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He gathered her up into his arms, rubbing his face against the side of hers. Even there, her skin felt overly delicate, but it only accentuated the intimacy of his touch. She reached up and stroked his cheek with a shaking hand, then turned to seek his kiss.
At every point where she anticipated rejection, Isael was waiting to assuage her doubts and respond to her as she believed a true lover would. He returned her kiss in earnest, turning her chin so that he could gain deeper access to her mouth. With tender pressure he guided her downward, until her head came to rest on the pillow. His lips remained on her, but his hands came away, moving down to finish the job of disrobing himself.
He'd removed her clothes at a leisurely pace, as if they had all night to get down to the business of making a child. But there was nothing unhurried in the way he stripped free of his own robes. He cast them off as if they were burning him, his breath hitching as he settled his naked body atop hers.
He was sweating. The dampness of his skin surprised her, but she couldn't dwell on it when she could finally feel his stiff, male organ pressed against her thigh. The size of it unsettled her. Fresh in her memory was the feel of his finger inside of her, how it had filled her up so perfectly. She couldn't imagine how his swollen manhood could fit in that same, snug space, but even through her trepidation she felt an eagerness to feel him try.
Pressed to her as he was, she could feel his heart pounding, beating far harder and faster than her own. He muttered her name against her lips, and it sounded an awful lot like the plea she'd made to him. Could his need for her be as strong as hers had been for him?
Tentatively, she arched her hips against him, an unspoken invitation. Isael's hand came down on her hip, pressing down hard as if in censure.
"Not like this," he said, the words sounding strained.
Before she could question him, Isael withdrew. Cera let out an involuntary whimper. Perhaps it was the sudden rush of cold as his heat left her, but it was just as likely that she already missed the satisfying contact of his skin against hers.
She had only a second to take in his broad silhouette as he loomed over her, and then he took her by the arm and rolled her onto her belly. She was unsure what his intentions were until he took hold of her hips, lifting her up onto her knees. Understanding dawned on her and she felt rather foolish. Of course this would be the way of it, as a stallion mounted a mare in the stables. She wasn't sure why she thought it would be any different.
Apprehension and anticipation mingled together in her mind and body as she waited for him to join himself with her. For all the alacrity with which he'd stripped and gotten her onto her knees, Isael seemed once again to be interested in drawing things out. He ran his fingers through her hair, stroked her back, and squeezed her hips, until that damnable ache began to grow in her once more.
In her mind, she heard Sidryne's warning from earlier in the day and a lifetime ago. 'If he believes you do not focus, he will do unproductive things.'
She heard Maewyn's echo of agreement, and her blood was once more simmering. She tried to remind herself of her determination not to succumb to jealousy, particularly of women that the high lord had already cast from his bed. Still, the thought of the two of them, of any other woman in the position that she was, made her feel irrationally irate.
How many women had passed through his bed? When he touched her, when he looked down at her, did he see her as just another passing female? He'd given her secrets, spoken of a desire to one day marry her, but what were those things against the wear of time? How long until the novelty of her became dull and tarnished, and he sought out a new bedmate?
Just as before, she felt like there was something moving beneath her skin. Except now it didn't feel magical and wondrous. It felt hard and demanding, hot and volatile. She had to dig her nails into the blankets to keep from reaching out to him, to keep from giving into the urge to scratch at him, to make a mark on him. The longer he delayed in claiming her, the more the urge grew. It became less frightening and felt more sensible, more right and necessary.
"I need you inside of me."
There was nothing coquettish about the request. It wasn't even a request. It was delivered with a gruffness she hadn't known she was capable of. In that moment, she wasn't the Ateran ingenue, the wide-eyed little human concubine he'd so generously decided to keep for himself. She wasn't sure what she was anymore, all she knew was that he'd made her. She was his, but more and more, she was beginning to feel that he was hers.
Isael took a handful of her hair and gripped it tightly, wrapping it around his wrist until he was using it to keep her pinned in place. Just as when he had bitten at her nipple, there was nothing genial about the way he handled her. But now there was no fear, only a rush of exhilaration as she felt him position himself to enter her.
She was so wet and ready to have him inside of her. The broad tip of his manhood easily found its place at her warm entrance, and again she wiggled her hips in invitation. Her movement elicited a hiss from Isael, his hot breath clinging to the back of her damp neck.
He entered her without preamble, claiming her with a single, swift thrust of his hips. Cera gasped at the slice of pain that accompanied his invasion, but the burning heat did little to dampen her need. He attempted to go still inside of her, but she rejected his efforts, moving her hips against him as much as she could within his tight hold.
Isael said something decidedly profane, his voice more a growl than anything resembling his usual cool, flowing dictation. With his free hand he seized her hip, not to stop her, but to help her keep pace as he began to withdraw and then thrust back into her.
Strange sounds burgeoned forth from deep within her, and Cera couldn't be bothered to feel ashamed as she let them out. Isael had his own sounds, equally foreign and animalistic, and it almost sounded as if he were responding to her in a language that they were creating.
The thing beneath her skin reveled in everything Isael did to her. The grunts, the groans, the harsh whispers, the way he took her with increasing fervor until she felt as if he might break her. The feeling that built within her transcended pleasure. It was something elemental, growing within her. When it finally crested, it made her earlier peak seem infinitesimal by comparison.
She was aware of crying out, of hearing Isael answer with a cry of his own, and then everything was gone for a moment and all she felt was her own body and the bliss that crashed over it in waves.
When the feeling began to ebb, she found herself wrapped tightly in Isael's arms, her legs pinned by his much heavier ones. Her head rested in the crook of his neck, and his head was turned so that his face was buried in her hair. They were both breathing heavily, both drenched with sweat. She was shaking, and she thought he was, too.
A long silence stretched between them, filled only by the sounds of their breaths. She felt wholly at ease with no need to say anything, but she was glad when he finally spoke.
"You know that you're mine."
They weren't sweet words. Laced within them was something dark and threatening. Not a threat against her, at least she hoped not. It was a threat against anyone or anything that sought to come between them. She recognized it, because she felt the same way, but she was too back in her own senses to say it so directly.
Instead she said, "I've always been yours."
"And you always will be."
His declaration held the sound of truth, but she knew that truths could be inconstant.
