“Oh.” Bafflement widened her eyes. All men loved receiving oral sex. Right? So why had he stopped the women from sucking on him? And he’d stopped them, she knew that he had. Every woman he’d welcomed to his bed had probably wanted to fit her lips over that cock and drink him down.

“But you,” he went on, still on edge. “I will let you. If you want to.”

She flattened her hands on his stomach, felt the cords of the muscles clench. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or do something you don’t like—”

“No. You misunderstand.” His shook his head, all that astounding hair performing a ballet around his temples. Strands of black and brown and gold she longed to fist. “I didn’t let the others do it because I was already using them and didn’t want them doing me any more favors. And the only reason I let the slave was because I needed answers, and that was the fastest way to get them.”

Answers about me.

“And Sienna? The slave was…he was a male.”

And that was not his preference. Sympathy washed through her. To have no control over your body and its reactions, to be forced to submit to a desire you yourself did not feel, had to be torture. “Just so you know, there’s nothing wrong with that. And I won’t be doing you a favor, Paris. You are a beautiful, charming, intelligent, sexy as hell man, and I’m dying to have you. Just as you are. With all the others you were simply practicing for this moment,” she said, hoping to tease him into seeing the truth of her claim. “In doing this, I’ll be pleasuring us both. I hope. I mean, I have about as much experience with blow jobs as I do with sex.”

“If that’s the case, I’m about to come my brains out. You’ll be perfect.”

“Quiet. Sienna’s not done putting you in your place.”

A smile bloomed. “Yes, ma’am. But, uh, what’s my place?”

“The pedestal for the most admirable man I know. I don’t care what you’ve done, or who you’ve done it with. You could have rampaged the entire world, could have raped viciously, constantly, but you don’t. As for the sex of the slave, well, I hope you respect me in the morning, because I think you’re even sexier now and I’m going to be very upset if I don’t get my turn.”

He licked his lips. “You want a turn?”

“More than anything.”

Already his hips were writhing underneath her, as if he were imagining her mouth on him, working him over. “Please, Sienna. Please, do it.”

“Yes. But only if you’ll like it.” She shimmied down until her lips were poised over that beautiful erection. This is mine, she thought, dazed.

“I’ll like it. I swear I’ll like it.”

“Let’s find out for sure.” Her tongue emerged, licking up and down his shaft, treating his length like a lollipop. Groan after groan left him, and she took that for approval. On her third upward glide, she fit her fingers around his base and her lips around the head. As she gloried in his flavor, her hand continued the erotic journey on his shaft.

Her wings arced down and around, the tips stroking his sides. For the first time, she understood the joy of having them. Surrounding him like this, she forgot about the rest of the world. Only they existed. Only the pleasure.

A curse roared from him as his hips jerked, thrusting him deeper. Immediately he apologized and backed off. “More. Please, more.” He pounded his fists against the floor. “I have to have more.”

She sucked harder, tasting him deeper, savoring, then swallowed him down as far as she could go. He was too big and stretched her jaw, but she didn’t care. His entire body shook with the force of his enjoyment. She never stopped working him with her hands, either, one doing the stroking, the other tugging at his testicles.

But then she started wondering what those tasted like and released his cock with a pop to run her tongue over the tightness of his sac. He enjoyed that, too, especially when she drew one, and then the other, into her mouth.

Would she ever get enough of this man?

When he was shouting her name, she returned to the main event, taking him in, taking him down, his wild reaction spurring her on and on and on, her body lighting up, desperate for him, for all of him.

“I’m close, baby, I’m so close. If you don’t want to taste me, you need to—”

In answer, she sucked him so hard her cheeks hollowed.

“Oh, yeah!” His hips jerked up, his muscles knotting on his bones, and a roar far louder than any that had come before ripped out of him. He jetted down her throat and she swallowed every drop, holding on until the very end, when he sank onto the ground, his panting breaths filling the entire enclosure.

“Ride me,” he commanded in that voice full of gravel. “I need to be in you. Now.”

“Yes. Now.” She knew she had just repeated what he’d said, again, but that rich scent was seeping from him, surrounding her, blinding her to everything but him. And this. Oh, sweet heaven, this.

She lifted, surprised to find that she was shaking. A quick glance, and she saw that his wounds were no longer bleeding, and the skin had even sewed itself back together. And despite his recent climax, he was still rock-hard and ready for her.

Once again she straddled him, and this time she took him in, all the way, until she was sitting on him, her ass resting on the backs of his thighs. Now she was the one to cry out. Like before, he stretched her, but it was such a good, burning stretch and she was so damn wet, so damn eager.

He clamped his fingers on the rise of her hips and moved her, up and down, his strength a shock. Because when he moved her down, he slammed her, forcing himself as deep as he could go, lifting himself up to meet her halfway.

“Kiss me,” he growled. “Lean down and kiss me.”

Even as she rocked on him, she obeyed, her chest smashing into his as she slanted her head and meshed their lips together. His tongue immediately shot inside her mouth, claiming her as his, owning her. His hands went to her back, sliding under those slits that housed her wings. It was as though he’d put his fingers and his mouth on her clitoris at the same time, using his nose and his chin and his beard stubble, anything and everything to stimulate her to the fullest.

Release slammed through her with the same force Paris used. Wild exhilaration pumped through her, the pleasure so intense her nerve endings were electrified. Pinpricks of white behind her lids, fire in her veins. A storm of satisfaction through every inch of her.

She didn’t mean to, but she bit his lip until she tasted blood, and even that was a stimulant. Her nails dug into his scalp, holding him still for her abuse as she rode out the thunder and the lightning. But he didn’t seem to mind, seemed to like it. One of his hands fell to her ass and pressed her down as he rose up, and then he was roaring, spurting inside her, sending her over the edge a second time.

When at last they calmed, they collapsed on the ground in a tangled heap of arms and legs, shaking together, gasping, desperate for air but not caring that they couldn’t find it.

“Thank you,” he panted.

“You liked?” she replied when she found her voice.

“Woman, you nearly killed me. I should be manning back up, putting us back on track, but I’m completely blissed out.”

So was she. Each time together was better than the last. “I hope we do that a thousand times today.”

“I hope that’s an accurate guesstimate and not hyperbole.”

“If anything, I underestimated. You’re very good with my wings.”

She felt the warm stroke of a chuckle against her skin. “I’m not too rough?”

“You’re perfect.” A kiss at the cord that bound his shoulder to his neck, a scrape of her teeth. “Ever been with a winged woman before?”

“Uh…I…” He hesitated, even as his skin prickled with heat beneath her mouth.

His shame had returned, and once again she experienced sympathy for all he’d endured. “I’ll take that as a yes. Was she an angel, like your friend?” He needed to purge the memories and the feelings that accompanied them.

“Uh…”

“Another yes. A demon, too?”

Only the slightest pause. “Yeah.” He ducked his head in the opposite direction, as bashful as a schoolboy.

Adorable. Just adorable. As strong as he was, as fierce as he was, he cared about her opinion. “Paris, it’s okay. I know you have a past, and I wasn’t pressing for details to embarrass you or to make you uncomfortable. I just wanted you to know there’s nothing you could have done to disgust me.”

Slowly he relaxed and turned toward her. Those dark shadows swirled in his irises, but as she watched, they thinned and misted away. Zacharel had said those shadows were another demon, an evil inside of Paris that he could never get rid of. She wasn’t sure why he’d welcomed that evil, or “birthed” it, and she didn’t care. To her, he was Paris, only Paris, and she would never again make the mistake of hating someone for a perceived malevolence.

“Thank you,” he said again, tightening his hold on her.

“Listen, you. If I can’t put myself down, you can’t thank me for my stunning common sense.”

One of his hands slid to her face, cupped her jaw. She’d meant to make him smile, but his expression had never been fiercer. “It’s a deal.”

Emotion clogged her throat, and she forced a cough. “How about I tell you something embarrassing about me, so that we’re even?”

A rough, ragged, “Please.”

“When I was little, I played beauty shop with my younger sister. I was the stylist and put her gorgeous honey-blond hair in a ponytail—then I hacked off the entire thing. She was the makeup artist, and painted my face with permanent markers. Our parents were horrified.” A bombardment of nostalgia had her choking back a sudden sob.

Enna, Tommy from class says I have too many freckles, and that they make me ugly. Tears rolled down cheeks still baby-round.