A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(36)

Becket smiles and leans his long frame forward to reach the bottle. The firelight gilds every exposed inch of his pale skin, his blond hair and eyelashes, and when he spins the bottle, the light glints and fades in a slow strobe on the glass.

The strobing light abates, the bottle slows. The bottle points at St. Sebastian.

“Well, Saint?” the priest says softly. “Are you ready?”

Saint takes a long drink, but it doesn’t seem like it’s for courage. More like for a moment to compose himself, so that when he answers, his voice is perfectly even. “I’m ready, Father Becket.”

“This would be hotter if Becky had his collar on,” Delphine whispers. Rebecca shushes her.

Becket goes to Saint and squats down, so that he’s eye to eye with the man he’s about to kiss. Even without his collar, there’s still something priestly about him. Maybe it’s the dark pants clinging to his long thighs, or the black shoes that give off a dull gleam from the fire. Maybe it’s in the way he presses his long fingers under Saint’s chin and lifts his face to his own. Or maybe it’s his expression, intense and holy, as he lowers his mouth and kisses St. Sebastian Martinez on the lips.

None of us speak a word—in fact, I don’t think any of us even breathe—as the game becomes real, as we watch Saint’s lips part under the pressure of Becket’s firm, surprisingly practiced mouth. His fingers are assured and insistent on Saint’s chin, and I can tell the moment his tongue strokes against Saint’s, because Saint gives a shudder that I can practically feel myself, feel all the way down into my toes.

I’m hypnotized, and everyone else is too. All the doubts, all the reservations and reluctance, are melting away in the heat of their kiss, and when I hear the sound of someone trying to control their ragged breath, I know without looking that it’s Auden. I know that no matter his earlier doubts, he’s caught up in it now, he’s as ensnared as the rest of us at the sight of our priest gently making love to St. Sebastian’s mouth.

When Becket pulls away, Saint looks dazed. “Thank you,” he says, rather distantly.

“Thank you,” the priest says graciously.

Although as he takes his chair once again, there’s something pained in Becket’s expression that doesn’t look gracious at all. It looks like he wants to do so, so much more than kiss now, and who can blame him? I’m burning alive and I only watched.

Delphine’s spin lands on her own fiancé, and she giggles as she goes over to kiss him. “This is exactly what you would have wanted,” she says, leaning down and clearly planning on giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.

He catches her arms instead and pulls her to his mouth, nothing long or involved, just a real kiss, and when Delphine pulls away, her smile is pleased and affectionate and even happy—but it’s not the smile of someone who’s aroused. It’s like she just finished kissing a cousin or a fellow actor . . . or someone she had to kiss for a party game. There’s warmth, but no heat.

“Your turn,” Delphine tells her betrothed. “Don’t land on me, we don’t want to be boring.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Auden says, a bit dryly, and leans forward to spin the bottle. He gives it a quick, indifferent spin, as if already trying to absolve himself from the consequences of where it lands.

It should land on Delphine. That would be the safest alternative, the alternative that would keep our dinners friendly and our evenings free of awkwardness. But I’m just drunk enough that I don’t want it to land on Delphine.

I want it to land on me.

I want to be stupid. I want to admit to myself that I like Auden, that I ache for his touch, his crooked smile, and all this after only a week here.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And spin, spin, spin goes the bottle.

It swings past me once, quickly, then twice, going slower now, and then a third time. I breathe out a long, silent breath of either disappointment or relief—I’m not sure which—and then the bottle keeps going. Slower and slower, but it keeps moving, gradually, gradually, appearing to stop in front of Saint.

The air itself seems to crystallize; next to me, Saint’s entire body trembles. But then the bottle nudges just the tiniest bit left so that it’s pointing at the spot between Saint and myself.

I swallow.

“I think it’s Poe,” Delphine says, having apparently nominated herself the moderator of our game. True to her earlier confidence, she doesn’t sound jealous or bothered in the least as she coordinates her fiancé kissing another person.

I look up and meet eyes with Auden. He stares back at me, shocked.

“Go on,” Delphine urges. “I won’t be upset.” Indeed, she even seems excited, and I try to use this to mentally clean away my own worry and guilt.

It’s just a game, Proserpina. Just a kiss.

But there’s nothing just about the twisting thrill in my stomach as I get to my feet. Auden stands too, and we meet in the middle, neither of us seeming to know where to look or where to put our hands. For a minute, I feel like we really are teenagers, not adults at all, with nothing between us but nervousness and hormones.

“Hi,” Auden says as we finally meet.

“Hi,” I say back.

“I suppose we’ve already done this once before,” he says. “Nothing new.”