Vanders’ head tipped the other way.
“Of course,” Damien muttered to himself, nothing any clearer.
Beside him, Quaz stirred, reaching paws out in a long stretch toward the vaxin, every claw vicious and sharp, but the imp’s feline snout only yawned. Vaxins were little more than mice when it came right down to it, but Quaz wasn’t terribly good at being a cat and seemed to have no desire to eat him.
Vanders dove off of Damien’s chest and nestled into Quaz’s fluffy, white belly, apparently equally unconcerned about being eaten. Perhaps Vanders wasn’t terribly good at being a mouse either.
“Keep one another company,” Damien said to them and slipped out of the bed.
Damien’s instinct told him to try the knob before knocking, but he was still surprised when the door to Amma’s chamber gave way. Did that mean she was not inside? Had she left to find Erick in the night?
A pall of blue moonlight streamed in through the large windows that ran across one wall of the chamber, falling on the bed and the form lying there. She shifted slightly, and Damien stood in the doorway, noxscura slipping away from him and going to her, feeling her heart race too quickly to be anything but awake.
“You failed to lock your door,” he finally said, voice low. “Dangerous.”
She lifted her head. “Not if there’s a blood mage in the room with me.”
“On the contrary.” He eased the door to behind him. “And what if it weren’t me?”
There was a lilt to her voice in the dark. “Then I’d scream, and you would come running, and I’d have you here either way, just like I was hoping.”
Damien shifted the lock into place. “Well, now no one can come in. And no one’s getting out either.”
She put her head back down. “Guess you have to sleep here then.”
That was what he wanted, of course, to feel her pressed up against him, but the thought of it being the last time held him to the spot.
“Damien, come get in the bed, or we’re going to finish that conversation we were having in the tavern.”
He hurried over and slipped under the blankets while she snickered into her pillow. Damien drew her close in one swift move, fitting her back against his chest where she belonged, her skin searingly warm. He slid his other arm beneath her pillow so there would be nothing between them, and she made a contentnoise as she snuggled in, but he froze.
“Amma, where are your clothes?”
“They were dirty,” she said with a sigh. “I’m too clean to put them back on.”
He groaned into the nape of her neck as his fingers grazed her bare stomach. She twisted under his touch, rubbing against him and inspiring a tickle that crawled downward from his navel. He swallowed hard and ignored it.
Breathing in the sweetness coming off of her, he closed his eyes, determined to revel in how wonderful it was to simply have her close. That lower tickle grew into a throb, but the point was to hold her, not hump her, so he wriggled his hips backward a few inches even as he cupped his hand just under her breast, her heartbeat fluttering against her ribs as she took shallow breaths. She shifted in his arms, and then nimble fingers grazed his stomach.
“What do you think you’re—”
Damien sucked in a sharp breath as fingers wrapped themselves around his length. Any hope of sleep was doomed as the subtle creep to attention he’d been doing happened all at once under her touch. Toying with him in much the same way he’d seen her fingers toy with her lips in deep thought, she sighed into the pillow, entirely too satisfied.
“That’s very bad behavior,” he grumbled into the back of her neck but thrust his hips into her grasp despite himself.
Amma giggled, sliding her hand along the rest of his fully hard length. “Call it bad if you’d like, but I can tell it feels good.” Her fingers encircled him again with a painfully light touch at the base, teasing their way up and then down and up and—
Damien’s sense came back to him at once, and he snatched her wrist. She let him go, his grip much tighter. If she were to start this, he would want her to finish it, and hadn’t he been so sure all this time that she couldn’t possibly do these things of herown accord?
He whispered Chthonic into her hair, the sibilant words snaking out of his mouth, arcana following and seeping into her. He kept it no secret, but unlike the reaction other creatures had to being invaded by his magic, Amma relished in it. She moaned and arched against him, her ass replacing her hand and cradling his cock between the two of them, nearly dousing the spell completely.
But Damien refocused, and she put up no resistance—she never did, not with him—and her blood told him everything. Desire, hunger, longing. But it wasn’t enough.
With the arm wrapped beneath her, he lifted his free hand to her throat, fingers pressing in to hold her still. “Tell me what you want, Amma.”
He had her pulse in two places, her neck and her wrist, and both quickened. “You,” she said, voice vibrating against his palm as it husked out. “I want you to make love to me, Damien.”
Love. Damien’s heart knotted, his grip on her weakening. Amma may have acted insatiable, but that soft, little heart of hers wanted more than a carnal tumble. Swallowing hard, Damien pressed his lips against the back of her head. “I can’t,” he breathed.
