago I took her hand and had one second.
Her pulse jumping against my fingers before the performance snapped back into place. Under two seconds total—the callus on her forefinger, the truth-sight finding nothing but the cover running flawlessly with the real her watching from underneath. Tonight I had two seconds.No. I suppose it isn't.Her voice, not Clara's. Two seconds of something unmanaged before the cover closed over it again.
I am walking back to my study and I am thinking about both of them. Both seconds. The texture of each one.
I want to be what makes her do that. Without the cover over it.
This is a clear thing to want. I have been very clear about it for three months and very careful not to name it directly.
Back in my study.Six reports unread on the desk. I don't touch them.
Both cocks are hard. Have been since she held my gaze for those two seconds—since before that, truthfully, since I walked into the gallery and felt the wanting land in my chest the way it has been landing every evening for three days. The pre-heat scent carries and my body responds to it like a call and I have been responding to it and not acting on it for three days and it is becoming a specific kind of problem.
I unfasten the laces at my breeches—cut loose at the crotch as all my breeches are, because there is no version of standard tailoring that accounts for two full shafts—and settle back in the chair by the fire.
The upper cock is already vibrating faintly at base frequency, the automatic response. The lower cock heavier alongside it, aching. I take one in each hand and let myself think.
Not the heat. Not yet.
I think about taking her as Clara.
She'd let me lead her out of the hall—refusing a lord's invitation in his own court breaks the cover, and she won't break the cover. Down some corridor, a quiet room, the door closing. She'd be running the calculations the whole time: threat level, exit routes, how much she can let happen before the mission is compromised. Clara's posture, the pre-heat soaking through her and filed away as irrelevant, standing there telling herself she has this managed.
Miss Merris.I'd say it deliberately, giving her the cover, letting her keep it.You've been very useful to have at the Gathering.
Thank you, my lord.Clara's voice. Her pulse going in her throat.
I'd put my hand there first. Feel it. The quick beat of it against my palm, faster than she wants it to be.You're nervous.
Not at all.Steady. That jaw.
I stroke both shafts in slow rhythm and let myself have the rest of it.
I'd take my time. Push her skirts up, bend her forward against the wall, dark hair falling forward as she braced her hands against the stone. Take my time finding how wet she already was—and she'd be soaking, the pre-heat has been building for three days—the slick heat of her against my fingers while she stood there deciding whether this was still an operational situation she was managing. I'd work into her until she was shaking and her hips were moving against my hand and she wasstillkeeping the voice right.
My lord—Clara's tone, careful, neutral.I'm not certain this is—
No,I'd agree.It isn't.And I'd seat the lower cock at her entrance—thick and straight, the heavier shaft, blunt and cold—and feel her body open for it despite everything her professional training was trying to do.