“You don’t understand what you’re asking for.”
“Then explain it to me. Later.” She smiled up at him. “Right now, I want you to stop protecting me from yourself. Even if it’s just for tonight. Can you do that?”
He stared down at her. At the flush on her pale cheeks, the loose fall of her dark hair, the bright brave light in her eyes.
Trust her to know what she wants.
“I want this,” she said quietly. “I want you. Not the careful version. Not the one who holds himself an arm’s length away because he’s afraid of hurting me. I want all of you, as much as I can have. I’m ready for that. Are you?”
Something broke loose in him. The fear and the self-denial and the year-long habit of retreat cracked and fell away, and what remained underneath was the simple overwhelming truth of how much he wanted her, and how much he trusted her to know her own heart.
“Yes,” he said.
And then he stopped holding back.
He lifted her, one arm sweeping beneath her so that she gasped and clutched at his shoulders, and carried her to the low bench near the fire, settling her across his lap so that she straddled his thighs and their faces came level. Her breath hitched, but she didn’t retreat. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him again, and this time when the rumble built in his chest she pressed into it like she wanted to feel it against her skin.
His hands moved over her. Slowly. Deliberately. He mapped the delicate line of her spine through the thin shift, the soft curve of her hip, the narrow span of her back. Every place he touched, he waited for the fear he knew so well. It didn’t come. She melted into him instead, boneless and trusting, more sounds spilling from her lips.
“Njkall,” she breathed against his mouth.
He kissed the line of her jaw. The soft skin below her ear, where her pulse fluttered fast and warm. She tipped her head back to give him access, her fingers tightening in his fur, and he felt her whole body shiver at the touch of his mouth on her throat.
“Is this all right?” His voice was a low rumble against her skin.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes. More.”
He gave her more, bending her back over his arm so that his mouth could travel lower, finding the small peaks of her nipples beneath the thin cloth. She arched into him, and he felt her hips move restlessly against his, seeking friction against the hard ridge of his erection.
He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath as his kotra threatened to emerge. He had promised himself he would be patient and let her set the pace. But he was still a male, with a male’s instincts and a male’s hunger, and the feel of her body grinding against him was testing the limits of his control.
“Njkall?” Her hands were in his fur again, tugging gently. “Look at me.”
He lifted his head, opened his eyes, and found her face very close to his. Her eyes were dark with desire, her lips kiss-swollen and parted.
“Don’t stop,” she said. “Don’t pull away again. I need you to keep going.”
The words cut through the last of his doubts. He kissed her again, deeper this time, his tongue sweeping into her mouth as he dragged the thin gown up over her thighs and she shifted to help him. When she was naked on his lap, he pulled back to look at her properly. He’d seen her naked many times, but he’d always forced himself to look away quickly, to keep his gaze clinical and his body calm. Now he simply let himself look. She was beautiful—pale and slight and perfect, her breasts small and high-tipped, her thighs trembling with anticipation.
“More, little one?” he asked softly.
“Yes, please.”
He gave her more. He was careful—so careful, cataloging every reaction, every breath, every sound, ready to stop the instant she needed him to. But she didn’t need him to stop. She arched into him, greedy and unafraid, her small hands exploring him just as eagerly. But when her fingers traced lower, seeking out his erection, he gently caught her wrist.
“Slowly,” he murmured. “There’s no rush. We have all the time there is.”
She looked at him, eyes dark and dazed with wanting. “You’re not pulling back?”
“No.” He pressed a kiss to her open palm, then to the inside of her wrist where he could feel her pulse racing. “I’m slowing down.” A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “I want to remember every moment of this. Don’t rob me of that by rushing to the end.”
Her answering smile was slow and warm and utterly without fear.
So they took their time. He gave her his patience, the thing he had in more abundance than any other male alive, and he spent it on her lavishly, with the slow deliberate worship of a male who had waited a year and would gladly wait a thousand more if it meant keeping her like this—warm and safe and wanting, in his arms, by his fire.
He learned the sounds she made when he kissed the tips of her breasts. The way she trembled when he traced his carefully sheathed claws down across her stomach. The soft helpless whimper when he found the sensitive spot at the apex of her thighs. And when his fingers slid through her slick heat, her backarched and her hands fisted in his fur, and he watched her face as he slowly, gently brought her to her first release.
Her eyes opened wide, startled and amazed, and he kissed her through it, swallowing her soft cries as her body clenched around his fingers. Only when she was limp and panting against him did he withdraw his hand and hold her close. He held her while her breathing slowed. Held her while she pressed her flushed face into his neck and laughed—a soft wondering breathless laugh, full of amazement and joy and something that might have been the beginning of trust in her own body again.
