His smirk returned. “Is that a command, princess?”
“Yes.” I dropped onto the bed and crawled toward him slowly, letting my own wings trail beside me. “One I suggest you obey.”
Once I was within arm’s reach, he traced his thumb over my mouth, but his other hand drifted up to undo the buttons at his waist. The rate at which he undid them was painfully slow, but I held his gaze the entire time, biting down gently on his thumb when it ventured past my lips. He seemed reluctant to break the contact, but managed to remove his trousers without breaking our eye contact, and discarded them on the floor.
“Come here,” he said, reaching for me again. I crawled forward and we entered into a long, heady kiss as I straddled his legs. On top of him, skin-against-skin, I could hardly breathe. His hands were suddenly everywhere, as were mine, covering every dip and channel between his muscles, every scar, every curl of red-gold hair. But my need for closeness would not be satiated no matter how many inches of me pressed against him. As much as I wanted to give myself over to his searing touch, to let him explore every delicious, sensitive spot on my body, I cleared my throat and pulled back. Not enough to look him in the eye—I was far too apprehensive for that—but enough to speak quietly in his ear.
“I-I should…I should tell you…that I’ve never done…this.”
Devil shifted, moving his face so I could see his quizzical expression. “But I thought…Will?”
“It was not worth the risk,” I muttered.
“ButIam worth the risk?” he asked, mouth twisting into a self-satisfied grin.
“Do not make me answer that.” I paused to take a deep breath. “I am just…out of my element, and I know you’ve probably done—”
He stopped me with a sweet, sudden kiss, then shook his head. “I haven’t either…”
All I could do was let out a disbelieving snort and sit back on top of his thighs, certain he was taunting me. “You lie!”
“I cannot!” he cried, eyes wide and incredulous.
“Well, then you grossly exaggerate, at least…” The nerves and shakiness spilled out of me in a weak laugh. “At the revelry, you said citizens of the Arden are ‘notoriously promiscuous’, andyoubeing the most notorious of all…I thought…”
He tucked a curl behind my ear. A tender, honest gesture, to match the tender, honest expression on his face. “Theyare, but I…I was created foryou, May.” Hesaid it simply. Innocently. As if it were a foregone conclusion that he had waited all this time just for me. “I have loved you since I was stone blind and knew only the sound of your voice, calling to me through the darkness. Before I even knew what I was, I knew I loved you. How could I ever want another, when you have always been the embodiment of all that is holy and perfect in my world?”
My breath caught in my throat as I took in the earnest devotion painted across his features. He meant every word. Not just in the way that he couldn’t lie, but in the way that he wanted me to have the full truth of himself, and his heart—however new it might be.
“Surely, those words are blasphemous to any gods you see fit to worship,” I whispered. His forehead pressed into my breastbone and his arms encircled my waist, pulling me back into him.
“Well, I will continue to speak them…unless you stop me.” He began to punctuate his sentences with a series of soft kisses over my chest and neck. “You are no mere faerie princess, nor even are you a queen. You are the Arden herself, a goddess, a living divinity like the Huntress, who does not—” I kissed him hard and he fell silent, save for the groan of longing that echoed through his mouth and into mine.
I smiled faintly at the sound. “You will offendallour gods.”
“Then let me offend them with my entire body,” he replied, “for I am not a creature of half measures.” His expression shifted from hungry to ferocious, and his lips returned to my neck, then moved to my collarbone, then went further, his teeth grazing across the peak of my breasts. With one hand tangled through my hair, he slipped the other between my legs.
“I think you enjoy my blasphemy more than you care to admit,” he growled, tilting his head back as his fingers slid inside me. “Why else would you be this fucking wet when I’ve barely touched you?”
The only response I could give was a tiny moan. My body was taut and heavy, overwhelmed with desperate need that could only be relieved one way. I tightened the grip I had on his hair, then lifted my hips and pushed them forward. His jaw went slack as he withdrew his hand from me and touched himself, ensuring he was just as wet as I was.
“You do…know where everything goes, don’t you?” I asked with a small smirk of my own.
He just grinned, nipped at my bottom lip, and whispered, “Show me.”
As I lowered myself, slowly stretching around him, his eyes rolled back and he let out a loud, harsh moan, but his grip on me did not falter for a moment. I held my own breath against the dull spikes of pain and buried my face into his hair witha shivering gasp once he was fully inside me. One of his hands slid up to hold my jaw, gently pushing it back.
“May, look at me.” He brushed his thumb over the bridge of my nose, intercepting a single tear. “Does it hurt?”
“A little,” I whispered.
“Do you want to stop?”
“No…do you?”
“Absolutely not,” he assured me. After another long, tender kiss, I began to roll my hips, and thought my chest might burst open when he looked up at me again. His eyes shone bright as the stars, full of what I could only describe as adoration, or worship. The magyk beneath my skin crawled and sparked, causing the tiny freckles on my arms, and his snakeskin patterns, to glow again. He stretched out his wings, wrapping them around my back to create a tiny world where only we two existed—a world I never wanted to leave, where a million unspoken vows passed between us with every shaky breath and every brush of skin against skin. A world illuminated by nothing but the strange, transcendent connection between us.
The pain subsided, leaving behind a blindingly euphoric, molten ache of pleasure that spread through my entire body. I locked my fingers around his upper arm and through his hair, while one of his hands slid down to grip my buttocks, and the other held the back of my neck. I controlled our pace, while he tasted every inch of me his tongue and lips could reach.
