For a long while, he taunted them both, stroking her everywhere but where she needed him most. Her fingers curled on the wall. Bang, bang. She pounded those little fists, desperate for relief. But did she beg? No.
Finally she began to talk, telling him all the things she wanted him to do to her…all the things she wanted to do to him….
…touch him…
…stroke him…
…liiick him…
By the time she quieted, his nerves were so sensitized, he could barely stand. Definitely couldn’t stand still. He rubbed against her, again and again, the friction ecstasy…misery. He imagined her hands on him, all over him. He imagined her mouth on him, all over him.
He craved.
“Those things you will do to me.” He barely registered the fire, ice and sheer grit in his voice. “Next time.”
She turned her head, giving him a peek at her profile. The most adorable of pouts tugged at the corners of her lips. “And now?”
“Now I continue my quest to make you beg.” He chuckled as her pout deepened. “You didn’t think I’d forgotten, did you?”
He got serious, no longer content to tease her. He worked her until she was alternately gasping and moaning, playing with her breasts, stroking where she needed him most, until her hands were off the wall and in his hair, her nails scouring his scalp. Oh, how she clung to him in the most decadent of ways. She purred. She moaned. She writhed. And all the while he continued to rub against her, desperate to fill her.
“Please,” she finally begged. “I give. Please, please, please!”
“I will never say no to you.”
She threw a little grin over her shoulder, her eyes as bright with humor as they were hot with arousal. “Good, because now I want you to beg me.”
He did not hesitate. “Please, please, please, Annabelle.” At last he lifted his robe, positioned himself, and slid inside the glorious sheath she provided. “Please.”
“Zacharel,” she said on a moan. “Faster. Please.”
“Or…” He went slower—before stopping altogether. His legs were trembling, threatening to give out at any moment, but he would savor every second of this, would be so careful with his woman.
“Zacharel.”
He inched back into motion….
…a little faster…
“Please.”
Still a little faster… The pleasure was cut with agony, but he loved it, loved every sensation…faster…faster….
Her fists again banged into the wall as she shattered. He was right there with her, shouting her name, branding her with all that he was.
Long minutes later, when they had both calmed, he picked her up and carried her to the shower. She didn’t speak a word as he cleaned her, then himself. No remnants of the demon form remained, and he was glad. She was composed and sated.
And…he hadn’t once kissed her, he realized suddenly.
Zacharel looked her over. Soaking-wet hair was plastered to her head, cheeks and shoulders. Ice-blue eyes watched him, droplets clinging at the ends of her lashes. Her cheeks were flushed to a rosy pink, her lips swollen and teeth-marked. She must have chewed them. Her body was reddened where he’d kneaded her, and shaky, so beautifully shaky with satisfaction.
He cupped her jaw. Forever he simply stood there, continuing to peer at her, allowing her to study him and hiding nothing from her. He wondered if she saw the same loveliness he saw in her, if she saw the reverence and the hunger he felt for her. If she saw the hope for something more. For all. She must have, for she reflected everything back at him.
For so long, he’d had nothing—and she had somehow become his everything.
Without explaining himself, he fused their lips together. He wanted the kiss to talk for him, to prepare her for his next confession. Their tongues met, rolled together, dueled, a kiss not meant to arouse but to give.
When finally he lifted his head, he stared down at her and gave voice to action. “I love you, Annabelle.”
She was more than his other half; she was the best part of him.
“I know.”