His tail snaps up and smacks my backside. Hard. Once. The attack burns a raw rope across both cheeks, prickling the skin and tearing a yelp from me and sending me forward into his chest. My hands catch on his broad shoulders.
“No excuses. You promised to take care of me and in return, I won’t consume your brother, did you forget?”
Resisting the urge to rub my injuries, I stare hard into his beautiful features with hot tears choking my words.
“No,” I bite out through my teeth.
“Do you want me to add pain to his transformation for every minute you kept me waiting?”
Venomous hatred burns my throat. “No.”
Despite my brewing fury, I don’t stop the twist of his fingers in my top straps. I don’t say a word when they are dragged down my arms. I’m perfectly still as he bares my breasts for the first time.
Both mounds spill out into the night chill. Tips puckered knots, eye level to him. To his fangs that he dips forward as if to taste.
“Warrick,” I gasp without thinking.
My brain can only process how sweet the pain of his teeth sinking into each nipple and tugging would be. I can only hold my breath and pray to feel his hands cradling and squeezing, and dragging his talons over my flesh.
Marking me.
Claiming me as his.
He grants part of my wish and cups my breasts in his warm palms, testing the weight. Rolling the nipples beneath his thumbs. Pinching them. Tugging.
My knees almost buckle under the heavy rush of arousal. My stomach seizes and I’m sinking my nails into his flesh, warning him not to stop.
Heavy lids lift, and I’m pinned with the full assault of his eyes watching my every reaction. My every attempt to keep from making a sound even when he leans back in and flicks the right one with the tip of his tongue.
I have never been a strong person, but I never realized just how weak I actually am until this very moment because that simple gesture has my walls collapsing. My foundation rocking.
“Warrick...” The whimpering plea is unmistakable, as is the bow in my back, driving my breasts closer for more.
My demon tilts up one corner of his mouth in the only show of triumph before sneaking his tongue for another taste.
My hands are in his hair, guiding him. Keeping him in place. I’m so lost in the sight of him raking his teeth over the peak,nipping that I jump when his tail slides under my skirt, grazing my skin with the barbed knots.
It slithers up my leg. Tightens around my thigh. The tip — shaped like the smooth, flat head of a snake — nudges the crotch of my panties. Presses against my center. Rubs up the mound to press into my clit, dragging the knots up my soaked core.
My eyes bulge even as my body is already driving down, meeting the pressure.
“Warrick ... wait...”
“Shh,” he soothes, lifting one hand off my breast to finish dragging the rest of my top down and over my hands. “You will never understand the pain I suffer when you’re away from me. I crave you with a mindless hunger that nothing else will ever satiate. You are all that keeps me alive.”
His words whisper like silk across the flesh he’s bared. Each one burns where he’s nuzzling my neck — feeding. Inhaling my heat, my arousal through the palms of his hands kneading my breasts, rolling my nipples.
In the nine years I’ve been feeding him, it’s never been like this. Each time before, he only ever needed a small sliver of flesh and my arousal to be satisfied. That bit of skin increased the older we got. He needed more of me exposed. More of me to touch and lick.
But never like this. He’s never stripped me. Never had his tail rubbing my core. Getting me so close.
“Sit,” he commands into my ear.
I start to perch on his lap as I have in the past, but he has other ideas when I’m turned away from him. I’m made to face the mirror and my flushed reflection. The woman on the other side stares back with darkened eyes banded in a ring of soft green. She takes in my exposed breasts, the bunched tank wrinkled around my waist and stops at the tail shifting betweenmy thighs. The hands that slip around from behind to take my waist and pull me back.
“Lift your skirt, Seraphine,” he says.
I know I should say no. This isn’t part of the deal we made all those years ago. But the woman in the mirror has her hands twisted in the soft material and she’s dragging the hem up her calves. Over her knees. She’s not stopping until I have a clear view of her panties — simple, white cotton.