Chapter 16 Sable
Sable
I'm going to make you forget your own name.
The words curled through me like smoke, settling low in my belly where heat was already pooling. Harkan's breath was warm against my ear, his hand burning at the small of my back, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so completely, devastatingly wanted.
Maybe never.
He eased back, giving me space to settle into the bath. The water was perfect—hot enough to loosen the tension in my muscles, to soak away the ash and blood and fear. I leaned against the edge of the tub, keeping my bandaged shoulder above the waterline, and watched him through half-lidded eyes.
He was still shirtless. Still scarred. Still looking at me like I was something precious instead of something broken.
"You're staring again," I murmured.
"I told you." He found a cloth and soap, kneeling beside the tub like a supplicant at an altar. "I'm memorizing."
The first touch of the cloth against my face made me shiver. He was gentle—so unbearably gentle—wiping away the grime and soot with slow, careful strokes. Down my neck. Across my collarbone. Along the curve of my good shoulder, his knuckles brushing bare skin.
No one had ever touched me like this. Like I was worth taking time over. Like cleaning the dirt from my skin was an act of devotion instead of a chore.
"Harkan." My voice came out rougher than I intended.
"I'm here."
"I know." I caught his wrist, stopping his careful ministrations. "That's the problem."
His brow furrowed. "Problem?"
"I don't want you to take care of me." I pulled his hand beneath the water, pressing his palm flat against my stomach. His fingers flexed against my skin, and I felt the tremor that ran through him. "I want you to touch me."
For a long moment, he didn't move. Didn't breathe. Just looked at me with those amber eyes that saw too much and asked too little.
Then his hand slid lower.
"Here?" His voice was gravel and smoke, his fingers tracing the curve of my hip beneath the water.
My breath hitched. "Yes."
Lower still, his thumb brushing the edge of my sex. "Here?"
"Yes."
He leaned closer, his mouth a whisper away from mine. "Ask me, Sable. Ask me for anything, and I'll give it to you. Anything. Everything. Whatever you want is yours."
The words unlocked something in my chest. Not desire—that had been building since the first time he'd pulled me onto his lap in my shop, all teeth and desperation and survival. This was something else. Something deeper.
Choice.
For more years than I cared to count, I hadn't been allowed to want. Wanting was dangerous. Wanting was weakness. Wanting was the leash they used to drag you back when you tried to run.
But Harkan wasn't asking me to submit. He wasn't demanding or taking or assuming.
He was waiting. Waiting for me to choose. Waiting for me to want.
And gods help me, I wanted.
"I want you," I breathed. "All of you. I want to feel something that isn't pain or fear or survival. I want—" My voice cracked. "I want to know what it feels like to be wanted back."
Something fierce and tender blazed in his eyes. His hand came up to cup my face, water dripping down my cheek like tears I refused to shed.
"You are wanted," he said, low and certain. "You are so fucking wanted it's tearing me apart."
Then his mouth found mine, and I stopped thinking altogether.
This kiss was different from the others. Slower. Deeper. Like he was trying to pour everything he felt into the press of his lips against mine. His tongue swept against the seam of my mouth, and I opened for him, letting him in, letting him taste and take and claim.
His hand slid into my hair, tilting my head back, angling my mouth to his. The other hand was still beneath the water, fingers tracing maddening patterns on my hip, my thigh, everywhere except where I needed him most.
"Harkan." His name was a plea. "Please."
"Not yet." He kissed down my jaw, my neck, his teeth scraping against my pulse point. "Not here. I want you in my bed when I make you fall apart."
Before I could respond, he was lifting me—one arm under my thighs, the other supporting my back, careful of my wounded shoulder. Water cascaded off my body as he carried me out of the bath, and I should have felt exposed, vulnerable, cold.
Instead, I felt cherished.
He set me on my feet just long enough to wrap me in a towel, patting me dry with the same maddening gentleness he'd used to wash me. When he reached my bandaged shoulder, he pressed a kiss to the edge of the wrapping.
"Does it hurt?"
"I don't care."
"I do." His eyes met mine, fierce and soft all at once. "I care about everything that hurts you. Every wound. Every scar. Every fucking nightmare that makes you flinch when someone reaches for you."
My throat tightened. "I don't flinch when you reach for me."
"No." A smile ghosted across his mouth. "You don't. Not anymore."
He led me to the bed—his bed, with its dark sheets and his scent woven into every thread—and laid me down like I was something fragile. Like I might shatter if he moved too fast.
But I didn't want fragile. I didn't want careful. I wanted to burn.
"Harkan." I reached for him, fisting my good hand in the waistband of his trousers. "Stop treating me like I'm made of glass."
His pupils dilated, the amber of his eyes bleeding into something darker. "You're injured."
"I'm alive." I pulled him down, and he caught himself on his forearms, caging me in with his body. "I want to feel alive. Make me feel alive."
Something snapped in his expression. The careful restraint, the gentle control—it crumbled like dying embers, and what was left behind was raw and hungry and mine.
His mouth crashed into mine, and this time there was nothing gentle about it.
Teeth and tongue and desperate sounds that I wasn't sure came from him or me.
His weight pressed me into the mattress, and I arched up to meet him, my legs wrapping around his waist, my hips grinding against the hard length of him still trapped behind fabric.
"Off," I gasped against his mouth, yanking at his waistband. "Take them off."
He reared back just long enough to strip away the last of his clothing, and then he was bare and beautiful and hovering over me, his chest heaving, his eyes blazing.
I let my gaze travel down his body. The broad shoulders. The scarred chest. The ridges of muscle along his stomach, and lower—gods, lower—where his cock stood thick and hard and weeping at the tip.
He was... substantial. The kind of substantial that made my thighs clench and my mouth water in equal measure.
Gods, I wanted to taste him on my tongue.
I reached for him, but he caught my wrist, bringing my fingers to his mouth and pressing a kiss to my knuckles.
"Later," he promised, his voice dark with intent. "Right now, I need to make sure you're ready for me."
Before I could ask what he meant, he was dropping to his knees, his hands gripping my thighs and pulling me toward him until my ass was at the edge of the mattress and my legs were draped over his shoulders.
His breath cascaded over my bare flesh, hot and wanting. I should have felt exposed. Vulnerable. All those scars on display, all that damage laid bare.
But the way he looked at me—like I was a fucking revelation, like he'd never seen anything more beautiful in his entire immortal life—made me feel like a goddess.
"Mine," he breathed, and the word settled into my bones like a brand.
Then his mouth was on me, and every thought I’d ever had fell from my brain.
I sucked in a breath as his tongue parted my folds, lashing my clit with a wet heat that made my back bow off the bed. Fire pricked at my skin, racing over my flesh like I was being consumed in the embers of my pleasure and there would be nothing left when he was done.
I couldn’t manage to make myself care. No, there was only this, only him, and if there were only ashes left when he was done, then so be it.
He sucked that bundle of nerves into his mouth as his fingers found my opening, and what I’d only thought was heat before turned into so much more.
Moans tumbled from my lips as he stretched me, first with one finger, then two, then three, the world spinning as I fought to catch my breath.
"Gods, little witch, you’re so fucking tight," he growled against my flesh, the vibrations of his voice making my skin pebble in the best way.
My hand found his hair, yanking him closer, needing more, and Harkan was all too happy to oblige. He curled his fingers, hitting the sweetest spot inside of me, and I was gone, done, falling into oblivion as pleasure flooded every cell of my body.
I was still shaking when he rose over me, his mouth glistening, his eyes molten amber.
"That's one," he murmured, crawling up my body, pressing kisses to my hip, my ribs, the swell of my breasts as he hauled me up the bed with him. "I’m aiming for at least three."
My eyes widened. "I can't—"
"Oh, you can, little witch." He settled between my thighs, the thick head of his cock nudging against my entrance. Even with his fingers stretching me, even slick with my own release, I could feel how much of him there was. "You will. But we'll take it slow."
Slow. The word was a promise and a threat.
He pushed forward—just the tip—and my breath stuttered. The stretch was exquisite, hovering on the edge of too much. Oh, gods, I didn’t know if I could take him, but damn if I’d stop now.
"Breathe," he murmured against my temple. "That's it. Let me in."
I forced my muscles to relax, my legs to fall wider, my body to open for him inch by devastating inch. He fed himself into me with agonizing patience, pausing every time my breath hitched, giving me time to adjust before pressing deeper.
"Harkan." His name was a broken plea as my hips bucked with impatience. "Please."
"Please what?" Another inch. Another wave of fullness that made my toes curl. "Tell me what you need."