Silas cast the bronze symbol of Glory hanging on the wall across the room a venomous look. Not that anyone would get the chance to get a shot off before he slit their throats, but it settled something fundamental in him to know she was safe even in enemy territory.
I’ll feel even better when she’s in my den.
He hadn’t considered sharing a space with her before, but now that the thought was there, it seemed like the most sensible and enjoyable choice. Locking Petra away in his warded, booby trapped, and guarded home where she could sleep in his bed, draped in his shadows?
Fuck.His hand snuck down again, squeezing his abused cock hard enough to bruise.
“But that also means I’m at your mercy.”
Petra wriggled again. The shadows weren’t pinning her down, but he knew she felt something when they touched her. Perhaps she felt confined and that was why she wouldn’t stop fidgeting. As if a little wiggle would ever stand the chance of freeing her.
Silas scowled. “You’re at my mercy regardless. Might as well get used to it.”
Her eyes, mostly sightless in the dark, still managed to flash with temper — and no small amount of magic. “I thought you said I had power. That doesn’t sound like it.”
The urge to cover her with his much heavier body, replacing the shadows with his flesh to pin her to the bed, was almost as strong as the one he felt to nip her proud nose in reprimand.
His voice took on a dry, strained quality when he replied, “You do. If you didn’t, I would be inside of you already.”
By some miracle, he wasn’t eventouchingher, despite being only about a foot away from all that lovely golden flesh. Despite every rousing, furious instinct, he remained on his side. And if his hand happened to be on his cock, it was only so he didn’t make a mess of the sheets involuntarily rather than to covertly take his pleasure beside her.
The idea might have had appeal if the animal part of him could stand the thought of being so near to her and not… well, doing anything. At the very least, his basal instincts demanded he throw off the sheets and let her watch.Preenfor her.
A novel impulse, that. He’d never felt the need to impress anyone in his life.How galling.
While he wrestled with that revelation, Petra went very still again. “Is this you respecting my boundaries?”
He really didn’t appreciate the note of incredulity in her voice. “I said I would, didn’t I?”
“So you’re not going to try anything?”
His eyebrows lifted so high, his clan’s matriarch would have said they were touching his horns. “Is that disappointment I hear?”
“No,” she answered, too quick. “I was just making sure you planned to keep your word.”
“No sex unless you say soexplicitly.”He propped his head up with his palm, narrowed eyes locked on her glowing face. His eyes and nose worked in tandem with the shadows, telling him everything she refused to say.
Her heartbeat was elevated, her breaths short. Her cheeks were flushed. Her nipples were hard. The rich, spicy scent of her desire was a curl in the air — as real and tantalizing as the incense smoke she used in her services.
If he wanted to test himself, to drive them both insane, he needed only to use a slight amount of will to nudge his shadows between her thighs, where he was absolutely certain he’d find her wet and needy.
Lust was its own beast in his mind, but it had a new shape. Silas wasn’t just desperate to relieve the painful pressure in his balls, but to satisfyher.
She needs me,the suddenly pitifully desperate demon side of him wailed.She needs me!
Silas was at once split in two. One half roared with vicious pleasure at the thought of righteous High Priestess Zaskodna squirming with need for him, while the other was certain it’d die if it didn’t fix the issue immediately.
His clan had gone on and on about a demon’s famed devotion to a mate, how they prided themselves on their care and comfort, their impeccable instincts, but since he had no mate, the impulse to please was very confusing. He’d never sought to please anyone in his life.
Suddenly needing to claw back a bit of the power over himself, Silas used his coldest, silkiest purr when he said, “Baby, if you want me to fuck you, you’re gonna have to beg.”
There was a slight pause as she absorbed the sudden shift in his demeanor. “That isn’t going to happen. I don’t need tobegfor anything.”
“Oh? Even when your cunt is wet enough to drip down those pretty thighs just by beingnextto me?” He had no intention of informing her that he was in a similar state, if not considerably worse off.
“No,” she answered, back to using her cool priestess voice. “If I wanted sex that bad, I wouldn’t need to beg you for it. I could find someone else to?—”
He didn’t make the choice to move, nor command his shadows to act, but it happened anyway. Silas wasn’t even sureif she finished her sentence. He couldn’t hear a damn thing over the sudden roar of blood in his ears as he dragged her back to his front. One hand still held his head up and the other pressed hard into the mattress in front of her navel, caging her in while his shadows did the rest of the work of keeping her there.
