Chapter 73: Before The Directives [II]

Alexander lashes lifted. His eyes, that impossible shade of sliver that came from the wolf, focused on her with sleepy warmth. Then his mouth curved into that ridiculous, boyish grin that always undid her.

"Good morning, my darling empress." His voice was thick with sleep and satisfaction. "How are you feeling this morning, my precious?"

"Like I’ve been thoroughly ravished by a beast who doesn’t know when to stop."

He shifted, and she felt him stir inside her, blood moving, flesh thickening against her sensitive walls. A sharp inhale escaped her before she could stop it.

"But it would be good for one more round, right?" The playfulness in his tone was infuriating.

"No damn way." She tried to pull away, but her body protested. "I am not letting you anywhere near me this morning."

​She pushed at his chest, trying to slide off him, but the angle was wrong and all she managed was a deeper seating that made them both groan. In one fluid motion, Alexander rolled her onto her back, pinning her wrists above her head with one hand. The shift made him slide almost all the way out before settling back in, and the drag of him against her raw nerve endings sent a jolt of something between pain and pleasure straight up her spine.

"Alex," she gasped out with a moan.

​"Yes, my lovely Luna?" he purred.

Irena blinked up at him, her tired gaze softening with affectionate resignation.

"Please, my precious Ire, the love of my life, the air that I breathe, my one and only," he pleaded, his lips hovering over hers as his warm, familiar breath brushed her skin.

"Quench my thirst this morning, my heart. I’ve heard morning affection can be very good for women. This is for your own good, too."

"Alex, do you even know how foolish you sound right now?" But her body was already betraying her. Her hips arched without permission, her nipples tightening against his chest.

"It is not my fault, but yours for being this irresistible. You make me a foolish man, my love, Ire." Alexander purred, already closing the distance between them.

The kiss started soft, a question asked in the language of lips and tongue. Irena tried to hold onto her resistance, tried to remember that she was exhausted. But Alexander had spent fifty years learning every secret her mouth had to offer, and the man kissed like it was still their wedding night.

She moaned into his mouth. Her wrists flexed in his grip, not fighting, just reminding him she was there. He smiled against her lips and released her wrists, sliding his palms down her arms, tracing the curve of her shoulders, the dip of her waist, until his thumbs found the swell of her breasts.

"These lovelies," he murmured, breaking the kiss to look down at her. "I dreamed about them last night." His mouth descended to the hollow of Irena throat first, lingering there just to feel her pulse jump beneath his tongue. her hands found his hair, thick and silver-streaked at the temples, and she held him there. She knew where this was going. It always went there first.

Alexander loved her breasts with a devotion that bordered on religious obsession. He’d told her once, early in their marriage, that they reminded him of full moons, of the soft skin of peaches, of home. She’d laughed then. She wasn’t laughing now. His mouth closed over her right nipple, and the world narrowed to that single point of heat.

Irena’s back arched off the bed as his tongue worked her in slow, deliberate circles before drawing the peak between his lips. His cheeks hollowed as he sucked, and the pull went straight down to where he was still buried inside her, making her clench around him.

"Uhrg... Alex." His name came out like a prayer.

He released her nipple with a wet pop, but only to move to the other breast, giving it the same lavish attention. His tongue flattened against the peak, then curled, drawing it between his lips with a patience that made her want to scream. His hand cupped the one he’d abandoned, thumb stroking lazy figure-eights over the damp peak while his mouth worshiped the other.

Irena’s thoughts scattered, then re-formed as Alexander’s hand and mouth worked her breasts with reckless abandon. The contrast — wet heat on one side, cool air and calloused friction on the other — had her hips rolling without thought.

"Alex," she gasped, fingers threading through his hair. "Please."

He hummed around her flesh, a low vibration that traveled down her sternum and bloomed between her legs. Lost in his favorite pastime.

Her inner walls fluttered around his cock, still seated deep but barely mobile. Each flick of his tongue sent a phantom pulse through her core, and she found herself clenching and releasing in rhythm, milking him on nothing but the promise of movement.

Insatiable monster, she thought. Utterly, hopelessly insatiable.

He switched breasts again. No warning. Just the sudden loss of heat on one side and the warm envelope of his mouth on the other. Her back arched. The soreness from last night — that deep muscle ache, receded beneath a fresher urgency, like the tide pulling back before a storm surge. "Alexander." Her voice came out thin, unfamiliar. "Please, move. Please."

He released her nipple with deliberate slowness, lifting his head enough to meet her eyes. His lips were swollen, glistening. The sliver in his irises had sharpened, the wolf peering out from behind the man. "Please move?" A dark smile ghosted across his mouth. "Who was it that said she didn’t want me anywhere near her this morning?"

Irena offered him an adoring smile and gave his chest a light smack. "Don’t tease, you insatiable beast."

Alexander let out a low chuckle, slowly dragging every inch of his shaft along her inner walls. The sensation was excruciatingly slow, thorough, and relentless, sending a shiver through Irena’s body.

Her eyes rolled back as a sound escaped her, somewhere between a whimper and a growl.