“Who is your friend?” Cait tilted her head like a hawk considering its prey. Her eyes narrowed as she zeroed in on the glasses of wine between Keelynn and I.
“No one you need to concern yourself with,” I told them.
“What’s your name, girl?” she asked Keelynn.
“I said not to concern yourself with her. She’s just someone I met at a pub.”
The darkest parts of me rejoiced when Caer staked her claim with a possessive hand on my thigh.
Caer’s tongue darted over red lips. “If that’s true, then she wouldn’t mind us stealing away her handsome companion for a little . . . fun.”
All Keelynn had to do was say she wanted me to stay here. To make me some sort of offer before either of these women could. The witch’s nails dug into my arm. Keelynn wasn’t looking at me anymore. She was looking at the wine.
Don’t look at the wine.
LOOK AT ME.
“He’s all yours,” she muttered, her voice as rigid as the table between us.
I felt myself deflate even as my arms snaked around the twins’ waists. Their supple bodies angled toward me, their legs brushing mine from beneath their skirts. Skirts I’d be beneath soon enough. The darkness in me rejoiced, and the giddiness I had felt earlier was replaced with a predator-like focus.
The door opened.
The door closed.
In. Off. Out.
I didn’t even need to leave town for that.
“You should’ve called over the moment you arrived,” Caer purred, toying with the collar on my shirt, undoing one of the buttons. Her nail left a red mark on my skin as she trailed the sharpened black tip from my throat to my sternum. Pleasure and pain. That was what these two represented.
“After the last time, I wasn’t sure you’d be up for it.” When I had seen them a decade ago, they had come to blows over who was first. I hoped they had decided already because time wasn’t on my side.
“We’re better at sharing now,” Cait assured me, tucking her hand into my front pocket, making her way toward my groin.
FINALLY.
Not finally. No. I could resist this. I could distract them and then I could come back and—Caer did the same on the other side, and it took every ounce of self-control I had to extricate their hands from my breeches with the darkness roaring in my ears, begging to be set free.
“Ladies, would you excuse me for a moment?” I ignored their pouts and the way their green eyes flashed in the dim street.
Their protest was brief, cut off after I promised to join them in their cottage straight away. Inside the pub, I found Keelynn sipping her wine. A dark look crossed her face when she saw me.
“Wait for me,” I rushed, feeling the invisible threads tightening, dragging me toward the door. Then I told her I would be right back, hoping it was the truth.
* * *
Caer lounged on a chaise in front of the fire. Cait draped herself across a thick sheepskin rug. The matching black silk robes they wore clung to their curves while flames danced on their pale bare legs.
“All right. Who’s first?” I had the buckle on my belt undone before Caer responded with a chiding click of her tongue.
“Come now, Tadhg. Is such behavior truly fitting for the one they call the Prince of Seduction?”
It wasn’t. Not at all. But I had left the only person I felt like seducing drinking wine alone at the inn. I had been too slow. Too hesitant. If only I had suggested we share a bottle of wine in Keelynn’s room instead of the bar. I would be with Keelynn right now, slipping my hands beneath her skirts, kissing her inner thigh, touching and tasting her most secret places.
“It’s been a long day,” I sighed. A long, disappointing day if I didn’t turn it around.
Cait’s teeth flashed, startlingly white in the shadows. “Did the human wear you out?”