I tried a slower rhythm. Tried pressure, then less. Drew back—kissed—took him in again. The world blurred to textures: silk, velvet, steel under my tongue. He tasted like sin dressed up as a promise. My inexperience turned every inch into discovery, and that made me fearless. If I tripped, he steadied me with a word. If I faltered, he gave me a place to put my mouth next, a new angle that drew a gasp out of both of us.
“Your hand,” he whispered, guiding my fingers lower. “There. Yes—gentle. You can… yeah. Perfect, Ivy.”
My entire body was a pulse.
But here, in this narrow strip of space where my mouth met Max, there was no program. Only sensation and choice, and the way he said my name like I was a door opening and he’d just stepped into light.
“Look at me,” he said softly.
I glanced up through my lashes and nearly fell apart at what I saw. Not just hunger. Brilliant golden eyes locked with mine. In that tender glance, I felt the world open up my heart and splinter everything I had ever thought I’d known about love. His heart thumped wildly against my palm. I wasn’t the only one feeling this.
“Breathe,” he whispered, brow furrowing like he was the one worried for me. “Don’t hurt your jaw. Pace yourself. That’s it?—”
He was so good—so careful—I wanted more of him, to consume not just his seed but all of his love and goodness. My wrists burned, but I didn’t look at them or anything else besides Max's brilliant, glowing orbs. He was mine. I was claiming the man as mine, and no other would have him.
I changed tempo. Deepened, then retreated to tease. I drew a circle with my tongue and felt him jump. He made a small, strangled sound and dragged his knuckles over my scalp like he wanted to pull my hair and couldn’t bear to.
“Good girl,” he rasped.
I was not supposed to like that.
The heat spiraled. Each pass tightened the coil. Each low sound he made felt like a hand at the small of my back, urging me forward. He began to whisper nonsense, broken thanks, my name threaded through it all like a promise he was trying not to make aloud.
“Ivy—Ivy—God?—”
“Wrong jurisdiction,” I muttered against him, and he choked on a laugh that turned into a groan, and now we were both trembling.
I had a brief, lucid flash of my mother’s face, colder than the ninth circle, and then Lucy’s grin burning it away. Desire over repression, this was what she’d meant. Honesty rewarded. I was done apologizing for hunger. I wanted this man like prayer wants an answer, and I wanted the whole world to witness me wanting without shame.
“Almost,” he gritted, voice flat with effort like he was dragging a boulder uphill. “Ivy, I’m?—”
A cough cracked the air—Agnus, businesslike even in blasphemy. “Collection,” she announced crisply, as if reading a weather report. “Demoness Ivy, take the tube.”
It was like someone snapped their fingers, and the world flooded back into focus. The lab. The glass. The rows of demonesses and bulls-in-waiting. The program. The job.
Lucy’s voice, lazy and bright. “Don’t stop her. Let the girl learn the last step.”
Then Max’s hand tightened in my hair—careful, asking—and his eyes said: It’s us, if you want it to be. Even here.
“Okay,” I breathed, and set the cylinder’s mouth against his cock and allowed it to seal.
“My God,” he said again, voice wrecked.
I kept him close with my hand, sealed the edge where the collection met skin, and went from tender to ruthless. Not messy. Not frantic. Intent. I let him feel how much I wanted to push him over; I let the room feel it, too. He broke beautifully—hips rolling once, then arrested, restraint strangling a sound in his throat. He held himself for me the way strong men do when they’re trying not to break the thing they love.
“Now,” he gasped, and I guided, gathered, held.
His hand curled on my crown; my name fell out of him in a voice I wanted to steal and keep under my pillow. The cylinder warmed in my grip, heavy and real, proof and offering and price tag all at once. I sealed my mouth around what the cylinderdidn’t ask for, coaxing the aftershocks until he went loose and boneless and perfect.
Silence. Not total—the vents shushed, the machine sighed—but the kind of hush that follows impact.
I lifted my head. Max looked… undone. Not humiliated. Not angry. Unguarded. Something in his eyes said we had stepped off a cliff and were still falling, and if the ground rushed up, we’d hit it together.
“Cap it,” Kiera said gently, as if we hadn’t just detonated the room. “Label. Good girl.”
I snapped the cap in place with fingers that shook. Wrote his designation and the timestamp in neat script my mother would’ve praised, and then I stared at the tube like I’d found a stone heart in my hands.
Agnus cleared her throat. “Sample received,” she said, briskly covering the fact that her neck was flushed. “Quality will be logged. Clear the room. Demoness Ivy, stay here with your HuBull.”
