Andi sagged onto her heels just off to the side of her mother’s grave, holding the bag Danny’d given her across her lap, her whole body trembling.
After everything she’d been through—that he’d put her through!—how dare he. And fuck him in the neck for being right about her listening because she shouldn’t have to listen to him when he was wrong in the first place!
Andi tightly grabbed the thing inside the plastic bag and went to tear into it as her phone buzzed. She yanked it out of her bag and swiped the screen open.
Where are you? It was Damian. She put a hand to her face. In her anger over her brother, she’d almost forgotten that she needed to be angry at him, too. For either ditching her or worrying her, take her pick.
At the Morganhoff Cemetery.
Are you okay? he asked her.
Andi stared at the phone in her lap, unsure how to answer. Maybe, and then she quickly added, Are you?
The dots on the screen danced for an exceptionally long time before she got the simple answer: No. Her heart sank into her stomach as he continued. Can you give me twenty minutes to get there?
His house in the Briars was at least a thirty-minute drive away. Andi looked around at the rolling greenery and fountains. Maybe he really was going to fly. Sure, she responded. I’m in the back. Blue coat, in front of a red marble tombstone.
I’ll find you, don’t worry. Wait for me.
Andi stared at her phone for a moment longer before putting it back into her pocket and returning her attention to the package in her lap. It was in a plastic grocery bag, and if Danny’d brought her something stupid like a stuffed bear in an attempt to get back on her good side—or candy…. She sighed, exhausted by the idea of being angry at him again.
She peeled the plastic bag open and found another bag inside, only this one was made of silk. Andi jammed the trash into her pocket and flipped the silk over. It was heavy, and there was a roped frog-knot lock on the other side. She undid the loop and let the object inside slide out.
It was a photo album—one she was sure she’d never seen before. She knew because when her mother died, it’d been her job to go through all of her mother’s things. Danny had ditched her for most of that, too. The cover was coarsely grained leather, and inside were sheaves of photos placed in between cardboard pages and cellophane.
Andi sighed and flipped through them at random. A lot of old photos. What good would looking through them do? Make her miss her mom more? She already missed her enough. It was hard not to feel like if her mom had been around that nothing bad would’ve happened to Danny. Even if Uncle Lee had still been a murderous bastard, he could’ve kept that to himself, and they could’ve just been at a cordial arm’s-length red-envelope status.
Andi looked instead at the sepia-toned woman on the tombstone in front of her. She didn’t remember that photo either; she assumed it was just one Uncle Lee had laying around somewhere, seeing as he’d never asked her for one.
People used to tell her that she and her mother looked alike, but Andi never saw it. Her mother was always much more beautiful than she was. Her mother always cared more, for one. She never left the house without makeup on and always had her hair coiffed up just so. Andi could count on two hands the times she’d ever seen her mother’s hair down, and most of those were at the end in the hospital when they both knew she wasn’t going to make it out. She’d helped her mother braid it into one long plait. It was so strange for her mother to have kept her hair during chemo that every single nurse had to comment on it—so much so, that Andi was worried her mother was getting the wrong drugs, but by then, she was a nurse and could read the labels herself.
Not only that, but her mother had had a perfect birthmark—somewhere between a Cindy Crawford and a Madonna—just a dot over the corner of her smile. When it moved, you knew she was genuinely happy and not just smiling because it was expected of the “nice Chinese lady” or whatever hell else her neighbors and coworkers were calling her this week.
Andi reached out to touch her mother’s portrait on the stone. “I wish you were here, Mom.” Because if she were, she’d somehow make everything better.
“Andi,” called a familiar voice from behind her.
She turned to look over her shoulder to find Damian there. He was in a suit as black as his hair, with a white shirt and a black tie, striding up the hill with ease. Something about seeing him again—and seeing him here, of all places—made her chest so tight it hurt, like her ribs didn’t fit her anymore. She stood up to give herself room to breathe, tucking the album under one arm.
Damian was careful not to walk on any of the other graves as he made his way to her side, and then he stood beside her, making to catch her hand with his. She let him and felt the way his bigger, slightly rougher, hand held hers, their fingers intertwining naturally like he’d already been standing there the entire time.
“Damian, this is my mom,” Andi said lightly. “Mom, this is Damian.”
Damian surprised her by making a precise bow in the direction of her mother’s tombstone, as though he’d done this sort of thing before. “I am honored to be in your presence,” he said, sounding one hundred percent sincere, and Andi realized that maybe he was. Did dragons have ghosts? Souls? Religion? She would have to add all of those things onto her list of Things to Eventually Ask Him.
He turned to look down at her with his golden eyes. “I can see the resemblance. You’re both very beautiful.”
“My mom was prettier,” Andi said. Damian inhaled to fight her, but she put a finger on his lips to stop him. “You can’t argue with me here, or she’ll hear you.” His lips curved into a smile behind her touch as she took him in. “Why is your hair wet?”
“Because I didn’t want to meet you—or your mother—without showering.” There was a tightness in his shoulders that hadn’t been there when he’d left her that morning. It made her want to knead it out of them, to turn him back into the person he’d been when he’d seemed like he was happy.
Andi took a small step back but didn’t let go of his hand. “Why didn’t you come back?”
He exhaled deeply, and the tension around him increased like the pressure change before a storm. “Duty called,” he said, then his lips pressed together in a thoughtful line. “I messaged you as soon as I felt I safely could. I hope I didn’t worry you.”
She gave him a small frown. “No. I mean, I only partially thought you’d died. And then I was a little mad at you for not telling me that you died, I think.”
“And so, you came here to head me off at the pass?” he teased, glancing around at their surroundings.
Might as well admit the truth. “No, I came here to see my brother.”
Damian’s attention whipped back to her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Andi blinked. “Did you really just ask that?”
She watched his jaw grind as it clenched and unclenched. “I suppose that was unfair.”
“Pretty much. I mean, if you’re too busy to tell me what’s going on with you, then,” she said, looking out over the rolling hillsides, “I didn’t want to distract you from…world saving or whatever it was with my small problems.”
Damian abruptly focused all of his attention on her, and for the first time since he’d joined her, she felt like he was fully present in that way that was almost too much for her to handle. “Your problems are my problems, from here on out,” he said, looking at her as though he was willing her to believe. Andi’s heart beat in her throat. No, the rhythm took over her whole body, pounding so hard she could feel it down to her wrists and ankles as she pulled both her hands away from his. “What?” he asked her, confused.
She took a moment to gather herself, free of him. “You can’t just say things like that, Damian,” she explained, shaking her head, unwilling to meet his gaze. How could he not hear the words that came out of his mouth? How could he not know?
“Why not?” he asked, sounding pained.
Mother, I’m so sorry you’re having to watch this, Andi thought, and made herself look at him again before saying aloud, “Do you really not understand?” His expression was so bewildered that she went on. “Have you ever said anything like that to a girl before?”
It was his turn to shake his head. “No.”
Andi closed her eyes for a long moment before responding. “I googled you, Damian, so don’t you dare lie to me, plus you swore—”
“No,” he said again, more firmly.
“All those other women. All the photos, all the smiles? You were playing them all along?”
“Or they were trying to play me,” he said, his voice low. “I’ve been told I’d be quite a catch, but I never once promised any of them anything, Andi.” He licked his lips slowly as he seemed to search for the right words, staring at her with smoldering intent. “I’ve never done this before, but I want to…with you.”
His eyes were hot on her, and she felt irradiated by his attention. It made the little hairs on her arms prick up, and a shiver crawled over her scalp in a rush. When it was done sparking over her, it settled in her hips like red-hot coals. “Want to…what?” Everything else in her life was so surreal at this point. If he really wanted something—wanted her—she needed to hear the words.
“Be in a relationship. With you.”
Andi crossed her arms and swallowed, shielding her heart with the solid thump of the photo album. “You’ve never been in a relationship with a human?”
His head tilted as he tried to read her. “Not with anyone.”
The wind picked up and pushed locks of her hair toward him like they were reaching out. “And what if I’m not ready for that?” she asked, then bit her lips. “I know what I said last night about you not leaving, and I meant that. I like having you around, but I’ve also known you less than two weeks.” She was now looking anywhere but at his face, because she was scared of the earnestness she’d find there. It was too much, too soon—too insane, even for her—which was saying something.
“I know,” he agreed slowly, then he stepped forward, closing the space between them. “But I know everything about you, Andi. Things that no one else does. And I don’t want to say that you can’t live without me because I know you’re strong and you can. But I can tell from the way your pulse jumps at your throat when I’m nearby that you don’t want to. Not yet.”
She closed her eyes. He wasn’t wrong. But that didn’t make it right. “It doesn’t matter; you still can’t say things like that,” she told him. No matter how easy it is for you to read me and somehow know what I want before I do.
“Why not? If I mean them?” he asked kindly.
“Because it’s cruel.” She bowed her head and breathed the musty scent of the photo album in deep. “Because if you’ve never been in a relationship before, statistically speaking, I’m just breaking you in for the next girl.”
“Andi,” he said, and she could hear the smile in it. “I’m a dragon. I’m not bound by statistics.” His hands reached for her jaw and gently raised her head up to face his golden gaze. “Can I take you back to my place?”
Old cautious Andi would’ve fought him, but there was a chance that Elsa was still staking out her apartment, and who the fuck was she kidding, even if he said utterly ridiculous things and made promises he couldn’t possibly keep, she didn’t want to leave him just yet. She nodded slowly against his hands, and he smiled, releasing her, sliding one of his hands down her arm and back to her hand, leaving a fresh trail of fire in its wake. “Let’s go,” he said, pulling her to his side.
Damian gave her mother’s grave another courtly bow and then led her confidently down the hill heading to another part of the cemetery, with his arm looped around her waist. She was walking fast to stay up with him, then he noticed, slowing down to her pace without her asking him to. His hand on her hip felt hot even through her coat, as it did where she leaned against him, all the places where they touched. She rested her cheek against him briefly and felt him pull her tight.
Then he took them up another hill, and she paused to crane back. She was intimately familiar with this cemetery; she’d been here often enough. “Where are you parked?”
“I didn’t. I was in a rush,” he said, like that explained things.
She stared up at him, doing origami in her mind, trying to imagine him transitioning to fly. Would she need to run half a block away to not get squished? “I’m not sure if I should ask where or how.”
He chuckled. She felt it reverberate in him. “Michael’s buried here. The cemetery’s only open during the day. Sometimes I wanted to come at night, so I had to find another way in.”
“Oh,” Andi gasped. Michael was Damian’s friend who’d died doing the exact same thing Damian did. Like whatever he’d bolted from her this morning to do. And even though he was still right here beside her, she felt worried for him all over again. Damian led her to the edge of a shallow pond, bounded by cement pavers, and stopped. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, knowing it was never enough, because how many people had told her that exact same thing before?
“I promise you, there’s nothing for you to be sorry for.” He moved to stand in front of her, on the large stones surrounding the pool. He reached a hand out, and she took it without hesitation. “I’d like to tell you about him sometime.”
“I’d like that too.”
He smiled down at her, easy, earnest, disarming. “Can I pick you up?”
Andi blinked and looked around herself quickly. “Why?”
“Just say yes again,” he counseled.
“Yes?” she guessed. He swooped her up against his chest like she weighed nothing, her bag swinging as she clutched the photo album to her chest. She remembered the time he’d run through his house with her to throw her in a pool, then realized there was quite a large body of water behind him. “No…no, no, no…it’s too cold for that, Damian—”
“I’ll keep you warm.” He pressed her tightly to his chest. “Hold your breath. Trust me,” he said and stepped forward into the water.
Everything went black. She expected water to rush up and leave her sputtering—or for Damian to be standing in half a foot of mud—but what happened was that she couldn’t see anything around her, and she didn’t even have a sense of how big the darkness was. It could’ve stretched on for miles in all directions.
But what she did know was that it wanted her. It was hungry, thirsty, lonely, all the “y” words that meant that you wanted something you would never get to have—that made you angry with its lack. Freezing hands reached out to grab her, and she screamed as Damian pulled her close against the radiating heat of his chest, and then they were somehow through, stepping out into a room she recognized at his house.
The one with the green velvet walls and black leather furniture—not all of which was designed for comfort. Functional benches with what looked like tie-downs, ornate couches with swooping scrolled backs, and off to one side a made bed that looked loosely caged by metal.
“What the fuck…and how?” Andi gasped, looking around as Damian set her down. She was still clutching the photo album to her chest.
“If you’re strong enough magically, you can jump through any reflection that will fit you. The pond was reflective enough for me, especially coming back home.”
Andi took a step, appreciating the solidity of the ground and the warmth of the room, then looked around again and back at the mirror, reflecting them both behind her. “And out of all the mirrors in your house, you picked here?” she asked. She supposed that walking into his sexy times dungeon wasn’t any worse than walking into his bedroom, which she knew had mirrors lining one entire wall, but still.
Damian looked around and snorted. “I didn’t think of that. I just didn’t want to be in my bedroom right now. Too many mirrors there…too many memories.”
“So that’s too many, but this one is just right?” she questioned, gesturing at the huge rectangular one they’d arrived through.
He walked over to it, grabbed a corner of its frame and flipped it around, revealing a massive plush leather-covered X on the other side, with bolts up and down the margins to chain someone down. She blanched, and he laughed. “It’s a safety measure. No one wants to get hit by broken glass.”
“I don’t think I want to get hit by anything,” she said, looking around the room. If this was who he was and what he needed, this was not her. She was adventurous, yes, but if this was some kind of lifetime compatibility commitment thing, all the more reason to keep him at arm’s length.
Except for all the times when she wanted him a lot…a lot closer.
“I would never do anything to you that you didn’t want me to, princess,” he said, watching her like he always did.
Andi went over to what might as well have been a weapons rack and lifted something that looked very much like a bullwhip up in horror. “Good, because this shit is off the table.”
Damian chuckled, taking the implement from her and setting it back down. “The only thing I want on a table right now is food of some sort if you’re still hungry.”
“Please,” she agreed. Between this morning and the cemetery, she was running on adrenaline and fumes. And she was still carrying the photo album. Uncle Lee had to’ve given it to Danny. Danny wasn’t nearly responsible enough to keep something so old around. He’d have forgotten it three moves ago—or at an ex-girlfriend’s.
How could someone so irresponsible, and with such a long rap sheet, think that they were the hero now? Was her brother truly so unaware?
“I’ll be right back,” Damian said, walking for a door that matched the wall behind it.
“You mean it this time?” she called after him.
“Absolutely,” he promised, disappearing.
Andi watched him go and looked around. “Just what’ve you gotten yourself into?” she asked herself before gingerly sitting on a bench as though it was spring-loaded and might trap her.
Damian ducked into the hall outside, heading for the stairway, pleased in a way he couldn’t express to be in Andi’s presence again. It just felt right—reverberatingly, meaningfully, right.
Mates, his dragon said with a pleased sigh. Assuming your appetites don’t scare her off.
They’re yours, too. Don’t lie, Damian thought back at the beast. And she’s braver than you give her credit for. He went into the library and found Austin still at Ryana’s bedside, Grimalkin still wound about the bird. The cat’s eyes opened briefly at his arrival, then fell back closed again with a loud purr.
“Any change?” he asked the werewolf keeping watch.
“No.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Hard to say,” Austin said, shaking his head deeply. “I’ll be happier when she wakes up.”
“Me too,” Damian agreed. His sister was the only one who could tell them what’d happened running up to the final moments of his old palace’s destruction, what forces had been at play, and if his stepmother, The Snake, was still alive.
“You smell like the nurse,” Austin said, without recrimination.
He wondered, for the first time, if the wolf scented her like he did—her apples, caramel, and the sea. “Her brother reached out to her this morning. I brought her here for her own safety,” Damian told him.
Austin smirked. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?” Damian groaned as Austin went on. “I’m just blowing off steam. After what we saw in the mirrors, you deserve to be happy. No matter how fleeting.”
Damian put a hand on Austin’s shoulder and squeezed. “I appreciate that.”
The werewolf reached up to clap his hand and then waved him away. “Go. Have fun. I’ll tell Grim to get you if I need you.”
“Thanks. And…anything happens here—good or bad—you let me know.”
“Will do,” Austin said, and Damian went into the kitchen.
While he couldn’t cook personally, that didn’t mean that others couldn’t. Jamison enjoyed cooking the most out of all of them, and he usually made sure the kitchen was stocked, via Grim, and his own electronic connection to all sorts of delivery services. Damian ran through the cupboard and fridge and created a tray full of food-like items that he thought Andi might like or at least would tide her over until he could get her something that she really did. He brought it back upstairs, pushing the door behind him open with his back.
“Hold this, please,” he asked her, and she took it from him, so he could go down the hall and liberate a non-leather-covered coffee table from another room, bringing it back for them to use. He placed it in front of her and sat down on the ground. She set the tray down on it before joining him with a laugh.
“Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? In here?” she asked, glancing around again.
“Unorthodox, I know. But there’s fruit, too. I wasn’t kidding earlier about not being able to cook. The magic cat is indisposed,” Damian said, pushing the tray at her. “Eat something, please.”
She tore into an orange, her nimble fingers piercing the skin and tearing pieces off expertly, and he had never wanted to be a piece of fruit so badly before. And then he noted the leather-bound book that she’d been carrying. She’d placed it between them when she’d sat down. “What is that?”
Andi sighed. “My brother gave it to me this morning. It’s an old photo album of my mother’s.” He reached for it, and she put her hand on it to stop him. “Can we not?” she asked him earnestly, the same as he had not long ago in his car, regarding Michael. Emotions he couldn’t read streaked across her face, culminating in a pervasive sense of sorrow, and the edge of the salt water he’d scented on her last night. “It’s just going to make me sad.”
After the morning he’d had grappling with his past, he understood. “Of course,” he told her.
“Thank you,” she said, pulling herself back together again, hiding the album beneath the table. “So, how was your morning?” she asked him brightly instead, clearly forcing the conversation forward.
If only he hadn’t promised to always tell her the truth. “Also sad,” he admitted.
Her eyes widened, and she reached for his hand in sympathy. She did it so quickly that he was tempted to feel special until he remembered that as a nurse holding people’s hands was probably part of her job. “What happened?”
“I watched my old home being torn apart.” He knew places couldn’t die, but that’s what it felt like, watching the towers of his youth turned to rubble, and he felt his throat start to choke. “I opened a mirror and basically saw my childhood being destroyed.”
She looked at him with the same confusion he felt. “Why?”
“I’m still unsure, although war’s the best guess. In the Realms, if you live in war, you die in war. One of the many reasons why I left.” He concentrated on the way her hand felt in his—small, smooth, and cool, in comparison—and marveled that she was here. He moved to hold her hand in both of his so that she couldn’t leave him—not now, nor ever. “I knew I was never going back, but still.”
She nodded in response. “Yeah. I know. Not one hundred percent the same, but you expect the past to be how you remembered it, and when it moves on you, it’s disconcerting.” Her lips twisted to one side in thought. “It’s like you’re climbing up a staircase your whole life, and one day you turn around, and it’s not there behind you.”
He knew she wasn’t just talking about his problems. “An apt analogy.”
“Was anyone hurt?” she asked tentatively.
“My sister.”
“Damian,” Andi gasped, pulling herself up to her knees. “Is she okay?”
He thought of Ryana, ensconced in his library. At least she wasn’t in the Realms anymore. “For right now, yes.”
She sank back a little, still eyeing him, wary on his behalf, and he wondered if this was what her patients felt like at the hospital—cared for, protected—and it moved him in an unfamiliar way. “Are you all right?” she gently asked.
That was such a good question. “I don’t know yet, really.” He squeezed her hand in his own and stroked a thumb across her wrist. “But I’m better now that you’re here…if that’s not too mean to say.”
She smiled softly at him. “I think that’s just the right amount of mean.” Then she dramatically looked around the room before pointedly returning her attention to him. “And probably the least mean thing in this place,” she said with a snort. “Do people really want all this?”
He knew what she was really after. “By which you mean, do I?” Damian let go of her hand and rocked back to consider her fully. She was biting her lower lip in the way that tormented him. Her dark eyes were wide, and her pulse picked up as she waited for his response, just as fearful that he’d scare her as if he wouldn’t. He purposefully leaned forward with slow intent to brush an eyelash off her cheek and felt her shiver at his touch. “I don’t need all of it all the time, no. But I do like to be in control. It’s how I’m wired. Which is why I need you to give me a safeword now. Even if we never use any of this. I need you to know you have an out with me…always.”
Andi went from hovering attentively to laughter. “Oh my God, you’re just like Sammy.”
He grinned. “Well, I haven’t serial killed you yet, have I? So maybe your roommate has some good ideas.”
She swept another glance around the room. “Okay. Fine. Same one then, so I won’t forget it. Rambunctious.”
“Three syllables? You’re sure?” His eyebrows rose. “I mean, I do intend on rendering you speechless as often as I can, so that’s a lot.”
She flushed and laughed again. “I’m sure, and trust me, once you get to know me better, you’ll have a hard time shutting me up.” She knelt beside him, her hands in her lap, her head tilted up, breasts subtly forward. He was busy making the mistake of thinking she was tamer than she knew when she asked, “So, what’s yours?”
He paused. “My what?”
“Safeword.”
Damian chuckled. “Why on earth would I need one?”
She pouted impudently. “Because I want you to know that you have an out with me, too.”
He watched her and found her utterly serious. “That’s not how this works, Andi.”
“Says the man who’s never been in a relationship before?” she asked archly, but he knew she was teasing from the expression on her face. Then she stood, eyeing him through downcast eyes, and there was something regal in her expression—the angle where her neck met her jaw and the straight sweep of her hair. The way she came into her own as if living in her space more fully, just by standing over him, and deep inside, he felt his dragon begin to stir.
“Give me one, or I’ll make you give me one,” she demanded, like a queen.
Damian rocked back, bemused and unsure where this was going, but entirely willing to play along. “I would like to see you try, princess.”
“All right, then,” she said. “Stand up.”
He contemplated fighting her, then wondered if that was what it was like to be her, all the time.
It’s hardly a fight when she’s so tiny, his dragon said, watching their exchange through him.
True, Damian agreed, but said, “Your wish is my command,” as he stood for her.
“You’re a dragon, not a genie,” she said, then grabbed his arm, pulling him over to a bench with latches on either side of its back. “Sit down,” she directed him, then went to rummage around behind him, returning later with chained leather handcuffs.
It was hard not to ask her why she was doing what she was doing, and he wondered if this was something that she liked, or that she’d read in books or seen on TV, as he let her buckle his wrists to the bench behind him.
“Do you feel safer with me tied up?” he asked her honestly.
“No. Because it’s not about safety with us, remember?” She stood up, surveyed her handiwork, and then began taking off her shirt. Damian’s breath hitched as he watched the fabric trail up her stomach, exposing warm brown skin and more than a few marks from the night before. She was so fucking edible, dammit. His cock thumped inside his suit slacks, and he leaned forward without thinking only to feel the buckles around his wrists stop him.
“I’m not even done yet,” she taunted, dropping her shirt to the floor and then unclasped her bra. “I’m sorry there’s no sexy dance. I do like dancing; it’s just that I’m nervous right now.”
“Don’t be,” he murmured, watching her slide the bra’s straps down her arms, revealing the small raindrop shaped breasts it’d hidden, each dotted with nipples the size of his thumbprint, tipping up at being exposed to air, and he bit back a groan.
She grinned at him impishly, then went down to her knees in front of him, and started working at his belt buckle. His cock reacted each time she brushed it, bobbing for her as it filled with ache, and he watched her work, feeling tortured until her fingers unbuttoned his slacks, and she unzipped him and reached inside the elastic of his boxer briefs.
“Andi,” he whispered, feeling her take him in her hand, bowing his head down over hers.
She pushed the fabric down enough to see him, so they could both watch her holding him there. He saw his cock turn dusky red with need, and as she started to stroke, he moaned, feeling himself flex against her hand as if he could draw her closer, faster.
She kept one hand working him as the rest of her rose up, pulling roughly at his shirt so that she could send her other hand searching underneath it, running her fingers along his skin, before kissing down his stomach until he knew where she’d end up and she looked wickedly up at him.
“Say it,” she taunted him.
Damian chuckled deeply. “Never.”
She pouted, then swiped her thumb over the precum pearling on his tip, swirling it in a gentle circle over his head, and he hissed in desire. “Not even if I do this?” she asked.
“No,” he told her flatly while smiling.
“Hmmm, then what about this?” she asked, keeping eye contact with him as she pulled his cock out toward her, parting her perfect lips to take just the head of him in her mouth so she could follow the path her thumb had just taken with her tongue.
I like this game very much, his dragon told him. He didn’t respond to it, but he gave Andi the reward of a ragged breath and watched her smile mischievously around him, as she started to suck his cock in earnest, her head framed neatly by the crisp lines ironed into his black slacks. Her mouth was so warm and soft, and as she took him deeper, he filled it and could feel himself rubbing at the back of her throat like she was fit to swallow him, as her hand kept working at his shaft, and another sank lower to cup his balls.
“Andi…goddamn,” he got out, and she stopped everything, slurping off of him and looking up expectantly, kneeling between his legs with her pert breasts between his knees that he was torturously not allowed to touch.
“Your safeword is a curse word?” she asked. “I don’t know a lot about these sorts of things, but that seems like an odd choice.”
He made a sound between a growl and a groan. “No, my safeword is not a curse word.”
She gave him the same look she’d given Rax before she’d rooked him for a two-million-dollar car. “I’d better suck harder then,” she said breathlessly, and Damian knew he was in trouble.
Good trouble. The best possible kind.
She took him back into her mouth and bobbed her head down as she stroked him, and her fingertips teased against the seam of his sack, and his hips pulsed up to meet her of their own accord. He was panting, ready to come like a date in the back of a car on prom night, but that didn’t matter because she made him endlessly hard. He would always want to fuck her, to want her, like this, or any other way she’d let him.
“Andi…I’m going to cum,” he warned her in guttural tones, and then she moaned. He felt it reverberate around him, and that’s what set him off—the thought of her pleased to please him, wanting to take what he had to give. He made an anguished sound and pulsed, hard, feeling himself jet inside her, wave after wave of pleasure reeling through him and out into her waiting throat, all the while her purring around him. She didn’t stop until he was finished. Her one hand released his balls gently while the other held his shaft still as she pulled off of it, not losing a single drop. She sank back onto her heels, her lips slightly swollen from the effort of taking him, and gave him a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile before speaking again.
“So, what you’re saying is that cum is your safeword? I guess I respect your non-traditional ways,” she said, and he leaned forward, breaking the chains behind him easily.
“That’s it,” he said, as she squealed at his freedom. He swept forward and picked her up. “I have a cage in here somewhere, I’m going to put you in it.”
She laughed and fought against him. “Damian!”
“You have a safeword now. Use it if you want to,” he said, putting her over his shoulder and biting at her hip through her jeans on the way to the bed in the back. When he got there, he tossed her into it and watched her bounce. “Jeans. Off. Now. Underwear too. I can’t be destroying all your clothes.”
“Less laundry, though?” she laughed, working at the button of her denim. She got it vaguely loose as he pulled her shoes off for her, casting them aside, then grabbed the cuffs of her jeans to yank. She squirmed free as he did so, breathing heavily, and then she was fully naked on the bed ahead of him. He took a moment to coolly appreciate her perfection—the pout of her lips, the way her dark eyes watched everything, taking all of him in, the way her breasts slightly pulled to the side because she was on her back—waiting. His cock was already throbbing again, and he reached into his slacks to give it a stroke as his eyes slid down the slight rise of her belly to between her legs where her heat began. The air around him was thick with her delectably heady scent, and he wanted to breathe in more.
He mounted the bed, kicking off his own shoes as he did so. “Grab hold of the bars over your head.”
“Are you going to cuff me to them?” she asked, her voice rising in alarm.
“No, princess, but you’re going to want to hold on,” he said, and came for her, freeing his erection.