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I felt him smirk as he maintained the cruelly slow pace. “I’m trying not to hurt you,” he said, pressing kisses to my jaw, the place below my ear, my neck and my collarbone as he slowly slid into me. “Don’t rush me.”
“Five years is not rushing,” I gasped as he finally filled me to the hilt. I dug my fingers into his back as he stilled, waiting for me to adjust. He kissed me again, slow and sensual.
“No, it’s not,” he agreed, pulling out as slowly as he had entered, then pushing back in with the same gentle slowness. “How can I repay you for your patience?”
“By fucking me properly,” I moaned as he filled me again, our bodies as close as two bodies could possibly be, every inch of us touching and joined. The pleasure of the sensation of fullness, of connection, was almost too much, and I gasped again as he began to move, slowly building up speed until an ache started to build between my thighs for the third time.
“Gods,” he groaned, shifting a little so that he was holding one of my legs up as he began to pound into me, the angle bringing us somehow closer and the pleasure building and spiraling with every thrust. “Cerridwen.”
He moaned my name as release found him, and the feeling of his warmth spilling into me sent me over that edge again, as well. He buried his bristly face in my neck, kissing and nipping the skin as he gently thrusted through his release, until every last ounce of pleasure had been wrung from him.
I clasped him tightly to me, breathing in his woody, spicy scent as my heart began to slow, the thumping beat in my chest telling me what I had known for five years now.
Home. This was home.
Chapter 7
Two weeks passed, the days a blur of flying and sparring. Sometimes with Herne so he could “check up on my progress,” before we said goodnight to Carnon, and Herne took me against every surface in my bedroom.
Sometimes he took me to his room, when he knew one of us wouldn’t be able to muffle our cries of pleasure enough to keep from waking my brother. The thrill of his hand clamped over my mouth to silence my cry of release was its own kind of exquisite torture; one I craved as much as Herne’s explosive groans.
It was after one such noisy experience that I found myself lying across Herne’s chest, completely bare in the balmy night breeze, while he idly stroked the feathers of my wings between his fingers.
Now that he had given in to a desire five years in the making, the secret was out. Herne was extremely affectionate and something of a romantic. He found many opportunities to idly touch me, stroke my wings, play with my curls, and I wondered if he even knew he was doing it most of the time. He was looking at me now in the near darkness, a single candle lighting his room, studying me thoughtfully while I studied him right back.
“What?” I asked, giving him a contented, catlike smile as I stretched my back a little, rustling the feathers beneath his fingers. “You’re staring.”
“I’m thinking,” Herne corrected, his voice still a gruff growl, but somehow gentler for me than for others.
“What are you thinking about, exactly?” I asked, tracing idle circles around one of his nipples in a way I now knew both aroused and tortured him. I felt him twitch against my thigh, and he growled as he pinned my hand to his chest.
“I’m thinking,” he said, moving his other hand from my wing to my cheek and brushing the wild curls back from my face, “that tomorrow is the full moon.”
“It is?” I whispered, heart stopping as it occurred to me what this might be leading to. It had only been two weeks. Two weeks of mad, passionate lovemaking between hurried conversations and caring for Carnon.
Well, I supposed it had really been five years and two weeks. Five years of learning everything about each other before the two weeks of endless lovemaking.
Regardless, I had been ready for what he was about to suggest since the night he first took me to bed.
“It is,” he confirmed, his voice a rumble as he looked at me with clearly feigned seriousness. He twirled a curl around his finger, letting it spring back as he released it again, a smirk playing about his mouth. I loved that mouth, and that smile. I had seen him smile much more frequently in the last two weeks, and I preened a bit, knowing I was the cause of it. “And you know what is customary between bonded pairs under the full moon?”
“Hmm,” I hummed, pretending to think. “I’m not sure I do.”
He smiled, his grin going a little feral as his yellow eyes flashed in the darkness. He could see perfectly in the dark. He had told me at great length of his admiration for every inch of me in the darkness, often commenting while he was making me moan his name, his head between my legs.
He pulled me up, capturing my mouth in a kiss as he wound his hand around my neck, the other caressing my backside, then squeezing gently.
“Tomorrow night,” he said, nipping my bottom lip gently between his teeth. “Don’t forget.”
“What makes you assume I want to be there?” I teased, pressing a wet kiss to his nose.
He grimaced, his hand sliding between my legs to cup me, making me gasp. He chuckled darkly. “You want to be there Cerridwen. Don’t be late.”
???
I was a nervous ball of energy the whole next day, unsure what to do with myself. I was so distracted during aerial exercises that Altair threatened to expel me from the wing entirely if I wouldn’t focus. I lost every single match during sparring, my final opponent taking me down hard enough that the weapons master worried I may be concussed.
I busied myself with bathing and fussing over Carnon, insisting he eat dinner with me like we did every night when he was younger.
