I felt my body go still at his words and waited for him to go on. What now? What punishment had fate decided to mete out to us for being mates now? I wanted to scream, I wanted to kick and punch and hit something, but I had no idea what. Admittedly, our current mess was my fault.

“My father has banished you from my world. Your memories of my world will be erased, and you won’t know how to return there. You may not even know about the dragons anymore.” He took a deep breath before he carried on, without a minute to let me question him. “As a punishment to me for refusing to stand by him and to come to you instead, he’s also sworn that I’ll be stripped of my dragon and will become a mortal man.”

“What the fuck, Henry?” I sat up and turned around to look at my husband. “A mortal man? But, how can he do that to you? You are what it means to be a dragon.”

“I don’t know if he actually can. He tried quite a few things with Malcolm that failed. I think a lot of the time it’s bluster and bluff to guilt us into doing what he wants. That or he has an exceptionally shitty magician.”

“You don’t look upset at all. I would think you’d be devastated by this.” I reached out a hand to cup his cheek, but he just placed his hand over mine and smiled a beautiful, happy smile.

“I don’t need to be a dragon, or magical, when I have you, Willow. My father gambled and lost when he made his threats. I could never turn you down, you’re my mate. More importantly, I love you. I love you more than I love being a dragon, more than I love my own world. I’ll just not be a party to raising our daughter to think she’s not as good as a boy.”

“Fuck that, she’s going to be a badass, no matter what!”

“You’ve got that right.” He pulled me to him for a kiss. It was full of joy and passion, two things that Godwin could not kill for us.

I had changed before I came down earlier and now had on a long white skirt and a light sweater my mom had knitted for me. Both were easy to remove, pull up, or push aside, and Henry eagerly pulled at the hem of the skirt to bare my thighs to his fingers.

He surprised me though, when he stood up and carried me into the house. We made it as far as the kitchen table before he dropped to his knees in front of me and pushed my skirt up around my hips.

I didn’t think about the problems we had now, or what our future might hold if Henry stopped being a dragon, I just felt, and Henry worked to make sure I didn’t have time to think about a thing. With strong fingers, he softly pushed my panties aside and spread my thighs so he could kneel between them.

I leaned back on the pine table and smiled at him. I put my hands under my head to act as a pillow as I felt his tongue delve into my folds with a greedy swipe. He delved deep between them to lick up the nectar that was always present when Henry was around.

“This is all we need, Willow. Each other.” He swiped at me again and somehow it felt more, like it was far more pleasurable to have my husband’s tongue in my pussy than it had ever been before. Probably a side effect of being pregnant, I decided, then stopped worrying about it because it felt too good to actually worry about.

I braced my feet on the table and used it as leverage to swivel my hips as he sucked my clit with a tight grip. I felt each suction as a jolt that traveled up my body and straight into my brain. Desire built inside me, a swelling, liquid thing that felt good but didn’t feel like enough. It never felt like enough. When he slid two fingers into me, I started to pant, it was so close.

I rocked against his mouth and guided the way I wanted his tongue to flick at me with my movements. Henry alternated the way he tortured me, he’d suck at my clit until my fingers started to scratch at the table, and then he’d go back to long swipes. Henry was not in a rush, and I didn’t want to be, but the upheaval had made me desperate for the oblivion only he could give me.

Henry didn’t just use his tongue on me, though, his fingers slid into me in a rhythm that had me almost in tears with pleasure. My husband fucked me with his mouth, and with his fingers like he needed me to come more than I did. There was a desperate edge to his touch, as if he was afraid I’d disappear at any minute.

I reached down for him, but I couldn’t reach anything but a hand he held up to me. I took it and gasped his name when he found the perfect rhythm between his teasing mouth and his maddening fingers. I’d never been inhibited around Henry, and I wasn’t about to be now.

“Make me come, Henry. Fuck, baby, please, I need it. Make me come.” My words ended harshly as he fucked his fingers into me harder, deeper, and sucked my clit just a little more tightly.

Henry groaned against my clit as I begged him for relief and the vibration finally sent me over the edge. He didn’t stop when I gasped suddenly, or when I stopped breathing because there was only pleasure and I didn’t need air anymore. He didn’t stop when I finally gasped in a long breath on a groan of pleasure so deep I felt like I shattered into a million pieces.

Henry didn’t stop until I pushed at his head. He let me have every moment of selfish pleasure I wanted to take, and I took quite a few moments to revel in that solitary plain where only good existed. He didn’t say a word, just stared into my eyes as he unbuttoned his pants. He pushed the uniform, his father’s uniform, away and I knew he’d never put it on again.

He let his gaze travel down my body, his fingers lingering on the bulge of my stomach, and he smiled before he tore my panties away. He lifted my ass after I was bare, just enough to position me just right.

There, on our kitchen table, my husband plunged into me in one smooth, sharp thrust. We both gasped as he sank to the hilt inside of me. We knew what was coming, it never changed, but the path to that final moment of oneness could vary. I felt every second of his entry, the way he opened me and filled me made me shiver.

It wasn’t always about the bump and grind, sometimes, it was about the acts before, during, and after. Henry understood that, and he gave me a moment to savor how it felt to be filled by him before he pushed into me again. He pulled out, and even that was a new act of pleasure as I felt every line and ridge of him scrape against my inner walls in a pleasurable way. I tore the panels of his shirt open—he’d never wear that again either—and pushed the now offensive garment away. My hands ran down strong shoulders, over the rigid muscles in his chest and down his hard abdomen, every inch just another muscle, until I found the spot where we were joined.

I grasped two fingers around him and gave a moan of delight as I felt the way he pistoned into me with my now slick fingers. I’d never done that before, I don’t know what drove me to do it now, but it delighted both of us, so I didn’t stop. I still had my clothes on, but I didn’t care as I leaned up to look at what exactly Henry was doing to my body.

I couldn’t really see, so I spread my legs a little wider, and there, before my eyes, I could see the way that Henry slid into me smoothly, and the way his cock gleamed with my juices. I moaned and parted my lips. I wanted to clean every speck of me off him but knew that right now, a bomb going off would not stop Henry as he fucked us both into another plane.

“This is all we need, Willow. We need to fuck each other until we can’t walk. We need to talk to each other until our problems are solved. Most of all, all we need is my dick in this fucking tight pussy of yours to make us forget the world exists. Because it doesn’t if we don’t let it.” He spoke to me through a clenched jaw, his eyes wide as he continued to fuck into me harder, faster.

I settled back and joined him in that place where his soul brushed against mine. It was a tease in its own way, the way our souls danced around each other until one or the other sucked into the white of one or the blue of the other. No matter who took in the other first, the end result would be the same, a light blue smoky soul, the oneness that was us.

His hips worked into me, and his fingers dug into my ass tighter to tilt me at a different angle, the one he knew would be the end of me, the end of my struggle to explode. “Henry!”

“That’s right, princess, come with me, baby. Come for me.”

My body pulsed, his pulsed, and together we swirled into oneness again.

The world fell away, and I was Henry, and Henry was me. I felt the relief flood me as his juices shot from his body and into mine, as if I really was him. He felt the way my inner walls fluttered, the way my stomach rippled, and the uncontrollable way my back arched as something shot up my spine, through my chest, and straight into my brain. This wasn’t just a cute little flutter of some naughty muscles, and then a sigh of relief.

Oh no, it never was with Henry. He worked at me, he made me come, there was no, yeah that was nice baby, with him. Nope, you either had your mind blown or you didn’t stop. And he wouldn’t. He’d let me have a few on my own sometimes because he knew we both enjoyed the solitary orgasm every now and then, but most of the time, he knew we both needed this.

We swirled together, pleasured beyond just sex. Every cell of my being felt good, every cell of his being was mine, and those felt good as well. Not good, oh that’s nice, no this was good. Like chocolate-lava cake with whipped cream and more chocolate-fudge-sauce-on-your-tongue-exploding-your-taste-buds-on-crack good.

We had to come down eventually, and it was clear that neither of us wanted to leave that place. Who would? Chocolate lava cake on crack good, remember? Only an idiot would want to leave that.

We came back to the world together, both of us exhausted but happy. He helped me up and took me to the living room to sit on the couch while he prepared two glasses of apple juice.

“What do you want to do tomorrow, princess?” He settled beside me and I looked at him with wide eyes.

“I don’t think I’m a princess anymore, am I?” It didn’t really upset me if I wasn’t.

“Of course you are. We’ll live longer than Godwin, I expect, and Malcolm will undo anything Father’s done that he doesn’t agree with.” He looked uncertain for a moment. “If he disagrees with him on it.”

“He might agree that I overstepped a line.”

“He might. But Arista will talk him around. She’s always been able to talk sense into that man, even when the rest of us couldn’t.”

“Do you think a war is coming?” It was time for serious talk, and I asked the one question that weighed on my mind.

“I don’t know. Something is happening in my world, in your world too. Maybe I should contact the Alexander brothers, find out what’s happening there.”

“If you’re stuck here you might as well. You’re a soldier, babe, it’s what you do. You might as well do it for them.”

“I think I will. As long as you’re alright with that?”

“I am, I’d like to get to know those ladies of theirs a little better. I think they all have a rather intriguing story to tell.”

“I imagine they do. I’m not traveling anywhere until Marya makes her appearance, though, so if they want to use me, they’ll have to come to me.”

He pulled me close, wrapped a blanket around us both, and we watched the moon rise in the sky together. The world was an uncertain place, but one thing was solid as a rock for both of us. No matter what, the only thing that mattered was each other.

It was hard to believe I’d hated him so much in the beginning. I couldn’t imagine life without him now. That bragging asshole had disappeared, and the real man had shone through. I loved who he was: a strong man, both in mind and body, he was intelligent, capable, and all mine.

“I love you, Henry. If you’d told me when I first met you that one day I’d have your baby in my belly, and your name on my lips with every word I spoke, I’d have laughed at you. We’ve both changed so much.”

He kissed the top of my head, and I heard him chuckle. “You left out the part where, if I’d said it, I’d have been right.”

I pinched him in the ribs and we laughed, and that laugh turned into a kiss. The kiss turned into a burn of passion that neither of us ever seemed to get enough of. I don’t think we ever will.