Page 76 of Enslak

I heard the fabric tear before I'd consciously decided to rip it.

The sound was obscene. Cotton and synthetic fibers shredding under my claws like paper. The tunic split down the middle, soft material parting to reveal her pale skin beneath. I tore it away from her shoulders, from her arms. Ruined fabric falling in strips around us.

Her bra came next. Simple pale cotton, worn soft from weeks of hand-washing. I hooked one claw under the center clasp and pulled. The elastic snapped instantly. The cups fell away to expose her breasts.

She didn't complain. Didn't flinch.

Just helped me. Her small hands yanked at the waistband of my salvaged pants—the dark fabric that had been straining against my arousal since we'd started kissing. She couldn't tear them the way I'd torn her clothes, but she shoved them down my hips with desperate urgency until my cock sprang free.

Thick and hard and already leaking.

I hooked my claws into her pants next, shredding them with one swift motion. The fabric gave way like nothing, tearing down the seams and splitting apart to reveal her legs.

Her underwear—those simple cotton panties that had driven me mad at the river—lasted only a second longer before I destroyed them too.

And then she was naked beneath me.

Completely, utterly bare.

The sound of cotton tearing was something I hadn't planned. My claws caught the fabric of her tunic when she pulled me down to her, and the material gave way before I'd consciously decided anything, splitting from collar to hem in one clean motion. We both went still for a moment, the silence suddenly very loud.

"Sorry," I said, meaning it. "I didn't—"

"Don't apologize." She laughed, breathless, and reached back to shrug the ruined fabric from her shoulders. "Keep going."

So I did.

Her bra came next, but I stopped with my fingers at the clasp and looked at her. She reached back and unhooked it herself, her eyes on mine, letting it fall away. The cave was dim, the last of the evening light coming through the entrance at a low angle, and it caught the planes of her face and the curve of her shoulders and I had to make myself breathe.

"Still okay?" I asked.

"Very okay." She reached for the waistband of my pants, working the fastenings with focused urgency. "Your turn."

I helped her with the salvaged fabric until it was gone, and then we were both bare and the shock of skin against skin was something I hadn't prepared for, her warmth against my chest, the softness of her stomach against mine, and I had to hold still for a moment just to absorb it without losing myself entirely.

She was small against me. I was aware of that constantly, every point where we touched, the way my hands covered the span of her ribs entirely. I kept that awareness at the front of my mind deliberately, like a hand on a door to make sure it didn't slam shut. Not because I was afraid of her, but because I cared whether she was comfortable and I intended to stay present enough to notice if she wasn't.

"Tell me what you want," I said. My voice came out rougher than I intended. "I need you to tell me."

She looked up at me with those dark eyes, serious for just a moment, and something passed between us that wasn't words. "I want your mouth on me," she said. "Everywhere."

I learned her slowly. The curve of her throat, the soft skin at her collarbone, the weight of her breasts in my palms. She made sounds that I catalogued the way I'd once catalogued the sounds of the forest, each one meaning something specific, each one telling me whether to stay or shift or press further. When she gasped and pulled me closer, I stayed. When her breathing changed, I paid attention.

Her fingers found my hair and tightened, not gently, and the sharp sting of it grounded me in a way that was purely welcome.

I moved lower, learning the soft skin of her ribs, the dip of her waist, and I felt her whole body tense in anticipation before I'd even reached the inside of her thigh.

"Is this what you want?" I asked against her skin.

"Yes," she said immediately, her hips shifting toward me, making her answer plain enough that there was no room for misreading it. "Please, Enslak. Yes."

When my mouth found her, her whole body arched off the ground, and the sound she made went through me like a current. She tasted warm and clean, faintly sweet, and I worked her carefully at first, reading the movement of her hips and the catch of her breathing, learning what she liked before I let myself get lost in it.

"There," she breathed. "Right there. Don't stop."

I didn't stop.

She came apart with my name on her lips, her thighs tightening around me and her whole body shaking through it, and I held her through every second of it, waiting until the trembling eased before I lifted my head. She looked undone in the best possible way, her chest rising and falling hard, her hair loose across the bedding.