“Oh!” She gasped at the unfamiliar thickness filling her.

Johan squeezed his eyes shut, his face flushed and his teeth clenched. He was absolutely still as she lifted herself up and down, up and down, taking him more deeply each time—except for his fingers gripping her waist, helping guide her.

“Johan. This is much better than I expected,” she gasped, and he opened one eye. “I’m—You’re—”

She sucked in a breath as the friction inside of her made her whole body shake with potent pleasure.

“We haven’t even gotten started yet, Sugar Bubble.”

Then he began to move his hips, slowly, slowly, but filling her more deeply than she’d thought possible. Nya felt a brief flash of pain, and whimpered, but it was gone as quickly as it had come and then there was only pleasure.

Johan sat up, still thrusting, kissing her mouth, her eyes, her face, his lips baptizing her with his affection. “I love you, Nya.”

His words filled her with as much pleasure as the sweet, tender ache building in her core. The pain was gone now, and there was only the delicious friction of Johan’s girth, and then of the fingers of one of his hands coming between them to tease her already sensitive clit.

Maybe it was the surprise that sent her over the edge—surprise that one man could give her so much pleasure while kissing her like he needed her breath to live. Her inner walls clamped around his cock and she threw her arms around him as she met his thrusts, a sobbing shudder racking her as her climax shook her.

“I love you, too,” she cried as she came, which wasn’t dirty talk but the only words her mouth could form when her brain temporarily stopped working.

“Oh god—Nya—” He hugged her tightly, too, then thrust at a slower, sharper rhythm as he whispered things that were alternately filthy and tender, words that pushed her so that Nya was caught in the riptide of another orgasm before he’d even finished his.

He collapsed back onto the carpet, still holding her close. From outside the door, the audience broke into raucous applause.

“Do you think they heard us?” she whispered, and Johan laughed, the sound loud and devious, and the vibration of it enough to make her toes curl. He rubbed his hand over her back.

“Maybe, though if you’re louder than a professional opera singer and full orchestra you might have superhuman lungs.”

“Superhuman lungs? We can test that once we get back to the castle.” She kissed his jaw then nipped his earlobe, wondering how it was possible that she was already eager to take him again. And again.

“I will happily be your test subject in the superhuman lungs experiment. Let’s go.” He glanced at the door. “I do feel bad about leaving before the show is over.”

“They’ll live,” Nya said, hauling him to his feet. She leaned closer to his ear. “I’m not sure I will if you aren’t inside me again soon.”

Johan wasn’t the only one who knew how to manipulate.

His nostrils flared and his gaze went hot. “I can’t argue with that. I’ll leave a note saying I had to go save my fiancée. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

Nya almost asked what it meant, that he’d said he loved her and called her his fiancée still. Their feelings weren’t fake but their relationship was . . .

Then Johan grabbed her around the waist and kissed her, and the music played loudly outside the door, and she let herself fall into that kiss instead of worrying.

Chapter 24

The humans didn’t know that Phokojoe’s ears were large and heard all. They didn’t know that he now spent much of his time listening for the voice of the girl who brought him sustenance and asked for nothing in return. So when the girl’s father demanded she tell Phokojoe she desired a coffer of gold, the trickster fox heard. An old witch woman had told the father how to take the Phokojoe’s gift and keep it, so that he would be rich and the fox god would exist no more.

—From Phokojoe the Trickster God

Johan awoke with Nya in his arms, with her hair pressed into his shoulder, her forehead pressed into his neck, and her leg slung over his thighs.

He waited for fear and anxiety to assail him—he’d been too busy for those emotions after they left the opera the previous night, losing himself in the touch of Nya, the taste of her, and the sound of her cries echoing from the high ceilings of his room. He’d told her he loved her, for god’s sake—he should have been curled up in the fetal position somewhere, or online searching for safety helmets and whatever other objects could protect her from harm.

He took a deep breath, inhaling her scent as he did.

No.

No.

Nya didn’t need or want his overprotection. He could do this. He was aware enough of his own problems, and he’d deal with them as he urged the people he cared about to deal with their own.

Portia had been sending him therapy referrals at least once every two months. Maybe he’d look into it. Yes.

There was a knock at his door and he slipped away from Nya reluctantly. The referendum voting was still happening the next day, and there was much to be done, like search out his brother who was returning from school to make an appearance at the castle before the polls opened the next day. He needed to find some way to make things right with Lukas, too, no matter how the referendum turned out.