"They ought to give someone else a turn with him," Ronan muttered. "The other girls would make Reddy give him better instructions."
I shuffled in place, widening my stance, and whimpered as Ronan let the remaining wintery handful—now mostly melted—slide over my sore sex. "Eston is what he is. I don't mind."
"An empty-headed, over-decorated, low-level demon?" Ronan suggested.
I snorted and shrugged. He wasn't wrong. "He's there to make the stage prettier."
"That's your job, nut," Ronan corrected, and I bit my lip as his numbing fingers stroked my sex, soothing and teasing me all at once.
"My job is to make him look like the world's best fuck, and to make sure he comes at the musical cue," I said.
Ronan's other hand slid up to my hip, drawing me back a few steps until I could feel his warm breath on my now chilly ass. "Did you at least get off this time?" he asked, and I was sure he already knew the answer.
"Keep scooping," I said, not ashamed to sound a little breathy.
Aside from being handsome and helpful, one of Ronan's other best qualities was that he really was a very good lover. I tried to keep my sexual interactions to the stage or the occasional dazzled patron monster. I had enough of the work to do under the spotlight without adding a backstage tryst in the mix. When Ronan arrived, he'd seemed to be like all the other new recruits—an intolerable flirt. He'd been easy enough to ignore after five years of seductive visitors who always left, but then he went and made me come three times in our first scene on stage together. That kind of talent was hard to only sample once.
"Are you leaving early?" Ronan asked, streaking snow up and down my chafed inner thighs as I squirmed and bit back the high sounds in my throat.
"Beth asked me to stay and Myra mentioned a scene swap," I breathed, my hips rocking to brush myself against Ronan's knuckles.
"You work too hard."
I huffed. "On my back, Ro."
"Come on. We both know what it takes to organize a simultaneous orgasm," Ronan teased.
It's always shockingly easy with you, I thought, but I only released a soft sound of relief as he slid those cold fingers inside of me, pumping out some of Eston's release.
My eyes were falling shut, ready to let Ronan manage what Eston had absolutely failed in, when I caught the slight twitch of my dressing room curtain. I stiffened and Ronan's touch paused as Myra drew the curtain to the side, barely offering a reaction to the sight of the imp's hand between my legs.
"Scene swap?" I asked, blinking.
"Not tonight, honey. But stick around? There's a gentleman who'd like to meet you. A patron," she said, eyebrows bouncing up.
"Oh!" Ronan's fingers were drawing free of me, and I was thinking of Beth and of my bed in my flat, and the thought of sleeping in tomorrow morning. But meeting a patron was part of the work here at the theater too, and a part I often enjoyed. I nodded, and Myra's smile widened. "Sure."
"He's a regular," Myra said. "Never asked about any of the girls before." I nodded again, and she mimicked me. "I'll bring him by later."
"What kind?" Ronan asked for me.
"None of your business," Myra snapped at him. She was soft for us humans, but almost always stern with the monsters. He huffed a laugh against my back, and I hiccuped a gasp as his fingers dipped back inside of me. "An orc," Myra said to me. "Most well-dressed one I've ever seen too. Very fine."
"Very good grunters, I hear," Ronan muttered at my back, and I swatted his hand as Myra vanished.
"Don't let her hear you," I hissed at him.
"Does she really think you don't do enough for the theater as it is?" Ronan asked.
"What we do with patrons is up to us," I recited, and Ronan huffed. "It is. I've been coy with plenty and they've still bought season passes. Most of them would like to be guest acts but are just too shy for the stage. They want to feel special."
"No such thing as a shy orc," Ronan said, and he scooped up a fresh handful of snow, laughing as he pressed it to my sex and I screeched behind my teeth, the frigid ice shooting right into my veins and drawing out a shiver.
"Bastard!"
"Mmm, it's true," Ronan murmured, leaning in and licking gently over one of my bruises as the snow melted against me. I wasn't sure if he meant to defend his statement about orcs or affirm that he was a bastard, and as he rubbed against my nearly numb clit, drawing back sensation, I didn't really care.
"Maybe I will fuck the orc," I said, shrugging. "Well-dressed means moneyed."
Ronan nipped at my ass, frozen fingers plunging inside of me and drawing out a rough gasp from my throat.
"Moneyed might mean he wants a little human pet in a pretty apartment," I continued, breaths ragged as Ronan's touch fucked me smoothly, warming quickly in the heat between us, cool water and demon's cum splashing out against my thighs. "I've been thinking about retiring."
Ronan paused, and his hand on my hip tightened. "Have you?"
Had I? Only in the sense that it seemed inevitable, what all the other girls did when they left.
"It's been eight years," I said. "I should've started looking for someone ages ago."
"Why leave?" Ronan's touch was gentling, focusing more on my clit, a lovely warm contrast to the chill still lingering. "You could be like Myra."