Page 66 of Hopelessly Teavoted

They had woken up to stumble upstairs to his bedroom, the house lighting chandeliers in a soft romantic glow along their path.

She tripped up a stair, nearly losing the fluffy blanket she’d thrown around her shoulders rather than get dressed.

Azrael, who had pulled on just his underwear, snapped his fingers and two tall tumblers of water and a plate full of snacks materialized, floating in the air beside them.

His chest looked sculpted in the low lighting, and she bit her lip, reaching up to ruffle the dark curls snaking across his forehead.

His brownish eyes darkened now, the gold and green almost completely snuffed out, as she pushed her hands against the bare skin of his shoulders and leaned up to kiss him. Hard.

“On the stairs?” he asked, tracing patterns that raised goose bumps on her arm with one hand.

“Another time,” she said between panting breaths. “Your bed. The silk sheets. I’ve always wanted to.”

“As you wish,” he murmured, grabbing for her hand, and increasing their pace up the stairs. The pictures rattled a little on the walls, as though they, too, were eager, and from the main room, Franklin the polar bear rug roared in support.

They reached his room and the food and water landed neatly on his desk, but there would be time for that later. The curtains of the four-poster bed were drawn back, Emily Lickinson perched atop the sheets. One look at them and she yowled, stretched, and hopped off the bed.

Vickie slid toward the bed, but Az held his hands up.

“Hold on, sweetheart.”

He snapped his fingers a few times, and tufts of white cat hair lifted from the sheets and sprinkled themselves into a trash can.

Azrael sneezed. “Cat hair,” he said apologetically.

Emily was nowhere to be found now, though, and the clicking noises behind Vickie said that the house, once more, was locking them into privacy.

She walked over to the now shining, clean sheets, the obsidian silk almost glowing in candlelight that had dimmed, it seemed, as she approached the platform. With the practice of a thousand childhood moments, she hoisted herself onto the bed, tossing the blanket to the side.

“I used to dream of being naked in these sheets,” she said softly.

“Tell me,” said Azrael, moving toward the chair at his desk. Gripping the back of it so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Tell me exactly what you did when you thought of being in my bed.”

“I,” she started, flush creeping up her cheeks. Good goddess, if she was going to do this thing, she was going to do it completely. Uninhibited. With all her heart.

It was Azrael, for fuck’s sake.

“I would picture the way the fabric would slide, soft against my skin.” She ran a palm across the cool expanse of it, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. “When I was really wound up, I could always pretend it was your hand, not mine.”

“Tell me,” Az ordered again, his voice edged with urgency.

“I’d rather show you,” she said, not believing her own boldness.

But then again, she had been the one to tell him, even in her youth, about how the idea of spanking and whips was exciting.

And they had done this before, in the shower, though it felt different now that she knew they could touch. She could do this.

Vickie lay down, settling her head in the pillows.

“Come here,” she said, crooking a finger in the air. He walked slowly toward her, excitement clear and visibly defined in the blue plaid print of his boxers. “There. Stop at the edge of the bed.”

She slid a fearless hand down her stomach, lower, and snuck the other up toward her breasts, stopping before she got there.

“Vickie,” he pleaded. The strain in his voice was delicious.

“Yes?” she breathed.

“Let me touch you,” he begged.

“When I’m ready.” Sliding her hand lower, she dipped it between her thighs and felt, rather than heard, his groan on the air, in unison with her own.

She squeezed at her nipple with her other hand, and sat up, staring at him.

Memorizing the way his eyes darkened with need and anticipation.

“Do you want to see how I would picture it? When I was by myself and pretending it was you?”

Azrael swore softly.

“Do you, Az?”

“Yes,” he moaned. “Fuck. I’ll give you anything you want, sweetheart. Show me.”

Flipping over onto her knees, she looked back, and winked at him.

“Just like this,” she said, reaching a hand between her thighs. Reminding herself at the twinge of nerves about exposing this much of her body to him that this was Az.

And that the prospect had her so turned on that she was soaking wet, glistening against her own fingers as she drew them in and out.

“Fuck, Vickie, I could die happy just watching you do that.”

“The sheets are just as silky on my knees as I had imagined,” she purred. “Now come over here and fuck me until my face is pressed into them too.”

Azrael was beside her on the bed in an instant, but his resolve must have been stronger than hers, because he held back for a moment, tracing the backs of her thighs with a careful thumb. His voice was low, and she felt as though she were stretched too tight with wanting.

“How badly do you want me, Vickie?”

Reaching back, she grabbed his hand, dragging it over her. Into her.

“This much. Please?”

Azrael groaned, dipping his fingers in and snapping his other hand so that his boxers lay in a pile next to the bed.

“Anything,” he said, sliding into her. He reached a hand around, covering her fingers with his own, sliding down them and slightly to the left, finding a spot that had taken her years to pinpoint on her own, but apparently was second nature to him.

He dragged a finger outside of her as he took her from behind, not releasing her own hand so that she was working not quite at the same angle but at the same rhythm with her fingers.

“Anything at all you want. Anything you need, Victoria, say the word, and it’s yours. ”

The sensation of Azrael, of his hands and her own, and the filthy thoughts full of possibility, all pooled in her core.

She moaned his name as he picked up speed.

Felt everything tremble as he gripped her hips, and rode her to the edges of her pleasure before hauling her torso up, one hand at a hip still and the other at a shoulder.

He snapped his fingers, and she felt his magic answer, curling low around her belly, nudging lower as he drove into her from behind.

Removing the hand from her shoulder, he snapped again, this time pinching a nipple, and she was surprised by the burst of pleasure as a twinge of light pain stoked in her. “You’re so fucking sexy. Do you like that?” Az breathed, against her earlobe.

“Yes,” she whimpered. “More.”

Moaning into her ear, Azrael snapped again, and both the physical contact and the magic tugged at her breasts, kneading them; pushed between her thighs like an extra pair of hands; pushed down on the spot behind where he entered her, slick and snug, and suddenly she needed to feel him so closely that it hurt.

“Spank me,” she moaned. The sound he made was guttural.

He paused. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He paused to bend her gently down back onto all fours, and then smacked the flat of his palm against her hip, the stinging pleasure of it burning across her.

“Harder, Az.”

His fingers snapped, and the pressure increased everywhere, his other hand reeling back this time to connect with her ass cheek in a sharp crack that sent sizzling, impossible desire through her.

“Yes,” she breathed, an exhale of relief.

A torrent of emotion at finally being able to trust someone enough to communicate exactly what she wanted.

It washed over her and pushed her over the edge.

Everything was clamping, clenching, skyrocketing into pleasure as he gritted his teeth and finished, her name on his lips and his hands gripping her hips as she whined and pushed up against him again.

Magic it turned out, was an incredibly useful toy in the bedroom.

“Damn,” she panted. “What the fuck is wrong with us to have missed out on that for so long?”

“I don’t know,” he said, collapsing onto the bed and dragging her with him. “But you’re here now, so I vote we have a snack and some water, and see where the rest of the night takes us.”

She trailed a finger down his chest, past the line of hair under his belly button.

“I know exactly where I want it to take us next,” Vickie said, running her tongue across her lips, her eyes flicking lower.

He raised an eyebrow and repeated, “As you wish, Vickie. As you wish.”

One Year Later

The fishnet bodysuit under a leotard and the thigh-high boots were a little unwieldy to serve apple hand pies in, but she figured it was worth it both to invest in her business by leaning into Sultry Sunday and to be able to smirk as she told Azrael about it later.

She snapped a picture and texted it to Az. The best part of being with him, besides the obvious, was that she knew she could send him a chain of text messages in a row, and he would relish them all. He would never think of her as clingy.

Vickie: check out my Sultry Sunday fit

Vickie: Look what you made me do.

Vickie: Get it? Because of the video, and also because you inspire me to wear, you know, leather and fishnets?

Typing bubbles popped up immediately, and he shot back a picture of a baby playing with a life-sized human skull. His dimpled cheeks were crinkled into a smile.

Vickie: Azrael, is Milo playing with a human skull? Is that appropriate for a baby??

Az: Relax. It’s a toy. I cleaned off a box of old baby things I found in the attic.

Vickie: Just make sure it’s not secretly magical, Az. I don’t want to have to explain to Kelley Watson that you magicked her baby while she was on a date. Because, you know, the whole NACoW convention laws about not telling humans there’s magic and whatnot. But also, babysitting standards.