Saer leaned closer, the tip of his nose caressing hers.The demoness swallowed, and Saer angled his head upwards so he could skim his lips along her brow, choosing his words with care.“I missed you.In my time away, I saw humans overcome with emotions I imagined sharing with you.Those guards…” A subdued growl simmered in his gullet.“They don’t know you or I.Yet, they took that away from me.Us.”
“No.”Neyu’s hand slid up his chest, and Saer struggled to keep his focus.He took her movement as permission, and lifted an arm to slide his fingertips along her waist, inwardly irritated by the scratchiness of the blanket standing in the way of the softness of her skin.
“Explain,” he whispered against her forehead, then kissed it as he’d pictured doing thousands of times, ever since he’d seen humans share the gesture amongst those they cherished.
It feltright.
The demoness’s breath shook, and Saer smiled against her skin.“They didn’t want me,” she said.
“I find that hard to believe.”Saer dipped his head down and to the side so he could experiment with another feather-light kiss on the auricle of her ear.His lips were sensitive, and he tasted a whisper of her skin on his tongue.He hadn’t expected to appreciate these small touches so much.
She rewarded him with a full-body shiver.“We can only pull on their sins when they already exist.You taught me that.”
“Mmhmm.”Saer’s fingers glided along her ribs, itching to pull the blanket away, but staying his hand.
“I knew their lust wasn’t for me, though they pretended otherwise.It was for—” Neyu gasped—the tiniest intake of breath—when he kissed under her earlobe.“For one another.”
Saer paused long enough to consider, and she made a whimpering noise against him.“Please,” she whispered.
He groaned and pressed closer to her as his nose nuzzled against her neck, breathing in her scent.She smelled like lavender and roses.
A tightness and yearning made itself known below Saer’s waist, under his makeshift clothing.This close, Neyu angled against him as though instinct drove her as much as it drove him.She pressed her hips into the suddenly hard and insistent part of him.
He’d overheard other men speaking of coupling in both detestable and romantic terms.No human, male or female, had ever invoked those carnal urges in him.But Neyu’s nearness drove his human body differently, pulled at him,beggedhim.His mind started to muddy, wanting to forget all else but this demoness he held.
One thought stopped him.“Are you—?”
Neyu whimpered and shook her head, knowing what he meant to ask without needing clarification.“I taste your lust, but I can’t pull on it.I don’twantto pull on it.I just want—”
She gasped when he rolled his hips against hers in answer, and the sound sang through him.
They teetered on some sort of precipice.He knew he should stop this course—before they further broke the vow they’d made.
‘You are bound to protect me, obey me, honor me, and put no others before me.’
Not even one another.Not even his perfect match.
‘Dearest,’ she called him...
The significance clarified.Neyu broke that vow the first time she’d declared him as such.
“Please,” she said, and he knew he was as lost as she.
He slid a hand up to curl behind her neck while the other secured itself around Neyu’s waist and lifted his face just enough to kiss her jawline, then the corner of her full mouth.“Yes, Dearest?”
Something between a sob and a sigh left her, and Saer captured it when he at last pressed his mouth to hers.
She tasted as close to heaven as he’d ever achieve.Honey and butter and citrus.
Neyu’s arms wrapped around him, one of her legs lifting to coil around his hip, and Saer moaned into their kiss.Parting her lips with his, his tongue brushed against hers, eliciting harmonizing growls from each of their throats.The emotional onslaught crashed over Saer, and more urgency filtered into the kiss, intensifying until he had to pull back just enough to gasp for breath.
His demoness slid her hands under his jawline, kissing his lower lip, his chin.She whispered against his skin, “Show me.Teach me.Learn with me.”
Saer didn’t require any further encouragement.
12
TheindulgenceofNeyu’slips left his swollen in the most delicious way imaginable.A soreness he wouldn’t trade for anything.Her tongue brushed against his, granting him taste after taste of his beloved.If the tree weren’t at her back, propping them up, his knees would have given out from the sensory overload.
