Page 154 of Bedeviled

“Say it,” he insists, his voice mesmerizing.

I lean forward as best as I can. “No.”

He smiles, though it’s all teeth. “You want to challenge me?” The sorcerer looks delighted.

His magic slips out of him and swirls around my clit. His own pace picks up, our skin slapping together with each thrust. Already, sensation is crowding out all other senses.

“Say it, and I won’t rip that spell clean from that ring.”

That gives me pause. “You haven’t removed the spell?”

He moves one of his hands from my wrists so he can delve his fingers into my hair.

Memnon tilts my head back to meet my eyes as he looms over me. “I have reconsidered our earlier deal,” he admits, his eyes sliding to my tattoo.

I stop rocking against him just so I can truly appraise him. “What?” I cannot tease apart my own emotions at this.

“Much as I enjoy our power plays, I do want our relationship to be built out of more than coercion,” he says.

Like him coercing me into marriage. Or me controlling him through a forged bond. And now this, the birth control issue. He’s right, and yet, it feels⁠—

I tug my wrists out of his grip so I can prop myself up on my forearms. “I like your coercions,” I admit.

“And I like yours,” he responds.

The two of us search each other’s faces, trying to figure out how we get what we want when what we want is being at the whim of each other…but we also don’t want to control the other person.

I blow out a breath as he gives a few shallow thrusts.

Reaching out a hand, I drag my fingers down his sweaty, inked chest, marveling at the way his muscles contract under my touch. “Maybe there’s a middle ground here.”

Memnon arches a brow, his lips quirking.

“I’m not going to tell you what you want to hear,” I say. “So…” I reach for my ring and remove it, setting it on the table with a clatter. It’s the only contraceptive I’m currently wearing at the moment. “There. A compromise.”

My heart feels like it’s beating a hundred miles a minute. I am well aware that Memnon is still inside me, and that though he hasn’t removed the contraception spell, without the ring on my finger it might as well be lifted.

And after Eislyn’s revelation that dark magic made me infertile in the past…there’s good reason to believe that I could easily get pregnant.

Memnon’s eyes gleam, and he looks more than a little nefarious when he shakes his head and tsks. He grabs me gently by the neck and drags me up to him.

He’s so close his lips brush against mine as he says, “Poor, sweet little witch, thinking that her good manners might be reciprocated.”

He takes my other hand and places it over his heart, where his clan’s emblem—that of a curled dragon—rests. “I have been raised to exploit weaknesses—even yours.” His hand tightens over mine. “And I’m not so kind as to make an exception now.”

Memnon withdraws himself, then turns me around so my belly is pressed against the edge of the table. His hand slides from my throat to the back of my neck, and from there it moves down my spine, bending me forward, until I’m flush once more with the table’s wooden surface. That deft hand continues downward, making a mess of my sweat. When it reaches the small of my back, his touch lifts, and for a moment, the only thing I can feel is the press of his cock and thighs against my backside. Then⁠—

SMACK!

I gasp as stinging heat rises from my ass cheek.

“That is for giving away your leverage,” he says, crouching down to kiss it.

“If you keep slapping my ass,” I rasp out, “I will seriously consider hexing your fingers.”

Memnon rises.

“You like my fingers too much to ever do such a thing,” he says a smile in his voice.