Chapter 46

ChapterForty-Six

“You’ve made a remarkable recovery,” Sirona, the healer, said, packing up the last of her things. “When I saw you awake this morning, I have to admit, I was surprised.”

“As I am,” Selene replied. Her voice was still a little scratchy, but she felt... good. Better than she had in years, which was a strange enough experience after near death.

“I think that spirit inside you has a lot to do with that. But I am not versed in such things.”

“I don’t think many of us are versed in that.” The slight chuckle she attached to the words felt wrong.

She’d only been awake for an hour or so. The healer had been very particular that no one tell Lust until they were certain that Selene was healed well enough to receive visitors. It was a terrible plan, and she’d told the healer that. Still, the woman was quite firm when she wanted to be.

A good healer always was. Selene suspected Sirona might be the best in the entire kingdom.

Her heart twinged at the thought of Affection inside her. The spirit was visible to this healer, a woman she suspected might be a sorceress of a kind, and apparently had done all the healing necessary for her to wake. Sirona was quite put out when she realized that all her work had been completed in a matter of a few days.

“You’ve been asleep for nearly two weeks now,” the healer grumbled. “All it took was a single spirit two days to fix what I couldn’t in two weeks.”

“Don’t let it bother you too much. Magic is unpredictable.”

“At its best.” Sirona snapped the last clasp on her bag shut and then nodded. “I do hope we see each other again. Under better circumstances.”

“I’d like that.” And she meant it. The healer was a very pleasant person to be around.

Then the door to her bedroom slammed open so hard that three paintings on the opposite wall crashed to the floor. Lust stood in the doorway, his eyes wild and his chest heaving with ragged breaths. He stared at her, she stared at him, and then she saw panic start to crawl up inside him.

“I think you should go,” she whispered, never taking her eyes off the man she loved.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Sirona replied before skirting past Lust. He never even looked at the other woman.

His eyes were only for her.

“I’m awake,” Selene said when they were finally alone.

His jaw trembled, but other than that, he didn’t move. He stood in that doorway with his breath heaving from his lungs, his eyes tracing over every part of her body.

“Are you not going to come here?” she asked, and doubt settled in her stomach. She’d told him that she loved him, but she hadn’t been awake for the rest. Had he been terrified that she’d said such a thing? She couldn’t take it back.

“You’re still hurt.” His voice was gruff and deep with emotion.

“I’m not.” Selene lifted her arms. “Affection apparently fixed it all before letting me wake.”

A small huff of breath erupted out of him before he moved. And suddenly he was at the foot of her bed, crawling up her body with tears streaming down his cheeks as he gathered her close to his heart.

Ragged, uneven breaths fanned across her neck. He’d buried his head there, his lips pressed to her skin as he tried to piece himself back together. A tear trailed down her cheek, and she was already shoving the emotions away before she caught herself. She would not disappear on him. Never again.

Selene smoothed her hands down his back, easing the torment that had plagued the both of them for too long.

“I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m okay.”

“You weren’t.”

“No, I wasn’t. But I came back.” Selene tugged him out of his hidden spot at the base of her neck, forcing him to look at her. She smoothed her thumbs over his cheeks, dashing away the tears. “You’ve never looked worse.”

He laughed, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head. “Of course you say that.”

“No, really. You look terrible.” And he did. With dark circles under his now red-rimmed eyes, gaunt cheeks, and stress lines that furrowed his brow. But he’d never looked more handsome either.

Selene tugged him forward and kissed him. A quiet, soothing kind of kiss that promised she would be here for a while to come. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t faster.”

“I didn’t need you to save me, or at least, I didn’t think I did. I shouldn’t have gone without talking to you first. But I didn’t want to die in front of you, either.”

He nodded, pressing his forehead to hers as a few more tears slid down his cheeks. “Greed told me everything about your conversation. I’ll be mad at you later.”

Shockingly, heat bloomed low in her belly at his words. Why would she want to sleep with him now? She was hardly awake and she should be tired, exhausted, weak from laying in this bed for two weeks but she... wasn’t.

All she wanted was him. To feel that connection between them again and to know that they were both very much alive.

“I love you,” she whispered, drawing him down to kiss her again. “I wanted to say it a thousand times before that moment, and I shouldn’t have said it when I was dying. But I love you. More than anything else in this world.”

He kissed her back as though he were the one in pain. As though without touching her, he would waste away into nothing.

“I was so afraid of losing you,” he whispered, drawing away from her lips and peppering her skin with kisses. “The thought of life without you by my side is bleak, my moon, my love.”

His love?

She sank back into the sheets as he rolled over her. His eyes blazed and she could see it. The love that burned through him like a star.

“I love you,” he said, deep and heartrendingly beautiful. “I love you, Selene, my moon, my sorceress. You wove a spell around my heart and I have no desire to ever break it. Or you. Or this life we will build together.”

Every bit of ice that might have remained inside her melted, and she felt it rushing through her. Burning away anything that would ever make her afraid of feeling her emotions again. This was him. Their love that turned her entire world upside down and inside out. It was perfect.

He kissed her again, his hands turning to fists in the sheets. “You are unwell,” he whispered, dragging his lips down her throat. “You should rest.”

“I have rested for two weeks. What I need is you.”

The low growl that came out of his mouth sent her into a near frenzy. The damned blankets were trapping her underneath him, and he used that to his advantage. Lust leaned back onto his heels, his entire body on display for her.

And she had to lie there and watch while he slowly pulled his shirt off. Revealing ropes of muscles that she wanted to lick, flexed abs, and a broad chest that made her entire body heat. She tried to reach for him, but he was just beyond the length of her arms and the blankets pinned her down next to his knees. She had to settle with laying her hands on his thick thighs, knowing that small touch would never be enough.

“Slow,” he murmured as he leaned back within reach.

Her hands didn’t know what that meant. She wanted to touch him, all of him, without any barriers of feelings or fabric between them.

She wanted to know what sex felt like with someone she was desperately in love with.

But he would not let her.

Lust slowly pulled the blankets back, revealing inch by inch of her naked body. And he took his time with every inch that he found. His lips traced her collarbone, feather light and oh so soft. His fingers moved over the swell of her breast, plucking at one nipple while he only licked the other. Every touch was so delicate and nowhere near enough. His tongue trailed down her belly, licking a path between her legs that had her arching into him.

But he ignored the obvious destination and instead rained kisses down her legs, all the way to her toes.

“What are you doing?” she hissed. “I thought—“

“I want to make sure that every inch of you is healed,” he said, his eyes meeting hers as he crawled back up her body. “I want to see every part of you that was wounded, and I want to kiss it better.”

Oh.

Well, who was she to complain?

He flipped her over and gave her spine the same treatment as her front. His lips trailed down her back, pressing kisses to every vertebrae that had shattered on impact, every rib that had broken, every bruise that was no longer there.

“I didn’t kill her,” he whispered against the small of her back, where he had spent time laving each dimple with his tongue. “She’s yours to deal with when you’re ready.”

“Who?” Her mind whirled, trying to think of anything other than his touch.

“Exactly.”

With one arm around her waist, he lifted her up onto all fours. Immediately her pussy clenched, already dripping for him and the sensation of his too large cock sliding into her depths.

But it wasn’t his cock that touched her. Oh no, he had other plans.

Gasping at the sensation of him everywhere, Selene held her breath as he licked from those dimples at the base of her spine, all the way down to her pussy, and everything in between.

She’d never… no, had never…. oh god, he did it again.

His tongue trailed over every inch of her until she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t focus on anything other than his wickedly talented tongue and how it delved into places she’d never even thought a man would want to lick. Except he did. The groans he made as he devoured her were enough to send another rush between her legs.

Her first orgasm hit hard enough to bend her elbows. Her second made her thighs shake. By the third that chased the other two, she was quaking on the bed while he held her hips up for his mouth.

“Lust,” she moaned, desperate for more, even though she didn’t think she could take another orgasm. “Please.”

“You know I love to hear you beg.” He kissed her inner thigh before moving behind her. And then she felt him, the wedge of his thick cock against her pussy and how much it would hurt in the best way possible. “Now do it again.”

“Please,” she whimpered.

“You can do better than that.” He dragged his cock up and down her slit, teasing her, making her shiver with desire. “You’re so pretty when you beg.”

She whined again before forcing her mind back to the present. “Please fuck me.”

“With what?”

“Your cock?” It came out as more of a question.

“And?”

“Your fingers.”

“And?” The tip of his cock slid inside her, the burn exquisite before she could even think to reply.

“And anything else you want to fuck me with, just please, fuck me already.”

He chucked at the growl in her voice and then slid all the way inside her. They both groaned at the same time, their voices mingling as he began to move.

“That’s a good girl,” he said, his hands grabbing onto her hips so hard she thought he might leave bruises. “Now tell me you’re mine.”

“I’m yours. I’ve been yours since the first time you kissed me.”

“Well before that.” Lust drew back and slammed inside her, hard.

She gasped and braced herself on her forearms, trying to hold herself still for him while he moved in and out at a blinding speed that had another orgasm barreling toward her.

“Go ahead,” he said, deep and low in her ear. He bent over her, his hand bracketing her throat as he snarled, “I want to feel you come on my cock, little one.”

And she did. So hard that he had to stop moving because she squeezed him too tight. He hissed out a long breath and the moment she was finished, aftershocks still running all the way into her fingertips, he pulled out of her.

A little sound of disappointment was all she could make before he was there again, flipping her onto her back and then drawing her up into his arms. She was suddenly face to face with him, her arms draped over his shoulders and her legs over his hips.

He held her aloft, one arm braced underneath her bottom and the other slowly feeding his cock inside her once again. This angle, the intimacy of it, staring directly into his eyes, almost made her come again within seconds.

Breathing hard, he held her gaze as though his life depended on it.

“I will not lose you again,” he said, his voice guttural with every stroke of his body inside hers. “You are mine, just as I am yours. You are everything to me, Selene.”

“I will not live without you either,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his in a kiss that consumed her entire soul. “I love you.”

“Say it again.”

“I love you, Lust, my demon king. You have my heart and my soul.” She flexed her shoulders, taking over the rhythm as his head fell back. She pressed kisses to the long column of his throat and tortured him for long moments of quiet, slow movements before she couldn’t take it anymore.

Selene dragged her teeth down his neck and whispered, “I want to feel you come inside me.”

The snarl that ripped out of him was nothing short of animalistic. Hard, rough strokes pounded up into her. They both chased the starlight one more time, rushing toward an end that bound them together even more tightly.

And then she felt him. The magic that existed only inside him, but this time it had changed. It didn’t feed her desire for more touching or petting or for a harder orgasm. All it had was the warmth of so much love that her heart thudded harder for him. Only him.

They came together with ragged groans as they fell, tangled limbs and lips pressed to opposite shoulders. She could feel his love inside her. She could feel how much she meant to him and how afraid he had been of every moment without her.

He held her tightly, clutching her in his arms as though he still feared she would disappear or slip back into that coma.

“I love you,” she whispered again. He tightened his hold on her. “I will love you forever, my king, my heart.”

Selene didn’t know how long they stayed like that, her in his lap and his arms woven around her. But she found she didn’t care. She’d stay like this forever if she got to be with him.