Chapter 11 — Rhiannon
Isense the question in his hesitation, and I answer him the only way I know how.
My fingers close around the string and pull. It slides free with a whisper of fabric, and I drag the tunic over my head, letting it drop to the floor. The thin linen undershirt beneath clings to my skin, hiding nothing. There’s no binding underneath. No barrier.
Ethan’s breath catches. Audibly. His pupils dilate and his jade irises are swallowed by black. The naked hunger in his expression sends heat pooling low in my belly.
I brace for him to grab, to take. Every Lycan I’ve known has operated on this instinct of dominance, of mine.
He doesn’t, though.
He lifts one finger and traces a line from the hollow of my collarbone down my sternum, barely touching me. His eyes glide over the goosebumps that rise in the wake of his fingertip. He’s tracking every response like he’s studying me.
I’m not sure how to respond.
His mouth replaces his finger. I feel his warm lips press against my collarbone, drift up my throat, and find the soft skin just below my ear. My head falls back. My hands grip his shoulders and I hold onto the coiled force beneath his skin, every muscle locked tight with the effort of restraint.
I pull my undershirt off.
Ethan looks at me. Not my body. Me. His expression overflows with emotion, raw want layered with reverence. My chest constricts in a way that has nothing to do with desire.
“God, Rhiannon.” His voice roughens. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
No, not beautiful. Beautiful is a word for court dresses and sunsets and things that sit still to be admired. I am none of that.
But the way he says it makes me believe he means a different kind of beautiful, closer to awe-inspiring.
I don’t let myself stay in that feeling. Feeling is a trap I know how to avoid.
I press my palm flat against his chest and walk him backward. One step. Two. His eyes never leave mine, and he doesn’t resist, but just matches my pace with that infuriating almost-smile pulling at his mouth. Like he knows exactly what I’m doing. Like he’s choosing to let me do it.
The backs of his knees hit the bed. He sits.
And then he’s looking up at me.
I stand over him, half-naked — every scar and hard line of muscle on display — and this human tips his chin up with an expression that holds zero fear. I could snap his neck with one hand. One move and I could tear his throat out before he draws another breath. He knows this. He’s seen what I am.
Yet, he looks at me like I’m the only thing in the world worth seeing.
I straddle his lap, knees sinking into the mattress on either side of his hips, and the moment my center presses against the hard length of him through what remains of our clothes, every tactical thought in my head dissolves.
We both exhale at the same time, a sharp, twin release of breath, and I roll my hips before I can think about it.
Ethan groans. Low and rough, the sound vibrating from his chest into mine, and the sensation rockets straight through my core.
His palms skim the plane of my stomach, tracing the ridges of muscle there with a reverence that makes the hardened space behind my sternum split.
When he finally cups my breasts, the warmth of his palms against my bare skin draws a shudder through my body.
His fingers knead gently at first, learning the weight of them, the shape, and I watch his jade-green eyes darken as he takes in every reaction that flickers across my face.
Then his thumbs sweep across both nipples with a devastating precision that no human should possess, circling the hardened peaks in slow, deliberate strokes that steal my breath and stutter the rhythm of my hips against him.
His mouth replaces his thumb, his tongue circling one peaked nipple before he suckles it, gently at first, testing.
I gasp and grind against him harder, and he responds by suckling with an intensity that makes my vision blur.
My fingers twist into his hair, holding him exactly where he is.
Somewhere beneath the roar of sensation, my wolf stirs. She’s not growling or clawing for control. She’s just... there, focused on Ethan with a singular, burning attention that has nothing to do with assessment and everything to do with recognition.
I file that away, burying it deep.
His lips move to my other breast, and his tongue does something wicked that makes my back arch and a moan slip past my defenses before I can cage it.
His fingers trickle down my ribs, counting each one like he’s mapping terrain.
Every touch is deliberate, as if he wants to store each connection in that eidetic memory of his.
The thought that Ethan Langley will remember exactly how I sound, how I move, how my skin responds to his hands long after this moment ends threatens the walls I’ve spent years building.
I pull his mouth back to mine, kissing him hard enough to leave a bruise. He matches my intensity without flinching, one hand sliding to the small of my back to press me tighter against him while the other traces the waistband of my pants with maddening patience.
“Stop thinking so much.” His lips move against mine.
I bite his lower lip. “Stop reading me.”
A breathless laugh. “Can’t. You’re the most interesting thing I’ve ever studied.”
Studied. Like I’m a puzzle he intends to solve once he’s gathered all the pieces. His voice against my lips, with his hands on my bare skin and his cock straining against me through layers of fabric, makes the last thread of my restraint fray.
I reach between us and find the lacing of his trousers. My fingers work the cord with the same efficiency I use on armor straps, and Ethan sucks in a breath when I tug the fabric loose and slide my hand inside.
He’s hard. Hot. The silk-over-steel length of him against my palm sends a rush of heat between my thighs as I wrap my fingers around his cock and stroke.
Ethan’s hips begin to jerk. His forehead drops to my shoulder, and his breath is hot and ragged against my skin, each exhale a damp bloom of heat that makes my nipples harden.
I stroke him again, my hand firm, purposeful.
I twist my wrist at the top the way instinct dictates, and satisfaction floods through me when he shudders.
His hands clamp down on my hips, his fingers digging into my muscle, and he whispers a quiet “fuck” into my neck that I absorb more than hear.
Good. I want him undone. I want to be the one that takes him apart.
But Ethan recovers faster than I expected. His hand slides down my stomach, fingers dipping beneath the waistband of my pants, and when he finds how wet I am, my teeth sink into my lower lip hard enough to taste copper.
He doesn’t rush. Of course he doesn’t. He explores with two fingers, parting my folds with a gentle deliberation that borders on cruel, circling my clit with slow, teasing pressure.
He’s adjusting, learning what makes my breath falter, what makes my thighs squeeze against his hips, filing it all away in that damnably perfect memory.
I don’t beg. I have never begged for anything in my life — and I won’t start now.
But my body betrays me. My hips rock against his hand, chasing the pressure of his fingers.
My grip tightens on his cock, matching the rhythm he sets stroking my clit.
And the sounds that slip out of me — soft, broken things I don’t recognize as my own voice — fill the space between us like confessions I never authorized.
“I want you,” I say.
We separate, just long enough to finish undressing. It’s a matter of necessity rather than choice.
I roll off his lap and yank at my boot laces, cursing when one tangles into a knot.
Ethan shoves his trousers down and gets caught in one leg, nearly pitching himself sideways off the bed.
I laugh. He grins, breathless and flushed, his hair a wreck.
The graceless reality of this — the stumbling and kicking and muttered swearing — makes it more genuine.
I push him backward with both of my palms held flat against his chest. He falls onto the mattress without resistance, looking up at me with those jade eyes darkened with want.
I swing my leg over his lap and straddle him again.
Bare skin against bare skin, there’s nothing between us now, and the slick heat of my center pressing against his length pulls a shaking breath from both of us.
I reach down, wrap my fingers around his cock, and position him at my entrance.
The blunt heat of his tip slides through my slick folds, and my thighs tighten on instinct. Every nerve ending fires at once. I savor the feeling and do it again, slower, coating him. The friction makes my breath stall in my chest. Ethan’s jaw locks tight. His hands grip my hips.
I sink down on him slowly.
The feeling steals every thought from my head.
Inch by inch, he fills me. The pressure, the fullness of him, borders on overwhelming.
We both go still for a moment. Ethan’s hands grip my thighs, his fingers pressing hard into my skin, and I watch his jaw clenching, his throat working as he swallows.
His chest rises and falls beneath my palms in sharp, barely controlled breaths.
“Fuck,” he whispers.
I roll my hips experimentally. Just testing.
The sound he makes — low and rough, pulled from somewhere deep in his chest — sends a jolt of arousal through me so intense it almost hurts.
I move again, slowly at first, lifting and sinking in a rhythm that glides him against the spot inside me that makes my vision blur around the edges. My thighs begin to burn, but I don’t care.
The whole time, Ethan watches me.
He’s not trying to size me up or figure out how to flip me beneath him, as a Lycan man would.
He’s gazing at me with that devastatingly quiet focus he gives to everything.
Those green eyes track every shift in my expression, every catch in my breath, every involuntary gripping of my fingers against his skin.
When I grind forward on a downstroke and my lips part, he adjusts the angle of his hips to meet me.
I gasp. He does it again. Deliberately. Because he noticed what it does to me.
I’ve had sex. I’ve had good sex. But I’ve never had someone learn me like this, like my pleasure is a language he’s determined to become fluent in.
The pace builds. I ride him harder, chasing the tightening knot low in my belly, and Ethan sits up. His cock goes deeper, hitting the back of my walls with a force that punches the air from my lungs and wrenches a cry from my throat.
His arm loops around my waist, pulling me flush against him, chest to chest, and the angle allows my clit to press against his pelvis with every thrust. My forehead drops against his. Our breath mingles, both our eyes half-closed.
“Rhiannon,” he groans.
Just my name. Not Commander. Not any title. Just me, spoken like it matters.
The pressure inside me builds past the point of bearing.
I dig my fingers into his back and come apart.
My orgasm is fast and total, a rushing wave that releases a raw, ragged cry from my throat before I can swallow it. My inner walls grip him in rhythmic pulses, my thighs locking tight against his hips, my body shaking with a force I can’t fight or hide or control.
Ethan holds me through it. His arm wraps tighter around my waist, his hand pressed between my shoulder blades, keeping me anchored to his chest while he keeps moving.
His slow, deep thrusts drag against every over-sensitized nerve and coax my orgasm into a rolling aftershock, drawing a second broken sound from me that takes me by surprise.
My nails rake down his back.
Ethan’s rhythm fractures then. His hips stutter once, then twice.
He’s driving himself deeper inside me, and then he groans into the curve of my neck.
The sound is muffled against my skin, but unmistakable, completely unguarded.
All that careful attention and quiet control is stripped away in an instant, leaving nothing but the raw sound of him losing himself in pleasure.
His arms crush me against him and his whole body shudders.
The rush of his warm release floods through me as I hold still, my fingers still curved inside the scored skin of his back while each aftershock moves through him into me. A fierce, private satisfaction sings within me. I did that. I unmade him. The knowledge of it glows in my chest like an ember.
Slowly, the strain fades from both of us.
Ethan doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. He just breathes against my skin with his forehead pressed into my shoulder, his arms still woven around me.
My wolf goes quiet. Not the type of quiet that is brooding or wary. She’s safe. Settled. There’s a deep, bone-level stillness that I haven’t had in so very long.
And it terrifies me.
For a moment, my mind flits to the implications and consequences of what we just did.
But I shut it down. Not tonight.
For now, I just let him hold me, and hate how much I don’t want him to let me go.