Page 92 of Demon's Bane

“Yes,” I say in a hoarse whisper. “You know I do.”

With a satisfied smirk and a hard tug, he leaves the pants in a heap with the rest of his clothes and returns to bed. He moves over me with just as much slow intent as he had on the way down, taking his time as he prowls up the length of my body. Touching, exploring, hooking an arm around my waist and shifting us both up further on the bed, making room for his big body between my thighs.

I shift to accommodate him, muscles aching with effort as I wrap my thighs around his waist and try to pull him even closer.

But Rhett is an immovable force above me.

His own muscles are taut, straining, held in perfect control as he takes his cock in hand and runs it along the seam of my pussy.

“I didn’t bring anything,” he says gruffly. “Nothing that would prevent…”

He trails off, expression just as tight as the rest of him.

“It’s covered,” I gasp as the tip of his cock dips just inside. Barely. He’s barely inside and it’s already a stretch. “I take… a potion. I’m… I’m good.”

Goodhardly begins to describe it, not with how hot he is against me, inside me, not with the way I angle my hips, mindless with the need to take him deeper.

A rough grunt of acknowledgment is all I get from him as he pulls out and runs his cock over me again. Through myslick arousal, spreading it all the way to my clit where he stops to grind into me until I’m crying out and shifting against him, moving to line him up with—

“Not yet,” Rhett grates out. “Let me savor this, little mate.”

A pained whimper is the only reply I can manage, but as he continues to work me with agonizing intent, keeps me still with a firm hand on my hip, I find that I want to savor it, too.

This, right here, the moment we’re in. This momentbefore—before all this heat and tension between us breaks, before whatever we’ll be after.

Balanced on the knife’s edge of that precipice, I tangle a hand in Rhett’s hair and meet his burning crimson gaze.

All thatbeforeis echoed right back at me—every single second of it from the first time we met until now. The wonder of it, the impossibility of it, poised right on the very last moment.

Rhett notches himself against me and lowers his mouth to mine.

I taste myself on him, mingled with his own pine and smoke, and part my lips to take him deeper, gasping in unimaginable pleasure as he sinks into me and thebeforeshatters. Fractured into glittering, infinite shards, cracked wide open and swallowing us whole.

With a harsh curse, Rhett’s head drops and his chest heaves. His hips jerk forward another few inches, and I gasp again at the stretch of him.

He moves in short, careful thrusts, easing into me with a restraint I don’t know how he’s holding onto. Once, twice, again, he drops his lips to my neck, my jaw, the corner of my mouth as he works himself further inside.

And then he purrs.

The rumble of it echoes in his chest, the firm planes of his abdomen, his hard, pulsing cock. I surrender to that purr,to whatever magick it has over me, until Rhett groans in satisfaction and slides the rest of the way into me.

And even though his purr helped me to relax, it’s not an easy fit.

It’s anythingbuteasy as I move restlessly beneath him, shifting my hips and trying to get used to the impossible fullness of him.

“You’re alright,” Rhett murmurs. “I’m not going to move.”

“You’re not?”

A brush of lips against my forehead. “No, I’m not. Not until you’re ready.”

We stay that way for a few long minutes. Rhett, tension and patience radiating through every inch of him as he holds himself absolutely still, soothing me with his purr as my body makes room for him. And me, softening bit by bit, calmed by him, until a new ache springs up to replace the strain of the stretch.

It’s an ache that has me canting my hips, groaning low in my throat, clutching at his shoulders until his purr turns into a growl.

“Joan.”

“Move,” I demand, and then, remembering how softly he’s just treated me, how much care he’s shown. “Please.”