Ridges, caverns of bumped flesh scored the expanse of her back. I ran my fingers down each one, as if I could erase Capriche’s scars with my touch.
“Ashara,” I breathed, slowing my kisses. She whined, the sound cracking something inside me. “It’s okay, we match. Wematch.” Guiding her hand, I let her touch my own through the gown, the indents detectable even under the wool. “They are a testament to how wesurvived, how we endured.” She loosened for me and I caressed them, honouring her scars with the same devotion as I would her thighs, her waist, or her breasts.
“My need for you left us forever marked, and for that, I am sorry, but know I would take a thousand lashes if it meant I could feel you again.”
She fully thawed, muscles unknotting and surrendering to my touch, pliable as I roved over her skin, letting her know just how much I’d missed her, how much I cherished her.
My fingers drifted to the hem at her knees, bunching her shirt—hisshirt—into a fist. I warred with the urge to tear it in two. Through the nutty sweetness of her, I couldsmellsome masculine, pampered scent lurking beneath.
“Take it off. Please, for the love of the Blood God and Other,please, take it off.”
“Very well.”
Retreating, I stepped out of the sister’s dress, letting the fabric puddle on the floor. She lost her arms in the great swath of cotton, and I caught her just before she toppled, struggling to free herself from the druid’s gargantuan sleeves.
“Perhaps we’ll swap,” I mused, fishing her out from its depths. “Do you think the Butcher will mind if I borrow his shirt?”
She clawed at the hair caught in her mouth, her lips pinched. Not a breath later, she flung forward, our bodies colliding with an audible smack. I grunted, my cuts still scarcely healed, but fuck me if my cock hadn’t already started to pulse, its throbbing head swelling as her bare flesh rubbed against mine. Though wrapped in shadows, no one was as beautiful as her at that moment, wanting and writhing all over me.
“Don’t call him that. I don’t think he likes it.”
I held her still, relishing the way our skin stuck together as I pulled away, like hers didn’t wish to part from me. “I mean this with the most solemn sincerity, but I don’t give afuck.” I was aching with it, the need to have her, to fulfil the promise that was as much a part of me as my kidney, liver, or heart. “Now let uscease prattling about a druid, lest our vow remain unquenched forever.”
Her head tilted, a pitying smile lifting her cheeks. Her nails raked through my hair, over my ears, tugging me closer. Willingly, I obliged.
“I don’t regret it,” I confessed into her neck, my hands gliding over the exposed flesh of her ribs, skimming the raised bumps that followed in their wake.
“Regret what?” she replied, voice husked and delicious. She licked at my pulse, at the base of my neck, and I shuddered, loving the way her tongue roved and dipped. Her hand gripped around the base of my cock, and swirled up and down, up and down. I moaned, almost brought to tears at the certainty in her touch, theknowing—knowing exactly what I liked and how hard and fast. No lash or cycles or druid could ever strip that from her, fromme. The Blood God knew it, too…knew we’d leave this world exactly as we came:together.
“Not doing this before,” I clarified. I could resist it no longer. Parting her heat, I plunged my finger inside her. She gasped, near-choking on the sound whilst I explored the hot, wet walls that tensed around my knuckle. Her stroking ground to a halt, and I was grateful for it—I was but a few tugs away from painting her stomach. I grunted, feeling a dribble of seed drip down my cock.Fucking pits,I wouldn’t last more than a breath.
“Waiting gave usthis.” My lips brushed against her ear, my finger dipping in and out, slowly, giving her time to stretch and mould to me. I made a sport of it, pressing different spots inside her, seeing which made her breath hitch the hardest. “It gave us another chance,” I explained, filling her with another, holding her waist as she quaked. She was so fucking wet, wetter than I’d ever felt her before.
“But now, I’ll deny you nothing. Have all of me, Ashara, whatever is left for however long we may have.” Any worriesI had that she would struggle to take me dissipated when the little heathen gripped hold of my wrist, forcing me in harder and deeper.
“Fuck,” I bit out, the word punctuating the obscene, wet sounds of her taking what I offered.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Had a man ever spilled just from touching a woman’s cunt? “I found you.”
My palm moulded to the peak of her, circling the way I knew always had her mewling before, my fingers curling inside her. “I was always going to find you.”“It was always going to be you, Demetri. Itshouldbe you.”
Yes, it fuckingshould. Her hair, wild like a storm cloud, fanned out around us. She reached for me again, readying to wrap her pretty hand around the part of me that was one touch away from oblivion. I bit my lip at the first brush of her fingers.
“Don’t, Ashara, or it’ll be over before it’s even begun,” I warned, stilling her hand.
As I placed it on the jut of my hip instead, I tested a third finger alongside the two already inside her. It would be tight, but I wanted her to feel nothing but pleasure when she finally let all of me in.
“Are you about to make a mess before you’re even inside me?” she asked, the syllables wrapped in a smile. “How many times have you vowed you’d last more than three turns?”
I inserted the third. Bucking, she threw her head into the post, mewling and crying whilst her cunt fluttered around me.
“Three, darling. You’re doing so well; you’ve taken all three.”
Under heavy lids, she peered up at me. “I can take more.”
I smiled and stretched out my fingers, relishing her squeal.
“First, I want to make a new promise,” I edged, thrumming my fingers whilst they were buried as deep as they could go, coaxing out more of those wonderful sounds.
