Damien chuckled, trying to pull back, but her grip was too strong. “Amma, do—”
She chased after his mouth, planting more kisses on his face as he tried to speak.
“—do you have—”
She slipped her tongue over his when his mouth was wide enough to wriggle it in.
“—any’ing ‘erhaps ‘oo—”
She grabbed the back of his head and squashed their faces together.
He mumbled out something incomprehensible, their lips pressed too tightly to tell.
“Of course I love you, you big idiot,” she giggled when she pulled back. “I’ve loved you since you risked everything and came for me in Brineberth. Actually, no, before that, when you gave your blood to the vampires for their help. Or maybe when we saved that baby together in Durendreg? Oh, but when you raised the Army of the Undead in Faebarrow I thought I wasgoing to make love to you right there on the balcony, so maybe that’s when it started.”
“Really? Back then?” He looked far too amused at the admittance.
Amma shrugged against the pillow, lacing her fingers together behind his neck. “I at least thought you were very cute at the time, but does it matter? I love you now more than I ever have, and deeper than I’ve ever felt.”
He was smiling at her, not a smirk, not a chuckle, but a beam that struck her right in the heart, yet it suddenly fell away. “I am elated,” he said, though the word carried only half of its meaning as his brows knit, “but I’m also afraid of what this means because, you know…I’m supposed to destroy the realm and everything.”
Amma grunted. “Even if that stupid prophecy is about you, the eclipse isn’t for, like, awholeday, and we can’t do much about it right now. In fact, there’s not much at all we can do in this little bed chamber in the middle of the night.”
He made a thoughtful sound in the back of his throat. “Oh, can you really think of nothing?” His hands came around hers and slipped them from his neck to press down into the bed.
She arched her chest and squirmed beneath him. “Did you have something in mind?”
“Would you make love to me, Mistress Avington?”
“Well, when you ask likethat, how could I possibly say no?”
Damien’s mouth was on hers, and he was devouring her. She sank into the bed with him straddling her, holding her in place as he took the kiss she so desperately wanted to give him. Then his hands slid down to her waist, and he was pushing up her tunic as they both fumbled to free her of it. Her breeches were next, and then only her chemise was in the way, but he didn’t let the thin fabric stop him from slipping her breast from behind the silk and bringing her nipple to attention under his tongue.
She wasn’t sure how it happened, but a moment later Amma was naked, laying back and being tasted everywhere—well, almost everywhere. Damien worked his way down her body, each press of his lips to her skin a blossoming of tingles that called to the ache between her legs. He was going slowly—so damn slowly—that she whined out a word of beseeching, and of course that only made him stop.
Amma glanced down the length of herself to see him grinning up at her from between her legs, all pointed teeth and the most delicious malice she could imagine. She twitched and bit her lip and tried so hard to be patient, but it had been so long. “Damien?”
“Just waiting to see if the world comes crashing down around us first, but I do believe we may have finally pleased the gods.” To speak of the world crashing down, Damien’s tongue finally slid over her, and she nearly came apart right then. “Quiet, you’ll wake the whole inn,” he mumbled, vibrations of his words right up against her, and then took her firmly beneath one thigh and hooked her leg over his shoulder.
Amma hadn’t even realized she had cried out, but much more aware, she gripped onto the linens as his tongue had its way with her core. Bucking against his mouth, his fingers dug into her hips to hold her at bay, and a warm chuckle resonated out of him as he slowed his licking, drawing her closer to an edge she would surely plunge off of at any moment.
“Oh, Amma, you’re far too easy to please,” he said, a hand sliding down the inside of her lifted thigh, ankle still hooked on his shoulder. “You’re not allowed to fall apart on me so soon.” His finger found its way inside her easily, the curl of it hitting a spot that made her whole body quiver, nearly impossible to hold back from falling into bliss, but followed his behest. She rocked against the gentle urging of his fingers as he flicked his tongue over her in painfully light strokes, and when she could take nomore, she reached for his head and pressed herself fully against his mouth.
Damien was slick, both literally and figuratively, and escaped her grasp and her core. “Ah, ah, bad girl.” He took her wrists, and she collapsed, only half spent and wholly frustrated. Leaning over her, his grin was utterly wicked. “That’s not how you get what you want, and I think you know that by now.”
In a daze, she lifted and kissed him, the taste of herself on his lips driving her into wildness. She escaped his grip and went for his belt. With a quick flick of her wrist, her hand was down his trousers, and she had him fully in her grip.
The commanding glare he wore was chased away as she stroked his length, tugging at his pants with her other hand. “I’m taking what’s mine,” she panted, and his surprisingly eager reaction made her snicker as he was soon completely naked himself.
Amma pushed at Damien’s shoulder so that he would sit back, slipping out from under him and getting up onto her knees. With a deft hand, she ran the keen wetness from its tip down its length. He steadied himself, leaning back on the bed and took a ragged breath. Biting into his lip, his eyes watched her hand, and she watched the rest of him, finally exposed to her there on his knees, the slanting moonlight falling over his muscled chest and hips and thighs as he tried to contain himself under her touch.
“Mine,” she repeated, taking her free hand to his stomach and running fingers along the creases of his skin, feeling the hardness of him under both palms. All of Damien’s strength and command were subject to her in that moment, control relinquished. His breathing went harder, chest expanding, stomach twisting, reacting to every light touch she danced over his abdomen and traced down his thighs, completely at her mercy.
He groaned as she slid her other hand beneath his length and fully cupped the rest of him then finally leaned forward to treat him to what she’d enjoyed. Damien’s hand fisted her hair as he swore at her tongue running over the head of his cock. She giggled, a pleasure beyond physical running through her, and hummed against him as she fully took him into her mouth. Her name fell off of his lips like a prayer, guiding her head along his length, and she delighted in watching the control he normally had melt away as he panted and grunted and growled into her. Gods, thepowershe had, it was bliss.
And then she was pulled off of him, tongue left hanging out as she gazed upward to see him struggling to contain himself. “I will be useless to you if you go on much longer,” he gasped out. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”
Amma shook her head, licking her lips.
