Page 110 of Alien God

But at least she wants me, too.

Of that much, I was certain. She never would have proposed this new agreement otherwise. And I could feel it in the way her sweet mouth had opened under mine, begging me inwards.

I bit back a groan when Torrance reached up for a stone ladle out of reach, her back arching in the most exhilarating way. She was far too short, but she tried anyway, making little huffing sounds of exertion that made my cock pound. It was undeniably erotic, watching her strain, her fingers trembling and tiny, her breath quickening, rising up on the balls of her slender feet in her thin little socks, her boots abandoned by the door.

I could have come right there, without a single stroke, just from watching her struggle.

Torrance swore loudly, adorable in her frustration.

No, I hissed internally. Not adorable.

My bride was not adorable. She was proud and irritating and strangely, startlingly, for some unknown reason, desirable. But not adorable.

Trying to put us both out of our misery, I raised a hand and levitated the ladle down to her. She took it out of the air and lowered onto flat feet with a relieved sigh. Then, as if it had taken a moment to fully register what had just happened, she jumped and spun around.

“Wylf! You’re still here!”

There it was again. Wylf. The nickname she’d come up with. I could not tell if the informality of it was insolence or intimacy. Either way, I found that, oddly, I did not mind it.

“Never left,” I said simply.

“You nearly gave me a heart attack,” she said, pressing the ladle to her chest and closing her eyes. They snapped open again a moment later. “What are you still doing here, anyway? Don’t you have stuff to do?”

Why, I was merely bringing myself to the edge of climax, completely untouched, by watching you flail about trying to grasp that ladle.

“I’m supervising,” I grunted.

Her brown brows rose.

“Supervising? Why’s that?” She smiled, her eyes glittering, and swung the ladle through the air like a sword. “Afraid I’m going to poison you?”

My wings rustled in warning.

“Should I be worried about my bride poisoning me?”

She moved her shoulders up and down in a movement I’d come to recognize as meaning very little. A vague non-answer.

“You may be immortal, but I know that you can be killed.”

“Not by poison,” I informed her. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

She did the shoulder thing again, then did something so strange and unexpected it nearly knocked me off the stool.

She laughed.

I froze, watching her in amazement.

I’d seen her laugh before, but never like this. It was always tinged with bitterness or defiance or, like when we’d been with the sontanna, undercut with shades of sorrow. This was the first time I’d seen her so open, so easy, the laughter as joyous and full-throated as a song.

She’s happy.

At least for the moment, anyway. It may have taken joking about my death to get her there, but by the stone sky, she was happy.

“Ah, well,” she said, still chuckling. “I still have that dull little butter knife you left me with. Consider yourself warned.”

“I will take that under advisement,” I said slowly, entranced by the glow of colour in her cheeks, the smile that still pulled so seductively at her lips. She was looking at me and smiling like that.

I was not entirely sure, but I was beginning to get the sense that my false bride was flirting with me.

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