<b>The</b>aftershocks left him in a euphoric gaze as he pulsed between her legs, her own orgasm milking him dry as she convulsed around him. His muscles flexed as he strained to keep himself poised above her and not collapse like some sort of panting oaf on top of her as he rode out the duration of her own pleasure. His head dipped to meet hers when she pulled him down for a kiss, his tongue there to greet hers as it explored his mouth, then slid past the parted folds of her lips to delve into her own sweetness.<br/><br/>With a sigh, he wrapped both arms around her slender frame and pulled them into a roll so that they both wound up on their sides with his arms locked around her in an embrace, their mouths still melded together. He throbbed still once he withdrew from her and lust still shone in his green-and-gold lit gaze when he met her own half-hooded and golden brown stare.<br/><br/>It wasn’t long until his palms roamed the soft curve of her back and encapsulated the firm roundness of her ass to drag her closer to him, then continued up along her sides until his fingers sifted through her hair, massaging against her scalp. “What do you want right now?”<br/><br/>The afterglow was always nice, and James basked in it for now. Guiding her head under his chin, he tilted his own and kissed the crown of her hair. For someone who spun bittersweet bullshit on the best of days, the man was oddly affectionate in how he handled the young woman after the rough edge of their fucking wore off.<br/><br/>Then she pointed out the elephant clause. The pulsating throb embedded in his thigh was less of a wound and more of a nuisance. The<i>salamander </i>was a known thing in lore to harbor the element of fire, and it was Anastasia’s personal favorite. What Lane saw was the physical embodiment of the demoness’s mark on him, and the most distinguished among many. It wasn’t until she had pointed it out again that he became acutely aware of the persistent burn. In a word, that was exactly what it was, and no amount of salve, care or treatment was going to make it go away. Contained by forces that weren’t natural, the worst of it was the enflamed skin around the indention, and only a thin sheen of new flesh over the presence of the creature that dwelled in his leg. “Before you ask, I have tried cutting it out. That was the worst mistake I will never make again.”