Chapter Twenty-Two
This man was going to be the death of her sanity.
Seraphina rolled onto her back and let her legs fall open. She gripped his wrist and attempted to push his hand to her chest, but he twisted his wrist free and pulled away, leaving her whimpering at the loss.
“No,” he said. “Tell me.”
“I’ll guide you. Why won’t you let me–”
“If we do this, promise me you won’t touch me.”
His request was torturous. She felt her neck and cheeks heat up with embarrassment at the thought that she would have to do as he said and guide him verbally.
She wasn’t even sure she could express her desires out loud, if she knew the words or could bring herself to say them.
And she wanted to touch him in return. So badly.
Rune was pressed to her side, his hard cock resting on her hip, yet he was unreachable. Forbidden.
“All right,” she breathed. “Where do you want my hands?”
“Can you tuck them under the pillow?”
Seraphina nodded, raised her arms and slipped her hands under the pillow, her fingers fisting the feather stuffing. The position pushed her chest up and opened her to him, but until she spoke, he didn’t do anything, simply stared at her.
“It’s too warm, pull off the blanket.”
He did so, and she was left in her cotton shift, which had ridden up her thighs.
“Can you...” She blushed violently. “Would you like to undress me?”
He let out a low groan. “No. It would be too much.”
That did something to her. There was disappointment that he didn’t want to see her naked body, but the revelation that he refused because it was “too much” aroused her further.
“Could you touch my neck?”
Rune’s trembling palm made contact with her skin.
He wrapped his fingers around her neck lightly, and Seraphina felt a current run through her.
It started in her toes, ran up her legs, and stopped in her chest, where it enveloped her heart and squeezed it painfully.
She didn’t know how to interpret what she was feeling.
It was a spike of nervousness, maybe even fear, but it didn’t dampen her arousal.
She was stimulated and petrified, because his hand on her throat reminded her of how. ..
She gasped, her body tensing up, and she was ready to ask him to remove his hand, but then he started rubbing circles over her pulse point, and the excitement won.
What did she expect? That this would be easy? That it wouldn’t bring up memories she’d tried to bury with little success?
This was Rune. He was doing what she asked for and nothing more. If she told him to stop, he would.
“Can you...” She swallowed heavily. “Will you squeeze? Gently, though.”
This was to test her reaction. When they’d held her down, they’d choked her, pushed her head into the mud.
Rune’s fingers applied pressure on the sides of her throat, not her windpipe, and she was shocked to notice how her flesh buzzed for more.
Her back arched slightly, and she let out a needy sob.
Contradicting feelings still battled inside her, but she was ready to explore further, push herself if she had to, because this was Rune.
This was Rune, she kept repeating to herself. He was safe and would never hurt her.
“Lower,” she said. “Can you touch me lower?”
“Here?” he asked, his hand moving down to her clavicle.
“Lower. Touch my breasts.”
He stayed a few more seconds where he was, the heat of his palm seeping into her skin.
Even through the cotton, she could feel the raised scars and stitches.
He moved, at last, and cupped her right breast, which fit into his hand perfectly.
Her nipple poked him, seeking attention, but he ignored it or didn’t know what to do with it.
Her fingers twitched under the pillow. What wouldn’t she have given to place her hand over his and show him how to knead.
Maybe she could show him without touching him.
“Is it all right if I use my hand on the other breast?” she asked. “So you can see...”
He nodded, unable to speak, and she perceived the subtle gesture through the relic. She moved her left hand to her left breast and gripped it firmly, squeezing and rolling, her thumb and forefinger pinching the nipple.
“Like this,” she breathed.
Rune mimicked her movements clumsily, but it didn’t matter, because his hand was so big and heavy that the effect was immediate. Seraphina’s pussy clenched and gushed, and she couldn’t hold back a moan.
“Do you want to do it with both hands?” she asked, tucking her left hand back under the pillow. “Please...”
He shifted in bed, sitting up, and placed both hands on her breasts, kneading gently and pinching her nipples through the cotton, rolling and pulling at them until she started shivering.
She bit her lips, moaned and gasped, encouraged him by arching her back and breathing heavily.
He did that for a few minutes before she felt like she couldn’t take it anymore.
The spasms between her legs were starting to edge on pain.
“That’s... That’s good. But I can’t... You have to...”
“Tell me what you need.”
“Oh, God, Rune...” A sob escaped her.
He stilled. “Are you in pain?”
“No... Yes...”
“If you want me to stop...”
“No, please. Don’t stop, or I will... God... I will make you regret it.”
He chuckled at that, and she scowled at him. How could he do these things to her and keep his composure? She knew he was hard. Was he not suffering like she was?
“Tell me,” he said.
“Lower. Touch me lower.”
His hands traveled to her stomach.
“Lower, lower... mmm... You’re torturing me.”
He froze again. “I would never...”
He sounded like Matteo had sounded when she’d asked him to kiss her neck. Would Rune kiss her if she asked?
“It’s not a bad kind of torture,” she reassured him. “I rather like it, but it’s becoming unbearable. In a good way. Also, in a bad way.”
“I don’t understand.”
She could sense his frown.
Seraphina let out an exasperated sigh, accepting that she had to spell it out to him.
“Touch me between my legs, Rune. Not through the chemise. Push it up, roll it around my hips, and just... just use your fingers there.”
“I... I don’t think I can...”
She groaned.
“I don’t think I can look,” he explained.
“But I’m letting you look. I’m asking you to look.”
Something akin to a growl escaped his lips, and she felt his hands shake on her stomach, his fingers curling into her chemise.
“Now you’re torturing me,” he said.
“You’re torturing yourself,” she sighed. “I could touch you in return, if you let me.”
“No.”
That obsessive, stubborn refusal again. This man was going to be the death of her sanity.
“I will...” Finally, mercifully, his hands shifted lower. “I will try.”
He bunched up the cotton in his fists and slipped it up carefully, higher and higher, until Seraphina could feel herself exposed.
The fire had died in the night, and the air in the room was chilly.
She was hot all over, burning as if with a fever, and when the cold air caressed her soaked lips, she quivered.
Goosebumps peppered her skin, and Rune noticed, because his hands hurried to brush over her legs, traveling the length of them, up and down, until the prickles subsided.
Seraphina gasped and let him. She needed him somewhere else, but any part of her body he touched made her feel like she was about to be separated from her material form.
Those hands could do no wrong. They stopped on her thighs, his thumbs pressing on either side of her core.
He was so close, yet so far, and much too slow.
She bent her knees and rubbed her left leg against his side.
“Why don’t you move between my legs?” she suggested. “It will be easier.”
She fully expected him to say no again. To her relief, he didn’t.
He positioned himself between her knees and looked down at her.
If he’d been tense before, now he was paralyzed.
A light tremor took over his fingers again, and it wasn’t half unpleasant given how close to her pussy they were.
He stayed like that for a few long minutes, driving Seraphina insane with lust. He wasn’t going to move anytime soon, was he?
She could feel that bundle of nerves at the apex of her folds throb rhythmically, as if her very heart was beating underneath it.
What an appropriate way to describe it. She was educated, she’d read medical texts, so she knew it was called a clitoris, but she couldn’t think about it in such a clinical term.
Like an apex relic that held immeasurable, sacred power, that tiny button at the apex of her intimate parts was the most formidable bit of anatomy that could render a woman hopeless.
“What if I showed you?” she whispered, her hands already moving down her body.
“All right.”
“I won’t touch you. I’ll only touch myself.”
He sat back on his heels, his hands slipping to her knees to give her space. His fingers dug and curled into the back of her knees, and Seraphina thought he was holding her open. He probably didn’t realize what he was doing.
With two fingers, she spread her folds, lifting them slightly to expose her entrance. She heard him inhale deeply, and she knew he could smell her. She placed the index of her other hand on her bundle of nerves and started rubbing gently. Her back arched involuntarily, and her toes curled.
“Like this,” she whispered. “Right here, where I’m applying pressure. See?”
“I see...” His voice was that of a lost man.
“And you can...” She moved her other hand to her entrance and slipped her middle finger inside. She was so wet that her muscles didn’t fight the intrusion. “If you want to... You can do this.”
She heard his lips smacking, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t.
For a minute, she continued to finger herself slowly and roll her nub in time with it, and if she wanted, she could push herself over the edge, but this time, she wasn’t alone, he was here, and she needed his hands to do it.