8. Chapter 8 Her Room #2
Her chin was still on her knees. She was looking back at him with nothing performed in it anywhere, and the lamp put a small gold seam along the underside of one horn.
"You're not jealous?" Lucien said playfully.
"I'm not jealous." She turned his hand over and pressed her thumb into the inside of his wrist. "Like I told you: my grandfather had three consorts and the household ran better than most kingdoms. I'm not going to inherit a human hang-up I was never issued.
" She looked up at him. "That doesn't mean I don't want to be first at things. Ask anyone who's played cards with me."
"You cheat at cards, I’m sure. I bet you poke your chest out to distract the male players."
"I win at cards. The mechanism is my business." She let go of his hand and sat up straighter, and something bright came into her face. "Speaking of."
"No."
"You don't know what I'm going to say."
"You're going to make us have some sort of contest."
"Correct." She swung around to face him fully and planted her right elbow on the blanket between them. "Arm wrestle. Right now."
"Liora."
"Arm, Lucien. Give me the arm. I want to know what this bond we have is doing to me and you keep giving me theory. Theory is boring. Let me see how strong I am."
He put his elbow down and took her hand.
She closed on his hand, and it wasn't the grip she'd had a week ago.
He held her at neutral and let her come at him, and she came hard, and he gave ground on purpose to find the ceiling of it.
Her arm shook at forty degrees. Her horns dipped as she leaned into it, silver hair sliding forward across her shoulder, and she made a sound through her teeth that was mostly effort and partly delight.
"You're letting me win," she said.
"I'm measuring you."
"That's worse. Stop measuring and arm wrestle me."
He took her back to vertical with about as much work as opening a window, and she swore in Duskaran and didn't let go.
"Again." She shook out her arm. "Left."
"Your left is stronger."
"That's the point. I want you to have to think about it."
He switched. She won nothing on the left either, but it took longer, and when he finally put the back of her hand down against the blanket she was breathing hard and grinning like she'd taken something off him.
"Three weeks ago when we were playing around, that took you a second and a half," she said. "Just now it took four seconds for you to win."
"You counted and remembered our match from weeks ago. Is it not weird that we arm wrestle?"
"I count everything." She stayed where she was, leaning in, her hand still in his and the back of it pressed to the blanket. Her hair had come forward on both sides now. "Four seconds is four seconds, Lucien. I'm going to keep counting."
"I know you are. You’re my cute demon girl who is insanely competitive. I’d expect nothing less from you."
"Are you worried about my increasing power?"
“Of course not,” Lucien replied with an eye roll.
She looked at him for a while without saying anything.
"That's a good answer." She worked her thumb into his wrist again. "You could have just played with me and made me think I was stronger than I am."
"You'd have known I was faking it."
"I'd have known." She was still holding his hand. She had stopped pretending it was part of the contest. "Say something nice to me. I've had a long day with a dead theorist and one apple."
"You have the best tits in all of Ardenth Academy."
Her thumb stopped moving.
"That's not what I expected."
"You asked for something nice. I gave you something true.”
“I figured you would say something nice about my personality or my intellect, not my chest.”
“I would be thrilled if you told me I had the best cock in the world.”
“You said I had the best chest at the academy. Not the world.”
“Well, I haven’t seen all of the world yet. Have I?”
The demon girl grabbed Lucien’s scrotum and squeezed lightly.
“Mercy! I give up! You have the best tits on the planet!”
“Good, that sounds more like it. I will release your balls now.”
The lamp hissed once in its bracket. Outside the window, somebody crossed the quad two floors down, and their footsteps went along the gravel and faded out.
"Come here," she said.
He obliged.
Her mouth was hot. All of her ran that way, and he still registered it as a small shock at the first contact and then stopped caring.
She pulled him down by the shirt, the same grip she'd used at the door, and one of her horns brushed his temple as she tilted her head to get the angle she wanted.
She knew which way to tilt now. That was new since the Crucible.
They had learned a great many small things about each other since then.
"I've been thinking about this since lunch," she said against his mouth.
"You have been reading Vharen since lunch."
"I was doing both. I'm efficient."
Her tail found his calf and wrapped it, the coil tightening once. She laughed at whatever his face did.
He put his hand flat on the mark on her forearm as he laid her back on the dorm bed, and she turned her arm over under his palm and let him.
The lamp was still going when he reached for her.
Soft gold light painted the curve of her red shoulder, the silver spill of her hair across the pillow, the gold of her eyes watching him with open hunger.
They had done this before, in a room built for fighting, with the lights turned down to amber and everything about it new.
This was different. Neither of them was finding anything out.
She knew where his hands were going to be before they got there and she moved to meet them.
When she said his name, it came out impatient rather than surprised, and he preferred it that way.
"Lucien. Shirt off. Now."
He sat up just long enough to yank it over his head.
She was already working her tank top off to bare the full, heavy swell of her breasts.
Her red skin flushed darker. Her dark nipples were already tight.
She arched so he could pull the tank top the rest of the way off, then reached for his belt without waiting.
"Faster," she murmured, and there was that edge of instruction again. "I want your hands on me before I get the rest of these clothes off."
He gave her what she wanted. Both hands cupping her breasts, thumbs dragging slow circles over the peaked tips.
She made a low sound in her throat and pushed into the touch.
Her skin ran hotter already. The heat of her came off her in a way that had nothing to do with the room and everything to do with what she was.
"Harder," she said. "I won't break."
He pinched, rolled, watched her gold eyes half-close.
Her tail squeezed his calf again in time with the pressure of his fingers.
She finished with his belt and shoved his trousers down far enough to free him.
Her hand closed around his cock without ceremony, hot and sure, stroking once from base to tip like she was checking that he was already hard for her.
"Good," she said, almost to herself. "I like that you don't need much warming up. You should be ready to fuck at all times. I should make you so hard each time you touch me."
She pushed him back enough to kick her own shorts and panties off.
Fully naked, she was even more of a problem: all long silver hair and deep curves, thick thighs and a soft, lean stomach that tapered to the dark red folds between her legs.
She was already slick. He could see it when she spread her knees wider and pulled him down between them.
"Mouth," she ordered, and there was no question what she meant.
He kissed down the center of her chest, past the valley of her breasts, over the soft give of her stomach.
She kept one hand in his hair, guiding without forcing.
When he settled between her thighs and dragged his tongue through her folds, she made a sharp, pleased sound and tilted her hips up to meet him.
"There. Right… yes. Don't be gentle about it. Destroy my pussy."
He wasn't holding back. He licked into her, slow and deep at first, then harder when her tail tightened around his calf again and her breath started coming shorter. She talked through most of it. Half of it was instruction and half of it was commentary, and none of it was quiet.
"Deeper. Use your fingers too. Two. Curl them—Lucien, yes, like that. You're good at this. Better than last time. Keep going."
He worked two fingers into the tight, scorching heat of her while his tongue found the swollen bud above and stayed there.
Her hips rolled in small, insistent circles.
The mark on her forearm glowed faintly under the lamp light.
Her free hand had found one of her own breasts and was kneading it, pinching the dark nipple in time with the pull of his mouth.
"I'm close," she said, voice lower now, almost conversational. "Don't stop when I come. I want to drench your tongue with my cum."
He didn't stop. He sucked harder, curled his fingers against the spot that made her thighs tremble, and she came with a sharp, open-mouthed sound, hips jerking against his face.
Hot slick warmth flooded his tongue. Her tail squeezed so tight around his calf it almost hurt.
He kept licking through it until her hand in his hair pulled him up.
She kissed him hard, tasting herself on his mouth, then shoved at his shoulder until he was on his back.
She straddled him in one smooth motion, silver hair falling around them like a curtain.
One hand reached between their bodies, guided the head of his cock to her entrance, and she sank down onto him in a single slow, deliberate slide.
The heat of her was staggering. Tight, wet, almost too hot. She seated herself fully and stayed there a moment, gold eyes locked on his, breathing through the stretch.
"Still so big," she muttered, and there was something almost fond in it. "I like it. Move when I tell you."