Almost a moan.
“There you are,” I breathed.
No response to that, and I tipped my head back, drawing in a deep breath as I slid my hands along my waist again, following the slight flare of my hips then sweeping them back over my belly.
Slowly, methodically, I unsnapped my jeans and dragged the denim down, exposing plain black cotton panties.
“So boring,” I murmured, but my voice had gone husky. The air felt thicker. Charged. “You could have dressed me in lace. Silk. You could have had so much more fun. But you wanted to keep me like this. Didn’t you? Untouched. Unknowing. A gift not yet unwrapped.”
His presence behind my gaze had never felt so close. So intense.
“So I’ll unwrap it for you.”
I kicked the jeans aside. My breathing went shallow. And inside me—insideme—the demon breathed in too. Harsh. Ragged, almost. Like he was drowning.
Stop.
The word swept through my mind like trash in the wind, desperate and raw. Not a command. A plea.
I smiled at my reflection and slid my hand into my panties.
Drawing in a slow, deliberate breath, I forced myself to focus solely on the touch of my fingers along the soft, hidden folds between my legs, the whorls of sensation that sparked off shivering heat when I dipped inside. Stroking and sliding, I feathered my fingers along my clit like the brush of ahummingbird’s wing. I gusted out a heavier sigh, shimmying my body again, undulating against the force of my hand.
I couldn’t look at my eyes in the mirror anymore, couldn’t risk breaking my focus. Instead, I stared at my hand and imagined it was someone else’s hand, someone subtle and sure in the darkness, strong and sly. I could feel the pressure building, spiraling up, and I dipped in again, spreading myself.
It felt good—wild. A little profane, but that was the whole point, wasn’t it?
Yes, it was.
The pleasure was mine, of course, but threaded through it was something else—a thrumming curiosity that couldn’t be squashed down anymore. It wasn’t separate from me, but full and hot, woven through every sensation.
My sighs turned into longer, deeper moans, and at some point, I lifted my hand to plant it on the mirror, leaning in, my body closer to my own reflection, but my eyes fixed on my hand, my fingers, the deep and rolling pleasure as I touched and explored, skimmed and fondled. Time seemed to slip away, lost on the escalating heartbeat, as I got closer—closer.
Every stroke of my fingers sent shockwaves through me—through both of us—and at some point he stopped trying to pull away. Instead, his presence shifted, a reversing tide. It flooded through me, no longer fighting or resisting, but riding each cresting wave as I went up…up, up…before plunging down the other side.
For the first time in fifteen years, we weren’t at war.
My breath shuddered out at the thought of that, which somehow pushed me higher, closer, my heart pounding raggedly at the idea of this creature who yearned as I yearned, slid as I slid. My neck arched as I swept my fingers high again to the nub of my clit, stroking and pulsing before dipping deep again. Slickheat coated my fingers and the scent of my own arousal swirled around me.
I felt the dark energy twist up in a sharp wet coil, then pulse, pulse, the want becoming need, the need becoming its own living thing. The line between us dissolved completely and I felt the demon within me reach down, embrace me, then shove me up again.
I shattered, built, shattered again…and built higher. I wanted this, needed this—neededhimto feel it with me.
The pleasure crested—and it was ours, not just mine, not just his. Ours. For one blinding second, we were the same thing. We were—the—same?—
I jerked my head up, directly meeting my own untethered gaze in the mirror, and in that one-brief-moment-yes!
Yes!
“You,” I breathed out as my gaze filled with the creature inside me.
A suggestion of wings, massive and dark.
Eyes that weren’t eyes but points of light in a shape that had once been beautiful and was now...broken. Hungry. Ancient.
And looking at me like I was the only thing in all of creation that mattered, as its quivering, shivering desperation vibrated with something that wasn’t just lust or violence—not entirely. It was panic. Shame.
Need.
