And I really, really shouldn’t have left my senses open when my gaze flicked to Kieran. The spiciness gathered in the back of my throat and low in my body, the place Casteel’s fingers were so dangerously close to. I closed down my senses before I pried any further, but I…

“Poppy?”

“Yes,” I whispered as Lyra seemed to tilt her head, pressing in impossibly close to Kieran’s body.

“Are you watching them?” Casteel asked, his voice full of smoke.

A denial rose to the tip of my tongue.

“If so, you wouldn’t be the only one, nor are they the only ones being watched,” he said, one of his fingers stretching over the thin material of my gown. “They find no shame in any act of affection, whether they are involved in it, casual observers…or more active watchers.”

Active watchers?

My gaze wandered across the rippling canopies and the shadowy depths inside, to where a slender arm beckoned to another who had been seated in the sand outside. The man put the bottle of what he’d been drinking down and rose, bending down as he entered the space under the canopy, where the shadowy outlines of bodies moved in unison. He joined them as Casteel shifted behind me again, leaning forward to slip his hand under where the hem of my gown was gathered at my knees. My heart might have stuttered as he trailed those fingers up the length of my bare skin, somehow managing to keep the skirt of the gown in place. The fingers on his right hand continued creeping lower and lower as I saw the man lower himself behind the one who moved on top. My pulse pounded as Casteel’s fingers hesitated under my gown at the vee of my legs.

A slight tremor of anticipation tinged with uncertainty ran through me, followed by a sharp twist in my very core.

“Poppy, Poppy, Poppy,” Casteel murmured as a finger above the gown reached the sensitive bundle of nerves. “Does what you’re seeing in that tent answer any questions you might have had about how three lovers can enjoy each other?”

Yes? No? I saw the woman who had been riding the man under her still, her back bowing as the man behind her pulled her close to his chest.

“The newcomer is either moving inside her or against her,” Casteel explained as his finger moved in those damn circles above the gown and along the crease of my thigh and hip. “Did Willa’s journal explain the technicalities of that?”

The heat from my skin had entered my veins, stirring up my blood as I nodded. “It did.” I wet my lips. “It sounded like it could be…painful.”

“It can be if not done with care,” he said. “And it appears that they are taking care.”

No one appeared to be in pain, and no one seemed to be paying any attention to where we sat on our blanket. A breathlessness entered me as I slowly inched my thighs apart and asked, “Are they taking part in the Joining?”