“I’m here.” A woman who looks just like Xanthe, rushes in behind her daughter. “Xaria!” she snaps, “Don’t interrupt your uncle when he is busy.” She stops dead when she sees me and flushes, “Oh, Your Majesty. I didn’t realize you were here.” She curtsies to me and I hold my hand up and say, “No, please, it's fine.” I don’t like all this formality business.
“Liv, this is my sister, Xandra, and my niece, Xaria,” Xane introduces them. Again, with the X’s. Does the whole family come with them?
“Nice to meet you,” Xandra says and I say it back.
The little girl is looking up at me wide-eyed and asks, “Are you going to be Uncle Xane’s wife?”
I choke back a horrified response as Xane just chuckles into his hand. Xandra admonishes her daughter for being rude. An awkward silence ensues as she is clearly waiting for an answer, as is her mother, although not quite so obviously. I glare at Xane, but he just shrugs, leaving me to bat this one. I bend down to Xaria and take her hand in mine. “No, sweetie. Your uncle and I are just friends. I am already married. See?” I show her my black diamond wedding rings and she stares at them.
“They are pretty. Just like you,” she says.
“Thank you. You are pretty, too,” I say with a smile and she glows under my praise.
“If you are just friends, why were you kissing?” she asks then, in that blunt way that only children have, as I seem to recall.
“It’s what friends do when they like each other,” I say at a complete loss and cast a quick glance up at Xandra.
She is hiding her smile behind her hand, but takes pity on me and says, “Come now, Xaria. Let us leave the Queen and your uncle to their… business.” She says this with a knowing look at the two of us. “I will let Mother know you are here. She will want to see you before you go.”
Xane holds his hand out to me and helps me rise. “Later,” he mutters, and she snickers. Leaving the room, I can hear Xaria telling anyone who will listen that Uncle Xane is kissing the Queen in his bedroom. Oh, dear. This is a disaster.
“You have no reason to be terrified. You would be a great mother,” he says to me.
Why do people keep telling me that? I would be a dreadful, awful mother.
“Humph,” I say, before he pulls me in for another lingering kiss.
“Xane,” I say and pull away, my hand on his chest. “I’m not doing this with you.”
“Yes, you are. Don’t tell me you can’t feel it,” he says again.
“Feel what?”
“Our bond.”
“We don’t have a bond,” I say, hoping that is true. Otherwise Constantine – never mind Cole – is going to have a freak out. I’m so lucky that Devon and Lincoln seem to be more laid back .
“Oh, yes we do. The ritual we performed tied us together. We are one,” he says, cupping my face with his hands. He kisses me again, pushing me back towards the bed. Despite myself, I get lost in his kisses and, encouraged, he picks me up and lays me down on the bed. He takes off my shoes and murmurs, “Why a pantsuit?” to himself as he goes about removing it from me.
“Xane,” I say again, sitting up. “I can’t do this.”
He ignores me, kneels in front of me and pushes me back down as he inserts his tongue inside my pussy with a low growl.
Oh, fuck.
I feel a rush of pleasure right where he is now licking me.
“Xane,” I whisper, pushing my hands into his hair to get him to move away, but instead he moves closer, pushing his tongue deep inside me. He alternates between thrusts and licking my clit, sucking and grinding it between his teeth. He licks up over my shaven mound, over my flat stomach to my breasts, which are now aching to be touched. He roughly sucks my nipple into his mouth and I cry out.
“Still want me to stop?” he murmurs huskily, as he knows he has me right where he wants me.
I shake my head feeling the guilt but brushing it aside to deal with later. In a magick move similar to my own, he loses his clothes and he is naked and ready on top of me.
He clasps my hands and looks into my eyes intently. “Do you feel it?” he whispers.
I do. I feel like I am on fire. The good fire from yesterday’s ritual. It is racing through my veins, heating me up. A clear knowledge of what we did enters my head and I part my lips as I gasp. “You should have told me,” I say, before he plunges his mouth to mine and thrusts inside me at the same time. I start throbbing almost straight away but it’s not like any other orgasm I have had before. The rush hasn’t come yet, just this steady pulsing that matches my heartbeat, which matches his. I can hear it. I lose myself in the steady pounding and I cry out as the wave of pleasure hits me, like a red-hot fire.
“Oh, fuck yes,” he murmurs. “It feels right. It feels perfect. Show me,” he whispers. “Show me.”