Page 65 of Hopelessly Teavoted
He picked up his goblet, and she hers. Tipping it carefully not to spill, he toasted her, the vibration of the goblets reverberating as the table had, deep in his core.
“Now we toast and drink until it’s drained,” he said. His voice was straining, and his fingers were desperate to have her, his tongue to taste her.
“Prost,” she said, clinking the goblet against his and then tipping it back. He would give anything to be the thing her lips wrapped around like that.
He raised his own to his mouth, and the liquid tasted sweet and tart, like berries and lemon. Earthen and heady, with a sharp edge.
Slamming the goblet down on the table, he felt the warmth of the spell spreading through him, like tiny invisible fairy lights burst through his veins and wrapped his heart in the gilded glow of a late porch night full of fireflies and soft music.
“Az,” Vickie said, and he got up and crossed the distance between them. “What if it doesn’t work? What if Lex was lying and the spell doesn’t work?”
“He wasn’t, and it will,” he murmured, kneeling, and she dropped next to him so that they were both on their knees.
“I’m more certain of you than I am of my own name.
I’ve loved you since before I could remember, I love you now, and I’ll love you always.
Our magics have always known, really.” Only inches lingered between them, and the corners of her beautiful mouth tugged upward.
“And if by some off chance it doesn’t, I’ll die happy in your arms.”
Vickie swatted the shoulder of his sweater, but she was smiling widely now, nose scrunching into the freckles he loved so much.
“Can I kiss you now?” Azrael asked, wanting to hear the exquisite pleasure of her enthusiasm.
“Kiss me now and always,” she whispered.
Azrael raised his hands to Vickie’s face, his palms hovering a few inches away from each side, feeling the warmth of her.
Of just her, no damning fire.
Touching nothing else, his mouth grazed hers.
Her lips parted for him, soft and molten, and she sucked in a sharp breath.
He pulled back, closing his hands on her temples, and looked at her, drinking her in.
She exhaled, relief washing away into darker pink that pulled across her cheeks, spotting them with color.
The pad of his thumb traced her jaw, running over her bottom lip and then down her neck, farther, to her collarbone and the top of her breast, over her T-shirt. He reached for her face again, brushing against the freckles. He’d count every one of them. Again.
“Kiss me. Now.” The repeated command was edged with sharp need, and, fuck, he couldn’t leave her hanging.
Their lips met, and Azrael couldn’t help himself.
He pulled Vickie’s head toward him farther, crushing her moan between their mouths.
Vickie threaded her hands in his hair and returned the sentiment.
Tongues clashed, hungry, desperate, devouring.
He bit at her bottom lip, and she moaned, words indecipherable but so, so sweet.
Moving lower, he pressed kisses along her neck, relishing more of those soft, explosive little gasps of longing as he reached her breasts, and she yanked up her shirt, over her head and off, to give him better access.
He slid his fingers down the sides of her bra, hooking them under the cups of it so that her breasts were free, nipples hardening even in the cozily warm air of the library. Unclasping it with a snap.
“It’s your turn,” she said, shrugging out of the bra. Pushing him and clawing his sweater off, and then the buckle of his belt and his zipper. “Let me taste how hard you are.”
“Fuck, well, I obviously want that, and we should definitely come back to it later, but there is no way I’d last long enough to do what I want with you now if you got these pretty lips”—he ran a finger against the bottom one—“around me.”
She flushed and nodded, but didn’t let go, pushing his pants down. He was helping her now, stumbling slightly, pushing her jeans down, and sucking in too sharp a breath. He felt naked in a way he hadn’t in years, like this meant something that all the other times had not.
“Do you have a condom?” she asked, splotches of desire coloring in the space between her freckles.
“I can get one. I’m also on birth control.” Witches, unlike humans, had options for such things. His mother had taught him to make gender-neutral birth control pills when he was thirteen.
“I haven’t been with anyone else since Robbie, and I have a breakup ritual of an STI test.”
“Nothing more romantic than reproductive health care,” he murmured, tugging at her lip with his teeth and running a hand down her arm, relishing the goose bumps that raised in the wake of his fingers.
“I am also good. I’ve been tested since my last partner.
But, Vickie, if at any point you change your mind, about the condom, or any of it, just say so. ”
“I won’t,” she said. “But noted. I trust you. Only if you want to, though.” The uncertainty in her eyes made Azrael want to murder this Robbie person if they ever met, but he let it go, promising himself that their love would not be the jealous sort.
“I want nothing more than that, sweetheart.” The word rolled off his tongue and rippled across her, a wave of a smile that told him he had found the sweet spot for what she would be to him.
It was the modern version of Benedict’s my darling .
Of Persephone’s handsome . A new sobriquet for a new generation of passionate, wildly-in-love Harts.
Vickie shuddered against him now.
Maybe he’d even renovate the home gym.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured, pulling her closer, gently, by the arms, and tracing his hands up her shoulders to her neck, kissing her softly on the mouth before lowering her carefully to the ground and bracketing her body with his knees and hands on either side of her.
Trailing adorations down the center of her, he rubbed his hands down her sides as he slid down, tracing circles onto her thighs and moving them slowly inward.
He pressed kisses against her belly button, her hips, the crease where each thigh met the center of her, his thumbs sliding upward and circling.
Vickie was gasping now, and he wanted to consume her.
Her every sound of pleasure, her soft skin, all of her, but he settled for pressing languid kisses on each thigh, closer and closer to where she wanted him, as her legs trembled and she moaned.
Azrael drew back for a moment, kissing the crooks of her knees, and then trailing his mouth up, up, up her thigh.
“Sweetheart,” he whispered again. He let the letters of it brush against her lower lips and parted her with his tongue.
Azrael pressed his tongue flat against her clit for a moment before lapping and circling, pumping a finger in and out, and watching her, the susurrations of her breath, so that he could learn, as always, more closely what pushed her closer and what made her dig her nails into his hair and yank.
Once he could feel her tensing, he moved his head up, smiling at her.
“Take me,” she breathed. Her face was open. Flushed. It made his heart ache with joy and longing. “Take all of me,” she said.
Pressing a palm against her stomach, he slid it around and under her to tilt her pelvis up toward him, and moved his hand back to circle his thumb around her bundle of nerves once more.
“Now, Az, please.” The begging was more than he could withstand, and he moved up her body and nudged at her, relishing the way her mouth opened and she breathed, eyelashes fluttering.
He pushed a little harder at the center of her with his thumb as he slid in and felt her adjust to him, her inner walls tight and close, so close.
Azrael drew out inch by inch and then back in, forcing himself to go slow enough to feel every part of her. To commit every exquisite second to memory.
“Faster,” she commanded, and then he was gone, reckless and unable to stop himself from pounding so hard that she slipped a little bit and dug her hands into the carpet to stabilize herself, his thumb working at her, and he was so close that if she didn’t finish soon, well, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to go on.
“Vickie,” he groaned. “You feel so fucking good. Come for me before I completely lose control. Let go.”
Moving his thumb gently, he pushed into her, finding the rhythm she’d once lunged toward on his fingers, and then she was arching her back and moaning loudly enough that the flame in the fireplace roared higher in approval.
“Good girl,” he whispered, “you’re so close,” and “yes, let me,” and everything clenched around him, and he couldn’t stop himself; his orgasm and his emotions exploded.
“I love you.” His breathing was ragged around the words as they both came down from the high of ecstasy pooling between them.
“I love you too,” she murmured into his ear as he collapsed, rolling onto his side and pulling her in to tuck her underneath his arm.
He could die a happy man right now. He snapped his fingers so that a pillow and throw blankets arranged themselves in a makeshift bed on the library floor. The house dimmed the lights, and he drifted, peacefully, into sleep, with Vickie curled around him.
Azrael Hart had come home.
At last.