"I can help," I told her, leaning over her, my face inches from her thigh. "The vibration helps the cramping. You know that. It breaks the tension in the muscle fascia."
She blinked, looking down at me through a haze of pain. "What?"
"My voice," I said. "Let me use it."
I didn't wait for a contract to be signed. I saw the desperation in her eyes, the way her hips were already twitching, seeking pressure, seeking anything to override the signals firing from her womb.
There was nothing I could do to help if I didn’t bend the rules a little. Still, I kept my hands flat on the mattress on either side of her hips and didn't touch her skin. I respected the boundary of the grip, even as I shattered the boundary of space.
I lowered my head.
The scent of her was overwhelming this close, salt, sweet berries, and sweat. It was the smell of the ocean right before a hurricane. It filled my nose, my lungs, drugging me.
I breathed on her. The warmth of my breath hit the thin cotton of her panties, damp with her slickness.
She flinched, a sharp inhale.
"Daniel?"
"I've got you," I hummed against her inner thigh.
I pressed my face against her.
I didn't kiss. Not yet. I rested my cheek against the curve of her pubic bone, right over the cramping knot of muscles. And I spoke.
"Breathe," I rumbled.
I pitched the sound differently this time. Not projecting outward; I was driving the soundintoher. I started a low, chest-deep hum, the kind of sound an enormous cat makes, or a generator. A continuous, sub-bass frequency that vibrated through my skull, through her skin, and into the clenched muscles of her abdomen.
Hmmmmmmmmmm.
Tessa gasped, her hips jerking. "Oh. That feels... weird."
"Good weird?" I asked, the words buzzing against her skin.
"It... it numbs it," she whispered. "Don't stop."
I shifted higher.
My beard brushed against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, the coarse hair creating friction that made her shiver. I nuzzled into the center of her heat, inhaling the intoxicating musk of her arousal mixing with the pain.
I found the center. The swollen, aching bundle of nerves that was screaming for release.
I pressed my mouth over the fabric of her underwear, right over her clit.
"Is this okay?" I asked, my lips moving against the sensitivities. "Tell me to stop, Tessa. Tell me to leave."
"No," she choked out, her hands flying down to grip the headboard, knuckles white. "Don't leave. Never leave."
That was it. That was the permission.
I opened my mouth and breathed hot, damp air through the cotton. And then, I began to rewrite the silence.
I didn't just use my tongue. I used my voice.
"You are so strong," I murmured, pressing my lips firmly against her. The vibration of the consonants buzzed almost directly against her clitoris. "Look at you. Surviving."
Tessa cried out, her back arching, her hips snapping up to meet my mouth.
