all but surrounding her with his body. Why would she ask if he was still here? Even his demons, who were more than ready to begin, frowned at that.
“Can you hear me, Lucian?” Her voice had softened, becoming coaxing as if she were trying to draw him out.
He was fairly certain he would always hear her. In every woman he met from this moment on, he would hear this one’s voice.
The way he sometimes heard Markus in his mind? Was that all he would one day have of his pet? A memory? He shook his head harder. “Yes. I hear you,” he said, silently vowing never to let that happen.
“What do you hear?”
“The fear in your voice.”
The steel went out of her limbs. “Thank God,” she whispered.
His brows came down low. “You have no reason to feel fear, draga. I will have you making friends with the darkness in no time. You will return to the light sated and looking forward to our next journey. You have my word.”
He felt something pass through her slender frame and looked down to watch her nipples curl into tight little buttons.
“You can do what you want to me. Anything you want. Just don’t leave me alone in the dark, okay? That’s all I ask. Other than that…” He felt her swallow under his palm. “You have my permission to do whatever you must to make yourself…better.”
He purred like a lion and took a moment to savor the freedom her consent had just given him.
♦ ♦ ♦
Yasmeen waited.
And waited.
Soon the tension was back in her muscles as she waited even longer for the shoe to drop. Once her head started buzzing from the stress of it, and she felt ready enough to take him on, she bumped her ass back against what she could feel was her madman’s semi-hard cock. She felt confident enough to poke the bear only because he’d proven he hadn’t gone bye-bye in his head and left her here with his invisible friends.
“Did you hear me, Lucian? I said you could do what you want. Is this it?” She forced a scoff she hoped sounded authentic and not eager, trying to guarantee he wouldn’t backslide into that place she’d heard in the hollow tone that had entered his voice a minute ago. “Really. If your idea of punishment is hugs and cuddles, I think my fifth-grade teacher’s refusal to let me go out for recess wins.”
The soft chuckle that reverberated into her back had her tummy clenching tight. “Is that your way of telling me you are ready to let your sanity slip away, pet?” His hands trailed all the way down her front. He opened her with two fingers, and so gently began rolling the tip of another over the exposed ball of her clit.
“My sanity isn’t going anywhere,” she insisted breathlessly. In her head, she let out a moan reserved for that first forkful of her favorite dessert. Times a hundred.
“Would you like to place bets?”
“I don’t have a castle to put up for collateral.” Oh, God…yes. Faster. Harder. Add another finger. Push one inside me.
“Why would you need one when you are so sure you will retain your senses?”
I won’t. They’re already gone. The minute you touch me, they’re gone. Why can’t I resist you?
She didn’t voice her helpless thoughts as her ears did their thing. He brought his finger up, and she heard him lick it before it returned to its ministrations on that oversensitive bundle of nerves that was causing the coil to draw tight inside her, readying to let go and wreck her just so he could put her back together to do it again and again.
“I want you to orgasm from this single point of contact. Have you ever? Just from this small connection?”
The connection she felt to him was anything but small. “Take the blindfold off,” she breathed as her breasts tightened and her nipples got so hard they hurt. “I want to watch.”
“You do not need to watch. You just need to feel your owner’s fingertip rolling around this shiny pearl he is dying to have in his mouth.”
“Oh, yes,” she moaned. “Harder, Lucian.”
“No, pet. It does not need hard or fast. It just needs to be touched.”
Yes, I do. Her breathing became ragged as she chased the release. God, she loved how he played with her. Loved it. Would miss it so much when this ended.
“It needs the soft stroke of its owner.”
“Yes. Yes, it does,” she agreed under her