Velvet Haven

you nervous.”
    She smiled, lowered her head as she brushed her hair behind her ear. “It’s . . . awkward.”
    He reached for her hand, entwined his fingers with hers. “I don’t mean to make it that way.”
    Her eyelashes flickered, her gaze lifted to his. “I’m really not good with this sort of thing.”
    “I know. It’s what I like about you, Mairi.”
    He had taken a lot of women to his bed, both immortal and mortal. They had all been experienced, well versed in a variety of pleasures. And while Mairi was not a virgin, she had little experience with the sort of pleasure he was aching to show her. He wanted to be the one to open her up to that world of sensuality. He wanted to be her first in true pleasure.
    “I wonder what Rowan is up to,” she asked as she gazed around the room. “It was nice of Sayer to invite her tonight. Rowan needs to get out.”
    Bran shrugged. “He wanted to see her again.”
    She nodded and folded her hands in her lap.
    “Do you want to find your friend? I believe she and Sayer were heading to the bar. He’s performing in the magic show tonight. Perhaps you would like to see it?”
    She nodded, stood, and smoothed her hands down her jeans. Her luscious body called to his, but he tamped down the urge to pull her to him.
    Trust. He wanted hers.
    They left the dining room, and he guided her down the hall to the ballroom.
    With his hand on her back, he steered her through the door. The room was packed, standing room only. He motioned to the back wall, and he stood beside her, holding her hand. She felt so small beside his height and bulk, and he felt oddly protective of her, as if she were his.
    Sayer was on an elevated stage, dressed in a hooded robe, as he mesmerized the crowd. With his hands he raised a circular sphere that writhed and moved like a bubble. Like a bubble, the sphere was transparent, except for the odd flashing of muted color, which was illuminated by the pot lights in the ceiling. Inside the sphere, images began to take shape.
    The image of a man appeared, followed next by two women who went to their knees before the man’s spread legs. A woman sitting at a table near them gasped and slapped the man she was with. The second woman in the sphere was sitting alone at the table beside theirs.
    Bran smiled, wondering how many men here were thinking of being pleasured by two women. They had better hope Sayer didn’t catch wind of their fantasies or else they’d be sleeping on the couch tonight like this poor bastard.
    The sphere cleared, churned. Mist rolled over the undulating globe, and Sayer’s hands rose higher in the air. The mist turned to fog, the tendrils writhing and twisting, like the tails of incense smoke. They twined together, forming a couple locked in an embrace. A tendril of fog became a hand, which moved lower, between the thighs of the smoke figure.
    “ Every guy here wants to finger a pussy ,” Sayer mentally whispered to him. “These mortals really have got to work on their imaginations.”
    Bran hid his smile. This was the show that everyone came to see. Sayer, enchanting the audience, pulling from them their darkest desires, their closest secrets. No mind was safe from Sayer’s incredible ability. Not even his, he feared, as he saw Mairi’s shape begin to appear in the sphere.
    “Don’t even try it.”
    Bran saw Sayer grin beneath the hood. “ Ah, c’mon, show these mortals a little Sidhe fantasy. It’ll make these bores sit up and take notice.”
    “Forget it, Sayer.”
    “You’re really going to force me to perform another blow job image?”
    “Give the mortals what they want.”
    “Why? When I can show them what you want? Your desires are the strongest in the room.”
    “I said drop it.”
    “’It’s dropped. I’m on to more . . . willing prey.”
    “ Sayer . . . ” Bran growled in warning.
    “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t like to see the naughty little images flickering through your mortal’smind.”
    Bran glanced at Mairi. She was mesmerized by the illumination, the hypnotizing motion of the fog and the atmospheric music that played. A mortal’s mind was easy for Sayer to seduce, and Mairi, it seemed, had succumbed with alarming swiftness.
    “ Let her go, ” Bran mentally commanded him, even as he watched a new image take shape, that of a woman whose hand clasped her breasts, before one hand snaked between her thighs.
    “Youwant to see what she’s thinking. Admit it.”
    The shadowy image took form in