Aric stood up, leaving his half-empty bowl of root stew behind.
“I will review the beverage receipts in the front office,” Aric said, keeping his voice deliberately flat as he stepped backward.
“After the floor has been cleaned.” He did not look at the centaur again.
He pushed through the swinging doors and hurried down the carpeted corridor.
Behind him, boiled cabbage, wet ash, and the staff’s laughter faded beneath the cleaner scent of sandalwood.
He needed the quiet of the office.
He needed the dry, orderly columns of the ledgers.
He reached the front desk, walked around to Perrin’s side, and pulled the heavy iron key from his coat pocket.
He unlocked the solid mahogany door that separated the manager’s office from the public space.
He stepped inside, pulled the door shut behind him, and threw his weight against the iron deadbolt.
The bolt slid forward, but the bent socket refused to hold it.
The iron bar dropped uselessly back into its housing.
Aric stared at it.
The first private failure in the building was his own office latch.
He grabbed the handle, making sure the heavy wood was fully seated in the frame.
It would have to hold.
The front hall was empty, the lounge was quiet, and the staff was still eating dinner.
He had privacy.
Aric walked around the heavy oak desk and collapsed into the high-backed leather chair.
He placed his hands flat on the polished wood surface.
He tried to think about the harbor merchants and the monthly operating margin.
His mind supplied an image of Marenna’s swollen, dripping pussy instead.
Aric groaned, dropping his head back against the leather chair.
The visual was burned into his memory.
The heavy, bruised red of her outer lips.
The thick strings of white cum leaking from her gaping hole.
The wet slap of it hitting the floorboards.
He closed his eyes, and the rest of the kitchen rushed in to fill the space.
He saw Lyra’s sheer silk wrap parting at her waist.
He saw Thys resting beside the table with his cock still exposed.
He saw Rhoz’s massive, dark-veined cock pressing against the wooden bench.
Aric shifted in his chair.
The heavy wool dragged roughly across his hardening cock.
Within seconds, he was painfully erect, his cock trapped against his thigh and aching inside his trousers.
He had spent his entire life maintaining rigid, provincial discipline in Harthwell.
He had never been exposed to the raw, unbothered sexuality of the Velvet Hearth.
He reached across the desk and pulled Perrin’s cellar tally toward him.
Without the corresponding beverage receipts, he could do little more than stare at the keg totals.
He read the same entry five times.
The numbers refused to remain numbers.
The air in the office suddenly felt stiflingly hot.
He imagined Vaelisse looking down at him with that cool, measuring stare.
His cock twitched against the wool of his trousers.
Aric checked the door.
It remained shut.
The hall outside was silent.
He gave in.
Aric reached down and unfastened the top buttons of his trousers.
He pushed the heavy wool down his thighs, freeing himself.
His cock sprang out, thick and heavy, the tip already weeping a single drop of clear pre-cum.
He wrapped his hand around his rigid cock and squeezed.
The sensation was immediate and overwhelming.
Aric let out a ragged breath, his head dropping back against the leather chair again.
He stroked himself with a slow, steady rhythm, the friction sending sparks of heat straight down his spine.
He pictured Lyra’s six tails brushing against the floorboards.
He pictured Marenna’s bare ass covered in fading red handprints.
He pictured Vaelisse standing beside him, her icy blue skin radiating a chill that made him want to press his naked body—and his hard cock—against her.
The thought of Vaelisse catching him should have killed his erection.
Instead, his cock hardened in his fist.
He stroked faster, his knuckles brushing against his own tight stomach muscles.
His balls drew tight beneath his fist.
He needed to come.
He closed his eyes, losing himself entirely in the fantasy of the house.
The office door clicked open.
Aric froze.
His hand stopped mid-stroke.
Vaelisse stood in the doorway.
She wore her pale gray silk skirt and tightly wrapped bodice.
She held a stack of beverage receipts in one hand and her long, narrow pipe in the other.
She did not cross the threshold.
Vaelisse’s gaze dropped to his exposed cock.
Her eyes followed his thick cock from the base to the bead of pre-cum shining at its swollen tip.
The pipe remained suspended beside her mouth.
The faint ember in the bowl glowed once, then slowly died as she stopped drawing on it.
“Oh,” Vaelisse said.
Aric crossed both forearms over his lap.
His cock was too large and too hard for the gesture to hide much.
“Get out,” Aric rasped.
Vaelisse’s hand moved toward the door handle.
“Wait.” The word escaped him before he could stop it.
Vaelisse paused at the threshold.
Aric’s face burned.
His cock twitched against his wrist beneath his crossed arms.
“Is it really that unusual?” Vaelisse looked down again.
Her gray eyes swept over his exposed cock, taking in the thick base, the swollen veins standing beneath the skin, and the drop of pre-cum shining at the tip.
“Large enough to silence Rhoz,” Vaelisse answered smoothly, leaning her shoulder against the doorframe.
“Large enough to make even a Minotaur feel shy.” Aric swallowed hard.
The praise struck him somewhere beneath the embarrassment.
His right hand slipped beneath his left forearm and closed around the base of his cock, but he held still.
“Do you want me to leave?” Vaelisse asked.
Every sensible part of him said yes.
“Close the door,” Aric said.
Vaelisse stepped into the office.
She pushed the door shut behind her.
“The bolt won’t hold,” Aric warned.
“The socket is bent.” Vaelisse picked up the heavy brass doorstop sitting beside the filing cabinet.
She wedged it firmly under the bottom edge of the door, kicking it into place with the heel of her boot.
“For the record, Master Vale,” Vaelisse said, turning back to face the desk.
“You are trying to buy a feather mattress one copper at a time while hiding an asset that could purchase it in a single evening.” Aric lowered his left arm, exposing himself fully.
His right hand tightened around his cock and stroked once, slowly enough to make Vaelisse’s pupils widen.
“I am the manager,” Aric said, his voice dropping to a rougher register.
He dragged his fist from the base of his cock to the swollen head, spreading the pre-cum over the tip.
“I don’t work the floor.” “You don’t,” Vaelisse agreed.
She took a slow step closer to the desk, her eyes locked on the rhythmic movement of his hand.
“But you are certainly working the office.” Aric tightened his grip.
The embarrassment still burned in his cheeks, but being watched made his cock harder than the shame could soften it.
He stroked himself again, feeling a fresh bead of pre-cum leak from the tip and run down the side of his cock.
Vaelisse watched the clear fluid slide over his dark veins.
She set her stack of receipts down on the edge of the desk.
She placed her dead pipe next to them.
“You ran out of the kitchen rather quickly,” Vaelisse noted, resting her hands on the polished oak.
She leaned forward, the wrapped silk of her bodice parting slightly.
“Was the root stew too tough, or did Marenna’s dripping pussy short-circuit your provincial brain?” Aric gritted his teeth, his hand moving faster.
“I had ledgers to review.” “You had a raging erection to handle,” Vaelisse corrected.
She reached out, her cool fingers lightly tracing the edge of his wooden desk.
“There is no shame in it, Aric.
Half the men in the Lantern District would empty their coin purses just to watch Marenna walk across a room.
A centaur’s cunt can take hours of punishment, and Marenna still came into dinner swollen, dripping, and too dazed to remember your name.” Aric let out a low groan, his hips bucking upward slightly as he stroked.
Hearing Vaelisse describe the centaur’s ruined hole in that calm, detached voice made his cock jerk in his fist.
More pre-cum spilled from his tip, making his hand slick as he worked his cock.
“Did you picture pushing yourself into her?” Vaelisse asked, her voice dropping to a cool whisper.
“Did you imagine burying that massive, twitching cock of yours deep inside that horse pussy?
Feeling those heavy, bruised lips swallowing your base while her tail swished over your back?” “Don’t stop,” Aric gasped, his pace turning frantic.
“Or did you imagine Lyra?” Vaelisse continued smoothly.
“Did you picture those six soft tails wrapping around your legs, pulling your cock into her wet pussy while she took every inch?” Aric could not answer.
His hand moved faster around his cock while Vaelisse’s filthy descriptions filled his head.
His cock throbbed in his slick fist.
He was seconds from coming.
“Look at me,” Vaelisse commanded.
Aric forced his eyes open.
He met her cool, gray gaze, his chest heaving with exertion.
“You are not in Harthwell anymore,” Vaelisse said softly.
Aric groaned as his cock began to pulse.
He jerked in the leather chair, pumping a thick, heavy rope of white cum straight onto his own stomach.
He cried out, his hand squeezing the base of his cock as another hot pulse erupted from the tip, splattering across his lower abs and the edge of his unfastened trousers.
He slumped back.
The contractions weakened.
His fist loosened around his cock, and his breathing gradually slowed.
His cock remained thick and half-hard against his thigh, slick with pre-cum and streaked with his own cum.
Vaelisse glanced once at the cum streaking his stomach.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a clean white linen handkerchief.
She tossed it onto the desk in front of him.
“Clients would pay to see that cock,” Vaelisse said, picking up her pipe and the stack of receipts.
She walked to the door and kicked the brass doorstop loose.
“Whether they paid twice would depend on what you knew how to do with it.
You have work to do.” She opened the door and stepped back into the corridor.
“I expect the beverage audit finished before tomorrow’s fourth bell,” Vaelisse called back, pulling the heavy wood shut behind her.