Oh, Dromos’s demons. “I’m very glad you haven’t talked about it,” I choked out. “Please don’t ever talk about it. But I, I can’t tell you how touched I am that you’d offer. I’ll try the sandwich. Please don’t say another word.”
Aldrich handed me the plate, mumbled something about finding hot water and making me fresh tea, and fled. I shamelessly set the sandwich aside on the table by the bed, cradling Stefan’s hand to my chest. Kissing his fingers only brought the threatening tears closer to the surface, my chest seizing with every breath.
“Don’t cry. I can’t stand it. And please don’t fuck Aldrich.”
For a moment I thought I’d imagined that low, hoarse whisper. But I scrambled around to face him and found Stefan’s eyes open, oh gods, open at last, only a slit but gleaming beneath his lashes. I tried to say his name, my lips moving. No sound came out but the sob I’d been desperately trying to hold in.
I leaned down and pressed my lips to his, a trembling, tear-salted kiss that couldn’t have been less seductive if I’d tried.
But when I lifted my head, Stefan had opened his eyes fully, and he gazed at me as if he’d died after all and woken up to paradise. “Don’t cry,” he rasped again, his voice slightly stronger. “I might think you’re sorry I survived, what?”
I couldn’t hit him; he’d barely woken. And I still couldn’t seem to speak, either.
So I caught him by the shoulders and kissed him again, on his lips and his cheeks and all over his pale, tired, beloved face, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. At last his hands came up and wrapped around my waist, their grip weaker than usual but strong enough to make me melt into him, shaking with relief as I buried my face in his neck and wept. I’d been mostly outwardly calm while he lay possibly dying, enough to handle his father and Lord Corombos, Fritz and the healers, arranging his cover story and directing the servants. But now that I knew he’d be all right, every ounce of my energy had evaporated, my magic fizzling away into the ether.
Stefan petted my back, and I kissed his neck, and he gathered me closer, and I shook until I thought I might fly apart.
Aldrich eventually found us like that, opening the door and announcing, “I made tea, my lord, but you—oh! My lords!”
“Good, Remi needs his tea,” Stefan said. “And then I’ll be the one to see to him after that.” His tone held a definite warning, and I laughed through my tears, because really? “And get Fritz to help me. Apparently spending—how long…?”
“Two nights and a day, my lord,” Aldrich said.
“Fuck me, two nights and a day in bed, you get a bit disgusting even if you haven’t been having a good time. Get Fritz! Remi, sweetheart, let Aldrich look after you for a minute, hmm?”
Detaching from him took an extraordinary effort of will after two nights and a day of believing, with hysterical urgency and also some truth, that staying away from him too long might kill him. But our eyes met when I lifted my head, and he smiled up at me—his confidence and strength flowing into me, now, instead of the other way around.
“You said I could command you if I wanted, didn’t you?” he murmured, very low, and his eyes lit with a different kind of confidence. “That I had the right if I exerted it? I’m doing so now. Eat something and rest while I get sorted out. And then they’ll all go away again. I need to be alone with you.”
Either my curse had decided to run riot sooner than expected after all, or that sweet, twisting ache in my belly and breathless tightening in my chest were signs that Stefan really could command me if he wanted.
“Yes, Stefan,” I said meekly, and his breath hitched, his eyes going wide and dark.
“Fritz, now!” he called out, and then there were all kinds of hustle and bustle, with Aldrich settling me in a chair with fresh tea and the same sandwich, which now tasted like ambrosia, and Fritz and Stefan disappearing into the bath. Aldrich brought in a pair of maids to remake the bed and took another sandwich and a cup of coffee into the bath for Stefan. Within a few minutes, Stefan was back again, hair still dark with water and dripping on his clean shirt and drawers.
Fritz and Aldrich exchanged a speaking glance that would’ve had me blushing if I hadn’t already been as hot and breathless as humanly possible, and left without a word.
When I turned from locking the door behind them, Stefan had already taken off his clean shirt—and tossed it on the floor, of course, a habit I might eventually not find endearing anymore after fifty years of marriage. And now I’d have the chance to find out.
If he wanted the same thing. If he wanted me half as much as I’d come to crave his touch, his voice, his laughter, his wry, self-deprecating humor, his complete support of my magic and my nature, his gentleness and consideration when my curse struck me and I was at my most vulnerable.
I stood there quivering with indecision, my tongue thick in my mouth and my hands hanging by my sides like useless lumps. Now that we were alone, and Stefan could hear anything I said to him, all my confidence had drained away.
Stefan tugged at the strings on his drawers, dropped them to the ground, and stepped out of them, standing before me completely and unselfconsciously nude.
No, there went the very last drop of my confidence. This man could have anyone. He probably already had. He knew how handsome he was. How every subtle motion displayed the lean strength of his muscles and the casual elegance of his proportions.
And the mesmerizing swing and sway of his balls and massive cock, which had gotten half hard—enough to be intimidating in the best possible way.
I couldn’t do anything but stare, caught between the need to climb him like a tree and the urge to run away and save myself from becoming his willing slave forever.
Probably too late, anyway. I might as well go to my knees and find out what that big, hard cock tasted like at last.
“What?” he said, smiling at me—a smile I’d almost never seen from him, open and charming and unstudied. I had to choke back a moan as it went straight down between my legs. “Iput them on in front of Fritz and Aldrich to preserve your sense of modesty. But there’s no point leaving them on to get in bed. Come here, Remi.”
I crossed the room on wobbly legs, shaking enough that dropping to my knees was almost a necessity rather than a choice.
“Remi? What the fuck—oh gods, oh fucking gods,” Stefan groaned, as I leaned in and nuzzled his thigh, the muscle tensing under my lips. His hands landed in my hair, wrapping in my curls. “What are you, this isn’t what I meant you to, fuck,” and his fingers tensed, tugging almost painfully, as I screwed up my courage and turned my head, teasing at the side of his cock with my tongue. It tasted like pure desire, warm and sweet and smooth. How had I ever thought sucking on my own fingers could compare?
