CHAPTER 27 #3
He stands at the hearth until the flame has the cedar going; then he stands until the pine takes. The scent rises — clean fresh resin, the cedar at the top of the air and the pine at the bottom, the white sweet of cut wood. The room smells of cedar and pine. The room smells of healing.
He turns back to me. He crosses to the bed. He stands in front of me where I sit at the foot of the linens.
"Tell me what you want, Quinn."
"On the bed. On your back."
He inclines his head. He undresses for me — he reaches behind his neck and pulls the white shirt over his head in one motion, the buttons left fastened, and sets it on the bedside chair.
The chest, the alabaster of his sternum, the small scars I have catalogued at the inner forearm and the right hand and the right temple, the silver brand at the inside of his left forearm.
He unbuckles the belt; he pulls it free of the loops; he lays it on the chair.
He unbuttons the trousers; he pulls them down; he steps out of them. The black trunks; he pulls them down; he steps out of them. He is naked. His cock is half-hard against his thigh; he moves at his own slow pace.
He lies down on his back on the white linens. He puts his hands at his sides — open, palms up, the offer.
I stand at the foot of the bed. I take the straps of the slip in my hands.
I lift the slip over my head. I set it on the chair beside his shirt.
I take off the panties; I set them on top.
I am bare for him. The freckle at the corner of my jaw; the surgical line at my right hip; the chemical burn at my left wrist; the hairline at my right brow; the small breasts; the pale skin; the chestnut at the collarbone.
He holds still; he watches me; the pale gray eyes stay gray, level, the predator off-duty, the man on the bed.
I climb up between his ankles. I crawl up the bed on my hands and knees, slow. I stop at his hips. I lower my mouth to him.
I take him in my mouth slowly. I have done this once before in this house, the first night in this bed, the night I told him what I wanted and he did it.
Tonight I do it differently. Tonight I take my time.
I work him with my tongue along the underside; I close my mouth around the head; I take him deep; I pull back; I do it again.
He breathes once — a long careful breath through the nose.
His left hand finds my hair at the nape; he rests his palm there, open. I keep going. His cock thickens against my tongue; the taste of him is the clean salt of his skin; the cedar and pine in the air; his palm at my nape warm now. He says, low, "Quinn."
I release him before he finishes. He breathes out. I slide up his body — my breasts dragging up his sternum; my mouth at the brand at the inside of his left forearm for one count of two as I pass over it; my mouth at the small hollow at the base of his throat; my mouth on his.
I rise. I sit upright on him. I reach down between us.
I take him in my right hand. I guide him to me.
I lower myself onto him slow — the stretch is a long warm pressure; he is full inside me at a careful pace; I take all of him; I stop at full depth.
He exhales. His hands come to my hipbones, careful, palms light on the bone, the careful contact of a man who has been told what he is doing tonight.
I begin to ride him at my own pace. The pace is slow.
The wood fire in the hearth across the room is throwing slow orange against the white linens; my shadow on the wall behind the headboard is slow; his face under me is slow.
I lean forward; I put my hands on his sternum; I rock my hips against his; the friction is a long careful warmth.
He keeps his hands at my hipbones; he holds the weight there; he lets me move.
I take a long time. The fire pops once. The cedar climbs.
I rock. I lift. I lower. I feel the warmth gathering at my pelvis and holding low — the slow build, the patient build, the build that comes when nothing is being chased.
He watches my face. He holds my gaze. The pale gray eyes hold the firelight.
It builds. I hold the pace I have set. At 22:15 the warmth lifts to a sharp clean wave that goes through me in long pulses — a long slow opening at the pelvis and behind my eyes that rolls for a count of fifteen and then settles.
I make a small sound at my throat; it lands shy of a word.
He holds still under me. He waits for me to come back.
I lift off him. His cock is hard and wet against his belly.
I slide down the bed; I lower my mouth to him again.
I work him a second time — slower this time, the patient revisit, the teaching that the body can be slow.
He breathes through it. His left hand at my hair again.
I work him until he is at the edge; I release him before he finishes; I rise back up his body.
I take him inside me a second time. I sink onto him; I find my pace again; I rock.
The slow climb begins again under me. His hands at my hipbones.
The fire at the hearth. The cedar and pine in the air.
I rock. I climb. I am close. He breathes harder under me — a quiet, careful, growing breath.
I rock. I look at his face; he is close; his pupils have stayed gray but the line of his mouth has gone soft. I rock. He says, low, "Quinn."
"Now," I say.
He finishes inside me at 22:48. The pulse of him at the base of me is warm and clean; his hips stay flush with mine; his hands stay at my hipbones; he lets it happen.
I stay seated on him through it. He breathes out once.
He lifts his arms; he holds them open. I lower myself onto his chest. My face goes to the small hollow at the base of his throat. He wraps me in his arms. He is silent.
I lie on him for a long count. He strokes the back of my head with the flat of his palm — once, slow; then again, slower. The fire pops. The cedar and pine. His sternum under my cheek warm. Twelve minutes pass. Maybe fifteen. He holds me there.
"I owe you a question," I say into his sternum. "From the library. The first morning."
"Tell me," he says.
"I am paying it back."
"Ask."
I lift my head. I prop my chin on the back of my hand on his sternum. I look at him.
"Tell me what you would have done with this empire if you had never met me."
He looks at the ceiling for a count of two breaths. Then he looks at me. The pale gray eyes are level.
"Kept the seat. Killed Konstantin twenty years ago in cold blood. Lived."
"And now?"
"Now I will live with you. The rest will follow."
I lower my head back to his sternum. I close my eyes for a count. He goes back to stroking the back of my head with the flat of his palm.
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He turns me onto my back at eleven-thirty.
He kisses me up the body from the hipbone to the sternum to the freckle at the corner of my jaw.
He works his way back down — the slow careful kisses I have not let him give me at this pace before, the kisses at the rib and the hipbone and the inside of the thigh.
He goes down on me at midnight. He takes his time.