She really doesn’t know just how much I want to salt her. But then I remember something important that I’m good at.
As the strands of very thickly corded rope begin whirring in the air, I smirk over at her.
“Damn gypsy,” she mutters, still grinning, as Vance sighs in relief.
The second the massive ropes are mostly shredded, he breaks them the rest of the way, and he starts fumbling with the metal clasps of the harness.
Unfortunately, that puts his face dangerously close to mine, and a breath shakes out of me when he lifts my legs and drags me closer. An unbidden roll of my hips has his breath catching. I’m not sure when my hands went to his shoulders, but I grip them tighter, resisting the urge to use them as leverage.
This is really distracting.
I barely force my eyes away, and his hands slow on working free the buckles as I stare at Anna, who is still grinning and running in place.
“Take your time. I feel better than I have in so long. I think you just re-energized me,” she says, eyes bright. “It could be the answer to the universe.”
My eyes widen. “You’re serious?”
She nods as her grin brightens. “So serious. I’ll see you back at the house. We’ll talk it over there.” She gestures to the triplets. “C’mon, girls. She’s not as kinky as I am.”
With that, I see a triplet touch her hand, and they all disappear.
That’s when it starts getting awkward again, because I remember what I have no idea how I forgot.
My lips clumsily bump his when I turn my head, because he’s gotten so much closer. He doesn’t pull back more than just a hair’s breadth away from my lips.
“I’ll leave this up to you,” he murmurs, his lips ghosting over mine in the barest of touches.
I can’t even remember exactly how long it’s been for me, but I can only imagine how long it’s been for him, considering he actually got bored with sex. Anna thinks the ribbon girl is cruel? She left him hanging after all that time and left his fate in my lesser experienced hands.
“You’re the one who lost interest in sex. It feels wrong for this decision to be mine, since I put you in this incredibly awkward position. Apologizing seems like something I should be—”
His lips find mine in an almost bruising kiss, and I forget what I was even saying. I’m not sure why I was the least attracted to him, since he’s by far the sexiest man I’ve ever known in this very wrong moment.
It’s like he knows every right way to kiss a girl, and is effortlessly transitioning into each method at a slow, deliberate pace.
I feel us moving before I realize he’s turning us, and I tighten my legs around his waist when I feel gravity trying to pull me off him.
He groans against my lips as my back hits the bed and he comes down on top of me. I feel his hands slide down to the harness, and he tears it away with three sharp tugs in premediated sections.
It falls away in three pieces that I feel, rather than see, because my eyes are still shut as he gives a lazy thrust. I’m not sure what sounds I make, because he swallows them.
He breaks the kiss and holds himself inside me as his lips trail down to my ear.
“You’re really giving me this decision to make?” he asks like he needs to be certain.
“Are you really going to make me ask for it at this point?” I ask a little shakily.
I’ll kill Anna for this after I thank her a little. It’s been a long time since I felt like…me. A person. A woman. Not an idiot who can’t stop stepping in shit piles.
He seems to hesitate, and I start to get really embarrassed about misreading that mind-numbing kiss.
“I’ve already crossed a line,” he says, though it sounds more like he’s talking to himself. “I might as well cross another,” he adds before his lips find mine again, purging my mind of any and all remaining nervous reservations.
He pulls back and thrusts in harder this time, rolling his hips at just the right second, and I know the sounds I make this time are really embarrassing, because he tears his lips away from mine and the sound escapes.
It only seems to fuel him, and he grows more aggressive as my hands slide up and into his hair, feeling the soft strands as he continues to drive me up on the bed with each perfectly executed thrust.
I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot in life in this moment, because I didn’t know sex could be quite so invigoratingly mind-blowing.
His lips work down my throat as my head falls back, and pleasure crackles. Little sparks of electrical currents explode across my body.
Some garbled and probably unsexy sound comes out of me, and his thrusts grow more urgent and greedy when he likely feels what he’s just ignited.
His lips crash back on mine as he chases his own release, roughly anchoring me in place as his hips piston.
My eyes roll back in my head when I somehow stumble across a second, less mind-blowing-but-still-toe-curling orgasm. It’s what sends him over the edge, because he releases such a content, gravelly sound as his lips slip off mine.
His eyes are closed when he drops his forehead to mine, breathing heavily as his body slightly trembles. I’m not sure why I’m smiling like I accomplished something, considering he did all the work.
It takes a few more seconds for me to start feeling awkward about having sex with a known monster-slaying immortal gypsy on a whim.
He gives another lazy roll of his hips, hissing out a breath when another little tremor causes him to shudder, and I reflexively roll my hips to meet his. He groans and thrusts once more, and then holds still again.
I guess it takes a while to…recover after however long it’s been since he last had sex, but I really like getting to watch all the agonized pleasure on his face, since his eyes remained closed. It’s like it feels so good that it’s actually painful to him, and I’m riveted by the sight.
After a few breaths of silence, his eyes open and he leans back, his gaze flicking over my face like he’s searching for something. Apparently he finds whatever it is, because instead of the awkward disentangling I expect, his lips come back down on mine, hungrily kissing me like he wants more.
I kiss him back, since I’m back to being stupid for a minute and enjoying the way it feels to simply be with someone.
A loud pounding at the door tries to interrupt us as he rocks his hips like he’s urging his lower body to hurry up and get ready again, while kissing me with all he has, as if he wants to keep me in the moment until he’s ready for another round.
The knocking grows more insistent, just as something loud crashes outside. Vance groans while tearing his lips away once more, and shouts toward the door.
“What the fucking hell is going on?”
“Sorry, sir, but they’re tearing down the front gate, and they have the paperwork to do so.”
Now it’s awkward again, because he’s still semi-hard and inside me, while talking to Margie through the door.
“What?” he asks incredulously.
“I’m afraid Damien Morpheous is reclaiming his house, sir. I’ve been arguing at the front door for the past hour or so, but I’m afraid I can’t hold them off any longer.”
“Remind them there’s still exactly twenty days left on the contract,” he snaps, lifting off and pulling out of me in one smooth motion.
He walks naked toward the robe next to the bed.
He turns and gestures for me to pull the sheet up, and I do, since I’m worried he’s about to open the door. Instead, he just finishes tying his robe and glares around the room.
“I’ve told them exactly that. There was a clause in the contract that states this is the exact day,” Margie goes on.
His jaw grinds. “You said this argument has gone on for an hour?”
“Possibly longer,” she says uneasily.
“Give me a minute.”
I sit up and look around the room too, mimicking him as a chill slithers up my spine.
“Booze and sex dull the senses,” Vance states so quietly to himself I almost don’t hear it.
His eyes scour the room more, making me paranoid.
“Show yourself, Damien,” he says with a hard set to his jaw.
I swallow thickly when the bed dips next to me and Damien simply appears, his body a mere foot from mine. His legs are leisurely crossed at the ankles, and his arms come up and settle behind his head as he grins over at Vance.
“You surprise me, Sir Vancelot. I didn’t think you had it in you to fuck a Portocale. Especially when you droned on in your reminders to Emit and I that she’s forbidden. Does she know our history with her family yet?” Damien asks, eyes on just Vance.
I look between them, feeling like I’m caught in the middle of something between them that doesn’t involve me.
Great. Just when I was enjoying a moment where things almost made sense…
Chapter 6
VIOLET
Wrapping up in the sheet a little better, I try to sit up, but the sheet falls down my back, because I can feel every inch of exposed skin.
Damien reaches over and pulls the sheet back up for me, his face inches from mine, even as he continues to stare at Vance.
“No,” is all Vance says to Damien, but I’m more focused on the fact Damien just watched us have sex.
“You couldn’t see me, could you?” Damien asks me, his eyes meeting mine for the first time.
“No. Of course not. You know this, which is why I threatened you to stay out of my room,” I remind him.
“Hmmm. Now that’s interesting,” he says with a dark grin. His eyes flick back to Vance, who looks as confused and entirely too focused on that comment as well. “Why would that be something she forgot? And how in the hell did his people pull that off?”
“Why the hell were you watching us have sex?” I ask the lunatic.
“Do you remember kissing me?” he muses. “It certainly didn’t seem like something you’d just brazenly do, but I’ve been wrong before. However, after the fact, it all seemed a little…coached.”
“I think I remember…” My words trail off, and I try to remember why what he says sounds familiar, even though I have no idea why.
His hand cups my chin, and his eyes seem to light up for a brief second as images pulse through my mind. Images that feel like memories he’s pulling from a fog or sharing with me—one or the other.
And then I remember…seducing him into talking. How did I forget that? Why would I forget that?
It’s the only time I’ve even somewhat really liked Damien.
I blink rapidly a few times, even as the memory plays on, but I can only see the memories from his point of view. I feel my pieces missing.
“The gifts were coached. Makes so much more sense,” Vance says on a groan. “But that gives you no damn right to fucking be in here right now. Twenty more days.”
“The decades were broken down to the exact number of days in years with three-hundred-and-sixty-five days. I knew you’d try to weasel those extra days provided by leap year from me,” Damien answers with a satisfied, unapologetic grin. “Feel free to repair the damage you caused during your tantrum.”