Page 95 of Demon's Bane

Rhett

I wake curled around my mate, her body tucked into mine, her head making a pillow of one of my arms and the other banded around her waist.

With each rise and fall of her breath, I feel the tether of our bond pulsing. Warm, solid, echoing through every place we’re touching. Unable to help myself, I lean in and press my lips to her forehead, savoring the softness and the scent of her.

In the gentle morning light, Joan’s alabaster skin glows, and the waves of her deep black hair shine like polished obsidian.

There’s never been a sight more beautiful.

At least until I draw back and find her deep brown eyes looking back at me. Sleepy, sated, filled with a contented joy that makes the ache in my chest, the tug of our bond, kick up even harder.

“Hi,” she whispers, still hoarse from all the cries and screams I wrung from her last night.

“Good morning, little mate.”

With a finger under her chin, I tilt her head back so her lovely pale neck is exposed.

The mark of my claim is even more vivid in the morning light. Two deep red punctures from my fangs accenting her throat, bold and brazen for all the world to see.

Joan’s breath catches as I lean in to run my lips over them, her body pressing even closer.

Need crashes over me in a cascade, my cock throbbing, my fangs aching to sink back into her.

If it were up to me, I’d roll myself on top of her and be inside her delicious cunt in half a heartbeat, but I hold myself back. My mate took more from me last night than I could have ever dared hope. My knot, my rutting, my seed. And while I knew she would take me beautifully, I also know it was not without effort on her part.

Carefully, I reach down between our bodies to run an experimental finger up the length of her slit, and she sucks in a breath.

“Tender?” I ask, immediately pulling my hand away.

Joan flushes a deep, delectable pink, and tucks her face into my chest. Catching her chin in one hand, I draw her back out.

“Do not be embarrassed, Joan. Of course you’d be tender after taking my knot, letting me claim you, rut you, br—”

“Stop,” Joan gasps, pressing a hand over my mouth. “You have no filter, do you?”

I nip her palm, and she yelps and pulls it away.

Still, she keeps her hips right where they are, and when I cup my palm over her—not too hard, just letting her feel the warmth and the pressure of the touch—she shifts restlessly and lets out a little moan.

“I know what might soothe this tenderness of yours, my mate.”

Burrowing beneath the heavy covers, I lower my face to her cunt. I inhale her desire and barely contain a triumphant roar to find my scent mixed with hers.

As it should be. As it will always be.

When I lave a gentle stroke over her, when I delve my tongue into the heat of her, it seems to be just the soothing she needs. She snaps her hips to meet me, takes my horns in hand and moves me right where she wants me.

And good. She should. She should always know that when it comes to her pleasure, she can have me any and every way she wants.

I sink my tongue deep into her cunt, dragging it forward in the way I know will make her—

“Joan? Rhett?” The sound of a familiar voice and knocking at the door makes us both go still. “You guys up?”

Goddess above.

One morning. Is one uninterrupted morning with my mate too much to ask?

“If we’re very quiet,” I mutter against the soft swell of Joan’s lower belly, “maybe she’ll go away.”