A Stroke Of Midnight

CHAPTER 33

WHEN MY EYES STOPPED ROLLING BACK INTO MY HEAD SO THAT I could see again, Nicca was gri

I still couldn’t talk, so I nodded.

“You’re good,” Galen said.

“I have never talked to Biddy about sex. You run into a few women, now and then, who won’t let you do this.”

My voice didn’t sound like mine when I said, “They’re mad.”

“Perhaps, but just in case it’s the last, I wanted it to be good.”

I had a little trouble focusing, but finally managed it. “I don’t want to send you to her bed with regrets.”

He came to his knees, and then climbed over my body until he could lay his nakedness along my own. The feel of his testicles pressed tight against where his mouth had just been made me writhe underneath him.

He stared down at me, supporting his upper body on his arms, but keeping his lower body pressed tight against me. No matter how gentle a lover, the look in his eyes was the look of every man, eventually. That knowledge, that fierce joy, that they have given you pleasure, and now they get to take their own. I do not know why all men have that look somewhere in their eyes, waiting to come out, but I have seen it too often not to know that it is there.

“Kiss me, take the sweet taste of you from my mouth.” He lowered his face to me, and I raised up to meet him. We kissed, and he was wet from me, and tasted of something clean and fresh, like the first breath of morning after a rain, when the world is wet and pure.

He kissed me until our tongues, our hands, our arms, found each other. He kissed me until I had licked him clean of that taste, and left the wetness of my mouth behind. He drew back breathless, and said, “Perfect.”

I understood what he meant, not that I was perfect, but that the kiss had been exactly what he’d wanted in that moment.

He raised himself above me on arms and knees. He was stretched tight and hard against the front of his own body. “I am ready.”

“I can see that,” I said, and my voice was breathy.

Nicca looked at the other men, and said, “Places, gentlemen.” There was a note of command in his voice that I’d seldom heard, even in the midst of sex. I realized that this was the first time I’d had sex with him since he’d been brought into his power. Not his wings, but his power. We weren’t certain what magic he had gained from it, but he’d gained other things that had nothing to do with magic, and everything with being comfortable in his own skin.

Kitto hesitated at my head as if he wasn’t sure what to do next.

“Raise up, Merry,” Galen said, “let him know where he’s supposed to be.” His voice and face were gentle when he said it, as if he’d picked up on Kitto’s nervousness. Galen and I had kept our nights in Los Angeles to ourselves, so I’d really never seen him interact in an intimate setting with any of the other men. You can learn a lot about a man in the bedroom when it’s not just two, but more. Someone who refuses to share, well, that tells you something about a man, too.

I raised up on my elbows. “Come, Kitto, let me rest my head in your lap.”

He moved behind me, still uncertain, as if he expected one of the other men to protest. He settled behind me with his legs folded tailor fashion. I did not lay my head in his lap immediately, but bowed my head backwards so I could sweep my hair across his groin. I trailed my hair back and forth until he made noises for me.

I laid my head in the cradle of his legs, and found his sex pressed against the top of my head. Interesting, but his knees were also higher than my face. I rubbed my head against him like a cat. His breathing sped for me, but it wasn’t going to work as a prop for Galen.

“Um,” Galen said.

Nicca said, “What if Kitto almost lies under Merry, with her head resting on his stomach?”

We tried it. It took some maneuvering, especially to find a comfortable way for Kitto’s legs to be underneath me. Nicca suggested that Kitto turn over on his stomach, which probably would have been easier, but I vetoed it. I wanted the press of him against my head. I wanted not just Kitto’s body, but a very specific part, to be my pillow. I wanted the sensation of it, and I wanted to give Kitto at least that much. He’d given up his place for intercourse, and for oral sex. He deserved at least to be touched.

So I lay back against the line of Kitto’s body, and my head was cradled on a pillow that was so warm, so firm, so erotic. I rubbed my head against that firm pillow, and Kitto cried out.

“A little less body language, Merry, or he’ll go before anyone else,” Galen said, but he smiled when he said it, shaking his head.

I stopped rubbing, and just lay there with my head pressed against Kitto. “What?” I asked.

“Just watching how happy that made you.”

“Do you have a problem with it?” I asked.

“No,” he said, and gri

“Why?” I asked, and put my other hand at his balls, cupping them, while I stroked along the length of him. I’d touched Galen hundreds of times by now, but I never quite got over the marvel of being allowed to touch him. I think it was because I’d wanted him long before it had occurred to me to want any of the other guards. They had been untouchable, and almost invisible to me, as I’d been to them. But Galen, he had always been real to me.

He looked at Nicca and said, in a voice that couldn’t quite control itself, “I’d hurry if I were you, Nicca. She is so not going to behave herself.”

Nicca gave that uniquely masculine laugh. “I’m not finishing until she does, I’ll warn you of that now.”

I ran my thumb over the round tip of him, and rubbed my head against Kitto at the same time. Galen shuddered for me, and Kitto made another satisfying cry. “We’ll do our best,” Galen said. He gazed down at me, smiling, eyes a little wide. “Is this a test of how much control we have?”

“No,” I said.

“You’re mad because I’ve said no to this for so long, aren’t you?”

I thought about that for a second or two, then frowned. “Maybe, I guess, yes. I’m sorry. I want this to be about joy, not pettiness.” My hands started to fall away from him, but he caught my wrist with one hand.

“Do your best, or your worst, and so will we. I’m sorry I denied you any part of me. I promise it won’t happen again.”

“Good,” I said, and I pulled him down toward me. He didn’t fight me. He just readjusted his hands and knees, and finally his hips until I could guide him between my lips. He was so full, so thick, that I had to open my mouth wider than was comfortable to let him push his way deeper inside. He pushed until he found the back of my throat. I forced myself to relax as he eased himself past that point of comfort. I loved the feel of a man so deep, but it was an acquired talent. I was blessed with no gag reflex, but there were other problems with the well-endowed. Breathing for one, and just finding an angle so they could fuck you but not hurt your throat. Badly done deep-throating gave an entirely new meaning to having a little sore throat. I moved my head, just a little, my head rocking gently on Kitto’s body, as I worked with Galen to find that special position. I knew from experience that once I got excited enough I would have less trouble, that nothing would hurt while I was doing it, so I worked to make sure things didn’t hurt later either. Galen was above me, truly trying to mouth-fuck me. It wasn’t the same as going down on a man from other positions, because they had more control than you did. And they could not feel your body, as you felt it. They could not know when you could draw breath, or swallow, or when you needed to do either. I was trusting Galen to be gentle. I was depending on it.