As Sophie watched, she grew even wetter between her thighs. Her mouth watered, and the instantaneous thought of Lucien’s penis taking over her mouth the same way Magnus’s did Emma’s rocked through her being, shocking in its intensity. She hadn’t been with anyone sexually in such a long time, and this scene before her, as well as Lucien so very close behind her, heated her body to overflowing with arousal in record time.
In front of her, Emma started shuddering from top to bottom, clearly in the throes of a shattering release. Behind Emma, Cale shouted and jerked as he surely slipped into the clutches of his orgasm too. Magnus withdrew his dick from Emma’s mouth and immediately began dragging his hand up and down his rigid shaft. With his other hand, he held Emma’s jaw parted. It didn’t take but three strokes for Magnus to become stiff all over, and then he spilled himself on Emma’s waiting tongue. Magnus silently milked line after ropy line of cum from his cock, and Emma lapped up everything he had to offer.
Finally both men stepped away from Emma, and she slumped into a heap on the padded bench. As soon as she did, Cale scooped her up, her arms still tied behind her back, and carried her to a low-slung, Asian-inspired bed. He kissed her gently and touched her in the manner of someone full of starry-eyed love, but then arranged her on her knees in front of him, slipped his arms around her waist from behind, and moved his hands up to cup her breasts.
“You’re not done, baby.” Cale kissed her shoulder just after sharing this news with Emma. “I know you can give me one more.”
Trembling, Emma looked over her shoulder at Cale. “I can’t.”
He brushed his mouth against hers and then kissed across her rosy cheek to her ear. “You can.” He said it softly, but Sophie heard him. “Do it for me.”
Her eyes still bright, Emma nodded against Cale’s cheek. Cale then signaled to Magnus, and the intimidating man with the shaved head and birthmark moved to kneel on the floor in front of Emma.
Magnus ran his big hand across Emma’s belly, the touch seemingly soft, and then dipped his fingers into the thatch of red curls between her thighs. “Just a quick one, honey.” Emma had her legs parted enough for Sophie to see Magnus run two fingers along her slit. “Okay?”
Looking to Cale again, Emma shivered once more. “I want it so bad.” Her thighs slipped even wider apart across the white bedding. She rubbed her pussy lips against Magnus’s two fingers, but she said to Cale, “Don’t let me go.”
As Cale pressed a kiss to Emma’s shoulder, he wrapped his arm under her breasts. “I never will, Emma girl.” The absolute sincerity in his tone squeezed at Sophie’s heart. “Have your fun.”
Emma turned back to Magnus. “Please.” She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, and spread herself farther open to reach for Magnus’s touch. “Don’t tease. Just make me come.”
With a nod, Magnus plunged two fingers into Emma’s pussy, all the way to the webbing. Emma screamed that high-pitched screech that had originally captured Sophie’s attention. Obviously not in pain at all, Emma immediately began jerking her hips back and forth over Magnus’s embedded fingers, working herself off on his digits as if afraid he would take them away.
Her upper body was pitched forward, and her legs were spread so wide her cunt almost drove Magnus’s hand into the bedding. Emma only remained upright with the aid of Cale holding her. With Emma’s head turned down, presumably watching what Magnus did to her, her long hair flowed around her face like a shiny auburn curtain, and Sophie couldn’t see her features. It didn’t matter. The woman’s moans and the way her body moved in response to Magnus’s digits manipulating her body conveyed her pure, unadulterated physical pleasure.
Just then, Emma jerked and looked up. “Oh God, Magnus.” She gasped and pumped herself onto Magnus’s fingers with faster thrusts. “Right there. Right there.” Red-faced now, she appeared so far into the clutches of pleasure that it might be inching into the realm of pain. “Ohhh fuck, fuck, fuck.” She clenched her teeth and rode Magnus’s hand as if she straddled a cock. “Give me more.”
Rather than Magnus shoving another digit into Emma’s sex, Cale sucked on his blunt middle finger and then slowly pushed it into Emma’s ass. Groaning, Emma went stock-still as Cale did it; her skin went a deeper red with every inch of digit Cale forced into her rear channel. Once he had fully seated the length in her ass, he ordered her to relax and accept the extra penetration. It took a moment, but amazingly, Sophie watched the tension drain right out of Emma as quickly as it had briefly taken her over.
Cale praised Emma and pecked a kiss to her hair. He then pulled his finger almost all the way out of her ass. Sophie saw Magnus slip his digits from Emma’s pussy too. As Cale eased his finger back into Emma’s back passage, he said, “Now let it all go and come for me, baby.”
His fingers drenched in Emma’s juices, Magnus filled her sex again. His wrist flicked, doing something inside Emma that Sophie could not see. Just as he did, Cale twisted his finger in Emma’s rectum and sent the redhead soaring. Emma shouted and jammed her cunt onto Magnus’s fingers again and again and then shook uncontrollably as female ejaculate gushed from her body.
Sophie moaned softly as Emma reached this deeper orgasm, something she’d read about but had never experienced, seen, or heard about firsthand from any of her female friends. Behind Sophie, Lucien moaned and rubbed his cock into her back through their clothes. He did it a second time, and this time pushed his hand down to the hem of the short dress she wore. As he tucked his face against her neck and inhaled, Lucien gathered the material in his fist. His knuckles grazed Sophie’s leg as he lifted the fabric, exposing her thighs up to her crotch. He then slid his fingers over the thin material covering her mound. Lucien murmured something about Sophie’s scent, rocked his cock against her back again, pushed two fingers under the elastic band of her underwear and then did not stop until those long fingers delved along her wet slit, right to her entrance.
Oh God. Oh God
. Stunned at her complete arousal, Sophie shivered under Lucien’s intimate touch; she gasped as he pressed against her entrance, her breathing terribly unsteady.
The second Sophie made that little sound, Lucien cursed, the words harsh and low. He immediately removed his hand from her panties, stepped away from her and, without a word, strode down the hall.
Shoot
. Her sex pulsing wildly, Sophie mistakenly looked up into the room again, needing to take one more quick peek. Sophie glanced in and found Emma now on the bed on her side with Cale holding her. Sophie slid her gaze to the right and came to a dead stop.
Double shoot
. Magnus stared straight at her, as intimidating a sight as she’d ever witnessed, and it had nothing to do with the birthmark covering half his face, a mark she now knew covered half his chest, arm, and back too. Sophie gulped. She glanced down the hall for Lucien, but he’d already disappeared into the darkness.
Dang it
. She should have immediately run after him. Instead, she’d been caught by one of the men she’d peeped on and would now never be able to convince Lucien she wasn’t snooping for some kind of salacious information about him or Ravenstoke that she could turn in to a story for her network.
I am so never getting this exclusive Raven Island story now. Good going, Sophie
. And all to indulge a curiosity about the sexual goings-on at Raven Island that she never would have shared with anyone or pitched to put on the news anyway. She didn’t even care about that right now, though. It worried her more that she might have offended Lucien or his employees by spying.
Darn. Darn. Darn.
Sophie stepped back into the darkness of the hallway but didn’t leave. As she’d hoped, Magnus, wearing an unbuttoned long-sleeved shirt and his jeans now back around his waist, exited the room. He gave her a cursory look and then started down the hall without a word.
Jogging to catch up to him, Sophie quickly fell into step at his side. “I apologize. I not only shouldn’t have snooped in general, but I also shouldn’t have stood there and watched you with Emma and Cale.”
Magnus raised a light-colored brow. “Is that why you think I glared at you?”
Sophie scrambled to keep up. “Umm…yes.” She turned on her flashlight app again. Magnus clearly had owl eyes, but now that they’d left the lit room, Sophie could barely see. “At least I did until a second ago.”
“You should have chased after him,” Magnus said, his strides still huge.
“What?” Sophie took three steps for his every one.
“Lucien,” Magnus stated. “You should not have let him get away. You missed an opportunity, and now he’ll dig even deeper into his intractable ways tomorrow.”
Reaching the meeting area, Sophie suddenly whispered a rare swear word and grabbed Magnus’s arm. After spinning him to face her, she held the light between them so she could see his face. “I don’t understand.”
Sighing, Magnus switched on a lamp and shoved Sophie’s bluish cell light out of his face. “He was vulnerable just now. Open. For just a few seconds. I saw it when I looked up, but it has certainly passed by now. He will severely chastise himself for allowing that small crack in his armor. By tomorrow, he will have suppressed what he so briefly let himself feel for you.”
Even as Sophie’s mind spun too fast, her stomach competed for top billing with its sudden roller coaster act.
He felt something? For me
? “I don’t think you saw what you think you did.” Sophie could still feel Lucien’s mouth pressed against her neck and his erection against her back, though, and absently rubbed the now sensitive skin. “Lucien doesn’t even know me.”
“He needs to, though.” Magnus’s voice held urgency. The odd violet shade of his gaze intensified to a pure, royal purple. “You need to let him in. You can’t put any walls up. Open yourself to him every chance you get. It’s the only way.”
“The only way to what?”
“To save him.” Not a bit of humor or teasing lived in Magnus’s demeanor. “And in the process, save yourself.”
Sophie’s jaw went slack. The roller coaster in her stomach crested its highest peak, and she suddenly felt light-headed.
What?
Magnus closed her mouth for her. “Good night, Sophie.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I’ve said what I can. From here on out, you’re on your own.” With that, Magnus strode down the grand staircase, leaving her alone.
Long after Magnus had disappeared, Sophie stood in the shadows of the meeting room, her mouth agape once more. Rooted in place, she could not move.
What?
Lucien’s behavior mingled with Magnus’s vague, strange comments—words that sounded like nothing so much as a hope-filled warning. Her mind spun with one word over and over again.
What?
She had not answered if for herself in the slightest by the morning.
Chapter Four
The morning brought bone-shivering cold temperatures, deep gray skies, and a constant mist hovering in the air. Still silently chastising himself for slipping into his need with Sophie last night, Lucien welcomed the vigorous physical activity that came with beginning the cleanup of Raven Island.
He swung an ax over his shoulder and grunted with satisfaction at the
thwack
of razor-sharp metal slicing through the thickness of a fallen tree branch. Cale and Jade gathered debris into piles across the expansive front lawn of Ravenstoke. They would later transfer it to the compost shed. Magnus stood at the edge of a sharp cliff that dropped down to Raven Island’s stony beach, binoculars held up to his eyes.
“I don’t see her,” Magnus said as he scanned the open water. “I had prepared myself to tell Ms. Emerson a lie about a lack of transportation back to the mainland, but I won’t have to now. The
Maiden’s Voyage
is gone.” Lowering the binoculars, Magnus looked back at Lucien. “At least for now.”
Without a word, Lucien took another whack at the fallen tree and welcomed the strain on his shoulders, arms, and back. Not yet ten in the morning and he had already put in two hours of physical labor. Still, as with last night after leaving Sophie, his mind would not rest. His anger at himself that he had possibly pushed Sophie too far too fast and disgusted her right out of her natural curiosity about the sexual goings-on at Ravenstoke had not allowed him even an hour’s worth of sleep.
You should not have put your hand between her legs
. Lucien punished himself with judgment he’d already shouted in his head a hundred times.
Touching her sex so intimately so quickly was far too aggressive a move.
Lucien snarled, tossed a disc of wood into a rapidly growing pile, and took another swing with full force. Sweat trickled down his back under his oiled slicker and sweater, chilling his skin, but he welcomed the discomfort. It reminded him he was at least still alive to feel it, and in doing so poured the fuel of guilt into his wounds, reminding him of his task.
Right then, a breeze, something almost balmy in comparison to what they’d experience in the last twenty-four hours, shimmered over Raven Island, gently rustling and lifting everything in its brief wake.
Jade lifted her face to the sky. The tail end of the breeze played with the choppy length of her waiflike pixie haircut, a style that somehow beautifully complemented her tall, lithe frame and strong jaw. Her black tresses, height, and porcelain skin could have allowed Lucien to pass Jade off as his sister if he’d wanted to, but creating a sibling bond with anyone at Ravenstoke didn’t fit into Lucien’s plan. He rubbed at the sudden sting in his chest; he wouldn’t have been able to pull off the sibling relationship without cracking and giving himself away anyway.
Glancing at Lucien, Jade flashed a turquoise gaze full of empathy. “That warmer breeze is a good sign of the second phase of this storm,” she shared. “You should not have any trouble making Sophie believe the weather will keep her on Raven Island for at least a week. Maybe more.”
“Good,” Lucien muttered. “I might need the extra time to recover from my fuckup.”
When Lucien went to bring down the ax again, Magnus grabbed the handle and wrested it out of his grip. Lucien spun and got in his friend’s face, but Magnus didn’t back off one inch.