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She was clutching the sheets now, her knuckles white.

“Garrik, please… my clit… please touch my clit,” she pleaded, her voice high and strained with need.

“So demanding,” I chided softly, but I was grinning against her flesh. I had every intention of giving her exactly what she wanted…and so much more.

I zeroed in on the swollen little pearl. At first, I simply circled it with the firm tip of my tongue, round and round in a torturously slow pattern. Her moans became a continuous, desperate stream of begging and pleading–music to my ears. I flattened my tongue and lashed her with broad, firm strokes.

“Oh, God! Oh, fuck!” The crude word from her prim mouth was intensely erotic. Her hips began to buck against my mouth as she worked herself against my face with an abandon that drove me mad with want.

I slid my hand beneath her, cupping the roundness of her ass, holding her to me as I ate her with a fervor I didn’t know I still possessed. She was so sweet and hot and I loved her secret flavor–I bathed in her scent as I tasted her.

“Oh…Oh, Garrik!” she moaned and her hands found my head, her small fingers slipping into my hair as she pulled me even closer. My whole body surged and I swore I could almost feel my shaft aching for her.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” I growled, the vibration against her clit making her gasp. “Use my mouth. Take your pleasure. You taste like heaven.”

I added a finger, sliding one deep inside her hot, clutching channel as I sucked her clit between my lips. She was so tight, so wet, her inner walls spasming around my intrusion. I crooked it, searching, and found that special spot inside her that made her entire body bow off the bed.

“There! Oh, my God, Garrik, right there!” she cried, her fingers tightening in my hair as she rode my face shamelessly.

I pressed that spot with relentless pressure, fucking her with my finger in a come-hither motion as I sucked and flicked her clit with my tongue.

The sounds she made were animalistic–pure, unfiltered ecstasy and I loved it. I had never felt so in tune with a woman before. I could feel the tension coiling in her belly, could taste the change in her honey as she teetered on the very edge.

“Come for me, sweetheart,” I commanded, my voice thick and muffled against her. “Come all over my tongue. Let me taste your honey. Do it now, Celeste–give it to me.”

My command seemed to be what she needed to push her over the edge.

“Oh God, Garrik!” she moaned. “Coming…coming so hard.”

Her orgasm shattered through her with a force that seemed to shake the very foundations of Blackthorn Manor. A ragged moan tore from her throat, endless and beautiful and her inner pussy spasmed around my finger, her juices flooding my mouth, hot and sweet and abundant.

I drank her down, lapping at her through the pulsating waves, gentling my touch as the tremors began to subside, drawing out every last aftershock until she was a boneless, whimpering mess on the sheets.

Slowly, I lifted my head. My chin was glistening with her honey and I loved it–loved being covered in her essence. I crawled up her body, kissing my way back…kissing the quivering skin of her inner thigh…the soft swell of her belly…each tight nipple, and the hollow of her throat until I finally captured her mouth in a deep, possessive kiss. I wanted her to taste herself on my lips–wanted to feed her the secret flavor of her honey.

Celeste kissed me back eagerly, moaning into my mouth as her arms came around to cling to me weakly.

“Garrik,” she whispered. “That was…no one’s ever made me feel this way. You…you made me come so hard.”

“I know, sweetheart, I felt you coming,” I murmured, holding her tightly, stroking her hair.

My own form was humming, vibrating with a strange, new energy. The air in the room crackled–thick with magic and intimacy.

The kiss had been given and the spell was complete. But in that moment, curled around the woman who had just come apart in my arms, I found I didn’t care about the curse at all.

All I cared about was the feel of her heart beating against mine, and the profound, terrifying knowledge that now I was irrevocably hers.

20

GARRIK

I had no idea how long we remained together, or whether the magic began working immediately. Time seemed to lose all meaning as the evening unfolded, and I found myself so caught up in the pleasure of being close to Celeste that I almost forgot the reason we'd begun…almost.

Because a few minutes after she came for me, something extraordinary happened—a tremendous rush of power surged through me.

It was unlike anything I'd ever experienced, even during the centuries when my Gryphon magic had been at its strongest. For an instant, it felt as though a bolt of lightning had struck me directly in the chest, sending silver fire racing through every part of my spectral form.

I drew back with a startled gasp.