“What are you talking about?” Actually, he had visited them.
“Since you knew I was your mate from the very start, I’ve been thinking about our previous dinner conversation in that context. You smugly told me you would have your wife and your harem. I realized you were referring to me all along.”
Again, not his best moment. “Then ask me to get rid of them,” he said, though he’d paid them off and released them earlier. “I can be accommodating with my new bride.”
“So you had no plans to send them away on your own?” Her pink nails drummed on her cup. “You make it sound like I could ask you for that favor. And you might be magnanimous enough to grant it.”
Could Calliope possibly want him only for herself? If she could feel for him even a fraction of his bone-deep possessiveness toward her . . . “You hold sway over me. Bid me to send them away, and I will do it.”
She flashed him a look of disgust. “If I have to tell you, then the gesture is meaningless.”
“No? I thought you would never share a male.”
“I’d been talking about my fiancé.”
His gut clenched. No one could wound him like this female. “So you wouldn’t have shared him, the male you chose for yourself. The one you wanted.”
“In all ways, the life I had planned with him is different from the life you’ve offered me.”
Sian lowered his hands, digging his claws into his palms. I know this! Some things couldn’t be changed. His looks, his home, his alliance. The type of babes he would give her. And just like all those years ago, it was killing him that he couldn’t be what she wanted. “Yet I have it on good authority—my touch—that you’re still a virgin. You weren’t tempted to give him your innocence?”
“Just the fact that you called my virginity ‘innocence’ shows how incompatible we are.”
He ground his fangs. “I might enjoy bedding you so much that you wouldn’t even have to ask me to be true. And once I claim you, Calliope, I promise you’ll want my attentions focused solely on you.”
“I already expressed doubt that you could satisfy twelve females, much less a baker’s dozen. This marriage is a joke. I’d ask you for an annulment; unfortunately, I’m the protection price for my kingdom.”
“You mention annulment because you still hope to be with your fiancé!” His wife, his mate, longed for another. That crimson haze covered Sian’s vision. “I haven’t waited ten millennia for you just to hand you over to another male. I should find him and take his head with my bare hands.” As Sian had her first husband.
She bit out, “Spoken like a true M?ri?r.”
“Maybe your former betrothed did try to seduce you, but you resisted his charms. You haven’t resisted me though. When you were in the bath, I had you begging for more though I’d barely lifted a finger.” He smirked— Wine splashed his face. She’d tossed the contents of her cup at him? Through the drops he spied her haughty smile.
FORTY-ONE
You little witch!” the demon sputtered, swiping wine off his face.
“You needed to cool off.” Lila’s grin deepened.
He narrowed his gaze at her smile. “You’ve had your fun.” He traced beside her, sweeping dishes off the table. “Now I’ll have mine.” Before she could blink, he’d lifted her to the table, wedging his body between her legs.
“Enough, demon,” she said, sounding breathy and excited—not resolved and indignant. Over their meal, she’d reluctantly gotten turned on each time he’d gazed at her breasts with his penetrating green eyes.
He eased down to kiss her, but she averted her face. With a growl, he turned to nuzzle her ear—not the ears—till her lids fluttered shut. He’d figured out her weakness before she’d even known it.
He kissed her neck, nipping the skin there, scorching a path down to her shoulder. “Tit for tat,” he rasped.
Her eyes snapped open when cold liquid poured over her breasts. “You asshole!” He was holding a bottle he must’ve conjured from somewhere. Chilled wine? She shoved at him, didn’t budge him.
“The better for you to feel the heat of my tongue. We’ll see how well you like hot and cold.”
He leaned down, his warm breaths caressing a stiffened nipple. Her own breaths shallowed.
He licked the tip through the thin material, sending a bolt of pleasure through her. His tongue was hot. He took the peak between his lips, into his searing mouth.
“Oh, gods!” Her back arched sharply, the sensations dizzying.
He suckled on that nipple. Nuzzling it. Groaning around it. He moved to her other breast, starting his attentions over. All the while, he pinched the nipple he’d left aching. Between sucks, he said, “I scent how wet you’re getting for me.”
She needed to tell him to stop. Her pride urged her to reject him, but her body disagreed.
Just a few moments more, and then she would push him away. Any second she would.
He drew back. “You’ve teased me with these breasts all night. And you accuse me of unfairness?” He unfastened her halter at her neck, and the sodden material fell to her lap. She parted her lips to tell him no, but then he cupped her with his big demon hands.
She pressed herself against his roughened palms. She forgot to breathe when he leaned down again. He sucked one nipple and flicked it with his tongue at the same time.
“Oh. My. Gods.” Each pull of his lips made tension coil low in her belly.
Kneading her, he moved to her other breast, playing with the peak, tonguing it and suckling. When his suction tugged harder than before, she started to pant.
He poured more wine over her, drinking it from her breasts. Then he kissed up her chest and neck till his lips were beside her ear. He breathed against it until she was squirming. “Have you ever had a tongue against your pussy?”