Stefan pulled my head back and gazed down at me, mouth open and eyes wild. The pallor of his coma had gone, replaced with slashes of crimson along his cheekbones and a flush that spread down his neck and chest.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said, and no one in the history of the world had ever sounded less convincing. “I wouldn’t ask you to do this, Remi. I’d go on my knees for you a thousand times before I ever asked you to.”
That part was sincere, though. And how many times had he used his mouth to pleasure me? As often as I’d let him.
I licked my dry lips, and he let out a gut-punched groan, eyes widening. “You could tell me how to do it, then,” I suggested.
“Oh, fucking fuck,” he said, and let me lean back in, still holding my head, but cradling it now, caressing me. “First you start with, ah. Oh gods. That.” I kissed the tip of his cock. It left a smear of salty sweetness on my lips, and it felt softer than I’d expected given how vigorously he used it to pound my insidesinto jelly. This time I parted my lips, kissing his cockhead the way I’d have kissed his mouth, letting my tongue circle around it. “Exactly like that,” he said, voice hoarse. “Open your mouth, sweetness. Take a few inches. Like that.”
I opened obediently, heart pounding, my cock painfully hard, clenching the muscles of my ass and imagining that thick cock sliding deep into my hole as Stefan nudged it between my lips. He rubbed his cockhead over my tongue, bumping against the roof of my mouth, filling this part of me as thoroughly as he always filled the other. I tried to open more, to let him push into my throat, because nothing else mattered but this, pleasing him, belonging to him…
He pulled back and I chased him, sucking at his cock, whimpering.
“You’ll choke,” he said. “I’ll come down your throat like a fucking animal if you don’t stop. And you need me, don’t you? You need me by now. Come on.”
“Stefan,” I murmured, and he caught me under the arms and yanked me to my feet, tearing off my shirt before taking me in a kiss that stole the last of my wits.
He devoured me, my lips and my tongue and his tongue thrusting into me, his hands all over me, touching and teasing, and then shoving my breeches down around my knees. He took my ass in his hands, squeezing and lifting me, fingertips tugging my hole open, pulling me against his eager cock, trailing wetness over my stomach.
I couldn’t do anything but cling to him, kneading my fingers into the taut muscles of his back and squirming in his grasp, my whole body alight with nothing but need for him.
He spun us around and landed on top of me on the bed, crushing me into the mattress. I kicked my breeches off and arched up, spreading my legs and wrapping my thighs around him.
His cock pressed down on mine the way his body had me held down, the shafts rubbing, mine bending back as my cockhead caught on the ridge of his. His balls settled between my legs, mine pressed between my cheeks. He thrust once, and everything lit up with the softest, hardest, most perfect friction. The pleasure of it shuddered all the way up my spine, and I froze, transfixed, staring up at him in shock.
“Oh, gods,” I gasped, my fingers digging into his arms. “Oh!”
Stefan grinned down at me wolfishly. “You didn’t think you’d learned all there was to know about this, did you? Do you need me? Or can you wait for that while I show you how good this can be?”
Gods, did I need him? What a ridiculous question. I could give him the answer he’d overtly asked for, and tell him that my curse could wait.
Or I could tell him the truth, the real truth—and those words, and all they meant to me, quivered on the tip of my tongue. It hardly mattered, because he rolled his hips, and they fluttered away. All my muscles clenched, and I caught at him and moaned and let him show me.
Gods, it was good. Better than I could’ve imagined, with his kisses hot on my throat and his body moving over mine, as intimate as his body moving inside mine, because it was Stefan. My husband, wrapping his arm under my waist and clutching me close, thrusting harder as I writhed beneath him and spread my legs as wide as they’d go. Everything became heat and sweat and friction and my soft, rhythmic gasps as he took what he wanted from me and gave me everything.
I spilled all over his cock and mine, the wetness easing his motions for a suspended split second—and then he groaned and clutched me so tightly he squeezed the last gasp of breath out ofmy body, shaking as he slicked us both all over again, my cock and stomach and thighs, rubbing it into me with his last thrusts.
Stefan stilled, one arm still under me, the other buried in my hair. His panting breaths fanned hot over my ear where he had his face pressed to the side of mine.
“Remi,” he said softly, and kissed my temple. “I can be ready again in a couple of minutes. I’m sorry. I didn’t give you the chance to answer me before I lost my mind.”
Now that my own ability to think had started to slowly return along with my ability to breathe, all the words that he’d driven out of my head came rushing back.
“My curse hasn’t come on yet.” I swallowed hard, but I couldn’t lie, not about this. Not even by omission. Not while I lay pinned under the weight of his body and with my magic twining itself around him, begging to make us one. And it wouldn’t help to try to hide anything, in any case. As soon as he lifted his head and gazed down at me with those dark, knowing eyes, I’d crumble. I blinked up at the ornately painted ceiling and savored the firm muscles of Stefan’s back under my palms. “I just needed you. I always need you. Any way you’ll have me, Stefan. I almost lost you. I almost—I need you.”
“Any way I’ll have you,” he repeated slowly. He lifted his head, and I’d been wrong. His expression wasn’t knowing at all. In fact, he looked as baffled as if I’d been speaking in another language. “Any wayI’llhaveyou?”
“Well, yes,” I stammered. What had I said to confuse him? “Does the thought of, of having me any way you want sound so dreadful? I don’t understand why you—”
“You don’t understand? You don’t—Remi! I married you under false pretenses. I lied to you. I neglected you. I made you miserable. You haven’t accepted my apologies, and I see no reason why you would, and even if you did, I’d never forgivemyself. I’ll be on my knees begging for any way you’ll have me, for as long as it—”
“I love you!”
“—takes for you to—what? I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me,” I muttered, and my face had gone so unbearably hot, my eyes stinging. I turned my face away. “You heard me, Stefan. If you don’t—I don’t suppose you’ve been in love, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be.”
“I can think of a lot of reasons why you shouldn’t be,” he said, with a strange tone to his voice I’d never heard. He slid his arm out from under me and propped himself up on his hand, carding the other through my hair and cupping my jaw, gently trying to turn my head toward him. I didn’t budge. “You’re right. I haven’t. Until very recently, I thought it was a lie people told themselves in order to justify their bad behavior. Remi, will you please look at me?”
