Page 106 of Demon's Bane

Rhett’s there a moment later, stepping closer and grasping both my legs to drape them over his shoulders, pulling me right to the edge of the pool until I’m open and exposed to his mercy.

I tilt my hips, silently begging, but he stops me with a heavy hand on my lower belly.

“Be still, Joan. I’ll give you what you want.”

The promise is hoarse and reverent, and his lips are a prayer against me as he kisses the inside of my knee, the curve of my hip, the soft skin of my inner thigh. By the time he finally makes it to my damp, aching core, it’s all I can do to keep myself from shamelessly pressing into him, grabbing his horns and directing that devilishly talented mouth of his right where I want it.

But there’s something about him that’s still on-edge, something that feels like it’s cracked and ready to shatter just like I am. So I surrender again, letting him unravel me just the way he wants.

There’s no slow-build tonight, no lazy, leisurely touches.

There’s only heat and desperation, a single-minded determination to see me come undone. With each swipe of his tongue over my clit, with the thrust of his tail winding itself up out of the water and plunging into my pussy, with his hands and claws reaching, grasping, taking, I’m powerless to do anything to stop the cataclysm.

It breaks over me with a harsh, sob-edged cry and my back arching up off the stone floor.

And even then, Rhett doesn’t relent.

“One more, little mate. I want one more from you.”

Tossing my head back and forth restlessly, I try to find the words to tell himno, I can’t. I’m stripped bare, wrung through, and I don’t have it in me to break like that again.

But my demon has no mercy in him tonight.

“One more.”

His tail shifts out of me, and he lowers his mouth to take its place, devouring me. It doesn’t go far, though, and a heartbeat later I feel the blunt tip of it press against my ass. Already coated in the slick arousal dripping down from my pussy, it slides in past the tight ring of muscle—stretching me, filling me.

It’s too much. All of it. Enough to have my belly tightening and spasming with another approaching orgasm.

“Perfect, Joan,” Rhett murmurs into my skin. “Just like that. Let me give you what you need.”

It’s an echo of what he said earlier, but something about it sounds… wrong. Broken.

I’m the one who started this. I’m the one who turned to sex when talking seemed impossible. So hearing him say it like that,like this isallI need, like it’s not him—notus—that means more than the pleasure he can give me…

“Stop,” I gasp, and Rhett stills immediately.

He pulls away, slides his tail out of me, and shifts back into the water. “What’s wrong? Did I—”

“No.”

With muscles that move faster than I would have given them credit for considering how burning and boneless I feel right now, I push myself off the ledge and into the water in a graceless tumble of limbs. Rhett catches me, but he’s stiff, uncomfortable, face creased with concern.

“I needyou.Rhett, I—”

His lips crash into mine, and his hands find my ass, lifting me against him. With an arm braced around my lower back, he presses me to the rock ledge, his sturdy grip keeping me from feeling the hard, unforgiving stone. A shift of bodies, the soft splash of water, and he lines himself up against my entrance.

“Tell me,” he rasps against my mouth. “Tell me again.”

“I need you.” He presses in, barely, just enough to have a desperate groan climbing the back of my throat.

“And I need you, my mate. Only you. Always you.”

With a brutal, unrestrained thrust, he buries himself in me completely, and with another shift of his hips, his knot follows.

It’s not as much of an effort this time, like my body’s already coming to know his, to know how right this is.

With one arm still holding me steady, Rhett braces the other on the ledge beside me and drops his forehead to rest against mine. His wings draw forward, enveloping us in gentle darkness, cradling me close, and then he starts to move.