The hour was long past midnight. The House of Solace had surrendered to sleep... or to whatever hush passes for sleep in a brothel. Beneath the velvet dark, bodies lay slack in spent silk, quiet save for the occasional moan, sigh, or hush of lace sliding off warm skin.
Jasmine lay on her back, sheets a crumple at her hips. Her window was cracked, the night breathing through it, thick with the scent of the garden and something deeper... muskier... almost feral.
She wasn’t dreaming yet. But she was no longer awake.
The moonlight curved over the floor, pale as milk and colder than it had any right to be. It spilled up her legs in slow strokes, kissing the hollow of her knees, her thighs... brushing higher.
She shifted, lids fluttering without opening. A whimper tugged at the corner of her
