Chapter 6 #2
The instinct was there, rising fast. To push him back and take full command of her pleasure, her space, her body. And Hunter felt the switch. Felt the tension. “Tell me,” he requested, low-key serious.
“I don’t like being caged.”
He nuzzled the spot under her ear, warm breath meeting her skin. “I see.” He lay back, crossing his arms behind his head, as if giving her all the power was the easiest thing in the world. “Hop on, then.”
“Just like that?” she asked. No one had ever asked her what she wanted, let alone backed off without flinching.
“Of course. Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said, hesitant. “Not everyone’s so willing to, um, give me complete control.”
He huffed, rolled his eyes. “Dumbasses. Look, you want to ride me all night? I’m here, willing and able. You want me pretzeled up? I’ll start twisting. I don’t care how, Daphne, as long as I’m inside of you.”
The tension that had never fully left her belly surged at his words. At the sight of his cock already standing at attention again. “No recovery time?”
He raised a golden eyebrow. “Sweetheart, we could literally go until the end of time. No breaks.”
“Again, convenient.”
“One of the top-tier demon perks.” Then, with a smile that was all demon, he wrapped his hand around his cock and stroked himself slowly, so slowly it dried her mouth and soaked her pussy in one breath. “Now,” he said, voice a dangerous promise. “About that payback.”
“I’m in charge, remember?”
“Oh, I remember.” His grin turned razor-sharp. “Doesn’t mean I’m helpless, you know.”
And for once, the shiver of fear only heightened the need. The need for him. For what he could do to her. For what she could choose to let him do to her.
It came down to trust, didn’t it?
Not just in him, though she did trust him. Probably more than she’d ever trusted anyone.
It was about trusting herself.
Trusting that she was strong enough to receive pleasure coming from places that had once been uncomfortable. That discomfort didn’t always mean danger. That surrender didn’t have to equal loss.
She knew now, fully, what she’d survived. She’d built her life around control, shaped it with intention, lived it on her terms. Maybe that’s why she could finally see what it meant to let some of that go. To relinquish power, not to someone who craved it, but to someone who didn’t need it at all.
Hunter didn’t want to control her. He didn’t care for her submission.
So she could let him lead.
Because she knew, in her bones, her life would always be hers to take back.
She stood, their eyes never breaking the connection. She got to her feet, reached out with her hand, smiled when he gave her his, and stood with her. She led him to the bedroom. To the bed. Moved to the center of it on her knees.
Then she lay on her back.
He studied her, took stock of every little movement, every little emotion playing on her face. She nodded at the question in his eyes, and the smile blooming on his lips was heartbreaking.
Slowly, gently, he opened her legs. “Beautiful,” he murmured, eyes fixed on the slick heat between her thighs. He ran his fingers through it, spreading the moisture across her clit, rubbing it softly until it was hard to think, hard to care how he would take her as long as he did.
“Hunter,” she pleaded, no shame in the need thick in her voice.
“You in a hurry to go somewhere?”
“What if I am?”
“That would be a shame.” He slid two fingers into her, stroking slow and deep, his thumb still circling her clit in lazy, devastating patterns. “Such a shame.”
She arched against his touch, her legs pushing her hips up to meet him, needing more, craving all of him. And losing her mind because something in that pleasure was missing. A weight. A pressure. The ache of being filled.
“You want me?” he asked, voice gone darker now. Lower.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
His strokes slowed, drawing her toward madness. She was panting now, blinking tears of need. “I will hurt you, Hunter,” she whispered, her voice trembling with how much she meant it.
“So impatient,” he muttered, sighing like her hunger was the sweetest kind of inconvenience. “Alright, alright.”
But instead of covering her, he grabbed her thighs and pulled her toward him, still kneeling.
He lifted her ass, guiding her until the head of his cock nudged at her entrance.
Nothing more. Just there. Waiting. His hands slid up to her breasts, pinched her nipples until she gasped, and the mix of frustration and pleasure was unbearable.
And then he pushed in.
She hissed. He groaned. Both of them froze, breathless, eyes wide as something cracked open between them. A shift. A turning lock.
He gripped her hips and began to move, slow and unrelenting, stroking her in places she didn’t know could be touched.
She clutched her breasts, offering them to him again. He took them in his big hands, flicking, squeezing, making her mind shatter in waves while his cock moved inside her, grinding against every right spot so precisely it felt like her whole body was pulsing to the rhythm of him.
But it still wasn’t enough.
She wouldn’t settle for less than everything. So she rose up, wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, her mouth to his, and they moved together. No distance left, no restraint. Just skin to skin, tongue to tongue, heart to heart.
His hands grazed down her spine. Her fingers knotted in his hair. She rolled her hips as he thrust, rode him as he met her stroke for stroke, both of them losing rhythm and reason to the pull between them.
Pleasure built hot and vast and all-consuming.
Her nails dug into his shoulders. His breath hitched against her mouth. She bit his lip. He growled.
And when it broke, when the climax took her, she cried out, raw and glorious, her body locking around him like she’d just been struck by lightning. He followed a heartbeat later, shouting her name into her neck, hips jerking as he emptied himself inside her.
They collapsed together, tangled and sweaty.
Eventually, she murmured, “I’m starving,” like it was a revelation.
“You should be,” he said on a low chuckle. “And I am too. Should we go and see what those muffins have to say?”
“Yeah, I’ll add eggs and toast to that.”
“Elite,” he whispered again, a hand on his chest. “Elite.”
Her limbs, hell, her blood, were heavy and warm as they made their way to the kitchen, both naked and at ease with it. At the counter, she cracked eggs into a bowl, humming to herself while he poured coffee into two cups.
Hunter came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and kissed her neck. She stilled when she felt the unmistakable pressure of his hard cock against her ass.
“Seriously?” she asked, delighted.
“I wasn’t joking,” he said, voice thick with want. “And you’re still soft, wet, and warm from earlier. It’s very hard to resist.”
Then he dropped to his knees, nudged her legs apart, fit himself between them, and took her into his mouth. One long, filthy lick followed by a deep moan. Her legs nearly gave out, but he caught her, bracing her against him and the counter.
She was panting again in under a minute, gripping the edge of the counter like it was the only thing tethering her to this plane of existence. It probably was.
The sound she made when he suddenly rose was pure, animal protest, only to gasp again when he bent her over the closest stretch of counter and buried his mouth in her again.
“I love looking at your tight little hole while my mouth is full of you,” he murmured between licks, between sucks that left her shaking.
He moved again, and she would have complained, but his cock was inside her.
No pause, no nothing, just him, ramming into her, exactly how it was supposed to be.
And she shattered. Came so hard it felt like her soul left her body, only to come back when he followed, groaning her name like it broke something open inside him.
Only then did he pull her back upright and turn her around to wrap her in his arms. She was still catching her breath, trying to remember which way was up, but she was surrounded by him.
And safe. And holy fuck. “What are you?” she asked, her cheek pressed to his chest where his heart beat hard and fast.
He sighed. “I’m just a demon, standing in front of a girl, asking her if she has some bacon somewhere in the house.”
Daphne frowned. Blinked as she looked at his heartbreakingly beautiful face. “You did not just quote Notting Hill.”
“Why not? I love that movie. And I love bacon.”
“You’re deflecting, but I’ll let it slide because your dick game is unparalleled.”
“Only the dick? Not the mouth?”
“No, the mouth too.” She smacked a kiss on his chest. “And you have a pretty face.”
He was lost in thought for a moment, then nodded as if he had just figured out the mystery of the universe. “If we’re playing that game, then I’ll go with pussy, tits, and curves. Not necessarily in that order.”
“Curves, I have,” she said, going to the fridge to get some bacon.
“Yes. For me to grab, to fill my hands and mouth with. Words cannot do justice to my appreciation for your body. And you have a beautiful face.”
She chuckled, setting the bacon in the pan. “That was very dramatic. And appreciated.”
Daphne glanced over her shoulder at him, casually setting the table with nothing on him but her eyes.
That demon gave her the oddest urges. Not just the dirty, filthy ones.
The other kind. Sweeter. Ones she’d never wanted, or never let herself want, before.
She sighed. She’d already blown past her usual MO with him.
Might as well lean in. In for a penny...
. “Hey, do you think you can, like, come back behind me and, I don’t know, hug me? Like you did before?”
She made sure not to look at him, but she heard the deliberate swagger in his steps as he crossed the kitchen. Then his arms wrapped around her from behind, pulling her into the warmth and strength of him.
As the bacon sizzled and the winter light filtered through, she let herself press into the comfort of that body and just be held.
It was okay to feel safe enough to ask for some tenderness.
He wouldn’t take advantage of it; he’d already proven multiple times he wasn’t a total douchebag.
And if he turned out to be one, she could always deck him and retire from human (and demon) interaction altogether outside of library business.
“I’ll always be here for you,” he murmured against her ear.
Believing that would’ve been fantastic, but there were some fundamental flaws in his oath, mainly, why the hell would he?
They were two people, or technically a person and whatever the hell he was, screwing each other’s brains out.
She’d had lovers, even people she’d kind of loved.
They’d left, and not necessarily for anybody’s fault.
“It’s okay,” he said, tightening his hold. “You don’t have to believe me today. I’ll show you anyway.”
Maybe he meant as a friend. Why would he mean anything else? Friends, she could do. Harper never let her down. The gym crew was solid. She could do friends after this starved-for-him phase was satisfied. And also... She turned, spatula gripped like a weapon. “Did you get in my head?”
“I did not. You have very expressive sighs.” He wasn’t even trying to hide the smug as he crossed his arms, smirking like the villain in a slow-burn romance. “It also doesn’t take a genius to figure out you’re not exactly used to affection.”
“Smartass,” she muttered, flipping the bacon.
With full demonic audacity, he added, “Careful, sweetheart. Keep getting all soft on me, and I might start thinking you like me or something.”
She flapped a hand at him like he was smoke she was trying to wave away. “Go sit and shut up.”
He grabbed her face in both hands and kissed her, loud and obnoxious. “Yes, ma’am.”
Well. She might actually be getting in trouble or something.
Damn him.