Page 85 of Honey Cut
I don’t know what I expect Isolde to do when she greets her husband—she could play sweet, she could play submissive, she could play the icy heiress she was bred to be—but I don’t expect how honest she looks when she approaches him. Even with the subtle makeup, the sleek waves hanging to her slim shoulders, her short dress with an open back secured at the base of her spine with a thick bow, there’s something slightly undone about her. I realize that it’s her face. It’s not tearful or defiant or fawning, but it’s not placid either. I see her eyes move, her mouth tense and relax, her throat swallow. All the parts of her that she normally holds in such careful stillness, the parts that only a lover gets to see after she’s been punished or pleasured, they are available now.
I don’t know how it can be so erotic just to see her like this, but it is. Despite everything and because my body is such a fool when it comes to her, my penis gives a lazy kick and starts thickening slowly against my zipper.
Mark must feel the same way because he bridges the final gap between them, slides his hand under her hair, and lifts it from her neck. And then he leaves a lingering, possessive kiss there. He can’t see it, but I can: as his lips part and he gives her skin a sharp, sudden suck, her eyelids flutter closed. She looks more helpless from that suck on her neck than she has ever looked trussed up, bound to a bench, with a mouth full of Mark’s cock.
When he pulls back, Isolde says, “I’m glad you’re here. I missed you.”
“Did you, wife?” The words are nothing he wouldn’t say normally; the tone is level, if a little cool. But that invisible feeling returns, the sense of thunder on the horizon.
She looks up at him. “Yes,” she says simply. “Sir.”
They stare at each other a moment, and surely, he can taste the honesty in her words? Surely, he has to know that the whole reason we fell into each other’s arms was because we missed him, because we were ruined by him?
“I’m starving,” Andrea announces from behind us, breaking the moment. “They must be finished setting things up for dinner, right?”
thirty-two
TRISTAN
Dinner ison the rooftop terrace, overlooking the twilight city. Heat lamps surround the table, keeping a warm blanket of air around us, and the table itself is laid with the kind of food Mark loves—bloodred cuts of seared tuna and meat; roasted mushrooms and fresh but fragile greens; edible flower petals and flecks of gold.
We are drinking wine, and Mark and Andrea are talking about this Lyonesse member, and Isolde is gracefully answering and interjecting and doing all the normal things one does in a conversation. I am silent, unable to shake my vigilance or douse the adrenaline and cortisol occasionally spiking my blood. I cannot feel safe—we cannot be getting off this easy, with dinner and business as usual.
But I watch Mark give a low chuckle at a pointed remark of Andrea’s, and I wonder… I wonder if maybe she never did send the video. Maybe she decided the better of it, that it wasn’t her business or that she’d rather confront Isolde and me directly.
Jesus, I can only hope. How was I so reckless last night? Fucking Isolde in public? Even if I’d thought we were completely anonymous, just bodies in a crush of bodies in a crush of a city so very far away from Mark and Lyonesse, it was still a stupid risk. After Sedge and the yacht cameras, I told myself I was done with stupid risks.
I mean, I told myself I was done with Isolde too, and that hardly came to pass, but still.
The heat lamps have actual flames burning in them, and the light around us is gold and red, making Mark’s already wicked face look downright infernal tonight. I just want to know if he knows and what’s going to happen to Isolde and me. That’s all. I can take it, I can take anything, but I can’t take the uncertainty. It makes every word from Mark’s mouth feel like bullet casings clinking on the ground.
“It was a good reminder of the clubs she’s used to,” Andrea is saying, and I try to refocus on the conversation.
“The one you went to last night?” Mark asks. I can practically see the casings, spent and smoking, rolling around our feet.
Across from me, Isolde doesn’t react. She merely continues pushing her fork through the layers of her chocolate framboisier and then taking a delicate bite. She eats like she had lessons in eating.
“Yes, Jadranka”—this is the name of the member Andrea and Mark are visiting—“invited me out. Even the VIP level at this club was something of a joke. No respect for good taste.”
Isolde is carving off a slice of her cake with the precision of a surgeon. I’m trying to keep my face somewhere just on the friendly side of the blank expression I learned at West Point.
Thankfully, the conversation moves back to Jadranka, to her contacts in the European automotive world.
We finish eating, and the discreet staff tidies away the supper, leaving plenty of wine and fruit, cheese and bread. And a glass of gin on ice for Mark.
“Dinah says that she saw Lady Anguish in your office again,” Andrea says. Her glass of wine is full, her cheeks are a little flushed, but her gaze at Mark is as sharp as ever. “She’s worried you’re actually going through with this absurd scheme of splitting ownership.”
Mark lifts a shoulder and then takes a drink. “It won’t affect Lyonesse.”
“You’re out of your mind if you think that,” Andrea says flatly. “YouareLyonesse.”
“Then Anguish will become Lyonesse too.” Mark sounds completely unconcerned, almost dismissive.
“Bullshit,” Andrea snaps. “I don’t care that her husband is Merlin Rhys. I don’t care that her nephew is the goddamn president. This club isyours, you built it, you’ve shaped it, you’ve bled for it. It is synonymous with you.”
For once, I find myself in complete agreement with Andrea. Mark clearly is not, however, and there’s a warning in his voice when he says, “Nevertheless, my mind is made up.”
“They will never accept Anguish, at least not this suddenly,” Andrea points out.
