Rhain’s patience was delighted.
He pressed a third finger in beside the first two, working me open slowly, deeply, paced exactly to the sounds I tried not to make. Every time I tried to chase the rhythm, he took it from me and made it slower, his tongue moving in long, unhurried strokes until my whole body started to shake against his mouth and hand.
“Rhain.”
“Yes.”
“This is unfair.”
His answer came against me, warm and entirely too pleased. “This is the point.”
Then he withdrew his fingers. The loss of them was enough to make me lift my head in protest, but he only looked up at me, eyes dark and bright, and licked them clean with a deliberate care that made my brain briefly evacuate the premises.
He leaned in and kissed the inside of one thigh, then the other, each touch slow and possessive. The bites grew firmer as he went, never enough to mark, only enough to warm the skin and let me know exactly what he was thinking about before he settled his shoulders under my legs and went back to work.
Both hands held my thighs open. His tongue moved over me with long, unhurried pressure first, then shifted. Every time I started to understand the rhythm, he changed it. When I moved against him, he hummed, almost satisfaction and almost laughter.
“There,” he said against me.
One slow stroke of his tongue followed the word. Then another.
He kept patient circles where I wanted more, one hand on my hip holding me down while his thumb traced the crease of my thigh in a rhythm my body could not predict. He pulled me back from the edge once, then again, and the second time, the sound that came out of mewas half laugh, half curse.
He hummed against me, pleased, and the vibration almost sent me over.
Two fingers slid into me again, curled, and found the place that pulled my back off the bed.
“Rhain.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to—”
“Not yet.”
“Rhain.”
“Patience, kjære.” The Norwegian endearment landed in my chest in a register I had no defense against. I came on the sound of it without his permission.
Rhain laughed softly against me. “Shameless.”
He worked me through the orgasm anyway, tongue and fingers still steady as the wave kept going past the place it was supposed to break. The bond rang, heat blooming as the second channel opened hot and bright beneath it.
Rhain’s hands tightened on my thighs. A sharp sound left him, uncontrolled and pleased. “Oh,” he said softly. “That works.”
He stayed there, gentling me through the aftershocks as if he had all the time in the world and intended to spend every second of it learning what else the bond could do.
When he came back up the length of my body, he took his time.
He kissed the inside of one knee, the curve of my hip, the place between my breasts, each touch slower than it needed to be and exactly as slow as he wanted it. By the time his mouth found mine, I tasted myself on him, and heat rose bright enough to make my fingers tighten against his shoulders.
He braced himself over me.
The air between us felt charged, almost physical, running so hot that every breath seemed to catch on the space where our bodies had not yet joined. He looked down at me with vertical pupils,mouth wet, mask gone entirely, and the expression on his face was not control.
It was wonder. Unpolished. Unhidden. Almost startled by itself.
His hand slid to my hip and lifted me. He held there for one suspended breath, the blunt heat of him pressing against me, slick and ready, while the bond stayed open between us and turned anticipation into its own kind of touch.
