“Gwen, I insisted that you come home with me.” The strained patience in his tone didn’t seem directed at her. More their current state of affairs. “You’re relying on my assistance for both your immediate and long-term survival. I don’t want you to feel obligated to allow unwanted intimacy, and I don’t want to takeadvantage of a very fraught situation in which you have so few options and so little control.”
That was a very honorable answer to her question. Which shouldn’t surprise her, given what she knew of his ethical code, but somehow it still did. In her experience, powerful beings didn’t fret much about the concerns of someone like her.
And if he genuinely wanted her too…if the qualms he’d mentioned were the only things holding him back…
Draping herself more fully over him, she propped her chin atop her stacked hands on his chest. “So…you want me to have choices? That’s why you pulled away from me?”
Her breasts had flattened—as much as they could, anyway—against his firm chest. No matter how thick his skin might be, he couldn’t possibly miss the poke of her stiff nipples. Just in case he needed another hint, though, she slid her leg between his.
Against her hip, she was pretty sure she now had some firsthand knowledge of male demon anatomy. The newfound information seemed very promising.
Her smile widened. So did his pupils.
“Essentially, yes,” he said after a long, lust-laden pause. Those smoked-honey eyes had gone hazy, his voice husky. “Choices unconstrained by obligation or forced proximity.”
With a subtle, frustrated shake of his head, he loosened his hold on her. Fought his own instincts, even as she undermined his control.
For a demon councilor with a stick up his very fine ass, he was surprisingly endearing.
“In that case…” Bracing herself with a hand on the mattress, she rose above him. “I choose you. Freely. For no other reason than my own desires.”
She kissed him again. Softly. Slowly. Because his determination to preserve her self-sovereignty deserved tenderness, and she wanted to savor this moment of intoxicating sweetness.
He tasted like quince paste. Smelled like a crackling campfire on a chilly night with friends. Cradled her in his arms like she—of all people!—was precious.
His beard brushed against her overheated skin like raw silk, and the satiny pads of his fingertips settled on her jaw, five distinct spots of tingling heat. They directed the angle of her head with the faintest possible pressure so their mouths aligned more fully, and she gladly acquiesced. The more closeness, the better.
Their leisurely kisses stretched out like taffy in the hushed night. She had no idea how long his lips clung to hers, all heady warmth and controlled yearning and soft sips, until she lost patience. Until the shift of her thighs against his turned restless. Until her tongue skimmed along his bottom lip once more and flicked inside to taste him, devour him, because she didn’t want control. Not his, not hers. And if that meant they rushed, so be it.
His breath hitched, and that iron control of his melted in the sudden conflagration.
With startling ease, he flipped them both over. Settled firmly between her parted thighs on the mattress, bracing himself on both elbows, and reclaimed her mouth with shocking fierceness. His tongue was hot and agile, twirling around hers until dizzy bursts of pleasure detonated between her legs, and—
It was definitely,definitelyforked. How had she never realized that before?
His chest heaved with each harsh inhalation, and she clutched at his back, his arms, his hair, for purchase in the maelstrom. His horns fit perfectly in her palms, smooth and hard.
Fumbling in her hurry, she released them and hooked her fingers into the back of his pajama pants’ waistband instead, and—
His hand slid between them and inside her own pajama pants. Coasted over her belly and paused right above the spot where she really, really wanted that hand to go.
“Yes?” The question was urgent, his face flushed.
“Yes,” she breathed, then immediately gasped when those hot, agile fingers combed through her hair and slowly stroked her apart.
Her fists dropped from his pants, falling limply to the mattress as he explored her with characteristic thoroughness. His satiny fingertips slipped through her growing slickness. Caressed gently, testing which spots made her twitch and which ones prompted a helpless moan.
When he rubbed her vulva between careful knuckles, she arched toward him. And when he circled the sensitive entrance to her body with his thumb, dipping inside her the tiniest, teasing bit, her hands flew to his horns again and held on tight.
The heat of his touch, the pleasure of it, dizzied her, and he watched her lose herself to him. Studied each flicker of her lids and each time her mouth dropped open at some new flick of his fingertips.
Bracing her feet on the mattress, she lifted to meet him. To demand more.
“Here,” he murmured. “Does that feel good?”
She nodded frantically. “Please, Hugh. Just—oh.”
His hot fingers were so blessedly long as they sank inside her. So blessedly knowing as they curved and pressed, even as his thumb finally—finally—skimmed tender loops around her clit.
