“Fee…” His voice was a restrained groan.

“Don’t stop.” I gripped his ass and pulled him to me, crying out as he thrust deep. “Fuck.”

He buried his face in the crook of my neck. “Oh, God. Oh, fuck, you feel…perfect.”

“Love me.”

He kissed my neck, my jaw, and my lips, and then he began to move. He made love to me, slow and leisurely, fingers laced with mine above my head as he filled me over and over again, until the pleasure between us was more than sensory, it was mental, it was emotional, it was a combination of the weeks of longing and knowing that this was meant to happen. That we were meant to be.

That he was mine.

I gripped the back of his neck and forced him to look at me. “Mine.” My voice was a growl as the beast inside me staked her claim, and then he was beneath me, and I was riding his hard length, our bodies meeting over and over again in the delicious slap of flesh on flesh.

Mine.

Mal

I can’t think. I can’t fucking breathe. Fuck, she’s so tight. Wet velvet hugging my cock as she undulates above me. Those fucking tits have tormented me for weeks, and now they’re mine. I claim them with my hands, kneading and pinching her hard nipples so she cries out and moves faster above me. I look down to where we’re joined, watching myself slide in and out of her, and my balls tighten almost painfully with the need to come.

I’ve seen too many naked bodies in my time to be so fucking turned on. I’ve seen it all, but Fee is perfection. A fucking siren making me so hard, I’m afraid that when I come, I might actually combust. I grab her hips and thrust up into her, and she loses her fucking mind, making these primal sounds that make me want to blow. Fuck. I’m not ready to stop. I don’t want to come yet. I roll with her, pushing her onto her back and then sliding out.

“What?” she pants. “Mal, what?”

I swallow her words in a punishing kiss, and that leaves her gasping.

“Mal…” She pushes her hips up, eager for my cock.

I press my thumb into her mouth, and she sucks on it, full, luscious lips taking the whole digit and rolling her tongue around it. Any other woman and I’d have my cock in her mouth, a hand fisted in her hair as I throat fuck her. Any other woman and I take pleasure, but with Fee, I need to give it.

I pull my thumb from her mouth, roll her onto her front, hook my arm around her waist, and force her into my favorite position—ass up, thighs wide, pussy wet, gleaming, and ready. Her body quivers in anticipation.

I grab her thighs, fingers dimpling her flesh, digging in enough to elicit a moan.

“Mal…please.”

I plant my mouth on her.

“Oh, oh, fuck, Mal.”

She tastes like peaches, creamy and slick for me. I suck on her swollen clit until she’s backing into my mouth, grinding into me, and gushing all over my tongue, and then I lap it up. Her legs buckle, but I’m not done with her yet.

I rear up, grip her hips, and thrust into her all the way. She comes around my cock, milking me as I fuck her, and I finally let go, coming so hard the edges of my vision go fucking black.

This isn’t feeding the curse. This has nothing to do with that bastard. This is feeding my body. This is feeding my heart.

Fee

“It’s an hour till dawn,” Mal said.

I was pressed to his side, cheek pillowed on his chest. “I should go.”

We’d made love for hours, but I could already feel him pulling away. He’d shielded his emotions, and I’d put up my barriers, and this stolen moment of candor was almost over.

“You should go,” he said softly. “I can’t get used to this. We can’t do this again.”

But he didn’t release me. In fact, he held me tighter.

My eyes pricked and heated. “I know about the curse, Mal. I know why you’re doing this. Why you’re pushing me away.”

He tensed. “Fucking Conah.”

“I’m not going to let this curse take you, Mal. I can’t.”

“You don’t have that power, Fee.”

“No, but you do.”

“Fucking Conah and his arsehole theories. It’s a fucking curse, not a psychological issue.”

“But it’s activated by guilt.”

“Yes, but—"

“And you feel guilty.”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Mal said.

He didn’t pull away, but he was close to it, and now wasn’t the time to push him. Not until I had something to use to help him. Not until I could prove to him that he wasn’t to blame. No idea how I was going to do that, but I’d find a way.

Right now, I needed to leave before I broke down and said words that would make this even harder, because those words were hovering on my tongue like cliff divers waiting to take the leap of their lives.

I tried to slip out of his arms, but he grabbed me and rolled me on top of him.

“We still have an hour, Fee.” He licked his lips. “And I’m hungry for pussy.”

My clit did a series of victory throbs, which was probably suck me now in Morse code, and then he hauled me up his body, planted his face between my thighs, and parted me with his tongue.

Fuck. I grabbed hold of the bedposts and then lost all coherent thought as Mal proceeded to show me just how hungry he was.

Mal

Fee slips away at dawn, and I fake sleep. I feel her fingers trail across my jaw and feel the warm splash of a tear, and I almost lose my resolve. But then she’s gone, and I know it’s for the best. Still, I can’t help but feel like an absolute shit for being so weak. I shouldn’t have let my guard down. I don’t deserve her. Didn’t deserve to love her even for one night.

Azazel has been forced to abandon her, and I can’t give her what she wants, no matter how much I want to.

I close my eyes, reveling in the taste of her on my tongue. Her scent is all over me, all over my fucking sheets. She’s under my skin, inside my head. She’s everywhere, and I’m done for. If I touch her again. If I allow myself to have her one more time, then I’ll never let her go, and my love…My love will eventually break her glorious heart.

Chapter Twelve

I climbed into bed as the sun rose, pulled the covers over my head, and used the pillow to stifle my sobs.

How could something so wonderful cause so much pain? Maybe Mal was right. If I felt so much for him now, how bad would it be in a month, in a year? And if he wasn’t able to let go of his guilt and end his curse, how much pain would his death bring?

What was I thinking? Why was my heart so shitty at choosing who to love? I was in love with two men, neither of whom I could have, and half mated to one I didn’t want. Grayson was the only man in my life right now who was willing to give himself to me without any drama. Yeah, being tied to the pack didn’t seem so bad right now.

The bed dipped, and I rolled to face Cora, who wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly. “Mal?”

“I’m in love with him, Cor. What if I can’t save him?”

She pushed me away a little and gave me a stern look. “It isn’t your job to save him, Fee. He’s a grown-ass demon. If he wants you enough, he’ll figure out a way to save his own ass. Stop taking responsibility for everything. If someone loves you, they find a fucking way. It shouldn’t just be up to you.”

I stared at her. “How the fuck did you get so wise?”

She gave me a wry smile. “Daytime TV. You’d be surprised the shit you can learn from Dr. Phil.”

I let out a snort-laugh.

“Better,” she said. “Look, sometimes the cosmos try to tell us stuff. We just need to listen, and sometimes the best place for us is the last place we thought we’d ever settle. You deserve to be wanted and loved. It shouldn’t be so hard.”

“Grayson…”

“Yeah. Uncomplicated, and he straight-up wants you, and I know you want him.”

I rolled onto my back and wiped away the tears.

Cora was right. “I’ll be a good mate to him. I’m not going to use him for protection from Hunter and the heat.”

“I should hope not,” Cora said. “Now get some sleep, or you’ll look like shit when we go to the Underealm.”

“Nah, I have an amulet to make me look like a hot dude, remember.”

“Yeah, but the amulet is gonna have to come off sometime.”

“What I need is a distraction.”

“Have you heard back from Uri yet? You messaged him two days ago about a meet-up to discuss what he’d found out about the dread.”

My dread project. My mission to find out about the dread claim that they were celestials locked out of heaven. “Nothing yet. Maybe he hasn’t found anything yet?”

“Maybe.” Cora frowned.

“What?”

“Or maybe he found something he shouldn’t?”

Okay, now I was worried.

“You should try calling him,” she said.

“Grigori don’t carry cell phones.”

She nudged me. “You know what I mean? That call-him-with-intent thing.”

“I don’t think it works if I’m in the Underealm.” I gnawed on my bottom lip. “I’ll go to Necro tomorrow and try to contact him.”

I caught Cora’s smile before she could stifle it. Yep, she’d totally given me a new focus and saved me from my moping.

I snuggled into her. “Will you stay till I fall asleep?”

“Yeah, babe.”

With a new objective for the morning, I closed my eyes and was asleep in seconds.

I stood under a lamppost opposite Lumiers. The sun was setting, and the Christmas lights that were draped around Lumiers’s window and attached to the lampposts had come to life. The temperature was dropping, which was standard for this time of the year, and a spark of festive spirit shot through me only to be squashed by the reminder that I’d have to survive a trip to the Keep first. I had the amulet, but that didn’t make the prospect of meeting Lilith any less daunting.