Chapter 17

17

Malone

Iwake up with Aurora sprawled on top of me. I’m not sure which of us moved in our sleep, but it’s disconcerting in the extreme to have her body weighing me down. Disconcerting, and also kind of nice. She smells good, a subtle vanilla scent from her lotion. Her breasts press against my side, and her breathing ghosts over my collarbone. She shifts a little, her leg sliding between mine as if she’s trying to close the last minuscule bit of distance between us.

It’s so easy to imagine waking up like this every morning. We’re a long way off from that place, with so many fucking barriers between us, but the promise of something more remains.

I’m not sure what happened last night that put us even more at odds, just like I’m not sure how to retake the distance lost. I tend to go after every problem like it’s a battle to be won, but that approach won’t work with Aurora. She’s just as stubborn as I am, and she’ll dig in her heels and fight me until her last breath if I try to bully her.

No, this will require some finesse. Some…seduction.

Or maybe that’s just an excuse as I trail my fingers lightly over the arm she has thrown across my stomach. Her skin is so unbelievably soft. Everything about Aurora seems designed to entice, from her carefully curated exterior to the flames she hides within. Those flames draw me as much, if not more, than the package that contains them. This woman would be right at home with the Amazons.

I always was attracted to strength.

It’s the reason why I prefer my submissives to be sweet and biddable. It makes them safer, ensures that I’ll never forget myself and become too attached. Only a fool who can’t see beneath the surface would call Aurora sweet and biddable.

She rubs her nose against my chest and shivers. “Let’s pretend this never happened.”

“In a moment.” How quick she is to put distance between us. Last night, I had intended to play out a scene that started in the restaurant and continued back here at the penthouse, but our talk derailed my intentions. For the first time, I can actually feel the seconds of this assignation slipping through my fingers. Not enough time. The distance between us is too gaping to cross with timid steps. If I want her, I have to take her.

Talking won’t work. Not yet. First I have to bridge the space in another way.

I clasp the back of her neck and draw her up to take her mouth. She resists for the barest moment, but it doesn’t last past the first nip of my teeth against her bottom lip. Aurora makes a sound almost like she’s in pain, and then her hands are in my hair, and she’s arching into me as if she can’t get close enough.

Two sides to the same coin. She wants me, but she doesn’t want to want me. I smile against her mouth. Too bad. You’ve given me the key, and I’m more than happy to use it to get what I want. I release her neck and stroke my hand down the smooth line of her back to grab her ass, pulling her up a few inches so I can reach her mouth easier. Our legs get tangled up, and her thigh presses to my pussy. The shock of contact almost derails me, but I have plans this morning, and I fully intend to follow through on them.

In a moment.

Right now, I’m enjoying the way she kisses me too much to stop. Again, that voice deep inside me shivers awake. It could be like this all the time. But only if I play my cards right.

I roll Aurora onto her back and press her down into the mattress. She moans against my mouth, trying to pull me closer. I nip her bottom lip. “Hands against the headboard.”

“Malone—”

“That was a command.”

She sighs dramatically and obeys. I’d believe the brat act if she weren’t shivering against me, the very picture of need coiled into a pretty package. I shift back to kneel between her thighs and just look at her. “It strikes me that I haven’t explored you properly.”’

“Pretty sure you did that the first night.”

I flick her thigh, making her jump. “I’ve been lax on the rules, but we’re reinstating them for the duration of this scene. Be silent unless it’s to answer a question or request permission to come.”

Rebellion flares in Aurora’s dark eyes, but she manages to resist it. At least for the moment. I smile and run my hands lightly up her thighs and over her hips. “Do you want children, Aurora?”

She blinks at me, her mouth dropping open. “What?”

I can’t believe I just asked her that. For all my intentions to keep my planning careful, the words just sprang into existence. “We’ve talked about how little I like to repeat myself.”

“Ah.” She gives herself a shake. “I don’t know. Maybe. I keep waiting for the urge to show up or my ovaries to twinge when Tink talks about babies, but maybe I just haven’t met the right person to do the whole relationship and procreation with.” She looks away. “Do you want kids?”

“I think so.” It’s one of those things I don’t spend much time thinking about. I like children. My sister is nearly ten years older than me, so I spent most of my teenage years watching my nieces be born and grow into little people. Amazons value children, and I’m no exception. I could have gone forward and had my own without a partner; I have all the resources to make it happen. But something’s held me back until now.

Maybe I was waiting for the right person to show up, too.

“Why are you asking me about babies?”

I’m not ready to answer that question. Deciding that I want to keep Aurora and actually managing to do it are two very different things. There are so many elements that must line up for any relationship to work, and we’re already starting at a disadvantage. I know this woman’s kinks inside and out, I know what turns her on and what gets her off. I know that she’s a fierce friend who burns a little too brightly compared to those around her. But beyond that? Even with the little pieces of information she’s allowed to slip through over the last couple days, so much of her is a mystery to me. “Spread your thighs wider.”

She hesitates but finally obeys. I coast my hands over the dip in her waist and up to cup her breasts. I trace her brown nipples and the shiny silver piercings that intersect them with my thumb, enjoying the way she gasps. “Do they still hurt?”

“Sometimes.” She meets my gaze. “I like it.”

“I’m not surprised.” I lean down and take one nipple into my mouth. She bucks under me but manages to keep her hands on the headboard. I take my time, teasing and licking my way over the curve of her right breast to her left. I have a meeting later this morning, but I can’t quite bring myself to rush this.

I lightly rake my nails over her ribs, watching her stomach hollow as she gasps. She’s squirming under my gaze, her hips restless on the mattress. I drag a single finger up the center of her pussy, nearly moaning when I find her soaked, and stop just above her clit. “If you were mine, I’d command you to pierce this, too.”

Her eyes go wide, but I don’t give her a chance to respond. I slide down her body and kiss her pussy. Gods, this woman’s taste. It drives me crazy. I can’t get enough of her, something that would worry me if I hadn’t already decided to find a way to keep her. I dip my tongue into her and then move up to tease her clit.

Aurora makes a keening sound. “I’m close, Mistress.”

I lift my head. “Already?”

She glares at the ceiling, when I know she wants to glare at me. “I’m very horny in the morning, Mistress.”

“Brat,” I murmur. I exhale over her clit, making goose bumps rise in a wave over her skin. “If that’s so, I can always stop and wait for you to spontaneously orgasm from this morning’s horniness.”

She clenches her jaw, and for a moment, I think she might actually agree out of spite. Finally, Aurora shakes her head. “Please keep going.”

“So polite when you want something.”

“Isn’t everyone?”

“No.” I go back to what I was doing. I should wait, should tease this out, but she’s too damn sweet. “You have permission to orgasm.” I want her to come, and I want to be the cause. I want… Fuck, I just want. There are so many sins one could lay at my feet, if I believed in that sort of thing. Lust. Pride. Greed drowns them all. It’s what drove me from Sabine Valley when I could no longer contain my desire to rule. It’s what built me an empire within Carver City, what made me arguably the most powerful territory leader, short of Hades. I don’t know that I’ve ever looked at a person and had that same greed flicker to life, the all-consuming urge to possess them in every way possible.

Not until Aurora.

Her whole body goes tense as pleasure takes her, pleasure that I’ve dealt. I draw wave after wave out of her, teasing her to new heights, until she collapses back to the mattress, a fine sheen of sweat coating her skin.

I lick my lips and sit up. Yes, I could get used to a sated and spent Aurora in my bed. It’s just as pleasing a sight as the warm and cuddly version I received upon waking.

She blinks up at me. “Malone?”

“Yes?”

Gods, the way she looks at me when she forgets herself. As if she wants to taste every part of me, as if she wants me exactly as much as I want her. She’s too drunk on lust to keep her impressive walls in place, and I luxuriate in the knowledge that I’m the one who got her there.

Finally, Aurora says, “I would very much like you to sit on my face. Right now.”

I don’t point out that she’s edging far too close to a command. Not when I want this as much as she apparently does. Not when her wanting it makes it that much hotter. Instead, I climb up her body and carefully arrange myself astride her face. The grin she gives me feels like a kick in the ribs. And then there’s no more space for thinking because she grips my hips and lifts her head to lick my pussy.

I brace my hands on the wall and stare down my body at her. She’s got her eyes closed, as lost in this moment as I’m in danger of being. Gods, it feels good. She explores me with her mouth, intent on devouring every bit of the desire spawned from when I tasted her.

Belatedly, I realize that I’ve relinquished control. I start to lean back, to say something to bring the situation to heel again, but Aurora sucks hard on my clit, and a moan springs free from my lips. I rock against her mouth, enjoying the slick slide of her tongue, the pleasure coursing through me.

She skates her hands up my sides and cups my breasts, her clever fingers toying with my nipples. And then the little asshole bites me. Not hard enough to do damage; no, she sets her teeth against the spot right over my clit just hard enough to send a spike of pain, quickly followed by the pleasure of her tongue. It surprises me so much, I orgasm on the spot. I grind down on her mouth, moaning and cursing, until the last wave crests.

Only then do I slump to the side and stretch out next to her. “That was a nasty little move.”

Aurora swipes her thumb over her bottom lip, making a show of gathering up the evidence of my orgasm, and sucks it clean. “I didn’t hear you complaining.”

I kiss her. There’s no artifice behind it, no ulterior motive. I just want to kiss that bratty mouth, and so I do. She meets me in the middle, half pulling me back on top of her. And then there’s no more time for thinking. We’re off again, my hand dipping between her thighs, her hand cupping my pussy and pushing two fingers into me. It’s messy and rushed and damn near a frenzy as we kiss and stroke each other toward the peak again. And again. And again.

By the time we surface, my phone is buzzing on the fifth call from someone, and the clock tells me I’m going to be late. Fuck.

“I have to go.” I press my forehead to Aurora’s.

“Are you sure you have to go?” She kisses my neck and skates her hands down either side of my spine, urging me to keep rocking against her. “Doesn’t this feel good?”

“You’re nothing but trouble.” I kiss her and disengage before I can reconsider. As good as this fucking has been, it’s too easy to forget that I’m trying to scale her walls and simply revel in the pleasure of it all. I can’t shake the feeling that she’s well aware of that, too. That maybe she’s using it as a distraction to keep me at a distance.

That won’t do. It won’t do at all.

“Stay there.” I stalk out of the bedroom and down the hall to the playroom. It takes ten seconds to find the toy I’m looking for and return to find Aurora exactly where I left her. I toss it onto the mattress next to her. “Six times.”

She blinks. “What?”

“Use that to make yourself come six times after I leave. After every one, you will say, ‘Thank you, Mistress,’ before you begin again.”

She props herself up on her elbows and eyes the vibrator. It’s a relatively new piece of technology designed by a genius of a woman to deliver blended orgasms. I’ve used it on myself, but never with a partner. Not until now. Aurora makes a show of frowning. “What’s to stop me from lying?”

I toss her phone, which I had pocketed, next to her. “You’ll record it. I’ve already put my number into your phone.”

“If you wanted a sex tape, you could have just asked.”

I allow myself a smile. “No, Aurora. I don’t want a video of your pussy as you come. I want one of your face.” I watch the understanding dawn in her expression as she realizes the vulnerability I’m demanding of her. It’s one thing to orgasm with another person—or several—in the heat of the moment. It’s entirely another to do it alone with the knowledge that it will be viewed later. I point at the phone. “Six orgasms, six videos. Text each to me as you finish.”

She presses her lips together. “And if I don’t?”

I shrug, because I knew this was coming. Aurora wouldn’t be Aurora if she didn’t push back with every step forward we make. “Then you won’t orgasm for the remainder of this assignation. It’s your choice.” I turn and walk away, allowing myself a smile as her curses follow me into the bathroom.

Some days, it’s good to be queen.