“You don’t have to?—”
“I want to.” I stroke him slowly. Feel him pulse in my grip. “I want all of it. All of you.”
His head falls back. The tendons in his neck stand out as he fights for control, his hips twitching involuntarily into my touch. I catalog every response. Every noise. Every shudder that runs through his powerful frame when I tighten my grip or twist my wrist a certain way.
This is power. Real power. Not the kind the cult claimed to offer—power through surrender, through letting someone else make the choices. This is the power of giving pleasure. Of making this dangerous man fall apart in my hands.
“Arwen—” His voice breaks. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to?—”
“Not yet.” I release him. Push against his chest until he’s flat on his back, and then I’m straddling him again, positioning myself over his straining cock. “I want you inside me when you come.”
His hands grip my hips. Hard enough to leave bruises. “Take what you need. I’m yours.”
The words undo me more than any physical sensation could.
I sink onto him slowly. Inch by inch. The stretch is overwhelming—he’s so thick, filling me so completely that I have to pause halfway down just to breathe. The Bloom screams at me to take more, faster, but I force myself to go slow. To feel every ridge and vein as my body opens for him.
When I’m finally seated fully, his cock buried to the hilt, we both go still.
“Okay?” His voice is strained.
“Perfect.” I rock my hips experimentally. The movement makes both of us groan. “You feel so... full. I’ve never...”
“I know.” His hands flex on my hips. “Take your time. Move when you’re ready.”
I move.
The first thrust is careful. Testing. Finding the angle that makes pleasure spike rather than discomfort. But once I find it—once I discover exactly how to roll my hips to drag him against the spot that made me shatter on his fingers—careful stops mattering.
I ride him with increasing urgency. My hands brace against his chest, nails digging into the flesh around those crawling red tendrils, using the leverage to lift and drop in a rhythm that has us both panting. His hips surge up to meet me, driving deeper with every stroke, and the sound of flesh meeting flesh fills the small chamber.
“Harder.” The word rips from my throat. “I need—more?—”
He sits up without breaking rhythm. Wraps one arm around my waist, the other hand fisting in my hair, and his mouth crashes into mine. The new angle drives him impossibly deeper, and I cry out against his lips.
“Like this?” He punctuates the question with a brutal thrust.
“Yes—fuck—just like that?—”
He sets a punishing pace. Holds me in place while he drives into me from below, his cock hitting places inside me I didn’t know existed. The pleasure builds fast and sharp, the Bloom making every stroke feel like lightning, and I’m already trembling on the edge again.
“Touch yourself.” His voice is a growl against my throat. “I want to feel you come on my cock.”
My hand slides between us. Finds my clit slick and swollen. Two strokes is all it takes—his cock filling me, my fingers circling my clit, his teeth sinking into my shoulder—and I’m comingagain, harder than before, my whole body convulsing around him.
He follows me over. I feel his cock pulse inside me, feel the hot rush of his release, hear him groan my name like it’s the only word he knows. His arms wrap around me, pulling me flush against his chest, and we ride out the aftershocks in a tangle of sweat-slicked limbs and ragged breathing.
TWENTY-NINE
ARWEN
We’re sprawled on the narrow cot, my body draped across his chest, his arm wrapped around me with careful pressure that holds without constraining. The candles have burned low. The air in the storage chamber still carries the sweetness of the Bloom, but it seems fainter now. Less oppressive.
I trace the red tendrils visible beneath his skin. They haven’t stopped spreading. But as my fingers follow their paths—up his arm, across his chest, toward his heart—I notice something.
They’ve slowed.
Not stopped. The infection still pulses with every beat of his heart, still reaches for the core of him with patient, terrible purpose. But the speed of its advance has diminished. What was racing before now crawls.
