Page 79 of Kazimir

“Devon,” I warned, though there was little force in it.

She smiled. Wicked. Holy. Entirely herself.

Her fingers hooked the waistband and drew the last barrier down.

I rose hard and heavy between us. She looked at me as if she had been handed another weapon and admired the craftsmanship. Then she wrapped her hand around my cock.

The contact dragged a rough breath from me before I could prevent it.

Her grip was warm and sure. She stroked once, from root to tip, thumb lingering under the crown where I was most sensitive. I closed my eyes for exactly one beat. When I opened them again, she was watching my face with predatory attention.

“May I have this?” she asked.

The line should have been playful. It came out reverent enough to threaten my remaining control.

“Yes,” I said.

She dropped to her knees.

The movement was fluid, deliberate, with no trace of submission except what she chose to make sacred. Her wet hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back in pale disarray. She looked up at me once from that place, and the sight was enough to make my hands clench.

Then she licked me.

A long, slow stroke from base to tip, tongue flat and warm, ending in a soft suction at the head that brought stars briefly to the edges of my vision. I put one hand on the table behind me because men with centuries of discipline were still, at root, men. Her hand worked the length she could not yet take while her mouth returned to the crown, lips parting, sealing, drawing me in inch by measured inch.

“Christ,” I said softly, though I had not meant to invoke anyone.

She made a pleased sound around me that vibrated down my cock and nearly took my knees with it.

My hand went to her hair.

I did not grab. I gathered. Wet silk over my fingers, heavier from the bath, cooler at the outer layers and warm near her scalp. I drew it back from her face and held it there while she took more of me. Her eyes never fully closed. They watched me from beneath dark lashes, bright with intent and the kind of devotion that turned power inside out until it became service.

She sucked harder. Worked her hand in counter-rhythm. Then eased back enough to swirl her tongue around the head before taking me deep in one smooth, startling glide that made my spine lock.

“Devon.”

My voice was wrecked. I did not care.

Her throat flexed around me. She swallowed once, purposely, and the restraint I had been cultivating all evening split with a soundless crack. My fingers tightened in her hair—not cruelly, but enough to guide, enough to tell her exactly what pleasure she was making of me. She let me. Followed the pressure beautifully. Each pull of her mouth left me a little less capable of diplomacy with gravity.

“You are trying to kill me,” I said.

She drew off with a wet sound, stroked me firmly, and looked up. “Not before the war.”

Then she took me again before I could answer.

I was close too quickly. The body kept poorer secrets than the mind. She knew it. The little smile that curved one corner of her mouth while she worked me with hand and lips said so. I let my head tip back. Let the firelight press orange against my closed lids. Let her have the sound I made when she took me deeper and used both hands at once in a rhythm that spoke of talent refined by wicked intelligence.

Enough.

If I let her continue much longer, I would come down her throat before I had offered her so much as one proper thank-you. I slid my hand under her arm, cupped the back of her neck with the other, and drew her gently away.

She blinked up at me, lips swollen, mouth shining, expression halfway between triumph and protest.

“Cruel again?” she asked.

“Preservational,” I said, breath rough. “For both of us.”