Chapter 38
Memnon leans forward then and kisses me like we’ve only just been reunited. Like we could lose one another again at any moment.
Even though I cannot hear his thoughts or sense his emotions, the same franticness moves through me.
I need to feel him. On me, in me. His weight bearing down on me.
Memnon picks me up then, his arms wrapping my legs around his waist, and he must’ve heard my thoughts.
He extinguishes the fire and carries me back into the house, our drinks forgotten.
I move against him, the action causing Memnon to groan, and I swear his legs nearly buckle.
“You do that again, and I won’t make it to our bed.”
“I don’t care,” I say, my hips rolling against him again.
“Fuck,” he curses.
The dining room is to our left, and Memnon veers sharply for it. His indigo power pours off of him, the ribbons of it shoving aside chairs.
He puts me down and folds me over the dining room table. I am a woman possessed, arching back into him.
Memnon’s power frantically rips at the fastening of my jeans, and then drags them down.
Cool air hits my backside and—
SMACK.
I jolt at the hot lash of Memnon’s hand against my ass. He rubs away the sting, and beneath his touch, an alluring warmth spreads.
“That’s for drinking unknown substances when you know better,” he says.
I’m about to straighten, but Memnon splays his free hand across my back, pressing me into the table in a way that’s as maddening as it is delicious. “Ah, ah,” he says, leaning close to my ear, “we’re not done.”
SMACK!
Another slap against my ass, and this time I cry out, my pussy clenching at the terrible, wonderful heat spreading across my core.
Surely I don’t like this?
“That’s for placing a contraceptive charm on your wedding ring.”
I stiffen. He knows about that?
He knocks my legs apart, his magic dragging his own clothes off him.
“How did you—?”
My words are interrupted by the hot thrust of his cock as it enters me. It’s not gentle. There is in fact nothing about this moment that is nearly so romantic as the words we exchanged outside.
“Little witch, you better make sure you have protected yourself every which way against me if you don’t want my children,” he says as he thrusts into and out of me, “because I think I’ve discovered my new fixation.”
The horror of that should ruin the moment, but if anything, it seems to further turn me on, heightening the stakes.
He pulls out of me and flips me over, my body splayed out for him.
“Legs on my shoulders,” he commands.
I’m lifting my legs before I can even think better of it.
Memnon steps back into my space, reentering me with a single, brutal thrust that has me gasping.
My breasts bounce and the massive dining table begins to screech as Memnon pounds into me.
He gazes down at me, his hair swaying, sweat beading at his temples. And he’s glorious, his body rippling like waves on the water.
He grins, clearly overhearing the thought, before his eyes drop to my chest, and his gaze heats.
Making a swift decision, Memnon grabs my legs and bends them back against my body. The angle makes me feel obscenely exposed to him, but he’s not even looking. He dips down and takes a nipple into his mouth, sucking hard on it.
A shuddering sound leaves my throat. My hands find his head, but before my fingers can thread through his hair, he moves away from my breast and grabs my arms by the wrists.
His chest lifts, and he moves away enough to pin my hands over my head. “You’re going to take me like this,” he says.
The position puts me entirely at his mercy, and it’s mercy he doesn’t spare on me. Thrust after thrust he drives into me as far as he can go, his movements relentless. My breasts continue to bounce in undignified ways, and I’m making even less dignified noises.
Leaning back down, he presses a lingering kiss to the tattoo he gave me.
“Tell me you want my child,” he whispers against my skin.
He’s out of his Goddess-damned mind. “I want another tattoo,” I say instead.
Memnon leans in close. “I can arrange that—as soon as I see a little swell to your belly.”
He shoves himself all the way to the hilt. It’s toe-curlingly good. I really cannot be held accountable for things I say and do while this man’s dick is inside me.
“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.
Unfortunately, that is true.
I wet my lips. “I trust you with it,” I say softly. “My leverage.”
And I do. I trust him most especially with this.
His hand smooths over the burning skin, and he leans forward, pressing a hot kiss to my spine. “Your faith in me is a thing of wonders,” he whispers against my flesh.
He grabs my hips and guides them to him. And then he sinks back into me.
There is no controlling the pace. He sets it and holds it with thrust after thrust.
“My beautiful, beautiful wife. You could not be more perfect,” he murmurs, almost to himself.
I’m making embarrassing noises as I rock against the table, which is as close to a response as he’s going to get from me at this point. I’m no poet when I’m in my right mind. I’m barely coherent when I’m getting my brains fucked out of me.
Memnon lifts one of my legs and bends it before setting it on the table. The stretch is ridiculous, and suddenly, Memnon’s thrusts are deeper, harsher in a delectable, inescapable way. I couldn’t avoid the mounting pleasure if I tried.
His grip moves to my waist, and he squeezes.
“I can feel you’re close,” he says. “Last chance to put that ring back on, Empress. Otherwise, I’m planning to fill this pussy with so much cum you’ll be dripping for the rest of the evening.”
Despite how intensely the two of us have been rocking this table, my ring still sits perched on it, well within reach.
Memnon drapes his torso over my back and places a hand over mine. Clasping it, he slides my fingers closer and closer to the ring.
“Take it,” he breathes.
I turn my head to peer back at him. “Do you want me to?”
“The gods know I don’t.”
“Then exploit my weakness, est xsaya.”
It’s the title. I see his eyes flash as he peers at me, see the almost-menacing smile that grows on his face, and then Memnon releases my hand and pulls away from my back to drive his cock into me at the deepest, most irresistible angle.
Again and again and—
My pussy tightens around him like a vise, and my climax explodes through me, so intense I see white for a moment.
Memnon groans, and then he’s coming, my body milking him thrust for thrust. It goes on and on, his orgasm lengthening my own.
It’s only once the last wave of pleasure has finally quieted that I reach out and slide my ring back on.
The contraceptive spell is still clinging to the jewelry piece, and there’s a good chance that wearing it now will still manage to prevent pregnancy.
And if it doesn’t?
I’m not terribly worried about that anyway. Not with Memnon.
The sorcerer drags me off the table and into his arms.
He cups my cheek and searches my face. “I want all of it, est amage—the house, the kids, the blissful, domestic life we were robbed of.”
“It was never going to be domestic,” I say helpfully. Memnon is far too feral for that.
He flashes me a grin that tells me he agrees. I stare at that pirate smile, and it’s hard to breathe—he makes it hard to breathe. His beauty, his presence, his love. All of it steals the air from me.
He rubs a finger over my lower lip, and I bite it.
“I want the chaos and love that comes with having a family. I want to see what little terrors we can make together. I want to laugh with them and you,” he says.
“I want it to be so loud within these big walls that we’re ready to lose our damn minds over it.
“I want to teach them horseback riding and archery. And to cook. I want you to teach them spells I’ll definitely spank you for later.
“But most of all, I want you, Selene Bowers. For breakfast and dinner. Dragging your nails down my skin and teasing me in that way you do. I want to worry that you might burn the house down if I push you too hard, and I want to see our cupboards filled with the most godsdamned appalling foods I’ve ever heard of—”
I guffaw.
“I want to see your magic floating in the air and your spells dripping from the walls. And I want you however you come to me—even if you never ever want kids.”
He says that like I didn’t just willingly allow him to come in me without protection.
Memnon continues. “You are and have always been enough, and I should’ve seen that long before now.”
My throat works, and Goddess, why do my eyes burn?
“What have you done with my bloodthirsty Memnon?” I whisper. Heartless Memnon is plenty sexy, but this version of my soul mate is leveling me.
Memnon leans his hands on the table behind me, bracketing me in.
He dips his head and nips my lower lip. “Oh, he’s still here.
And when we find Eislyn, I have every intention of doing to her what I’ve done to all my most hated enemies,” Memnon says.
“I’ll make a chalice of her skull—and then I’ll give it to you.
” The look he gives me is downright sinister. “Consider it a final wedding gift.”