Page 89 of Demon Bound

She could not know what happened to demons in the hells who contracted this “madness,” but she could imagine it. Were they taken for all they could give, used and then thrown aside, like she had been with Nirlan?

And it was no wonder he considered it madness if he saw no middle steps between being someone’s enemy and being their slave. To proclaim that you loved someone was the ultimate vulnerability. It was the equivalent of prostrating himself before her, opening himself up to whatever wounds she might intentionally or unintentionally inflict on him. And he was doing it willingly.

“I can’t return to the hells,” Azreth said. “They will take me to an eldress to be exorcised if they find out I am Enthralled. They’ll force me to be cured.”

Raiya’s eyes were wet. She took his face in her hands. “There is a difference between the devotion of love and the devotion of a servant, Azreth. Love isn’t about power and submission and fear. When you’re with someone who loves you back, like I do—” Emotion filled her throat, and she swallowed hard. “When you’re with someone who loves you back, it’s about mutual affection and trust and selflessness. It’s the greatest thing in the world. People live for that kind of love. People kill and die for it.”

“It scares me.”

“If you are mine, then I’m yours, too.” She leaned in and kissed him.

He kissed her back. It was chaste at first, and then it wasn’t.

His arms wrapped around her. It was enough to make the breath wheeze from her lungs, and yet she felt him holding back, using only a tiny fraction of his strength.

The world turned as he flipped her onto her back and knelt between her spread legs. Magenta light glowed around her as summoned hands appeared in the air.

“That isn’t necessary, Azreth,” she offered. “You alone are enough.”

“But one hand alone is not enough to touch you. Even a dozen is not enough.”

“Oh,” was all she could say before the hands took away her breath. They stroked down her sides, tickled her thighs, and caressed her breasts. Ghostly fingertips scraped over the palms of her hands and the arches of her feet, brushed over her lips and plucked her tight nipples.

Azreth’s own flesh-and-blood hand found the sweet spot between her legs and dipped into her warmth. His fingers came away dripping.

She writhed beneath the touch of his summoned hands. “Yes,” she whispered.

The hands smoothly removed her underwear and her shirt, and then he was spreading her legs with his knees as he positioned himself above her. He did not touch himself except to grasp the base of his cock to put himself at her entrance. She looked down, drinking it in. The size of it was in proportion to the rest of him. She normally would have found such size off-putting, but on him, it seemed correct and lovely. Maybe it was also because he didn’t seem overly proud of it, the way some well-endowed men might have.

He placed his hand just above the soft triangle between her legs. “I want to help you.”

Raiya realized what he meant, and she nodded rapidly. “Yes. Do it.”

Magic flowed from his hand. A tingling, opening sensation spread through her core, making her insides numb and hypersensitive at the same time, and her sex was suddenly hot and relaxed and achingly empty. She felt wetness dripping from her, and she was drunk on pleasure.

“Oh gods, Azreth,” she gasped. She felt the broad head of him pushing against her, and she sucked in breath. She couldn’t reach his flesh-and-blood hand, so she grasped the magenta one at her hip. It turned over obligingly to interlace its fingers with hers.

His body bowed over her as he pressed into her. She choked out a soft cry as he seated himself within her and his hips came flush with hers. Whatever that magic was, it made it all so much better. It opened her for him, but it also made everything more sensitive, more hungry. Her body pulsed with need, and the twitch of his cock inside her sent waves of satisfaction through her.

His body was hard and hot and heavy, inhumanly massive and smelling of heat and fire. He was familiar now, and all of these things were comforting rather than strange. He was hers. She was his.

“More,” she murmured, her voice shaking. She felt almost feverish. “Please.”

He panted as he thrust into her in a steady rhythm. The hands, which had been stroking and teasing her, grasped her tighter now, greedily clenching handfuls of flesh, or tightening their grip to hold her still. She felt her climax rapidly approaching.

“Azreth.”

“Raiya,” he groaned, his voice reverberating with multiple impossible pitches at once.

“Bite me,” she said.

He looked down at her, startled. “What?”

She paused to consider her words. They came through a haze of arousal that made speaking feel like running through tar. “I know who you are. What you are. I want all of you. The sweet parts, and the vicious ones.”

Hunger brightened his eyes.

“I would never hurt you,” he said.

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