Iona #2
More slickness spills over my hand, hotter and thicker than a human man’s. It makes the next movement easier. The broad crown passes through my grip, the ring catches, the ridges press into my palm on the downward stroke.
His claws sink into wood.
“Look at me,” I say.
He does.
The gray is almost gone from his eyes. His lips have pulled back enough that both fangs show. Breath comes through his nose in hard pulls.
I move my hand faster.
He catches the back of my dress and tears three hooks loose without meaning to. Cool air touches my spine.
“Good,” I whisper.
The old-blood sound answers me.
I slide off the table and kneel before him.
His hand catches my shoulder. “Iona.”
“No penetration.” I look up at him. “You said nothing about my mouth.”
“You cannot take all of me.”
“I had already reached that conclusion.”
Despite everything, his mouth twitches.
I lick the slickness from the broad crown.
The humor vanishes.
His fingers close in my hair.
I take the head into my mouth slowly. The flare stretches my lips. The raised ring catches at the entrance, and the twin ridges drag over my tongue when I pull back.
Torgan’s hips jerk once.
He stops them so hard his whole body shakes.
I use both hands on what I cannot fit, one around the thick shaft, the other lower, where the root has begun to swell under the skin.
The whole base is thickening, muscle tightening as his climax approaches.
I press my thumb there.
His grip in my hair becomes painful.
“Less,” I say, pulling back.
He releases me instantly.
“Sorry.”
The word is ragged.
I take him into my mouth again.
This time his hand rests open against the back of my head. No force. The claws remain hooked into his own palm.
I work the crown and ridges with my tongue, use my hands over the rest, and watch his face come apart.
The root thickens further beneath my lower hand.
“What happens there?” I ask, wet-mouthed.
“Closer to release, it swells.”
“Would it trap us?”
“Not before the bond. It would make withdrawal slower.” His eyes close when I stroke the base again. “After the bite, fully... yes.”
The answer sends heat between my legs.
He smells it.
His fangs bare farther.
“Iona.”
“I’m listening.”
“You are pleased by that.”
“Very.”
He makes a sound that is almost pain.
Then his free hand goes under my skirt.
He lifts me back onto the table with one arm and puts two fingers inside me before I settle.
I gasp and tighten my hand around him.
We find a rough rhythm. My hand works over crown, ring, ridges, and swelling root. His fingers drive into me, his thumb striking the place still sensitive from his mouth. My forehead presses to his.
“More.”
He gives it.
The second climax takes me by surprise because I am watching him, not myself.
His thumb presses once across the place his mouth left raw. His fingers curl. The pleasure catches low and closes around them before I can breathe.
I jerk against his hand. My inner muscles seize in quick waves, each one dragging his fingers deeper. The kiss breaks on my cry of his name. He catches the sound with his mouth, then feels the next contraction and shudders as if it happened inside him.
His body locks.
Venom floods his mouth. I see it in the sudden wet shine along the fangs and in the panic that cuts through his hunger.
He turns his face away from my throat and bites the collar of his own shirt. Cloth rips between his back teeth. Even now, he keeps the fang points clear.
His hips drive into my fist once. Twice.
The swollen root pulses under my hand.
Hot release spills over my fingers and his stomach in several heavy spurts.
The sound he makes is low and broken.
I keep stroking until his claws split the table edge.
Torgan lowers his forehead to mine while the swelling eases beneath my hand. His breath is ragged. Mine is worse.
He pulls my skirts down and tears a narrow strip from his shirt. He threads it through the damaged hooks at my back, knots the dress closed beneath my shoulder blades, and uses another clean edge to wipe my hand.
Then he turns his head and fits his mouth around the bite on my shoulder, keeping both points outside the bruise.
“Tonight was not enough.”
“No.”
“Good.”
The bell rings below us.
One hard strike. Another.
Torgan’s head comes up. “East gate.”
The third strike follows while he fastens his trousers and I test the strip holding my dress shut.
“Rider,” he says. “Urgent.”
He unlocks the door.
Cold corridor air moves over my face. Ghenn stands ten paces away with two scouts and the expression of a man determined not to notice that his king’s shirt is torn, his mouth is wet, and the envoy is standing on unsteady legs.
“Osk?” Torgan asks.
“East cousins opened their hall to him. He has coast silver and hired spears.”
“Whose silver?” I ask.
“Coast issue,” Ghenn says. “Fresh.”
The treaty is no longer racing only Osk. It is racing the people in Serath who profit if the border burns.
“How long before hired companies expect a second payment?”
Ghenn looks at me properly now. “A week. Less if they smell weakness.”
Torgan draws his claws back into his fingertips. His hand finds the mark on my inner thigh through the layers of my skirt, one brief pressure where no one can see.
Then he walks away with Ghenn to prepare for war.
I lock the map room again and sit on the edge of the ruined table until my legs hold.
At first light, I carry the torn dress to the wash house. Sera takes one look at the hooks, one look at the mark above my stocking, and waits.
“Seedward,” I say. “Every morning until I tell you otherwise.”
She gives me a long, practical look. “Then do not miss a cup.”