His for a Price

She thought she saw a glimpse of that dark, honeyed gleam, that amusement that she thought was only hers, and it made that fullness in her—that quivering stretching place inside her that he still claimed—seem to shudder, too. It wasn’t quite heat, but it didn’t hurt. Not as much as before.

And then, when he shifted against her—once and then again, in a lazy sort of almost rhythm that made her freeze, then relax, then let out her breath in a rush—she realized that he really did know what he was doing in ways she couldn’t possibly have imagined.

“This isn’t about orgasms, Mattie,” he said softly, with an undercurrent of pure, male confidence. “Orgasms are what happen when chemistry and skill unite. That isn’t in question here.”

“That,” Mattie said very seriously, “is not at all what I’ve read.”

His mouth curved then, and she felt it everywhere. In the places where their bodies clung together. In the core of her, where his quiet little movements were making her feel soft again, and warm. In that raw heat that was too much for her eyes to hold, she was sure of it, and might at any moment overflow and betray her.

“You are killing me,” he whispered. “And I may kill you yet myself. But first, I see I must show you the difference between reading and living.”

He bent his head and licked one of her nipples, and she could feel his smile against her skin when it responded to him at once, pulling taut in a way that drew a rippling sort of line directly from his mouth to her core. A line and with it, a kind of fire.

“You will enjoy the lesson.” He used the edge of his teeth on her other breast, and she found she was shifting against him again, around that relentless hardness inside her, and it felt a whole lot better. “Then, princess, we will talk.”

He rolled his hips on hers, somehow hitting her right in that needy little button that only he had ever managed to find, much less use to such effect, and she suddenly realized why. Why it was all connected. Why she felt him everywhere. Why they were built like this, so oddly and so perfectly, so obviously for each other.

Nicodemus pulled out, then thrust back in, slow and steady, and it all made a glorious kind of sense.

“Keep doing that,” she whispered, amazed to find her voice was shaky, “and we can talk all you want.”

He laughed then, long and low, and that, too, was its own blaze inside her.

Mattie didn’t know when it all changed. One moment she was counting all the things that weren’t painful—and then the next, she couldn’t count, because it was all too much. It was fire and glory. It was beautiful and wild. It was a perfect storm of pure insanity, and Nicodemus was orchestrating it all.

His hands, his mouth. That lazy and yet somehow demanding rhythm he chose, rocking them both closer and closer to something huge. Mattie had had an orgasm before. She’d even had more than one with him. But she understood, somehow, that the place they were headed together was different. Immense and life-altering. Too intense to survive—

“Nicodemus—” But she didn’t sound like herself, and he laughed again, as if this was all part of his plan. “I can’t—”

“You will,” he said, his mouth at her ear, and then he really began to move.

And Mattie felt it everywhere. She felt it curl up from some dark and wondrous place inside her she’d never known was there, spreading out like a brushfire until there was nothing but him, nothing but the way he moved and the way she met each thrust. Nothing but this beautiful light they made together.

Nothing but love.

An alarm rang in her then, but she ignored it, too far gone to care.

“I can’t,” she said again, but this time her voice was a sob and she hardly knew what she said.

“You must,” he told her, so dark and so sure. And she believed him. “Now.”

And then he reached down between them and pressed down hard just above her entrance, never stopping that delicious rhythm of his, and Mattie exploded. Shattered into nothing but slivers of that same great light, cast out to the heavens.

Shattered into nothingness, but not before she heard him shout her name, and follow.

* * *

It was not until the night fell again outside that Nicodemus finally left her, and even then, it very nearly proved impossible.

She was so warm. Pliant and perfect as she lay against him, her face in his neck and her breathing solid and even. A perfect fit, even now.

But he made himself do it. He pulled away and sat up on the edge of the bed, almost wishing she would wake as she’d done so many times before, tempting him back to her side so he wouldn’t have to think. Wouldn’t have to consider what to do next. Wouldn’t have to accept what he already knew he would have to do.