Evanescent Ink (Copperline #4) (14 page)

“I’m just baffled that this is something that people do… in Butte, especially.”

“There’s a huge ball every year in Billings. They’ve started having a fair, too. I’ve always wanted to go.”

Right about then, the band changed their tune to something a little slower and melodic, but still that curious industrial mix of old and new.

“Come dance with me?” Raven asked.

I glanced out into the parlor and shook my head. “I don’t know how to dance to this, Rave,” I smiled. “It’s not really like anything I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s a waltz,” she grinned. “It’s easy. It’s all like
one-two-three, one-two-three
, and all that.”

“It’s not gonna happen.”

She grinned at me and pulled me towards the center of the dancing couples anyway.

“It’s easy, just do what I do. Nobody is going to judge here.”

She tucked one of my arms around her to settle my palm at her waist. Placing her left hand on my shoulder, she then slipped her opposite palm in mine and lifted them off to my left.

“Now, just look into my eyes, and just sway against me,” she instructed softly and began to guide me through the steps. “One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three.”

I felt incredibly uncoordinated at first, like a total ass actually, but after a moment, I did fall into the rhythm. From time to time, I looked around to watch the others around me, to pick up how they moved. Some of them swirled around at times, so I gave that a shot, eliciting a sweet laugh from Raven.

“There you go,” she grinned.

She felt so perfect in my arms, smiling up at me with her deep violet eyes so full of life. The warmth of it all coursed through me, slowly melting the fragments of ice left by Maggie’s coldness. With a peace I couldn’t have imagined a few short hours before, I allowed myself to take in the fantasy of the moment.

I let myself start to fall.

The hours passed quickly, and the crowd grew and waned off and on. Periodically, a guide would take small groups through the mansion, up to the second and third floors. I halfway wondered what the rest of this building held, but I also didn’t really want to stop holding Raven. Even as we stood up to the small catered bar in an octagonal sitting room, I kept her pulled tightly up against me.

Maggie had always been somewhat standoffish unless she wanted to put on a show, a show generally aimed at finding one or two others to join us in private later on.

But Raven seemed so at ease with me. She tipped her head to lay it on my chest while she chatted with others. Her fingertips unconsciously toyed with the button of my dress coat. She leaned back against me as I stood behind her with my hand at her hip.

“So,” said Lloyd, a guy Raven introduced me to as a former classmate from Anaconda. He wore what looked like a pith helmet of some sort, like what one would wear on some Egyptian exploration in 1902. Like so many others, me included, he also had an ornate pair of copper goggles. “How long have you two been together?”

Raven stiffened ever so slightly, but recovered quickly and replied with a warm smile. “We’re just good friends, Lloyd. Drew needed to get out tonight. He’s nursing a broken heart.” I’m not sure Lloyd even caught her falter. I’m not sure I would have if I hadn’t had her body tucked up against mine.

“Seriously? You look very close,” he said thoughtfully. Then he looked at me. “You know, Raven was one of my best friends in high school.”

“Really?” I murmured, stiffening a bit myself. This guy had been super cool so far, but I suddenly had a stab of jealousy burn through my chest at the thought of him and Raven.

Studying for tests and making out. Dancing together at prom. Driving out in the hills around Anaconda to get freaky in the backseat of whatever kind of car Lloyd had back then.

“Yeah, I think it’s some kind of unwritten rule that a girl like Raven has to have a gay best friend.”

I was so caught up in my mental grumbling that I almost missed the
gay
bit. Sadly, I’d also just taken a sip of my drink when it did hit me, and I choked a little. Raven gave me an odd look before looking back at Lloyd.

“Lloyd was a godsend. As you may imagine, I was not really the typical Montana country girl, and I got razzed a bit when I first moved here.”

“Anaconda doesn’t really get a lot of diversity,” Lloyd laughed. “I was getting my ass kicked by football players on a regular basis for being
different
, so to speak. Raven was about the only one who ever stood up for me.”

“And alienated damn near everyone else in the school when I did it,” she chuckled and raised her glass. “But us weirdos gotta stick together, right?”

It was a glimpse into her past. Not much, but something. A little bit of what made her…
her
.

“Exactly,” Lloyd grinned. He toasted back, and sucked down his drink, and held it out in a signal to the bartender to make him another.

I watched as the deep green absinthe was poured into a fresh glass. The bartender then took a sugar cube and placed it on a spoon. He flicked a lighter next to it and held it close until the sugar caught fire, at which point, he dropped it into the glass of alcohol. The contents of the glass suddenly erupted into flames which burned for a moment until it was doused with a splash of water.

What a fascinatingly odd way to make a drink. I’d seen it multiple times that night, but the artistry of the bartender’s movements was almost hypnotic every time. I wasn’t even entirely sure I liked the taste of the cocktail, but I kept drinking them and ordering more to watch the process over and over.

This whole experience just felt so surreal.

“Hey,” Lloyd said, looking across the room, “there’s Charlie. I haven’t seen him since the last ball in Billings. I’m going to go say hello.”

He took his drink and headed across the room to a guy that looked like a cross between Indiana Jones and Ironman. So weird.

I looked down at Raven, stroking my palm along her jaw. “Interesting guy.”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “Good friend. I always felt like he had it extra hard. Growing up gay in Montana isn’t easy.”

“You’ve always been one to look out for others, haven’t you?”

“Just people who deserve it. Who deserve to be happy.”

“It’s so bizarre, but I don’t think anything else in the world could’ve been exactly what I needed as much as all of this,” I motioned around the room with my hand, “strange and wonderful experience.”

“I’m glad,” she said with a tender smile touching her lips, “because I have thought for a long time that you’re someone who does deserve to be happy.”

“I don’t know about that, but it’s nice that you think so,” I shrugged. “Honestly, when you told me to come with you, I was half expecting you to haul me off, strip me down, and fuck my blues away.”

She laughed. “Any other night maybe, but this is something special. No matter how badly I would’ve liked to have done just that, I sort of had to be here. I helped organize this.”

“Seriously?”

“I worked here for the summer before my senior year of high school. I was a tour guide.”

“No shit?” I gaped.

“No shit,” she grinned proudly. “When they were looking for a place to have the ball, I helped get this lined up.”

“Well, as much as I would have loved what I thought you had in mind, this is really wild. I think this is the best time I’ve had in forever that didn’t involve sex.”

Like
ever
… even in all the time I was with Maggie.

Raven peered up at me through her lashes. “Who says tonight won’t involve sex?”

I narrowed my eyes back at her. “It hasn’t so far.”

She glanced around the room and took a few steps backwards towards a doorway, crooking her finger at me in a way that made my mouth water.

“Where are we going?” I asked. She tucked her hand in mine and led me, a bit surreptitiously around the room and down the hall until we had reached a kitchen.

“The servants’ stairs are back here,” she murmured. “Without a guide, we can’t really head up the main staircase with everyone standing around, but the second floor is where the family’s rooms were.”

We quietly climbed up some narrow steps to a second floor landing. Stepping into the hallway, I followed along behind her past numerous closed doors.

“Am I getting the private tour?” I asked in a low tone.

She turned around, stepping backwards down the hall, and quickening her pace. Past the landing of the main staircase where we could hear the crowd below. At the end of the hallway were a few doors, and a small alcove to the left that led to another doorway. Raven flashed me a wicked smile, opened that last door around the corner, and stepped inside.

Needless to say, when she looked at me that way, I’d have followed her anywhere.

Taking a quick look back down the hallway and seeing nobody around, I stepped through the door and closed it behind me. Raven flicked on a low lamp in the corner that set a warm glow across the space, allowing me to take in the luxury and splendor of the bedroom.

Just inside the door was a heavy dresser, topped with an ornate mirror. The lamp sat on a bedside table next to a bed that reeked of Industrial Age wealth. A headboard of dark, rich wood came forward to create a partial canopy above the head of the bed, and long semi-sheer curtains flowed from the crest down to the floor. A snowy white comforter covered the bed, gleaming in the low lamplight. A door was open in the far right corner, and I took a few steps to peek into the next room, seeing an octagonal sitting room in the darkness and shadows.

I heard a quiet click sound behind me, and I turned around to see Raven standing near the door, her hand having just engaged the lock. She slowly came closer to me, a growing hunger lighting her eyes. She reached out to lay her hand over my heart, and I felt the faintest tremble course through her with that first touch. Her eyes followed the path as her hand slipped down to the button of my coat, slipping it free, then further down past the waistband of my jeans.

I couldn’t stop the groan that bubbled up inside me as her hand grazed over my rapidly swelling junk. She applied a little more pressure, and the firm squeeze of her fingers sent a delicious burn through my body. I caught her head in my hand, cupping it in my palm with my thumb along her cheek, and leaned in to kiss her.

It all felt surreal, standing here in these odd clothes in this period-styled room as I plundered her lips with my own. Every sigh she let loose was swallowed down as I tried to pull her closer, but she pushed away just a tiny bit to look up at me. Her tongue slipped out to wet her lips as her fingers began working the buttons of my fly, opening my jeans wide and releasing my dick into the palm of her hand.

She stared at me intently as she stroked my length. A swipe of her thumb over the tip wrought a shaky breath from her lips and she dropped to her knees in a fluid movement, looking up at me with her dark, needy eyes. The first light kiss on the tip of my cock had me shaking in anticipation. Every muscle in my body was tense, waiting and begging and pleading for another feathery caress. She ran her tongue along the bottom of the head, just barely coming into contact with the bottom ball of my apa.