Chapter 38

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CAT

M isery took me three more times against that fucking window, each time rougher, harder, and sexier. He had to carry me down the hallway to his bed, had to place me delicately beneath the covers. I sure as fuck couldn't do it myself.

"God, yeah, drip all over my sheets," he groaned, staring between my splayed legs like I'd bewitched him. He made some passing comment about Tor and Death being on the edge of the realm, investigating an anomaly, unable to clean me up, so he did it himself. With his tongue. Swirling, stroking deep, catching every last drop.

I just laid there and enjoyed the soft care of his mouth until he guided my legs closed, lying beside me, pulling me into the safety of his arms. At some point the sun had set, the day lost to sex. 1

Tomorrow, I'd come up with a new plan for dealing with Nightmare, Tonight, I couldn't even remember her name.

"My beautiful girl, my whole universe," Miz murmured against my neck, laying kisses there. I needed a shower, but it was all the way over there and I couldn't move. At least we were both sweaty and hot.

"Mine," I mumbled, lacing my fingers with his where they rested on my belly.

"Yours until the end of time," he swore, kissing a bite he'd left on my throat, then the mark he'd sucked on my shoulder, then the bruise he'd made on my jaw, soothing me all the way to sleep.

"This is rude," I muttered, slitting an eye open when I was scooped out of the warmth of the bed and carried into cold air. I half thought Miz had found a balcony to fuck me on, but it was burnt sugar that wrapped around my senses, making me sigh as I snuggled into Death's arms.

I stubbornly held on when he tried to deposit me in the shower, rewarded with a soft laugh that made me warm all over.

"Alright, little one," he murmured, lips feathering a kiss over my temple. "I can wash you without putting you down."

"I'm not waking up," I said sullenly, keeping my eyes closed, my face pressed to the slope of his shoulder. Warm water sprayed down over us, drumming muscles that protested after being contorted in fuck knows how many positions yesterday.

"So grumpy this morning," Death teased, his voice like a hug, surrounding me until I was lazy and comforted and—happy. I sighed, sliding my arms around him as his hands roamed my back, my arms, my neck, then the legs I had wrapped around him, massaging soap into every place he could reach. "I can't wash your front like this, little bride."

"I like it when you call me that," I murmured, a smile tugging at my lips.

"Then I'll never stop," he replied, a kiss finding my shoulder, then the bite mark Miz left on my throat. I jumped at the sensation, the mark tender. "I only stopped because—" Death sighed. "I thought you'd be uncomfortable with the name now the curse is gone."

"Mean," I grumbled, making him laugh.

"Mean of me to take your comfort into account?" he asked. The unmistakable noise of a pump sounded and then his hands were in my hair, caressing shampoo into the roots. I couldn't hold back a groan, the sound erotic and loud.

"Mean because you never asked if I still want to be your bride," I muttered, hiding my face in his shoulder, the sensation of him massaging my scalp so good my eyes nearly rolled back.

Death's fingers paused. I fought the pout that wanted to form. "Do you still want to be our bride?" he asked, a quietness to his voice.

"Yes." I huffed. "You didn't even bother to ask."

He guided me under the warm spray, rinsing suds from my long hair, making sure no soap got in my eyes. "You said you only wanted me, not Death and Tor, so I assumed—"

"She made me lie and we both know it," I huffed, speaking without thought. Pain cracked through my skull a moment later, the magic she'd muzzled me with taking its revenge. My nose burst with pain, blood dripping warmth over my bottom lip at the same moment I tasted copper in my mouth.

"Cat," Death said urgently, a raw edge of panic entering his voice. "Don't say anything else, just look at me. Look at me, my bride."

Tears welled and spilled down my cheeks, washed away by warm water. I looked at Death through the blurry film.

"It's okay, you're okay," he soothed, hands bracketing my face, cooling shadows wrapping around me. "Take a deep breath and hold it for me, just like that. Trust me?"

I nodded, blinking another rush of tears free. Pain hammered my skull like a hammer against an anvil, blood trickling from my nose and, I suspected, from my eyes and ears.

Without warning, darkness surged up my nose like water. I jerked hard, panic forcing me to breathe.

"Easy, it's just me, Cat. I'm going to heal you, hold your breath, little one."

I screwed my eyes shut so I couldn't see the streams of darkness and held my breath, even if the sensation of magic invading my nose, my ears, and covering my face made me want to scream. It lasted less than five seconds and then I was gulping down air on Death's command, crushed to his chest in a vicious hug. My nose stopped bleeding, the sharpest of the pain gone, but the dull hammer in my skull went nowhere.

"You're okay, you're perfectly fine, I've got you." Reassurance after reassurance spilled from him, but his hands shook against my body and I knew the words were as much for himself as they were for me. "I won't let her hurt you, I'm going to get this block removed."

I squirmed down Death's body, unclasping my legs from around him, and a sharp gasp parted his lips. His arms tightened, refusing to let me go.

"I think… I'm okay," I said, trailing my fingers through his long, wet braids. "Death, I'm okay."

"Good. Still not letting go."

I rested my head over his heart and let him hold me for however long he needed, adjusting to the flip from intense pain to dull, bearable ache. Moral of the story: don't have meaningful conversations before you're fully awake.

"I'm sorry for scaring you," I murmured, filling my lungs with the burnt sugar scent of him until my own unease faded. "I promise I'm okay now. But I want to show you something on my phone."

He drew back, his hands finding my hips, unwilling to be parted from me. "On your phone?"

I nodded and let him see my pain at Virgil being Nightmare's captive, being traumatised enough to look like a ghost, like a stranger. "I can't tell you. You just—have to see it for yourself."

A rough breath heaved from Death's lungs, and I became aware that he was half naked for the first time, only a pair of short, tight boxers covering his modesty. I couldn't stop my eyes trailing the taut, tempting lines of his body when he drew back.

"Alright," he said eventually, weighing it up in his mind. "But only if it won't hurt you. And first, I'm cleaning the rest of you."

"You just want to get your hands on these," I said, doing a little shimmy so my boobs swung from side to side. He groaned, half laughing, and I mentally patted myself on the back for breaking the tension.

"That plays a minor role in my intentions, I assure you," he replied, still smiling as he soaped up my front, staring at my throat then sweeping down my arms, my chest, my stomach, and my legs. He took his time massaging my thighs until I was boneless, splayed against the tiling wall, and the slow look he glided up my body made me ache.

"Death," I breathed, a plea.

In reply, he threw the wet cloth to the floor and pulled my left leg over his shoulder. His tongue was cool compared to the furnace of me. I sank my hands into his long hair, brushing braids back from his face so I could see him, rugged and beautiful and so perfectly kind that my heart stuttered.

His tongue made unhurried passes, hands gently clasping my thighs to keep me from wobbling as he ate me with a tenderness that made my chest ache as badly as my clit.

"I'll never get tired of tasting you," he murmured, slurping with his whole mouth, the noises obscene and so hot that heat rushed from my scalded cheeks down to my toes. "But I need to be inside you when I make you come."

"Then get up here," I huffed, tugging on his hair.

"So demanding in the morning," he teased, a flash of delight in his eyes as he set my foot back on the floor and rose, hauling my body against his. "Needy little one," he said against my lips, his eyes liquid with desire as he stroked from my hips to my ass, lifting me. I wrapped my legs around his waist, the position a homecoming, and stole the kiss he was taunting me with. I caught his tongue between my teeth until he groaned and surrendered, kissing me so passionately that I could feel every roll and swirl and suck of his tongue on my clit.

We both reached for his boxers, smiling between kisses as our hands knocked together.

"Hands on my shoulders," he commanded softly, "I don't want you to fall."

The second I was holding on properly, he slid inside me, the slow stroke fucking perfection. He swallowed my moan in a kiss, tasting every noise I made as he set a slow, adoring pace, his hips undulating in a way that made my breath catch every damn time he sank inside.

"I like this pretty mark on your shoulder," he said when a moan forced us apart, burning up my throat as he worked deeper and deeper with each stroke. "But I think you need a matching one."

I arched up into him in response, rolling my hips as shivery need built.

"No," he said firmly, squeezing my ass as he pinned me to the slick shower wall, restricting my movements. "I won't risk you falling, Cat. You let Daddy do all the work, just hold onto me and tell me what feels good."

"Everything," I panted, this sex so different to the frenzy Miz and I shared yesterday, but every bit as powerful. It was slow and sensual, declarations of love passing between us without a single word given voice, his lips never far from mine.

I began to shake, desperate heat coiling tighter and tighter, when Death's mouth fastened to my left shoulder, sucking in deep, long pulls, leaving his mark on my skin.

"Death," I gasped, my spasms erratic, building to something potent.

He scraped the mark with his teeth and my hips jerked. "Try again, little one."

The calm command, the confidence in his voice… I couldn't take it. My toes curled, ankles locked behind his back.

"Daddy, please—faster," I expelled in a frantic rush, dropping my head to his shoulder when he immediately complied. That perfect angle never changed, lighting me up inside, and with the quickened pace… I muffled a cry by burying my teeth in his shoulder as my climax exploded through me.

"That's it, that's my girl," Death said in a strained voice, his breathing faster, harsher. "So fucking good, coming so perfectly, milking Daddy's cock."

Pleasure intensified so much that my eyes widened. Death reached between us, circling my clit with his thumb, making me clench harder around his cock.

"Fuck yeah," he sighed, driving deeper. A throaty, sexy groan spilled from him as his cock throbbed inside me, filling me with warmth and bliss. "You make me feel so good. So good," he panted, his forehead resting against my shoulder.

The praise wrung out my last bit of tension and I melted into him, loving the connection, the warmth, the feel of him inside me.

"My little bride," he breathed, kisses fanning across my shoulder, my neck, my jaw, my cheek.

"Our little bride," Tor's voice came from the bathroom just on the other side of the glass screen, gruff with arousal. I was pleased to find I knew the difference between his regular gruffness, his pissed off gruffness, and his need to be inside you gruffness. "I made breakfast; it's cooling downstairs. I should have known you'd be balls deep in our hot little wife."

Ohhh. My back arched, a deep shudder working through my inner muscles.

"That word is deadly," I panted, giving Tor a lazy glance when he peered around the screen, looking dangerous and sexy in black leather and— "Is that an apron?"

"Yup."

"It's cute," I decreed. It was pink and frilly, with hearts and cartoon prairie dogs all over it. "Miz's?"

"Miz's," he confirmed, his eyes flicking to Death. "Get your dick out of our girl so I can cuddle her."

Death snorted but carefully obliged, giving me a long, loving kiss before he finally let me down. My legs were a little wobbly, but I could walk without eating floor tiles, which was a nice improvement on last night. I was already raising my arms by the time Tor reached into the shower and plucked me out like I weighed nothing, like I wasn't soaking wet.

"What's for breakfast?" I asked, increasingly aware that I needed to show them the video but pushing the thought away for another few minutes.

Tor strode out of the bathroom with me wrapped around him, rough hands under my ass, his jaw clenched. Possibly because my boobs jiggled with every step he took. 2

I yelped when Tor threw me onto the bed in his room, my back slamming into the mattress, bouncing me a few inches into the air.

"Pussy," he growled and pinned me down as he buried his face between my legs.