Chapter 364: Don’t Look Away.

I walked behind Melissa. She had the front of the long black dress gathered in one hand, and it pulled the fabric tight everywhere behind her—across the small of her back, over the full curve of her ass, the material stretching and releasing with every step she took on the cold stone.

[ A mark matters. If a source is ever passed down to her, she becomes one. ]

[ But. ]

Don’t give me a but. I’m here for a reason.

[ You can mark Melissa. But it would be wise to preserve enough for Sophia. ]

[ Her blood lust will not last past tomorrow. And while it lasts it makes the other worse. ]

[ Tonight works for us. ]

I’ve got the post-climactic surge. Haven’t I?

It didn’t answer that.

Sophia’s door was shut as we passed it. The bolt hadn’t gone across. I’d have heard the metal slide if it had.

Melissa opened the last door on our side and went in and I followed her.

The dark had the whole room. Whoever had been in here last had left the light off. The air was cooler, carrying the faint mineral smell of wet tile and old soap.

"Where’s the switch?"

Her hand went out onto the wall and started moving—palm flat, fingers searching.

Mine did the same, and she was close enough that I could feel her. The heat of her body through the thin dress. The soft give of her hip when it brushed mine. And she wasn’t standing still while she looked.

There was a way she moved against me that had nothing to do with finding a switch. Slow. And back. And then again—deliberate pressure, the full line of her side and the side of her breast sliding against my arm for a second longer than necessary.

You feel me?

Her thought, arriving clean.

So it’s deliberate. Of course it’s deliberate.

I found the switch. The white light came on hard and filled the place—flat, clinical, no shadows left to hide in.

Big room. A single tap. A shower head fixed high on the wall. Tiles floor to ceiling, the grout dark in the corners. A metal rod running along the far wall.

A top and a pair of trousers hung on it, and underwear beside them, put out to dry.

Sophia’s.

"You look nervous," Melissa said.

"I’m not nervous."

Good. Because you’re about to see the body of a god.

Men have wanted this and died wanting it.

I stayed where I was. Feet planted on the cold tile.

She went past me to the door I’d left standing open and pushed it shut. The latch clicked hard. I hadn’t even noticed I’d left it ajar.

Then she came back past me, and her shoulder brushed mine on the way—soft, warm, intentional—and she turned around to face me fully.

Her hands went to the hem of the dress.

"You don’t have to look away." She had my eyes and held them. "We’re past that."

She took it up and over her head in one continuous motion. The black fabric came off her skin slowly, static lifting a few strands of white hair at the nape of her neck and letting them fall back against her skin. The dress left her body the way a sheet leaves a bed—revealing everything underneath in a single rising line.

Underneath, a bra and underwear. White, or close enough to it, and thin. Thin enough that the hard white light in the room went straight through the fabric and gave me everything the material was only pretending to hold back—the full heavy shape of her breasts, the dark circles of her nipples already visible, the soft mound between her legs and the faint shadow of the cleft.

She dropped the dress on the tiles under the tap.

"We should wash them tonight." Her voice stayed completely level. "Everything we’ve got on. Leave it out and it’ll be dry by morning."

"Good idea," I said.

I hadn’t looked away from her once.

Her eyes came up and found mine and held there.

Say something.

Or don’t. Just—

She turned around.

"Help me with that."

The bra. Her hair stopped cleanly at the nape of her neck, leaving the full length of her back bare except for the thin straps. Nothing to lift out of the way.

My fingers found the clasp. The small metal hooks. It took me longer than it should have—my hands were not as steady as I wanted them to be. The first attempt missed. The second caught. The strap released with a soft snap.

The bra came away and hit the tiles.

She turned around to face me fully.

Heavy breasts, full and soft, the kind that moved with their own weight when she turned. The nipples were already tight, pink against skin that looked like it hadn’t seen sun in a long time—pale, almost luminous under the hard light. They rose and fell with her breathing.

My eyes went down and stayed there for a second longer than was polite before they came back up and met hers.

Don’t be afraid of it. Look.

I looked again.

There was a shape to them that put something in my hands before I’d decided anything—a weight I could already feel without touching, the way the soft flesh would settle into my palms, the way it would spill between my fingers.

And running down between them, small tattooed words, starting high in the valley between the curves and travelling all the way down the centre of her stomach to just above her navel.

Too small to read from where I stood. I’d have had to put my face close to the skin, close enough to feel the heat of her, to make out the letters.

Do you like what you see?

A small smile came onto her mouth—slow, knowing, the corner of it lifting.

My chest was going up and down and I couldn’t do anything about it. The air in the room felt thinner.

Hers was too. The rise and fall of her breasts matched the pace of my own breathing, the nipples tightening further under my stare.

My eyes went lower to the underwear. White and light, light enough that it hid nothing at all. I could see everything the fabric was resting against—the soft outer lips, closed and full, the faint shadow of the cleft, the way the thin material clung to the shape of her and dipped slightly between.

My cock was already hard inside my trousers, pressing against the fabric with every pulse.

Her fingers hooked into the waistband on either side of her hips.

Mine went to the hem of my shirt at the same time. I pulled it up over my head and threw it on top of her dress. The air hit my skin. My cock strained harder against the front of my trousers, obvious now.

Her left leg came up. The fabric slid down over the soft skin of her thigh, past her knee, and off her foot. The movement opened her for a second—just long enough to see the bare outer lips, smooth, the soft inner pink briefly visible before her thighs closed again.

You saved my life at that mansion.

And tonight I’m going to give you the best night you have ever had.

Her right leg went up. The underwear left her completely and joined the rest of the clothes on the tiles.