Page 42

HAPPY ACCIDENTS

Ember

T he first inch of the demon’s massive, red, nubbed cock was like fire. Ember’s eyes went wide, her grip around his base tightened, and Severath’s already swollen length felt like it grew three times right at her entrance.

But then a claw caressed her back, gentle touches lighting up her already sensitive skin, and a rumbling timbre asked, “Are you sure?”

She nodded because she was, but she also knew the words wouldn’t come out nearly as convincing.

“Relax,” he said, both hands sliding under her backside and lifting her upward. “Tell me if it’s too much.”

Ember closed her eyes as his fingers kneaded at her flesh.

She released his length and lay both arms over his shoulders, allowing him to take control.

Giving something like that away would have terrified her with anyone else, but Severath’s campfire smell and his steady breaths were enough to ease the muscles in her hips, and the emptiness that had once been in her chest always so ready to swell with fear and fury was already filled with something else. Something that felt magical.

Severath lowered her at a slightly different angle, and the swell his crown filled her once again, still heated but not searing.

He held her still, and she let her knees fall even wider, nodding to encourage him.

The first row of nubs slipped inside when he lowered her again, rolling over the slickness of her skin and briefly pulsing pleasure through her body.

She let out a shuddering noise and pressed her forehead to his.

“Too much?” he asked, nuzzling her nose in that sweet way he always did when their faces were close.

“Not enough.” She urged him on with a swivel of her hips, and his grip on her ass tightened as he lowered her again.

There was another ridge and then another, each sending a blissful shiver along her spine right to the back of her head.

“Fuck,” she breathed against his face, messily kissing his cheek.

Her arms hung over his shoulders as she let her body go limp in his hold, and then the rest of his beaded cock filled her up with such ease it was like it belonged inside her.

Ember hadn’t thought she could ever enjoy this, but as her backside met his thighs, and as his hands slid up to her hips and caressed her low back, she thought she could never move again and be perfectly happy in this seat forever.

“You feel so fucking amazing,” Severath rasped into her ear, and that’s when she noticed the tremble. Her weary gaze sharpened, and she took in just how much he was struggling, the sweat on his brow and the hunger pacing in the blackness of his eye.

Her lips quirked playfully despite herself. “That’s not all there is, though, right?”

Severath didn’t seem capable of answering, not with words anyway, but his fingers wrapped around her hips, and he dipped his head in a slow nod.

Ember was lifted, not with speed but much faster than she’d been lowered down, each ridge popping out and teasing her with sparks of satisfaction, waking up her already spent core.

She wasn’t taken off of him, but was again let down with slow, careful precision, and the cry she made was punctuated by every nub on his cock.

Again, she was lifted, and again she was brought down, every movement caring, slow, and fucking delicious. But it still wasn’t enough.

“Let me,” she finally said, grabbing his shoulders. “But don’t you let go.”

Severath’s grip remained steadfast as she used her legs to lift herself so that she was just at the crown of his head.

Without the fullness of his cock, there was an ache inside, a clawing that reached out and wanted him back, and so she gave him to herself, sliding down until she nestled him all the way to the base.

Claws pricked at her skin, but that only spurred her on, lifting up quicker, coming down quicker, his nubs massaging her quicker, harder, building her pleasure as she watched him struggle not to release his own. But of course that was exactly what she wanted.

“You’re going to come inside me,” she told him as she built her own peak. “But not until you make me come again.”

As he growled, she managed to take one of his hands and slip it between them, his fingers nestling in and meeting her own wet nub.

“Just like with your tongue,” she said, and he worked fast circles as she rode him, stimulated from all sides.

When she came close, she slid down so he was as deep as he could be, and she encouraged his hand until she came apart.

She screamed, she swore, she dug her own claws into his neck, and somewhere among the nonsense of her words, she told the demon buried inside her that she loved him.

When her legs stopped quivering, she wasn’t quite sure any of it had happened, but she was too weak to lift herself off him.

“Say it again,” he pleaded into her ear, his grip on her waist digging in.

“I love you,” she mumbled against his shoulder, and it was like the words breathed new life into her. “Now, come for me, Sev,” she commanded, and the demon wrapped his arms all the way around her middle and bucked into her hips with a ferocity that had her crying out once again.

Beneath her, Severath growled, the sound vibrating into her chest as his length pulsed inside her aching walls and filled her with his seed. Ember wrapped her own arms tight around his neck and rode out the last of his climax knowing he was all hers.

Hers .

At some point while Severath had been dragging out Ember’s first orgasm of the morning, the cake had completely toppled, but at least it remained on the table.

Ember plunged a fork into its middle, scooping up a mass of yellow sponge, white cream, and a single pinkcurrant.

It was all the same once it was shoveled into a mouth, she supposed, and turned to Severath to do just that.

He was exhausted, naked body limp in the chair, cock still glistening. She licked her lips, hoping that if she got some food in him, they might be able to start all over again. He grinned sleepily at her or the fork, she wasn’t sure which.

“You’re still offering me the blightspawn cake?” he asked, sitting up, red form stretching and the muscles along his side flexing. “Even after knowing I’ve lost my spot in the guard?”

Ember sat herself on his thigh again, sliding from the slickness but caught by his tail. The cake quivered, but she managed to keep it balanced on the fork. “What, you think you’re unworthy of sweets because you can’t shoot in a straight line anymore?” She scoffed and leaned closer.

“Not unworthy of sweets, but of you.”

There was a fluttering in her chest at the purr in his voice despite that it made no sense. She scrunched up her nose and teased the fork before his lips. “I have no idea what those things have to do with one another. Just eat.”

“The blightspawn cake,” he said, features sharpening on her and ignoring the lumpy mound. “Presenting it to a demon means devoting oneself to another, requesting they be not just your mate but your soulbonded.”

The pinkcurrant slid to the edge of the cream as her arm wobbled, fork still held aloft. “But Davarox said this cake meant…companionship?”

“It does. Forever.”

Ember felt her eyes go wide even as the tip of Severath’s tail traced comforting circles on her low back. “You mean, I proposed to you?”

He tipped his head. “You did.”

Heat flared all over Ember’s body—her very naked body she had chosen to sit on Severath’s equally naked lap. Then she gasped. “And you accepted!”

He tipped his head the other way. “I did.”

“But we didn’t even say…” She swallowed, eyes darting down. “Anything about love.”

“It’s the same thing,” he mused as if it was just that simple. “You are my soulbonded, my mate, my heart’s greatest affection, my love.”

Her throat went tight as she stared at the admittedly ugly mouthful of cake that meant so much more than she ever thought, and yet she still desperately wanted him to eat it. “I am?”

Severath’s hand came up under hers, bringing the fork to his lips. “Of course you are.” He grinned and took a bite.

Something very much like fury welled up inside Ember then, but it wasn’t painful or frightening, and it wasn’t coming to protect her or close her off, nor did it drain her or scream at her or command her to flee.

Perhaps it wasn’t very much like fury at all, the feeling that was wrapping itself around Ember’s limbs and warming her belly and cuddling her heart, except in its strength.

It was ferocious and fiery and it convinced Ember that anything was possible.

“I do love you, you know,” she said, aware she had already told him but knowing it bore repeating.

Shock took Severath’s features, a thing Ember wasn’t expecting, but then his lip curled and he squeezed his eye shut. “Lo-yew-to,” he mumbled.

“What?” Ember snorted, and there was the fury, ready exactly when she needed it. She stuck her face close to his and glowered.

The demon was quick to change his expression, but disgust took over as he swallowed. “I love you too,” he said quickly and broke into a bright smile. Far too bright for Severath.

Ember began to growl because she had learned from the best, but then cut herself off. She inspected the fork. “Oh, no, does it taste funny?”

“No!” Severath’s black eye was so wide she was surprised there weren’t hidden whites to show. “No…it tasted…just fine.”

In one quick move, she hopped off his lap and speared the cake, shoveling a bit into her mouth before his tail could wrap around her and pull her away from the disaster on the table. “Oh, gods,” she cried around the alarmingly savory and sour taste. “It’s fucking awful .”

Severath quickly stood beside her, covering his mouth to hide his grin. “I wouldn’t say that .”

“Well, you should! Oh, I must not have recalled the recipe correctly. That or Bri can’t read either and just made it all up!

” She ran a hand over her face and leaned against the table, feeling Severath’s presence behind her.

Then she turned to him and thrust a finger into his chest. “You ate it already though! You can’t take it back! ”

He looked precariously down at her finger, his brow cocking. “Take what back?”

“That you love me too.”

Severath snorted and his tail tightened around her waist. “My soul would never allow itself to be unbound from yours.”

He kissed her, and Ember’s heart expanded not with pain or fury or fear but finally, and for perhaps the first time entirely, with joy.