I reach for the laces of my tunic with trembling fingers. His hands join mine, working the knots free with surprising dexterity for someone whose hands are shaking as badly as mine. The fabric parts. Falls open. Cool air hits my bare skin, and then his hands are there, rough palms sliding up my ribs, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts.
“Tell me to stop.” His voice is wrecked. “Any time. Any moment. Tell me to stop and I will.”
“Don’t stop.” I arch into his touch. “Don’t you dare stop.”
He doesn’t stop.
His hands cup my breasts, calluses rasping against sensitive flesh, and when his thumbs find my nipples, I cry out loud enough that anyone in the corridor might hear. I don’t care. Can’t care. The Bloom has stripped away everything but sensation, and his hands are everywhere, learning me, memorizing me, finding every place that makes me gasp and shake and beg for more.
His mouth follows his hands. Hot and wet against my collarbone, my sternum, the slope of my breast. When he takes my nipple between his lips, I arch off the cot, fisting my hands in his hair to hold him there. He sucks. Grazes his teeth across the peaked flesh. Switches to the other side and repeats the torture until I’m grinding against him with desperate, graceless movements.
“Zrynok—” His name tears from my throat. “I need?—”
“I know.” He lifts his head. His lips are swollen, his expression stripped raw, the hunger in his gaze so intense it should frighten me. “I know what you need.”
He flips us. Lays me back on the narrow cot, his broad body covering mine without crushing me. The solid press of him anchors me. Real. His hips slot between my thighs, and even through our remaining clothes, I can feel the thick ridge of him pressing exactly where I need pressure.
His hand slides down my stomach. Finds the waistband of my trousers. Pauses.
“Yes?”
“Yes.” The word comes out as a whimper. “Yes, please, yes?—”
He tugs the laces free. Slides his hand beneath the fabric. His fingers discover me wet and aching, and the sound he makes—a growl of pure masculine satisfaction—sends another rush of heat surging through me.
“Fuck.” He breathes the word against my throat. “You’re so wet. So ready for me.”
His fingers stroke through my slick folds, learning my shape, finding the places that make me writhe. When he circles my clit with rough callused fingertips, my hips buck off the cot.
“More,” I gasp. “Inside. I need?—”
He gives me what I need. One thick finger slides inside me, and the stretch makes my eyes roll back. He’s so much bigger than anything I’ve experienced, his fingers alone wider thanmost men’s cocks, and when he adds a second finger I have to breathe through the fullness.
“Too much?” Concern cuts through the hunger in his voice.
“No.” I grab his wrist. Hold him in place. “Just—give me a moment.”
He holds still while I adjust. Presses kisses to my forehead, my cheeks, the corner of my mouth. Patient. So patient, even with the Bloom screaming at him to take more, faster, harder.
When I rock my hips experimentally, the stretch transforms into pleasure. Deep and aching and not nearly enough.
“Move.”
He obeys. His fingers pump inside me, curling to find the spot that makes stars burst behind my eyes, his thumb working my clit in tight circles. The dual stimulation builds faster than I expected—the Bloom magnifying every stroke until I’m shaking, gasping, clinging to his shoulders as the pressure coils tighter and tighter in my core.
“That’s it.” His voice is gravel and sin against my ear. “Let go. Let me feel you come apart.”
I shatter.
The orgasm crashes through me in waves, my inner walls clamping around his fingers as I cry out his name. He works me through it, gentling his strokes as the aftershocks roll through me, pressing kisses to my throat while I remember how to breathe.
Before the trembling fully stops, I’m reaching for his waistband.
“My turn.” I manage to get my shaking fingers around the laces. “I want to feel you. All of you.”
He helps me strip him. Kicks off his trousers while I shove mine down my legs, and then we’re both bare, nothing between us but candlelight and wanting. I look at him—really look—and my breath catches.
He’s massive. Proportional to the rest of him, which means intimidating, thick, flushed dark with need. The head glistens with pre-cum, and when I wrap my hand around his length, he hisses through his teeth.
