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Her hip slammed back into me, meeting my every thrust. Her teeth let go of the pillow and she panted, “Don’t... think... I can.”

Her words alone had my own climax looming. My hand slipped under her, dipping between her legs. If my mate wasn’t able to hold back another orgasm, I might as well let this one be explosive. I gently pinched her swollen clit, causing her to buck into me, impaling herself to the limit.

Lex’s moan reverberated around the room as her tight cunt clamped around my cock, tipping me over the edge. My vision blurred as the most intense orgasm I’d ever had consumed me, my body freezing in ecstasy as I released inside her, my seed searing hot as it coated her walls. My mate kept moving, grinding my length in and out of her pulsing cunt, eager to milk every drop of my cum from me.

My mind was a haze, ablaze with awe and wonder, my body tingling, my stomach full, my soul whole, as I took in the sight of my glorious mate in front of me.

As the final thrum of her orgasm faded, Lex pulled herself slowly from my cock. She managed to throw me a satisfied grin over her shoulder before she slumped onto the bed, her body satiated and spent. She had just enough energy left to wiggle her ass at me, the sight of my cum mixing with her arousal stirringthat primal need in me.

My mate’s desire to be rutted came from her succubus’s yearning to be claimed. As much as she craved it, I could tell she was ignorant of what claiming actually entailed, which made sense; she’d never intended to summon her mate, so I doubted she’d gone out of her way to find out the most intimate details of how we would claim each other with a mating bite. While I had an intense urge to sink my teeth into her skin and demand she do the same to me, my brain didn’t have enough cognition left to explain the mating bite.

But the primitive need to make some gesture of claiming overtook me. Lex quivered as I dipped my fingers between her legs, coating them in our spend. She flipped onto her back, her eyes widening as I rolled the wetness between my fingers. I brought my hand to her breast, the one that would one day hold the mark of my mating bite. Something primal swirled in my mate’s desire. I could tell that she wasn’t sure why, but she had an intense need to reciprocate the gesture. Her fingers pressed into the mark I’d just left before she rolled the wetness between her fingertips. Her hand pressed into the now healed scar from the bullet that had pierced my heart.

We remained still for a moment, letting the temporary marks dry, before the need to have my mate pressed into me took over. I settled myself beside her, scooping her into my arms and holding her body close to mine.

“I love you,” I said, my lips pressing gently into the crown of her head.

“I love you too,” she replied, her voice sleepy asshe wiggled deeper against my body.

Life was perfect with Lex wrapped in my arms. I listened to her breathing slow, her body going limp in my arms before I let blissful sleep take me.

***

“Knock knock,” called a familiar voice that my sex-addled brain couldn’t quite place.

Reluctantly, I pried myself from around Lex, who let out an almighty snore before rolling into the space I’d just vacated.

Pulling on a pair of sweatpants, I walked onto the landing and glanced down the stairs. A formidable figure in a frilly apron stood in the hallway, haloed with the first rays of dawn light.

“Ms. Cole. I’ll just go and wake Lex.”

“I’m not here to talk to Lex.” Lex’s grandma crooked a beckoning finger that brooked no argument. “I’m here for you, Lochran.”

For me? Why would Lex’s grandmother be here to see me?

Apparently, I was taking too long in my pondering, for Ms. Cole, rather tersely, said, “I’m a very busy witch, Lochran. It would not bode well for you if I have to come up those stairs to get you. My knees aren’t quite what they once were.”

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. For someone who looked like they could be on a box of cake mixture, she sure as shit was scary.

The ruby eyes of her snake-like cane bore into me as I gingerly made my way down the stairs, coming to a halt in front of her. She held out an empty hand, and I stared down inconfusion.

Thecrackof her cane nearly made me jump out of my skin as a journal, suspiciously similar to Lex’s, appeared in her hand.

Oh, shit, yes. The murder.

“You killed a mortal, Lochran.” She flicked through the pages before offering it to me. “One hundred pages, front and back. Your trial will be—” She leaned in, her face relaxing into a doting grandma once more as she whispered, “When do you go away with Lex?”

“Um, we leave on Saturday,” I whispered back to her.

Ms. Cole straightened once more, her tone icily formal. “Your trial will be on Friday. Until then, no magic.” Her cane cracked against the floor, and it felt as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown over me. “And you cannot leave the confines of the coven.” Her cane clacked once more.

Lex was going to have a field day when I told her my punishment was a hundred pages.

Ms. Cole stared at me, her narrowed eyes boring into me as intensely as the ruby eyes of her cane. Suddenly, she broke into a smile. “Now the official business is over”—she reached out and grabbed my hand—“thank you for protecting my granddaughter, and welcome to the family.”

My face twitched into a grin. “It’s a pleasure,” I said, meaning every word.