My muscles lock beneath her touch from restraint so sharp it borders on pain. I’ve broken hundreds of bodies with these hands, commanded nests with a single glance, but right now, I can’t even remember how to breathe.
When the fabric clears my head, she tosses it to the floor. I force myself to take deep, steady breaths to stop myself from rushing her. I want her to know she’s in control here as her gaze drifts down and her lips curve into a smirk.
“I see the appeal of training now,” she muses, running a hand along my abdomen before pushing at my chest.
My back falls to the bed, leaving me staring up at the woman who has absolutely ruined me first.
Her mouth brushes against my abdomen, slowly tracing the planes of muscle with aching tenderness. She kisses over old scars that have never meant anything to anyone besides me. I close my eyes and my jaw clenches because I don’t know what to do with the way this feels.
It feels like she somehow reaches my soul with each touch.
She keeps moving upward, torturously gentle. Across my sternum and over the center of my chest, where I have never let anyone linger near my heart. I may have taken people to bed, but never did I trust them. Never did I ache to breathe in their essence. Never have I wanted to let someone in like this.
My heart kicks once, hard, and I swear she feels it because she pauses briefly before pressing another kiss there, like a promise that makes my throat swell with emotion. By the time her lips graze my throat, I tremble beneath her from my need.
It’s not my desire that matters right now, though, it’s hers.
She kisses beneath my jaw and then higher untilher mouth meets mine again. It’s slow and certain, and it feels like she claims me in her own way.
When she draws back, her eyes find mine, grounded and resolute. She lifts her hand to my cheek, thumb sweeping a drop of wetness I hadn’t realized fell from my eye.
“I need you now, Riven.”
My throat is tight and my words raspy as I force them out. “I’ll need you forever, darling.”
Chapter 27
Wren
My shirt lifts easily as I draw it over my head in one motion, the sleeves trailing down my arms until the cool air brushes over my bare skin. I toss it to the floor next to the bed and soak in the way his fangs descend as his gaze sweeps over me.
I want him to see all of me–this time of my choosing and not just from waking up in a world, abandoned.
I don’t hide. I let him look.
His eyes roam over me slowly, and the way he looks at me has my toes curling and heat flaring beneath my cheeks.
“I don’t know what to do now,” I whisper, unashamed in my lack of knowledge. “I just know I want you.”
His throat works around a swallow as he forces his fangs to retreat. “If I go too far,” he says, voice deep and steady, “you tell me. I’ll stop. No questions and no guilt, darling.”
I can’t imagine a world in which I’d ever tell him to stop, but I can tell it’s important for him that I acknowledge his request, so I nod.
Suddenly our positions are switched and I find myself cradled in his arms as he lays me back across the bed. His mouth brushes mine once before he pulls back.The air kisses my skin as I settle beneath him, and I can feel the tremble in my own breath.
My body aches to find an outlet for this all-consuming heat licking through my body.
“Don’t make me wait,” I plead, yet he doesn’t rush.
His gaze roves down the length of my body as his fingers trail across my collarbone with a light brush. Then he leans forward to press a kiss to the spot where my shoulder meets my neck, and I exhale shakily.
His lips move lower, learning my body as I’d done to him.
Across my collarbone.
Down the center of my sternum.
Each kiss is deliberate and devotional.
