Chapter 5
I commit to drinking the entire bottle of champagne. Then I drag Memnon back to the small glass honeymoon suite where I retrieve the second bottle of champagne and the cake before we head back out to our spot. I fully intend to gorge myself on both before the day is done.
Maybe with enough sugar and booze, I’ll forget just how deeply I bound myself to the sorcerer.
Memnon partakes in both a little as well, but mostly, I feel his watchful eyes on me as we sit outside and watch the sun set.
I lie on my stomach, my heels kicked up and crossed at the ankles, fork in hand, the cake set out before me.
“Why take over the Fortunas’ business?” I finally ask the question that’s been plaguing me. Everything about that family and what they did has the stain of dark magic shrouding it. Who would want that?
“This is who I am, Selene,” Memnon says, sitting back on the blanket, his arm draped over a bent knee. “I was raised to ride horses, fight my enemies, take over lands, and rule it all. The horses are gone, the bloody battlefields are gone, conquering is what is left to me.”
I let his words settle between us.
“Besides,” he adds, “there is a need in me to provide for you.”
The bite of cake I just swallowed seems to lodge itself in my throat. It was that same desire that set off the chain of events that eventually entombed Memnon.
I lower my fork. “Don’t do this for me.”
“Everything I do is for you,” he says too fervently.
“Memnon.”
He stretches himself out next to me and takes the fork from my hands. “It’s true,” he says, spearing a slice of cake onto the utensil, “whether that unsettles you or not.”
He lifts the fork to my lips, and I let him feed me.
“That scares me.” It makes me feel trapped in Roxilana’s doomed life all over again.
“You don’t need to be scared,” he says softly, his eyes so gentle. In the expression I see a younger version of Memnon, one that had more of a conscience. It makes my heart constrict.
Taking the fork back from him, I scoop out a piece and lift it to his lips.
He shakes his head. “It’s too sweet.”
I set the fork down, feeling a little queasy myself from all the sugar. I roll onto my back, knocking into Memnon.
“My new husband,” I say, reaching out a hand and stroking his face. Maybe it is all the sugar and booze, but I don’t much mind that I’m married at the moment. In fact, a curious thrill keeps running through me each time I ponder it.
His expression gentles, as it always does.
I quirk my lips, then stroke his face again, and his eyes go molten.
“Say it again,” he pleads.
I push him onto his back. No sooner have I done so than I throw a leg over his chest and straddle him.
“My husband,” I repeat, watching him react to it. His grip on me tightens. “You’re my husband.” I really don’t know what’s come over me, but I am enjoying it a helluva lot.
My magic spills out from me and tangles in his hair before sliding down the front of his shirt. It undoes buttons as it goes.
“My scary husband.” I run my fingers over the few light scars I see on his chest. Leaning down, my lips replace my hand, pressing against each one.
I nip his skin lightly before peering up the line of his body.
“My…horny husband?” I lift an eyebrow.
At the sight, Memnon lets out a surprised laugh. “Is this you flirting with me, wife?”
My hands dig into him at the term, and my stomach does a little flip. Wife.
Then common sense catches up. “I would never flirt with you.” This is me beseeching him.
“Uh-huh.” He leans up to press his lips to my ear. “Because if I didn’t know better, I’d think you wanted me to spread these pretty thighs open, eat out your delicious little pussy, then sink my cock into you like I promised this morning.”
I pull away long enough to glance at him, parts of me heating up at his words.
“Hmmm,” I say. I grab my glass of champagne and take another drink as I stare down at him.
“There’s only one problem with that,” he says.
“Yeah?” I say, setting the drink back down. “And what’s that?”
“I want you to beg.”
I narrow my gaze, even as my lips quirk, a small smile spreading across my face. He thinks that’ll be difficult for me? The joke is on him—whatever pride I have when it comes to him, I think he fucked it out of me on Samhain night.
“You want me to beg?” I say. I lean forward, so close my mouth is nearly on his. “Please, dear husband,” I breathe.
Goddess, I think I might be drunk. Heavily buzzed at the very least. It’s humbling to know that even without witch’s brew in my system, I’m still obsessed with getting dicked down by this man.
He flashes me a wolfish smile. “Please what?”
I move against him suggestively. “Do things.”
“What things?”
Ugh.
“Horny husband things.”
“That was unimpressive begging. But it is our wedding night, and you are a queen and ill-suited to begging, so I suppose I can be generous.” He lies back down on the blanket and tugs on my waist. “Come closer, little wife.”
Straddling him as I am, I don’t exactly know how I’m supposed to get closer. I end up just scooching forward.
More.
I’m sitting right at the center of his rib cage, and now I move up farther, toward his pecs.
He lets out a little sigh, then bodily moves me until my pussy is on his face, his head swallowed up by my filmy skirts, which his magic moves about.
“Memnon!” I gasp out.
He laughs against the fabric of my panties, the warm air oddly erotic against my core.
“You sound awfully shocked for a horny wife.”
“Memn—” His name morphs into a yelp when his hand comes between us and rips off my panties.
“You are a menace,” I say, glancing down at where his head should be. All I see are volumes of white.
“I am merely doing my queen’s bidding. Now, where do you want my mouth?” he asks. “Here?” He kisses my inner thigh.
No…
Here? He brushes his lips against my other thigh.
“No.”
He must hear the edge of my annoyance, because I can feel his lips pull into a smile.
“Here,” he says with certainty as he gives my outer folds a kiss.
“Memnon.” I begin to get up when he spreads my lips apart and kisses my clit.
I let out a surprised cry, tipping forward. There’s nothing to brace my hands on except this flimsy blanket. The action causes my pelvis to move, and reflexively I lift my hips up a little.
Ah, ah, ah, little witch, where do you think you’re going?
It’s clearly a rhetorical question, however, because before I can even try to formulate a response, Memnon wraps his arms around my upper thighs and presses my pussy deeper against his mouth.
I let out a soft, breathless moan as he gives it another kiss, his tongue laving the sensitive skin.
He groans. Now, this is sweetness, he says. You taste far, far better than cake.
Memnon eats me out in earnest then, his lips and tongue everywhere—my inner folds, teasing along my opening, and goddess, my clit.
I gasp as Memnon sucks on it now, his teeth grazing against it. Whatever work my legs were doing to prop me up, they give out now.
That’s it, Empress, sit on my face and let me make you feel good.
I’m helpless to do otherwise. This sort of pleasure feels entirely indecent, and it’s relentless, one wave of sensation cresting upon the last. Memnon’s magic joins in, slipping between my folds and stroking my pussy from the inside out.
Goddess above.
He continues to suck on my clit until I am right on the edge. My fingers dig into the blanket when, suddenly, Memnon lifts my hips, then uses his magic to roll us.
I find myself with my back on the blanket, Memnon’s torso cradled between my thighs. The skirts of my wedding dress are indecently hiked up to my hips, and the cold evening air hits my now-exposed flesh.
All the while, sensation ebbs away.
Edging me is his favorite thing to do.
Almost my favorite.
I’m still breathing heavily when Memnon runs a hand down the silk bodice of my dress. At my back I feel the zipper draw down, parting the line of decorative buttons one by one. Another plume of his power peels away the bodice, exposing my breasts, then my rib cage and waist.
“Wife, wife, wife,” he murmurs, pressing kisses to the soft skin between my breasts, the ends of his hair tickling my flesh. His kisses are just a touch damp, and I realize that’s because he’s wearing me on his face.
Maiden, Mother, and Crone.
Awww, is my Empress embarrassed?
I shake my head, even as blood continues to heat my cheeks.
Liar, he says fondly.
Whatever embarrassment I feel is fleeting. I lie there beneath him, my dress indecently hanging around my midsection, shivering with cold and anticipation. Who knew wedding night sex would make me feel eager and vulnerable all at once?
“Let not the cold touch her skin,” he incants in Sarmatian.
His indigo magic rushes over me, and with it the chill seems to blow away.
My magic comes out then as well, crawling down the length of his body, tugging his shoes off, then his socks.
It undoes the button and zipper of his pants and drags them down his legs.
My power tugs off the rest of his clothes then, casting them aside just as the final rays of sunset sink beneath the horizon.
I can feel the heavy, rigid length of his cock trapped between us. I arch against him, searching for more sensation.
He groans, resting his head against mine for a moment before clasping the side of my face in one of his hands. “Wait, est amage. Wait.”
“I can’t.” I’m not even trying for demureness.
He laughs, then groans, taking my lips in a carnal kiss.
“There is one thing you need to know,” he says, his eyes flicking to me. “I’m not going to just fuck you. That’s not what we’re going to do.”
I study him a little skeptically, unsure where he’s going with this.
“This is going to be sweet. We’re going to have all the eye contact. I’m going to move in you slowly, and it will be intimate in all the ways that scare you.”
I tense, not liking the sound of this. I assumed that the hard push Memnon made toward emotional intimacy was simply to get me to fall in love with him and then marry him. I hadn’t anticipated that it would continue.