She woke to the sound of scales hissing on silk and the feeling of Damien's breath, humid and possessive, working up the back of her neck.
The healing spell had sapped her: bones ached in her marrow, eyelids sandpapered, and yet Felicity had never felt more awake energy thrummed between them, a coiled wire gone live. She blinked away the crystalline motes of her private space, the moonlit gardens and the endless sky, but all of it blurred against the heat of Damien wrapped around her, every coil a promise of containment.
His tongue slid along the shell of her ear, forked and burning, and she shivered, overcome by some ancient prey instinct, half terror, half worship. She tried to speak, to ask how he'd even gotten through her space's wards, but he pressed a hand over her mouth, pinning her to the mossy ground. "Don't even think about it, pet," he hissed, the 't' spitting out like a venomous click. "You almost died. You want to waste your first words whining?"
