her blood inside him, and the fact that she’d been willing to sacrifice herself. For him. For his people.
From deep in a dark, cold place, he’d watched in panic as she’d sliced open their wrists. But then warmth had reached him inside his mind, opening up power. Just in time to keep her from killing them both.
Even now, residual apprehension wrapped around his heart and squeezed like a constrictor. Unconsciously, he tightened his hold on her, but that only served to rub her body against his, press her against him, and blood surged south in pumping, thrumming need.
Delilah blinked at him, then raised her eyebrows, sudden mischief dancing in her eyes. Though something lingered in those soft, dark depths that gave him pause.
“You know,” she said, lifting her arms to twine them around his neck, “I still haven’t gotten my turn to taste you, yet.”
“Thank the powers.” Laying claim to those lush lips once more, he swept her up in his arms, carrying her inside. The door was never locked. Not here. His house was spelled to know him. By the time he got them to his room, they were both gasping and only halfway undressed.
Too many clothes. He needed to see all of her.
Lips not leaving hers, obsessed with that hint of cherries, he skimmed his hands over her curves and around behind to slowly unzip her skirt, something about the rasp of that sound in his bedroom, where he’d pictured her more times than he’d wanted to admit to himself this past year, and a wave of possessive tenderness about took his knees out from under him.
He let the skirt slide down her thighs to pool at her feet, lifting his hands to cup her face so he could look at her. Drink in her beauty.
“If you’d died tonight…” Mother goddess, they might as well have buried his body in the same grave.
Delilah bit her lip, brows furrowed with a worry incongruous to the moment. Or didn’t she feel this between them the way he did?
He was so far gone, he couldn’t picture moving forward without her.
Somewhere along the way, he’d fallen in love with this woman, the seeds sewn well before this day finally reaching into the light, thanks to what they’d shared. Until this morning, their flagrantly different lives, his responsibilities, and her visible dislike had kept him from seeing his growing feelings for anything beyond an extraordinary physical need.
He knew better now.
She loves me. I know she loves me.
With only the idea of soothing that look from her eyes, he brushed a tender kiss across her lips, then nibbled his way along her jaw to her ear.
“I want you,” he whispered, and smiled as her shiver of reaction teased his palms.
“Then we’d better do something about that,” she whispered back.
Not what he’d meant exactly, but her hands were at the button of his pants, and suddenly the frantic surge of need took them both over again. With a curse, he whispered a spell that took care of the rest of their clothes.
Delilah gasped then chuckled. “Impatient?”
“Yes.” He couldn’t even laugh about it, the urgency gripping him so hard, tightening everything about him painfully.
A twinkle lit her eyes as she cocked her head. Then, before he knew what she was about, she dropped to her knees, fisted the base of his pulsing cock. “My turn to taste,” she said, and slid her mouth down his shaft.
The sight short-circuited his brain as sensation took over his entire focus, the rest of the world drifting away as she worked his body. He speared his hands into her hair, watching in fascination as she slipped her lush lips up and down. Then she sucked hard and he came damn close to embarrassing himself.
With a grunt between pain and panic, he picked her up, swinging her into his arms. “I want to take my time,” he said in a voice he hardly recognized. Amazing what this woman could do to him with just a touch. “I have a goddess in my bed. I want to enjoy every fucking second.”
…
In the course of a single day, that nickname had turned from a minor annoyance into an ignition point, lighting her blood, which was already on fire for him.
She would have to walk away after tonight. His people would never accept what she was. Dangerous to them. A lightning rod, especially after breaking her vow. Demons would see her as a traitor. They’d keep coming.
You should tell him that with your blood