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“I know,” I murmur against her lips.

And then we’re moving, finding a rhythm that suits us both, a push and pull of muscle and skin and sweat, hearts and blood and breath. I grasp one of her legs beneath the knee and hitch it over my hip, then the other. It changes the angle, shifts her beneath me, lets me slide deeper into her, and we both groan.

Ophelia’s nails score my back, and her urgent panting moans echo in my ears like the sweetest music, tugging me closer to euphoria with each thrust.

But I won’t find it without her.

I drop a hand and find her clit, teasing her back toward her pleasure in firm, heavy strokes. It has her crying out again, squeezing me between her thighs with a strength that might leave bruises, were I capable of such a thing.

The walls of her cunt tighten around me, her cries grow more urgent, and I find one of her hands where it’s grasped around the back of my neck.

Twining our fingers together, I press them into the pillow beside her head. I angle my hips to hit the spot I’ve already learned makes her come apart at the seams, dragging the head of my cock over it once, twice, again, and she shatters.

I follow just a couple of heartbeats later.

Buried to the hilt inside her, pleasure grips the bottom of my spine like a fist as I spill into her. I come hard enough for the edges of my vision to go white, and the broken, ragged sounds of both our moans echo in my ears as I drop my forehead to her collarbone, clasp her hand in mine, and whisper into her skin.

The words are desperate and half-formed, little bits of worship and praise and filth, and they’re accompanied by a new sensation, something gentle and tender to send jolts of soft starlight across my scalp, down my spine, to the center of my aching chest.

Ophelia’s fingers are feather-light as they stroke through my hair. Her lips follow, pressing breathless kisses to the top of my head, my temple, my forehead when I finally lift myself away from her flushed, damp skin. I meet her gaze, and all that sensation turns into something else, something I can say with certainty I’ve never felt in all my centuries of this existence.

A slow, effervescent, sparkling sort of warmth spreads through all the places our skin touches until I’m enveloped completely.

Safe, satisfied, content… at peace.

Here, now, with my sweet Ophelia, held by her and holding her in return, I am at peace.

For a few long moments I simply allow myself to savor it, to revel in it, at least until she shifts slightly beneath me. It’s a reminder that I probably shouldn’t spend the entire night sprawled out atop her, buried in the tight warmth of her cunt.

Even as much as I might like to.

Sanity comes back to me in slow, hazy increments, but it’s not until I shift to slide out of her that I remember.

“I’m sorry,” I rasp. “I didn’t think—I didn’t mean to—”

She catches the meaning of my awkward apology as I settle on the bed beside her. When I glance over, her cheeks are colored a darker shade of pink than they were a moment ago.

“It’s fine,” she says quickly. “I mean, yeah, we probably should have talked about it, but I had things… taken care of. A few years ago, actually. I decided the whole becoming a mother thing wasn’t ever going to be for me, so I made it permanent.”

A wave of relief washes over me, both for the immediate concern, and for the glimmer of something I’m not going to examine right now. A small kernel of some distant future we might share.

“Alright,” I tell her, reaching over to pull her into me. “And, for the record, I feel the same about bringing a child into the world.”

Ophelia relaxes into me, tucking her head under my chin and letting out a long, satisfied sigh. It brings back that warm blanket of peace. All-encompassing and complete, it tugs at the corners of my mind, inviting what I’m certain will be a wonderful night’s sleep.

But, like I should have already known, my goddess isn’t a creature of rest or indulgence, and she’s not about to let me off the hook for my earlier behavior, no matter how good the sex might have been.

Ophelia braces a forearm on my chest and rests her chin atop it, glancing up at me with a look that’s equal parts trepidation and resolve and the lingering haze of pleasure that hasn’t quite left her eyes.

“So, can we finally talk about just what the fuck happened back in Philippe’s office?”

27

Ophelia

Cas stiffens beneath me, all that handsome, fucked-out, masculine satisfaction fading from his face in an instant.

I almost regret it. Mainly because I really, really like that look on him, and even more so knowing I’m the one who put it there.