Chapter 399: trick

Her panties were lying in the corner of the bench.

She picked them up, looked at them, and saw how soaked they were.

There was no point in wearing them. They would only get wetter.

She balled them up and stuffed them into her skirt pocket, and decided not to think about it.

The wet lace pressed against her thigh through the fabric.

Lor was working on the rest of the room.

He wiped the table and the floor beneath it with his handkerchief.

The smell was the worst of it.

The cabin was thick with it, the sweat and sex, and any servant who walked in would know the moment the door opened. He could still taste her on his mouth.

"One moment!" he called, in a voice that was almost steady.

He raised a hand and gathered his mana, a small quick pulse, and shaped it with a flick of his fingers.

A clean, cool breeze rose from the floor and swirled around the cabin, drawing the stale air up and out through the lattice and pulling fresh air in behind it.

In three breaths, the room smelled of lamp oil and moss and nothing else.

The breeze lifted the edge of Nellie’s skirt and she pressed it down with one hand.

Nellie had stopped fixing her braid. She was staring at him.

"What was that?" she asked.

"A trick for clearing air." He tried to sound casual and almost managed it. "I learned it up from the Light."

"The Light?"

"Mm." He wiped his palm on his thigh. "With all the rituals lately, it happens a lot. I keep ending up in rooms that need cleaning out afterward. It comes in handy."

Nellie nodded.

Her face did not change. Her smile stayed where it was, small and polite.

But something behind her eyes dimmed, quietly.

Rooms that need cleaning out afterward. She thought of the girls he met for the rituals.

Her fingers tightened for a moment on the hem of her skirt, and then she let go.

She said nothing. She didn’t ask.

She did not let him see it.

She slid her glasses back on and pushed them up her nose with one finger.

She finished the braid in four quick movements and tied it with the ribbon.

She checked her blouse, her collar, her stockings.

Then she crossed to the other side of the low table, sat down opposite him, folded her hands neatly on the wood, and lifted her chin.

Not a hair was out of place.

Her cheeks were still pink, but a girl could blush for a hundred reasons, and none of them were any business of the staff.

Under the table, her thighs were pressed together. The cum was still slowly leaking out of her.

She looked entirely calm.

Lor sat down across from her, breathing out slowly. He glanced at her once. She gave him a polite smile.

Under the table, her hand slid into her skirt pocket and closed around the damp, balled-up lace. She held on to it and did not let go.

"You may come in," Nellie called toward the door, in a clear, level voice.

The door slid open, and the waiter wheeled in his cart.

He was a young man in a gray apron, and he had clearly decided that this was the best moment of his working day.

He stopped at the side of the low table, snapped open a fresh white cloth, and let it settle over the wood in one smooth, ceremonial sweep.

It hung almost to the floor on every side.

Then he lifted the first silver dome with two fingers.

"The Starlit Pheasant," he announced, "glazed in moonbloom honey, served on a bed of roasted root."

Steam rolled out and filled the cabin with the smell of butter, herbs and sweet, crackling skin.

Lor’s stomach clenched so hard that he almost made a sound.

He had not realized how hungry he was.

"The herb-crusted lamb."

Another dome rose.

The crust was dark green and golden, and the meat underneath was pink and glistening.

Lor leaned forward without meaning to.

"Two bowls of Moonbloom Bisque."

The waiter took a ladle from the tureen and poured each bowl from a good height, so that the soup fell in a long, thin, shining ribbon of pale gold, without a single drop landing outside the rim.

He did it twice.

He clearly considered the room his audience.

Lor, who was watching, found it hard to be annoyed.

Across the table, Nellie sat with her hands folded, back straight, braid tied neatly with the plum ribbon.

She looked as calm and polite as she had on the street that morning.

She said "Thank you" at the right moments.

She smiled at the soup.

Under the table, her thighs were still pressed together.

The cum from earlier was slowly drying on the inside of her stocking.

Something touched his leg under the table.

It was only a brush at first.

Something soft slid along the inside of his shin, stopped, and withdrew.

Lor assumed it was an accident. He kept his eyes on the pheasant while the waiter carved it into thick golden slices, laid them in a fan on a plate, and set it down in front of him with a small, satisfied flourish.

The touch came again.

It slid up his shin, over his knee, and along the inside of his thigh, slow and uncertain, and it did not stop at his thigh.

Lor froze with the bread in his hand.

It was a foot.

A small foot in a stocking, with the shoe slipped off, pressing carefully against the front of his trousers.

He looked up.

Nellie was already looking at him.

Her face had not changed.

Her cheeks were pink and her glasses had a faint shine from the lamp, and her eyes held his across the white cloth, calm and clear and quietly pleading.

In her eyes he read three words that he knew perfectly well, even though she had not said them.

Please. Don’t stop me.