Bewitched, page 28
“Goddess,” I breathe, holding him like I’ll fall if I let go.
He rolls my nipple between his teeth before releasing it. “Don’t praise your goddess—praise me, your king,” he says, his breath fanning against my skin.
“You want me to call you my king?” I mean, I really could get into this role-playing.
“Yes,” he breathes.
Using the fingers threaded through his hair, I turn his head and lean in to his ear. “Would you like me to say it in English or Sarmatian, est xsaya?” My king.
A shudder works its way through his body.
He shakes his head and flashes me an intense look. “You don’t know what that does to me, hearing you say those words in our language.” he murmurs, his gaze fixed on my skin.
And then his mouth is back on my flesh, and he’s kissing down, down, down my torso.
I grab the back of his shirt, tugging it up. Memnon, after all, is not the only one who wants a glimpse of bare flesh.
The sorcerer pauses. “Does my queen want me to remove my shirt?” he asks in Sarmatian.
Before I even have a chance to answer, he pulls the garment off, then tosses it aside.
I get a sick little thrill at the thought of his clothes casually littering my room. I find I want them to decorate my space just as much as my Post-it notes do.
The sight of his exposed torso has me drawing in a sharp breath. I already knew his body is a work of art, but seeing it up close is an entire experience.
I reach out and run my hands over his thick coiled muscles. Beneath my touch, Memnon’s skin pebbles. I can feel those smoky-brown eyes of his watching me as I explore him.
There are lines of scars all over the place, mapping out the violence this man was once exposed to. My hands stop roving when I get to his tattoos.
“Will you tell me what these mean at some point?” I ask. He’s already said a little about them, but I’m curious about the rest.
Memnon cups my face, and the look he’s giving me makes me feel beloved. I like it far, far too much for my own good.
“At some point, I won’t need to,” he says cryptically.
He releases me but only so his hands can move to the seam of my pants. In a couple of deft movements, he undoes the top button and zipper.
“Lie back, little witch,” Memnon commands.
My pulse is racing, but there’s something about this sorcerer that also makes me feel so very…safe.
Maybe it’s simply the fact he actually did save my life.
I lower myself back to the bed just as Memnon’s hands hook over the top of my pants and my underwear. He pulls them down, his eyes fixed to my flesh.
The sorcerer tugs them off and then skims his palm up my calf and smooths over my thigh. His gaze scours my body, drinking it in for so long that a little bit of nervous magic sifts from my palms.
Memnon’s eyes slowly drift up to mine. “You hold me in your thrall, little witch,” he says, his voice husky. “It has been a long time since I’ve seen you this way.”
Role-playing—we’re just role-playing.
“Does my king like what he sees?” I ask in Sarmatian. It’s supposed to be an easy, playful response. Only after it leaves my lips do I realize I’ve opened myself up for rejection.
A wry smile graces his mouth at the endearment. “Every inch of you is sheer perfection, my queen. Api fashioned the most flawless woman when he made you.”
I swallow, unsure how to respond to that. It isn’t a rejection, but it feels equally hard to accept, for some reason.
Memnon lowers himself between my thighs. “Now, soul mate, let’s see this pretty pussy of yours.”
Soul mate?
Oh no, no, no.
I press my fingers to Memnon’s lips and shake my head. “You can call me your queen and your empress and your witch, but—not that.”
I’m only willing to role-play so far.
Memnon arches a brow. Gently, he pries my hand away from his mouth, pausing to give each fingertip a kiss. It’s oddly…affectionate.
“All right…Selene,” he agrees.
He returns his attention to my core. The way he’s looking at it makes me want to shift. Memnon moves first one of my legs, then the other, over his shoulder.
Then he spreads my outer lips apart and stares at my vagina like he’s trying to divine the future from it.
“How I have missed this too.”
Memnon leans in and peppers kisses along those outer lips. His mouth is so light and reverent, I jolt a little when his tongue finally strokes up my seam, the touch so much bolder than what came before it.
He groans. “Ah, the taste of you, Empress!” His hold on me tightens. “All the liquor in the world cannot intoxicate me the way you can.”
I shift under him, digging my heels into his back as my nerves ratchet up.
His fingers knead a little into my hips. “I can feel how tense you are,” he says. “Relax, I’m going to take care of you.”
I hadn’t realized I tensed up, but I am fairly rigid. I force my muscles to loosen.
“That’s it,” he coaxes. “Beautiful Empress, you have nothing to worry about in my arms. I have longed to have you right here.”
He begins kissing my pussy again, scraping his teeth against the soft folds of skin. He takes various sections of flesh into his mouth, laving them with his tongue. My hips move of their own accord, finding a rhythm to Memnon’s attentions.
As soon as the sorcerer’s lips find my clit, I cry out, “Est xsaya!” My king!
I…didn’t actually mean to say that.
Memnon stills, and it’s as though he knows it too.
I feel his grin against my flesh, and his hands tighten where they grip my hips.
I like how your pretty voice makes those words sound. Memnon speaks directly into my mind. The stroke of his mouth turns fevered, demanding. He sucks on my clit, earning moan after moan from me.
This feels light-years better than anything that’s come before Memnon. Like comparing water to wine.
I dig my heels into the sorcerer’s back again, and that only seems to spur him on more. Memnon moves lower, toward my core. Once he gets there, he slips his tongue inside me, and I cry out once more, tightening my grip on his hair as I press myself into his face.
“Feels so good, Memnon,” I murmur. “So, so good.”
Grind against me more, est amage. He’s still speaking in my mind. I want you to coat my face by the time I’m done with you.
I’m too far gone to be shocked by his words.
One of Memnon’s fingers slips inside me, and I gasp a little at the sensation.
“Call me your king again,” he says against my flesh, “and I’ll add another.”
Closing my eyes, I shake my head and smile. “Est xsaya, uvut vakosgub sanpuvusavak pes I’navkap.”
My king, I may die if you don’t.
He laughs lightly against me. “It is you who will be the death of me.”
Another finger joins the first, spreading me wider.
I make a small breathy sound at the sensation. I can hear the wet noises of those digits as he works me.
Memnon’s mouth returns to my clit, and now he does something to it with his tongue, something that makes my hips jerk and a cry rip from my throat.
I release his hair so I can prop myself up and stare at him wide-eyed. “What was that?”
The sorcerer pauses to glance up at me.
“Don’t look so surprised, est amage,” he says, his gaze flicking over me. “I have spent years memorizing your body. I know what it likes.”
His words prickle my skin. Perhaps for the first time, I feel truly worried by them, because I did like that move of his, even though I didn’t know I would. The truth is, I don’t know my body well enough to understand what tricks can bring me to orgasm quickly. But Memnon apparently does, and that’s…alarming.
“Now, return your hands to my hair, Empress,” he says, “and grind that pussy against me once more. I like feeling what I do to you.”
Without waiting for me to comply, he returns to kissing and tonguing me. And I do thread my fingers back into his wavy locks, and I do grind against him. I can’t seem to stop myself. Everything he’s doing is unraveling me bit by bit.
While his fingers pump into me, the sorcerer does that thing again with his tongue—I think he’s circling my clit. And again my hips jerk against him.
I gasp. “Memnon.”
He repeats it again. And again. And again.
I’m writhing against him as he plays me like an instrument, dragging me closer and closer to that precarious edge.
I can feel you getting close, he whispers in my head, never stopping his ministrations.
I don’t bother responding. He’s right after all.
Call me your soul mate, he continues, and I’ll let you come.
I’m sorry, what?
I let out a disbelieving laugh.
I thought we went over this. I thought he agreed to drop the term.
And if I don’t? I say silently to him.
Memnon stops kissing me, stops fingering me; he goes utterly still.
“Then I won’t give you your release,” he says, staring up my body.
I meet his gaze. “You bastard.”
His fingers begin moving again.
“Close,” he says, “but that’s still the wrong word. Try again, soul mate.”
I grimace at that word, but then Memnon’s mouth is on my pussy, doing that same damn thing with his mouth. He’s not even being creative at this point. He knows it’s what does it for me. And damn it, it’s enough for me to get sucked under all over again.
“Feels so good, Memnon,” I admit. I’m panting, moving my hips against him.
Still not the right word, little witch, he chastises.
I moan instead of replying, my body tightening in anticipation of—
The sorcerer backs off my clit, moving to a far-less-stimulating area near my outer lips.
I cry out in frustration.
Say it, he commands.
I don’t. But if I thought my resistance would make him stop eating me out altogether, I thought wrong. No, Memnon seems happy enough to continue running his lips and his teeth and his tongue over other sensitive portions of my pussy. He even eventually returns to my clit, working me into a frenzy once more.
But just as I’m again about to tip over the edge, he backs off.
“Memnon.” I practically growl his name.
I can do this all day, Empress, he says in my head.
I blow out an agitated breath. I’m being edged by a fucking monster who knows exactly what he’s doing to my body.
Say it. Now it’s him who’s pleading with me.
Apparently, promised orgasms make me weak because I silently say to him, It won’t mean anything.
Perhaps not to you, he responds. But it will mean something to him.
He begins working me again, and I let out another annoyed sound because it feels so terribly, exquisitely good, but I know it’s going to stop the moment I get close to climaxing.
I could just say it.
It’s only a single word. What’s a bit more role-playing? It really won’t mean anything.
Decision made, I draw a fortifying breath.
“Make me come…soul mate,” I say.
Memnon smiles against me.
And then he does.
He sucks on my clit for mere seconds before the wave of my orgasm crashes through me.
“Memnon!” I cry, digging my heels into him as the pleasure stretches on and on. And still Memnon teases me with his hand and his lips, only letting up once the vestiges of my climax have ebbed away.
I’m left breathless, staring at the ceiling as Memnon’s fingers slip out of me. He props himself up on his forearms in front of my pussy, then licks those fingers clean, making a satisfied noise, as though I taste like candy and not, you know, a woman.
“I missed the way you taste,” he admits. “I fantasized about it many, many times over the centuries. My mind is a mighty thing, but even it forgot just how sweet your pussy really is.”
“Memnon.” I press a hand to my temple. “You shouldn’t talk like that.”
He presses a kiss to one of my inner thighs. “Why not?” he says, moving to give the other thigh equal treatment. “It is the truth, whether you believe it or not.”
I decide to let the whole thing go. Memnon gave me the most explosive orgasm, and I want the rest of this day with him to be easy, fun.
I reach for him, and he seems all too eager to pull himself up my body and into my arms. I can feel his cock straining against his pants, but he pays it no mind. Instead, his hands come to cradle my face.
“Est amage,” he murmurs, stroking my skin with his thumb. “Est amage, est amage, est amage.” My queen, my queen, my queen. His gaze searches my face, a pleased smile curving the corners of his lips. “You make me excited about the future.”
“Est xsaya,” I say, just to see the way Memnon’s eyes spark at the term, “has anyone told you that you are really fucking intense?”
He laughs then, gazing down at me like I’m the most endearing thing he’s ever seen. “You have. Many times.”
Okay, I walked myself into that one.
I wind a leg around his and move my hands to the top button of his pants. The sorcerer is still wearing clothes, and that’s a problem because now I want to be the one tasting him.
At my touch, Memnon tenses.
“Relax,” I tease, using his earlier words against him as I undo the button. “I’m going to take care of you.”
But the sorcerer’s hand lands on mine, stilling my movements. “Not today, little witch,” he says.
My brows draw together. “Why not?”
“I’m afraid if I let you wrap that pretty mouth or pussy around my cock, that will be the end of us both.”
I give him a perplexed look, because seriously, why does he have to be so intense about this?
But already he’s extricating himself from me.
“So godsdamned pretty,” he says, almost to himself as he gets off the bed, his eyes lingering on me. “Two thousand years, and I still burn for you.”
He looks like he wants to say something else, but he bites it back at the last moment. Instead, Memnon grabs his discarded shirt, and I don’t like that.
“You’re leaving?” I say, sitting up. I don’t bother covering myself; he’s already seen everything.
Memnon must hear the rejected note of my voice because he says, “I have no intention of staying away. But yes, I do have to leave.”
I frown, and the action causes him to cross back over to the bed.
He grabs my jaw and presses a kiss to my lips. “I will see you again soon, little witch,” he promises, releasing my face and heading for the door once more. “Until then—sweet dreams.”
“Sweet dreams?”
Hasn’t he said that before? Why on earth…?
I suck in a breath. “Are you sending me those dreams?”
Immediately, I regret asking the question—if Memnon isn’t responsible for them, then I’m going to have to lie through my teeth that I meant something innocent and not, you know, the vivid sexual encounters I’ve been having with this man in my sleep.
Memnon’s mouth curves wickedly. “Have you enjoyed them, est amage?”
He has been responsible for the dreams!
I’m so shocked that I barely have time for my irritation to rise.
“Stop sending them to me,” I demand.
His expression only turns more conniving. “Now that I know they’re getting under your skin? Unlikely.”
And with that parting line, he leaves.
Late that evening, my phone pings. When I grab it, I see a notification from one of my banking apps.
You received money.
What?
I click on the notification and the app opens.
I put a hand over my mouth when I see the latest deposit to my account: $5,000.
Beneath the transaction is a note.
For Nero and you, soul mate.
-Memnon
I cry then, in earnest, the hot tears dripping down my cheeks and over my hands. I won’t go into debt or have to take on any shady gigs to feed Nero this month.
I glance at the amount again, and a choked laugh slips out. The thought that this ancient dude has any money at all is absurd—let alone five thousand dollars to throw my way.
But he did throw it my way, all because he caught a glimpse of my bank account and my worry. And I’m not going to question the hows and whys of his financial situation right now.
I wipe away my tears and take a deep breath. Once again, Memnon is being nice to me. That’s on top of giving me the best orgasm I’ve had…maybe ever. Great sex aside, I know better than to believe he’s being kind for the sake of kindness.
All this will come back to haunt me sooner or later.
But you know what?
Tonight, I don’t really give a shit.
Tonight, I’m simply grateful.
CHAPTER 35
I haven’t seen Kasey. Not for days.
At first, it’s a relief. Not seeing her means not having to deal with the fallout from the spell circle. But the longer I don’t see or hear from her, the more nervous I grow.
It’s not until I’m sitting out on the back patio on Thursday afternoon, drinking mint mojitos and painting my nails with Sybil that my peace is shattered.
“Evanora hasn’t heard from Kasey either,” a nearby coven sister says to her friend. “Not since Saturday.”
I glance over at the woman who spoke, startled to hear Kasey’s name on her lips. She wears her snake familiar draped around her neck like a necklace, while her friend is enchanting a broom to make it hover.
Her friend catches her broom by the handle and whispers an incantation into the wood that makes it lower itself to the ground.
She turns to the other witch. “Do you think…?”
Do you think she was murdered? I’m sure that’s what she intended to say.
My heart pounds harder, and I can hear my pulse between my ears.
Was Kasey mortally wounded that night? Or did Memnon go after her? I mentioned to him that I was worried about her.
