“Yes, but I wasn’t exactly low key,” she muttered as she climbed back into bed.
“Nor was I,” he said as he followed. Draping his arm around her shoulders as she cuddled against him, he added, “I’m sure she’s ecstatic I finally made a move. She’s tired of my sexual frustration.”
Jade shifted in his arms and came up on an elbow. “You’re the king. Don’t you have your pick of the kingdom?”
Shaking his head, he said, “You just don’t get it, do you?” He coaxed her back down and held her tight. “From the time you turned eighteen, I didn’t want anyone else.”
“Are you telling me you haven’t had sex in eight years?”
“Until tonight.”
“And you expect me to believe that?”
“When you’ve lived two hundred and thirty-five years, Jade, eight constitute mere minutes in an immortal’s mind.”
“So tonight really only equates to nanoseconds for you?”
He considered his response. Not that he worried about giving too much away. He’d done that already, hadn’t he? “The entire time you’ve been here, I’ve cataloged in my memory every moment. But yes, our time together is fleeting. Much too short.”
“Well, I guess there are some similarities between demons and humans. It’s much too short for me too.” She burrowed under the covers, still in his embrace. “Tell me more about the 1800s.”
He did. When she drifted off to sleep, he stared up at the domed ceiling, the dim lighting casting shadows across it. He hadn’t consulted his clock since he’d taken his shower, but deduced it was somewhere in the wee hours of the morning. Perhaps two or three hours before dawn.
The slayers would come sooner than he cared to admit. He would let them take Jade away. And though her cottage was only a few miles from the castle, at the base of the ridge and across the river, actually visible from his south side bedroom windows, he would feel as though she were a million miles away again. Completely out of his reach.
He contemplated this, and his actions of late, as the hours slid by. He didn’t need much sleep and couldn’t bring himself to give in to it with his one and only chance to hold Jade in his arms.
The knock on his door came regretfully early, though he deduced it was close to noon at that point.
“My Lord.” It was Morgan.
Jade stirred. She’d turned on her side sometime ago and he’d spooned her, curling his body around hers in not only a sensual cocoon but a protective one as well.
“Tell him to send the slayers away,” she said in a groggy voice. “I can make it back to the village on my own.”
“They won’t stand for that and you know it,” Darien said. “They’re likely chomping at the bit to ensure you’re all right.”
“I’m not all right. I want you again.”
He groaned. To Morgan, he said, “She’ll be down in ten minutes.”
“My Lord.”
Darien’s lips swept over her bare shoulder. “Your request is hardly one I can deny.”
“Lucky me.”
His hand on the back of her thigh guided her legs apart. He was already hard for her, no surprise there. He entered her from behind and she let out a soft gasp. One of his arms snaked around her front to cross her chest. He palmed her breast as his other hand covered her mound. His lips grazed her neck as his fingers rubbed her clit and his cock slid in and out of her.
She fisted her pillowcase and let out a stirring whimper of need and desire.
“You like me inside you, don’t you?”
“Impossible to think of anything more exciting. Or arousing.”
“I’m more than happy to arouse you.”
“And you’re damn good at it.”