Chapter 176: Not Never Mind **

He kissed her once, hard. Then he lifted her, dress and all, turned and laid her down on her bed. The frame gave a long, awful creak.

They both froze.

Daemus looked at the bed. He looked at her. Then he pulled the blanket off, threw it on the floor between the beds and gathered her up after it.

"Floor’s sturdier," he said.

She was laughing when he kissed her again. She stopped laughing when he slid the dress the rest of the way down her legs.

Daemus kissed his way down her body as if he’d spent the four hours on the steps planning exactly this. Her collarbone. Between her breasts. The soft skin under her navel, where her stomach jumped against his mouth.

He hooked his thumbs into the underwear at her hips and drew it down her legs. Then he settled between her thighs and put his mouth on her.

Blair bit down on the back of her hand.

His tongue found her clit, flat and slow, then quick, then slow again, until her heels dug into the blanket. When her hips tried to follow him, he held them down with both hands. His ears twitched at every sound she made, and she made a lot of them.

He reached up, pulled her hand away from her mouth and laced his fingers through hers on the blanket.

"The walls," she whispered. "They’re very thin."

"I’m sure everyone’s asleep, don’t worry." He slid a finger into her, slow, then a second. He curled them while his tongue kept circling her clit. Her free hand fisted in the blanket. Her hips lifted off the floor, and he followed them.

It built faster than she was ready for. She came with her hand crushing his and a cry she smothered in her own shoulder, her thighs clamped around his head. He didn’t stop until she pushed weakly at his hair. Then he pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh, very pleased with himself.

When she could breathe again, she tugged at his hair until he lifted his head.

"Daemus." She couldn’t look at him. She looked at his shoulder instead. "Could I... be on top?"

He blinked at her over her stomach.

"I’ve never," she quietly continued. "I don’t really know how. You’d have to..." Her face was on fire. "Never mind."

"No. Nope. Not never mind." He was already moving. He rolled onto his back on the blanket, pulled her over with him and settled her astride his hips. His ears were straight up. "Hi."

"Hi," Blair whispered.

She didn’t know where to put her hands. She tried his stomach, then his chest, then his stomach again. Daemus watched her do it with the softest look she had ever seen on his face.

"Anywhere," he said. "You can put them anywhere."

He shoved his jeans down, dug a foil packet out of his wallet and tore it open with his teeth. She watched him roll the condom down his cock, then looked away, then looked back. He lay back, and his head hit the floor with a thump.

"Ow," he told the ceiling.

She laughed, and some of the shaking went out of her.

She rose up on her knees. She had to reach between them to find him, and he hissed when her fingers closed around him. He put his hands on her hips and helped her line up.

"Slow," he said. "Take your time. I’m not going anywhere."

The head of his cock pressed against her entrance. She sank down an inch and stopped, breathless. Then another. It was so much more this way. She braced both palms flat on his chest and let her weight take her down, until he was all the way inside her and she could barely breathe for how full she was.

Daemus’s eyes had gone unfocused. "Bunny," he said, strangled.

"Is it okay?" she whispered. "Am I doing it wrong?"

He laughed, a bit strained. "You’re not doing it wrong."

She tried to move. It came out clumsy, a small, uncertain rock of her hips, and she stopped, mortified.

"Like this." His hands guided her hips forward, then back. Slow. Again. "There. Just like that."

She found it, tentatively at first. Every time she rolled forward, his cock dragged against something deep inside her and her clit ground against him, and her thighs trembled. Small sounds came out of her that she couldn’t stop. She kept her eyes on his chest, because if she looked at his face she would fall apart.

"Look at you," Daemus breathed. His thumbs stroked her hipbones. "You’re doing so good."

Her whole body went hot.

He took one of her hands off his chest and pressed it flat to her own stomach, low, below her navel.

"Feel that?"

She did. Every time she moved, she could feel him there, under her own palm. A sound came out of her she had never made before.

Daemus grinned up at her as if he’d won something.

Her legs began to shake. She lost the rhythm, found it, lost it again.

"I can’t," she gasped. "My legs..."

"I’ve got you."

He sat up all at once, one arm locked around her back. She was in his lap, and he was driving up into her, deep and hard, her knees sliding on the blanket. His mouth found her throat. Every thrust pushed a sound out of her she couldn’t swallow. She wound her arms around his neck and caught his ear in her fingers, and he growled into her skin.

She came first, shaking, her face pressed into his neck and his name caught between her teeth. He followed a moment later, burying himself to the hilt with a groan he muffled in her shoulder, his arms tightening until she could barely breathe.

They stayed like that, wound together, breathing hard. Somewhere down the hall a door opened and closed.

Daemus started to laugh into her shoulder.

"The floor," he said. "Good call."

Afterward they lay on the blanket with Heather’s pillow under their heads. His arm was under her neck, and his hand was in her hair, turning a brown strand around his finger.

"Next Friday," he said, "I’m in the car."

Blair didn’t answer right away. She drew a line down the middle of his chest with one finger.

"Jasper said to leave you at home."

"Jasper can—"

"If he sees you, he won’t let me up. Then I’ll have to keep going back until he does." Her finger kept moving. "And I need someone here."

His ears turned toward her.

"Someone who’d know if I didn’t come home," she said.

He was quiet for a long time. Then he let out a breath.

"The steps," he said.

"The steps."

"Fine."

Blair put her face in his chest so he wouldn’t see it.