I lower myself back to the bed just as Memnon’s hands hook over the top of my pants and my underwear. He pulls them down, his eyes fixed to my flesh.

The sorcerer tugs them off and then skims his palm up my calf and smooths over my thigh. His gaze scours my body, drinking it in for so long that a little bit of nervous magic sifts from my palms.

Memnon’s eyes slowly drift up to mine. “You hold me in your thrall, little witch,” he says, his voice husky. “It has been a long time since I’ve seen you this way.”

Role-playing—we’re just role-playing.

“Does my king like what he sees?” I ask in Sarmatian. It’s supposed to be an easy, playful response. Only after it leaves my lips do I realize I’ve opened myself up for rejection.

A wry smile graces his mouth at the endearment. “Every inch of you is sheer perfection, my queen. Api fashioned the most flawless woman when he made you.”

I swallow, unsure how to respond to that. It isn’t a rejection, but it feels equally hard to accept, for some reason.

Memnon lowers himself between my thighs. “Now, soul mate, let’s see this pretty pussy of yours.”

Soul mate?

Oh no, no, no.

I press my fingers to Memnon’s lips and shake my head. “You can call me your queen and your empress and your witch, but—not that.”

I’m only willing to role-play so far.

Memnon arches a brow. Gently, he pries my hand away from his mouth, pausing to give each fingertip a kiss. It’s oddly…affectionate.

“All right…Selene,” he agrees.

He returns his attention to my core. The way he’s looking at it makes me want to shift. Memnon moves first one of my legs, then the other, over his shoulder.

Then he spreads my outer lips apart and stares at my vagina like he’s trying to divine the future from it.

“How I have missed this too.”

Memnon leans in and peppers kisses along those outer lips. His mouth is so light and reverent, I jolt a little when his tongue finally strokes up my seam, the touch so much bolder than what came before it.

He groans. “Ah, the taste of you, Empress!” His hold on me tightens. “All the liquor in the world cannot intoxicate me the way you can.”

I shift under him, digging my heels into his back as my nerves ratchet up.

His fingers knead a little into my hips. “I can feel how tense you are,” he says. “Relax, I’m going to take care of you.”

I hadn’t realized I tensed up, but I am fairly rigid. I force my muscles to loosen.

“That’s it,” he coaxes. “Beautiful Empress, you have nothing to worry about in my arms. I have longed to have you right here.”

He begins kissing my pussy again, scraping his teeth against the soft folds of skin. He takes various sections of flesh into his mouth, laving them with his tongue. My hips move of their own accord, finding a rhythm to Memnon’s attentions.

As soon as the sorcerer’s lips find my clit, I cry out, “Est xsaya!” My king!

I…didn’t actually mean to say that.

Memnon stills, and it’s as though he knows it too.

I feel his grin against my flesh, and his hands tighten where they grip my hips.

I like how your pretty voice makes those words sound. Memnon speaks directly into my mind. The stroke of his mouth turns fevered, demanding. He sucks on my clit, earning moan after moan from me.

This feels light-years better than anything that’s come before Memnon. Like comparing water to wine.

I dig my heels into the sorcerer’s back again, and that only seems to spur him on more. Memnon moves lower, toward my core. Once he gets there, he slips his tongue inside me, and I cry out once more, tightening my grip on his hair as I press myself into his face.

“Feels so good, Memnon,” I murmur. “So, so good.”

Grind against me more, est amage. He’s still speaking in my mind. I want you to coat my face by the time I’m done with you.

I’m too far gone to be shocked by his words.

One of Memnon’s fingers slips inside me, and I gasp a little at the sensation.

“Call me your king again,” he says against my flesh, “and I’ll add another.”

Closing my eyes, I shake my head and smile. “Est xsaya, uvut vakosgub sanpuvusavak pes I’navkap.”

My king, I may die if you don’t.

He laughs lightly against me. “It is you who will be the death of me.”

Another finger joins the first, spreading me wider.

I make a small breathy sound at the sensation. I can hear the wet noises of those digits as he works me.

Memnon’s mouth returns to my clit, and now he does something to it with his tongue, something that makes my hips jerk and a cry rip from my throat.

I release his hair so I can prop myself up and stare at him wide-eyed. “What was that?”

The sorcerer pauses to glance up at me.

“Don’t look so surprised, est amage,” he says, his gaze flicking over me. “I have spent years memorizing your body. I know what it likes.”

His words prickle my skin. Perhaps for the first time, I feel truly worried by them, because I did like that move of his, even though I didn’t know I would. The truth is, I don’t know my body well enough to understand what tricks can bring me to orgasm quickly. But Memnon apparently does, and that’s…alarming.

“Now, return your hands to my hair, Empress,” he says, “and grind that pussy against me once more. I like feeling what I do to you.”

Without waiting for me to comply, he returns to kissing and tonguing me. And I do thread my fingers back into his wavy locks, and I do grind against him. I can’t seem to stop myself. Everything he’s doing is unraveling me bit by bit.

While his fingers pump into me, the sorcerer does that thing again with his tongue—I think he’s circling my clit. And again my hips jerk against him.

I gasp. “Memnon.”

He repeats it again. And again. And again.

I’m writhing against him as he plays me like an instrument, dragging me closer and closer to that precarious edge.

I can feel you getting close, he whispers in my head, never stopping his ministrations.

I don’t bother responding. He’s right after all.

Call me your soul mate, he continues, and I’ll let you come.

I’m sorry, what?

I let out a disbelieving laugh.

I thought we went over this. I thought he agreed to drop the term.

And if I don’t? I say silently to him.

Memnon stops kissing me, stops fingering me; he goes utterly still.

“Then I won’t give you your release,” he says, staring up my body.

I meet his gaze. “You bastard.”

His fingers begin moving again.

“Close,” he says, “but that’s still the wrong word. Try again, soul mate.”

I grimace at that word, but then Memnon’s mouth is on my pussy, doing that same damn thing with his mouth. He’s not even being creative at this point. He knows it’s what does it for me. And damn it, it’s enough for me to get sucked under all over again.

“Feels so good, Memnon,” I admit. I’m panting, moving my hips against him.

Still not the right word, little witch, he chastises.

I moan instead of replying, my body tightening in anticipation of—

The sorcerer backs off my clit, moving to a far-less-stimulating area near my outer lips.

I cry out in frustration.

Say it, he commands.

I don’t. But if I thought my resistance would make him stop eating me out altogether, I thought wrong. No, Memnon seems happy enough to continue running his lips and his teeth and his tongue over other sensitive portions of my pussy. He even eventually returns to my clit, working me into a frenzy once more.

But just as I’m again about to tip over the edge, he backs off.

“Memnon.” I practically growl his name.

I can do this all day, Empress, he says in my head.