Shem brushed soft kisses over the back of my naked shoulders, darting his wet tongue out lightly, causing the tiny hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.
“Did that hurt, baby?” he purred, and I closed my eyes, allowing myself to revel quietly in the small gift he had just given me.
Baby.
He only called me that when he’d fallen into this dark version of himself. I never told him how much I loved it because, frankly, I was worried if he knew, he would take it away.
Instead, I had created a small collage of memories that I kept in the back of my mind to visit each time I needed to remind myself that somewhere in there, he did care about me.
He didn’t call anyone else baby.
Just me.
That had to mean something.
“Yes, Shemhazai,” I whispered. “It hurts.”
“Good. Sit down.”
I turned to face him and sank onto the couch with my hands firmly bound behind my back. He’d done a good job; I wouldn’t be able to muscle out of the cord if I tried, which was a testament to how experienced Shemhazai was with such things.
I was not an easy demon to restrain.
He looked down at my naked body, sliding his hands into his pockets and cocking his head to the side in that predatory way of his.
I was used to being naked while Shemhazai remained fully clothed. He never stripped during sex, not even during group sex with Lilith and Ramel.
He wouldn’t even take his pants off when we showered together, which confused me to no end. I made the mistake of asking him about it once, and he disappeared for two weeks.
I hadn’t asked again.
“You look good like that,” he rumbled, and I bit my lip as his gaze rolled over my body. I couldfeelit when his eyes settled on my cock, which was growing harder by the second.
“Spread your legs wider,” he ordered, and I shifted, parting my knees for him.
His eyes snapped up to meet mine, and he gave me an approving grin.
“You listen so well, baby.” His voice was dripping with lust, but I remained silent.
I knew the rules.
Obedience did not come naturally to me. It had taken me a while to beat back my need to fight him at every turn. But after the third or fourthtime he had grown bored of my antics and left me hard and needy, I’d learned to keep my mouth shut.
That was the problem with wanting to be close to Shemhazai. He held all the power. If you didn’t bend to his will, he would simply walk away, and nothing hurt more than feeling abandoned by him.
I watched him reach out to snatch up the elixir from where he’d set it on the chair that sat opposite of me.
He prowled forward, positioning himself between my spread legs, and I held my breath. I was already so hard, and the anticipation was killing me.
It was impossible to predict what Shemhazai had planned when he was like this, but it was always absolutely deranged, and I always came so fucking hard I saw stars.
He bent at the waist and leaned over me, kissing me softly on the forehead, before using the hand that wasn’t holding the bottle to run his fingers gently through my hair.
“I can’t wait to torture you,” he purred, and the meaning of his words felt so at odds with the soft way he said them.
He pulled back to look me in the eyes, and I swallowed thickly at the depth of emotion swimming in his gaze. A small part of me celebrated that he wasn’t able to hide this from me. I knew I wasn’t imagining it. He felt something for me; he was just too afraid of it to admit it to himself.
“Now, once I put this on your skin, you’re going to experience arousal like you’ve never felt before. You’ll need to come so bad you won’t be able to think straight.” He hummed, brushing his lips over his favorite spot on my jaw and inhaling deeply as if he were getting high on my scent.
