41
Finn
I wake still buried deep inside my mate.
My cock is only half-hard, but growing rapidly as I come back to consciousness. I try to ease out of her, pull back, but I’m stopped by her firm grip on my hip.
Soleil’s blunt little nails dig into my ass as she reaches back to hold me in place. Her hips arch to chase my retreating cock, and her voice is husky with sleep.
“Leave it in,” she orders, bossy even when she’s still half-dreaming.
“If I do that,” I say gruffly, already thrusting back into her. “I’m going to knot you again.”
“Good.”
I curse low under my breath, powerless to do anything but give her what she wants, cock and knot swelling too fast to do a damn thing about it, anyway.
I’m lodged so deep within her that by the time I’m fully hard, she’s knotted, and she cries out as an orgasm takes hold of her, swift and all-consuming.
I’m nearly certain her nails have left marks on me as her climax abates, and fuck I hope I’m right. I’d love to see my wicked little witch leave evidence of her claim all over me.
“What did I tell you?” I rumble against the side of her throat, fangs pressed to skin as I rut her.
It’s the final barrier we haven’t crossed, the claim I haven’t made.
I’d bite her in a heartbeat, leave my mark, drink so deep she’d live inside me forever.
But I can’t.
Not now.
I don’t know if my heart could take it.
To claim her that way, then watch her leave, might actually break me.
So I don’t. I push the thought from my mind, pull my fangs back, focus instead on the exquisite pleasure of having my knot in her. Of rutting her. Of being so deep inside her, it truly feels as if we are one flesh.
I bring one hand up to lightly collar her, tipping her head back so I can claim her mouth.
With the other, I find her clit and work it in slow, firm circles timed with the rocking of my hips, determined to feel her come around my knot again.
When I need more leverage, I wrap my other hand around her thick thigh and spread her open, working my hips in deep, merciless thrusts.
Soleil cries out and clutches at me, body already tightening and straining, the magick between us swirling as she reaches her peak.
“Again, sunshine,” I rasp into her mouth. “I want to feel you again.”
My mate lets go.
She sets herself free, gives wholly into her pleasure, trusts me to hold her and make sure she gets what she needs. As she comes and comes around my cock in tremors that wrack her whole body, I spill into her, stars whiting out my vision in ecstasy so exquisite I’m not sure I’ll survive it.
“I hope you weren’t planning on an early morning,” I murmur a few minutes later when we’re both coherent again. “Because neither of us are going anywhere soon.”
Soleil lets out a breathless laugh as she shifts her hips, confirming how well and truly stuck she is on my knot.
“It’s a little inconvenient, you know,” she teases. “What if I had somewhere to be today?”
“Then you’d have to explain your tardiness.” I suck a kiss against her neck, cup one luscious breast and squeeze her taut pink nipple. “You’d have to tell them how demanding you were for your mate’s knot, how I had no choice but to give it to you and keep the two of us stuck here.”
I pepper little kisses over her jaw, her shoulder, the nape of her neck while I speak, and she squirms against me.
We both lose ourselves in the simple silliness and pleasure of it until eventually my knot subsides enough for me to slip out of her so we can both make a trip to the bathroom to get cleaned up.
But even there, in the heat and the steam of the shower, I can’t stop touching her. I can’t get close enough to her to be satisfied, and I’m beginning to realize I probably never will.
Our shower turns into a late breakfast in bed, which would probably have turned into another romp in the furs.
As is always the case, though, the peace doesn’t last.
Life intrudes as it always does, as it always will, this time in the sound of a tentative knock on the suite’s outer door.
Groaning my frustration, and with a growing pit in my stomach, I pull on my trousers. Soleil rolls out of bed as well, throwing on my tunic. The garment falls nearly to her knee, and even as delectable a sight she makes, I barely have time to admire before the knock sounds again.
“I’ve got it,” I tell her as I cross toward the suite’s main room. “You can stay here and relax.”
“Not a chance,” she shoots right back. “It’s probably for me, anyway.”
As I swing the door open, I find my mate is correct.
The queen of the demon realm stands on the threshold.
I bow low, cheeks heating at how obvious we must be, hastily half-clothed and rumpled.
But Queen Allison is tactful enough to pretend not to notice our disheveled state.
“I’m sorry to intrude,” she says, leaning around me so she can see my witch. “Soleil, Marianne has come back to court, and she needs to speak with you. Urgently.”