What I’d craved from the moment that I’d been bonded was to love and please. Being loved back was a bonus.
I desired to worship Magenta.
Magenta twisted her head to meet my lips again; she was desperate and coming apart, as I had for her. I hooked my leg over her, holding her in place, as I flicked across both her nubs, before catching them between my fingers and twisting.
“Come,” I breathed.
She screamed against my mouth, as she stiffened, spasming. Her fingers worked harder, before stilling. I pulled her onto her back and smoothed the hair out of her face, before settling next to her.
Wow, I’d killed her.
“Ehm, was that…?” Mindblowing, brilliant, okay but can I have a cup of tea now?
Magenta’s gaze was glazed, as she patted me on the cheek, sleepily. “Perfect.” I puffed out my chest (of course, an incubus had skills). “But was it all you wished?”
I started to nod, before stopping myself.
Ma had told me that on her First Night, she’d allowed da to go skin-to-skin with her. She said that it’d connected them deeper than most succubi ever did with their incubi. She’d explained that it was why she understood my differences and trained me about the scheming of the female Court. She’d even read me an ancient book, which showed that once succubi had allowed all incubi to go skin-to-skin.
The Duchess never had.
“I wish,” I swallowed, and the desire to just once go skin-to-skin with my bonded burned through me, “that I could take off these gloves and also be free.”
Oh, she so didn’t hesitate.
I stilled.
She was going to say no and teach me my place.
My gloves were my friends: they taught me not to use my powers on my betters.
Why didn’t I believe that anymore?
Then Magenta struggled around to sit cross-legged next to me and took each of my hands in hers. She treated them like they were as precious as I’d worshiped her in her corset. Then she flashed me a deliciously wicked grin, as she drew off my left glove.
My skin prickled. I shook with my desire, yet I’d be in more danger after this than with the bond.
It was as intimate as dying…as resurrection.
My breath became shallow.
Magenta freed the fingers of my right hand from the prison of their glove. My sensitive skin tingled, as her magic threaded across it, tangling with my own.
Then our gazes caught and held, as for the first time ever, my palm met my bonded’s.
And it was everything that ma had promised and more.
Magenta and I arched, and the stars fell from the sky, dancing around us in a fiery embrace. I cried out, as all at once my power surged: images of Magenta’s deepest desires and needs flooded me. Yet stronger than any wicked longing was the love that bound us. It was Willoughby’s diary opened, in all its secret yearnings. She’d opened her pages to me: mind, body, and Soul.
She was mine, the same as I was hers.
“This is our First Night.” Magenta quivered; her palm was cool against mine. How could something as simple as a hand be so special? “The First Night of the only bond that’ll ever touch you again.”
I caught her lip between my teeth, and when she opened her mouth with a yip, I soothed across it with my tongue, before pressing inside. Her tongue twined with mine, and I lost myself in her.
At last, I forced myself to pull back. I dropped my gaze, pulling my gloves back on. It was agonizing.
It was lucky that I looked so delicious in the gloves.
“Here’s the thing of it,” I wiggled my fingers more firmly into my gloves, “other members of the harem are allowed at the First Night. All my lovers are connected, and I miss my foxy.”
I glanced underneath my eyelashes at Magenta. Had I insulted her?
She merely batted away a falling star that’d landed on her nose and gave a smug grin. “Your wish is my command.” Then she hollered, “It’s time for you to delight us with your presence. Don’t pretend that you weren’t listening. Did you enjoy the show?”
I flushed. Oh, who was I kidding, I put on sexy shows.
When Fox’s curly hair appeared in the low gap into the Dreaming Space, I couldn’t stop a grin that made my face ache. He crawled into the chamber, wiping cobwebs away from his cheeks with the backs of his hands.
His face was all scrunched up. Cute. Although right now, he could’ve been pissing himself, and I’d have found him cute.
Because he was alive.
I scrambled out of my nest (careful not to knock my lovely pillows, of course), grabbing Fox by the shoulders and dragging him further into the room. Fox eeped.
Sleipnir followed him through the opening, grumbling as dirt smeared across his hands. “Hey, you couldn’t have chosen somewhere more romantic for our Honeymoon?”
But Fox was all I saw.
Foxy, Foxy, Foxy…
I dragged him, until he fell on his arse, and then I leaped onto his lap with a whoop. I was never giving up the freedom to whoop again. It was addictive like chocolate or sex, right?
I squirmed happily on Fox’s warm thighs. Then I treated myself to a long sniff of his delicious, raspberry scented curls. When Fox sneezed on the dust, even that was adorable.
His wee scrunched up nose…
“My whipping boy.” It was never too early to stake my claim. I curled my hand behind his neck. “Once we’re back in our bedroom, you can snuggle Nile for a whole minute…alright, a whole night.”
Wow, I’d shocked even myself there. I could be a gracious patron incubus.
Fox blinked. “If I knew that I’d be granted such a bounty, I’d have tried almost dying earlier.”
I smacked his arm, and he mock pouted. “Don’t scare me again.”
“Despite being a mage whipping boy in a coven-run academy, I won’t risk myself in danger every moment of the day…whoops, I will.”
I smacked his arm, harder. “I can still take back the Nile offer.”
I couldn’t. An incubus of the ancient Night Lineage kept their word. But my mage wasn’t the only one who could lie.
“Will no one remember that I can literally tell when you’re lying?”
Oh, then there was that.
I merely lifted my eyebrow. “Where’s the Princes? If we’re working on moving them over to our slinky side, then won’t they count as our lovers now?”
I curled my fingers even more tightly around Fox’s neck at the thought of how the Princes’ bastard families had treated them after the tournament. I could’ve cursed Darby’s crystals to whack him in the eye every time that he took a step, for the way that he’d humiliated Willoughby.
We’d only just saved Fox from death, but Midnight had been hexed to a slow one. Already, he’d have had one night of being forced awake. I mean, I’d been unconscious, but that counted, right?
Sleipnir kneewalked to Magenta, before looping his strong arms around her waist. She melted against him; he didn’t play with her tits, and I admired his restraint.
“That asshole Titus is holding a special class with the Princes right now to enforce his new measures and policies,” Sleipnir growled, and his aquamarine hair spiked to red, “since their failure in the Rebel Cup and tournament.”
Mist darted out of Sleipnir’s pocket, before hovering to settle on my lap. He nuzzled against my thigh, and I stroked across his mane. Sleipnir shivered, like I was carding my hand through his hair, which I guess I was. His hair shimmered back to aquamarine.