100% That Witch - Celia Kyle Page 0,59

log walls. Each splinter seemed precisely placed. The whole of it offered something beyond coziness.

It felt like home.

In the whole scope of her life, only Hollow House could rival it in that regard. And, as it lacked the full-time presence of Nero, the cabin pretty much edged it out.

Sorry, Hollow House. Second place will just have to do.

She relaxed in Nero’s embrace until the afterglow began to wane and the absurdity of it all came to find her. A lifetime of second-guessing every good thing was bound to find a way through the keyhole—and not without reason, when she really stopped to think about it.

Unlike Kelly, Tiffany had never been one for full abandon, so falling into someone’s arms wasn’t standard practice for her. Making passionate love on the couch was someone else’s game. Wasn’t it? Especially when the one she had tumbled with wasn’t hers to keep.

At the same time, the idea that he belonged with someone else seemed ridiculous, considering all they had just said—and done. He hadn’t held her like someone on vacation looking for a short-term fling. What they’d shared went far deeper than that.

Even so, the tiny goblin of guilt began to dance in her stomach. Who was she to sleep with someone else’s Beloved?

“Now what are you thinking about?” Nero slid his hand up from her breastbone and cradled the side of her jaw, gently caressing her face and pulling it toward his.

“Nothing.” He must have heard the vaguely guarded edge to her voice because he gave her neck a loose, playful lover’s shake.

“Nothing ever came from nothing. Try again.”

“Ugh. Shakespeare,” she groaned in appreciation. “You’re the worst.”

“Or the best.”

She turned toward him without protest. Their lips dusted each other, trading who the leader was and who followed. It was a seamless waltz, and the gentle frisson of tongues added spice and excitement.

Before she knew it, Tiffany was leaning in, delving her tongue to meet his, and breathing heavily with quickly growing desire. Even without his fingers to help them along, her nipples tightened into hungry little knots, and she pressed herself to him to satisfy the need to feel every inch of him. If she had been sated by what they were recovering from, it was a temporary state. She needed more.

Given the generous swell returning to Nero’s nether regions, he was ready to meet her desires. The sleeping giant unfurled and stretched before her. Even without leaving his lips, she could sense the vibrating power of it.

The proximity was too much to resist. With a delicate hand, she reached out and dragged an agonizing palm along the underside of him—from the lowest point to the tip. Once there, she made a loose circle and then glided back down. It was a longer journey than she remembered, and she marveled that the whole of him had so recently been harbored inside her.

In answer to her touch, Nero rocked his hips forward, as if begging for her. She was more than ready to grant her favors. All she wanted was to memorize every plane of him.

“God, Tiffany.” The words came from a yearning throat, and the tingling warmth in her core began to return. That treacherous, vulnerable dampness returned, and she knew he would have that effect on her every time.

“Nero,” she whispered, her lips tugging at his, “tell me what you want.”

“I have what I want.” The husky sound vanished, and he settled away from her, suddenly fully in charge of his faculties. She found herself bereft and arrested all at once. Despite herself, she closed a hand around him, and he pressed up in a low hum as she did.

Brushing some hair from her face, a gesture that never failed to make her swoon, he smiled softly at her. “I never believed having a Beloved would feel this incredible.”

Her breath locked in her chest. The room seemed to shrink until it barely surrounded them, and her ears began to ring. Surely she had heard him wrong.

“W-what?”

Nero blinked at the shift in her voice. The corner of his mouth tugged up in something between an affectionate smile and a smirk.

“You’re my Beloved, Tiffany Ufora.”

Her mouth was too dry to respond.

“I knew it the second you opened the door for that party,” he went on. “There was no doubt in my mind. But you were all moony over that Rhys fellow, so I had no choice but to wait.”

“Wait?” Not much of a reply, but words were in short supply at the moment.

“Of course.