Page 49 of Hopelessly Teavoted

There was that word again, languid with memory and anticipation and dripping from his lips like honey. She wanted to press her own against his body in a special kind of murder that would feel so, so right.

Until it actually killed him, that is.

Azrael reached for her, a gloved finger sliding across her cheek. Vickie gasped and shut her eyes for a moment, pretending it was skin on skin.

When she opened her eyes again, Az was a safe distance away, sliding the glove off his left hand.

His fingers would need to connect, at least with each other, for magic. She remembered what those fingers had felt like in the car, for a brief moment, and desire, mixed with caution, pooled in her stomach.

“Is this still okay?” The tenderness of his voice undid her further, and when he brought his gloved hand to hers, circling her wrist, she wriggled a little, breath catching in the corseted gown, feeling the press of the boning at the top of the dress and the slickness between her thighs.

“Yes. I need you. I wish I could touch you,” she whispered.

“Shhh,” he said. “Close your eyes, Vickie. Pretend.”

They had gotten good at pretending, and then good at admitting that it hadn’t been pretending at all, and now it felt circular.

An endless cycle, the touching and the wanting, but not admitting, then the admitting, and now the not touching.

Maybe she was cursed to do this dance with Azrael forever, always almost, never always.

His gloved fingers were still stroking at her wrist, and his other hand, held cautiously away, was moving.

A few finger snaps later, and licks of magic skirted her lips, her neck, her chest. It was like feeling his hands and his mouth, but cooler shadows of the real feeling, and the closeness of it was exquisite agony.

She moaned when the tendrils of magic slipped under the neckline of her dress.

“Please touch me—be careful, but please, touch me.” It was an unfair bargain, but it was all they had. She opened her eyes, and took him in, pupils blown wide with desire, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth. He caught her eye and smiled reassuringly.

Azrael was unfairly beautiful in front of her. And unfairly far away.

He must have felt the injustice of it too.

Groaning, he ran his ungloved hand down his face.

Then, sliding close enough to push the long skirt of the gown up, up, and up with a gloved hand, he snapped his fingers with the other.

She was bare now under the skirt, her panties gone goddess knows where, her center exposed and close to his glove.

“Touch me,” she moaned, searching for confirmation in his eyes that this wasn’t only agony for her.

Azrael’s lips curled upward, and his gloved hand reached for her, gently at first, and then harder, circling the sensitive bud of nerves until she was making soft noises of desperation that might have embarrassed her, if she were with anyone other than Azrael.

“I want so badly to devour those little sounds you make,” he murmured, leaning in dangerously close. The hairs rose on her arm with anticipation, and fear that a slight loss of control might burn him. She could feel his breath against her now as he spoke.

“Do you want just my hand here, or…” He let his voice trail off, tweaking at her nipples gently with two snaps of his fingers.

The gloved hand at her center palmed her, rubbing steadily, and she threw her head back, an echo of a time when she would have insisted that he brush kisses along the column of her neck.

A time when she would have moved her own mouth lower, down his body, hungry to feel that what they were doing was reciprocal. That he was with her completely.

“I want everything you can give me,” she said, suddenly not caring how demanding her words were. “I want you alive at the end, but short of dying, give me everything. Make me forget this mess we’ve got ourselves into.”

“Vickie,” Az groaned, sliding a finger inside her, and moaning a little at the way she gasped. “Like this?”

She’d never been fingered with leather gloves before. It was not terrible.

“Yes,” she said, and he snapped his fingers with his other hand, increasing pressure on her breasts while moving his gloved thumb back and forth over her clit.

She tried not to move up and down on him too much, to ride his hand with the kind of unrestrained lust she felt, and the effort made her even more breathless.

“I’m going to err on the side of caution here, and since I can’t check too closely for fear I might lose control and die happy with my face between your knees, I’m going to use lube, and just lean into ruining these gloves entirely. Is that all right?”

The hint of possibility made her tighten a little against his hand, and she nodded her head, biting her bottom lip.

Az smiled down at her, snapping once, the tweaks in pressure just this side of painful, just the way she liked.

Her nipples, peaked, ached for more than what he could give her without direct contact.

Snap, and a bottle of lubricant appeared on the tea table in front of them.

Snap, and she could feel his gloved thumb glide more easily along her clit, and the way one finger, and then another, slid silkily into her.

Vickie braced herself on her elbows, leaning back against the cushions, and rolled her hips, but Az shook his head.

“Be a good girl and hold still and take it for me, Vickie.”

The gravel in his voice rendered all that lube less necessary. Still, she didn’t mind the slick, exquisite excess of it.

Watching as two of his gloved fingers slipped in and out of her, Vickie groaned loud enough that the old grandfather clock groaned back and the walls of the house contracted a little while the locked door rattled in support.

She was filthy levels of wet.

“I need to see your face come apart the way I’ve missed so much for fucking years.

” Azrael’s eyes were serious, lush mouth half-open.

He adjusted himself, sitting up so that she was far enough away to avoid danger.

Snap, and the magical pressure increased all over her body. “You can let go now, Vickie. Let go.”

They had been fools to pretend a death curse could stop whatever this was between them.

Pressing against his hand, Vickie rode Azrael’s gloved fingers, tentatively at first, then, glancing down to make sure he wasn’t close enough to accidentally kill, again, with the full force of her want—her need—for him.

One of Azrael’s hands was lost in her skirts, and she drove down onto it as the other snapped rhythmically to pull at her nipples, her neck, and the soft gathering of nerves at the center of her until she could feel her walls closing around his fingers, the ratcheting tension enough to make her whimper his name.

Goddess, she wanted it to be his tongue, too, or other bits of him, but fuck it, she’d take whatever she could get at this point.

“That’s it, Vickie,” he answered. “Show me how badly you’ve wanted this. How much you’ve missed me. Show me how wild I make you.”

She could see and hear how unhinged he was now, his breath heavy and the outline of his erection clear through his suit pants.

Her eyes were open now, and she stared, heat creeping up her cheeks, but neither of them slowed down.

“You can be honest, Vickie. Tell me what you want.”

“More,” she panted, and he slipped a third gloved finger inside her.

Snap, and invisible kisses traced a path down her décolletage.

Vickie felt each one linger, and if she closed her eyes, she could pretend.

Covered in the cool glove, his hand wasn’t quite as warm, but it was better than her own tired digits.

The magic licked like the stroke of his tongue, down, down, exactly where she needed it to be.

“Fuck, Azrael,” she ground out as her core pulsed, a squeezing, clamping fist claiming his gloved fingers. Azrael rubbed them in and out a few times before pulling them out completely, and holding them up for her to see.

“Well. This is ruined.” A crooked smile snaked up his face. “And so am I, frankly.”

He yanked the leather glove off and tossed it aside, snapping his fingers to replace it with a clean one.

Vickie stared up at him as her breath slowed to a normal rhythm.

“Az, what can I do?…” His pupils were still blown wide, and she wanted to touch him, to press against him through his pants and gloves, or to watch while he came on her tits, or into his hand, anywhere, really, but his eyebrows knitted together, and a feeling—worry, maybe? —flickered across his face.

It was all too much. Or perhaps not enough? Vickie wasn’t sure what he needed.

“We should wash up and have dinner,” Az said, adjusting himself in his pants and turning to the door. The house did not oblige, and he had to give the bolt on the door a few raps before it let up. He turned back to her for a moment.

“Fuck,” he said softly. “How is it that good without even laying a single ungloved hand on each other?”

“Right,” said Vickie, standing up from the couch, a slight wobble to her stance. “Dinner,” she said. Her voice sounded weak.

Holding out a fully covered arm, Azrael cleared his throat.

“The four of us have a lot to talk about.” It was an abrupt transition, but it was true.

Vickie didn’t respond, but did the only thing she could think to do while clad in formal wear with a man who’d just thoroughly finger-fucked her in gloves. She threaded an arm in his, and they walked, as far apart as two people who were in love and definitely in lust could walk.

After all, to get any closer would be to risk a different kind of sparks flying, and she wasn’t about to relinquish his soul to a devil.