Chapter 16 Nothing a Little Water Won’t Solve #2
His hand instinctively knew what to do, cupping her breast. Even with the linen between, she could feel the slight squeeze of each individual finger. She guided his touch over her hardened nipple and whimpered at the soft caress.
Brioni released his wrist, tipping her head back and presenting her chest, hoping he would continue on his own. He washed all the way up her neck again, and she shivered as he followed her jaw from ear to ear and then back down, descending slowly until he covered her other breast.
She watched the darkness of his eyes as he lingered at the apex, tracing around her nipple and then slipping underneath to squeeze her properly. Brioni arched into his hand, but he denied her more, the linen disappearing beneath the water again.
Ragnar shook his head and moved on to a place he probably thought was safer, but the moment he was washing her thigh, she let her leg fall open to encourage his hand to the inside.
To her delight, he obliged, but it was only more attentive cleaning.
He dipped close but avoided her center, then traveled kneeward, quickly moving onto her calf.
“You should really be more thorough than that,” she complained, twisting up her lips and glaring at him.
The muscle in Ragnar’s forearm twitched, and then he reached into the water with his other hand, gripped her ankle firmly, and started scrubbing her foot with so much force she squealed and kicked.
“Ah, stop it!” She slapped his shoulder as she struggled to sit up, but it was useless, his grip too strong and the tickle in her foot too overwhelming. She sucked in half breaths between laughing and pleading to be let go.
Ragnar’s chuckle came from deep in his chest when he finally relented. “It seems you have more vigor than you let on.” He didn’t release her ankle, but he’d stopped tormenting her foot. Water peppered his tunic and arms, but his grin suggested he didn’t care.
Brioni hummed and relaxed against the tub’s edge again. “Oh, but I really am exhausted and need your help. I still feel so dirty.”
“I bet you do.” Ragnar switched to her other leg, beginning at her foot and meticulously scrubbing as he slowly ascended. Once again, he reached the uppermost part of her thigh and then changed course to her hip.
She whined out a pitiful noise.
“Am I missing another spot?”
“You know you are,” she huffed and caught his gaze. Ragnar looked unbreakable then, as hard as the stone his skin resembled. Brioni mustered up her most puppy-like eyes and jutted out her lips. “Please?”
A tiny crack formed in his rocky facade. “Please, what?”
She wiggled under the water. “Please don’t…skip anything.”
He arched a brow, but his hand slipped once more over her hip and then traveled upward toward her navel.
Brioni clicked her tongue and reached for his wrist again, finally pushing his hand between her legs. She sighed in relief at the pressure she placed on herself, an ecstasy that was as delicious as it was fleeting.
Ragnar’s hand disappeared, the linen abandoned and floating away, and her own hands were suddenly trapped. “No,” he growled, pinching her wrists together just at the water’s surface.
She whined and wriggled, the unsatisfied arousal only building at his tight grip. “But Ragnar, please.”
“You asked me to give you a bath. If you want to do it yourself, then by all means do, but if you want my help, then I’m in charge. Do you understand?”
She blinked, wondering exactly what he meant. Would choosing herself mean she could do all the touching and he would watch? That wasn’t the worst prospect in the world, but since that had already been covered in another heroine’s story, she hemmed and hawed. “What I want is for you to touch—”
“No.” He gave her wrists a shake. “That’s not one of your two options. You finish your own bath, or I do it for you my way.”
Brioni frowned, shoulders slumping. “I want you to do it,” she said as if giving in to the most awful, horrible, no-good option in the world.
The corner of his mouth may have twitched up, but he moved too quickly for her to be sure. Droplets rained down from her arms as they were lifted out of the water and stretched over her head.
“If you’re not feeling well, you need to be still,” he said, but his hands were no longer holding her—they were choosing a new cloth and soaping it up. Yet Brioni found she was still securely kept in place, the feel of something else snug and strong around her wrists. His tail.
Oh, I knew I liked that thing. She snickered to herself.
“Something funny?” he asked, working at the lather as he loomed over the side of the tub.
With her arms restricted overhead, her breasts just crested the surface of the water, hardened nipples uncovered and chilly. She tested the hold, but she wasn’t given much leeway, and her heart sped up.
“I asked if you find something funny, Brioni.”
She shook her head quickly.
Ragnar hummed, unconvinced, and dipped the new soapy linen into the water to scrub at her midsection again.
He wasn’t rough or inattentive, but he was once again slow, ignoring the skin just beneath her breasts and the inside of her thighs.
It was an even more chaste bath than the one before, and yet the arousal was building to an almost unbearable degree.
When he finished, he lifted the linen and wrung it out on her breasts.
The warm droplets teased at her cooling skin, and she sucked in a deep breath, making them rise farther out of the water.
Ragnar’s satisfied grin spread as his gaze traveled down her body, pulled taut and on display in the washtub.
She hadn’t been embarrassed to be naked with him before, and she wasn’t now, but there was something about being unable to cover up if she changed her mind that made her squeeze her thighs together and whimper.
Not that Brioni was going to change her mind.
Not when Ragnar pressed the linen to her belly again.
Not when he drew careful circles slowly downward.
And not when his touch finally dipped between her legs.
Brioni groaned with pleasure, lifting her hips as the feel of a finger shrouded in fabric traced along her favorite place.
“I said, I don’t want you moving.” Ragnar dropped his other hand into the water, pressing on her stomach and holding her firmly against the tub’s base.
She gasped at the feel of his fingers splayed against her belly, each one with its own strength to keep her right where he wanted her.
His tail tugged at her wrists, pulling her the slightest bit tauter, raising her breasts a smidgen more.
Her instinct was to whine and squirm despite the building bliss between her legs, so she gave in and did exactly what she thought she ought not do.
Except that seemed to wake up the exact instinct in Ragnar that she wanted—to push just a little harder, to pull just a little tighter, and to growl down at her, “Good girls do what they’re told, and I told you to stay still.”
His touch was gone from between her legs, and she froze, breath ragged and fast, eyes nervously darting all over his face until she fixed her own.
“Are you going to behave for me, or are we going to stop?”
“I’ll behave,” she said, voice quieter than she expected.
“Good girl.” He slid the linen between her legs again, and she cried out but she dared not move.
Ragnar chuckled with his own kind of pleasure, the linen swirling slowly.
“Interesting. Demon women aren’t so responsive with such a simple touch.
” He abandoned the linen and finally his fingers brushed over her, running down between her folds and then back up to discover her most pleasurable nub.
“What is this?” he asked, using two fingers to spread her and his thumb to stroke his discovery.
Brioni squealed, knees clamping on his arm as they snapped together and toes curling.
She’d had very few sexual experiences despite her hunger for them: one man she always had to ride her pleasure out on, which only worked a quarter of the time, and another that dared lick her but only on two occasions.
None of them, though, had ever wrapped up her wrists, held her down, and really explored.
“I like your answer,” Ragnar rumbled, “but you’re not displaying very good behavior.
” He released her stomach and reached for her knee, prying it apart from the other to secure it against the edge of the washtub.
With her legs splayed open, he had much better access, and his fingers dipped away from her bundle of nerves and traced her entrance.
Brioni caught her breath, free leg quivering while the other was pinned to the inside of the tub with a grip she was sure would leave bruises. “Ow,” she whined, and he immediately let go.
“Wait, no, I didn’t mean it. Don’t stop.”
Ragnar carefully pressed his palm to her thigh again.
“Harder.”
He snorted. “Much harder and it will be just like before.”
“I know,” she said breathlessly.
His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her thigh, and she groaned out a sound that was difficult for even her to decipher.
“Do you want me to let you go?”
“No,” she answered quickly so that he wouldn’t. “I want…”
Ragnar growled a sound that should have been terrifying, but it only made her nipples tighten and her core beg to be filled. His hand continued to probe between her legs as if searching for something new. “Tell me.”
“I think I want it to hurt.”
He took a steadying breath, eyes closing briefly. “You will tell me if it’s too much.” His fingers found her bundle of nerves again, and she cried out when he gave it a light pinch. “Is this what you like?”
Brioni nodded vigorously, words lost.
“What about this?” A finger slid inside her, and relief flooded her body as she clenched down. His thumb kept working in slow circles, and she was pushed to the edge, arching out of the water as his tail tightened on her wrists.
Ragnar leaned over the tub, and his mouth fell on her breast. She came undone with a scream unmistakable for pleasure this time as his teeth grazed her nipple.
His fingers worked her bud to completion while he kept her unmoving in his grip, secure even against her own bucking until her muscles loosened and she slumped into the water.
He slid his finger out of her core, and she whimpered at the empty feeling, but relieving waves still rolled through her body, days of pent-up desire finally free.
Releasing her knee, Ragnar scooped behind her neck, tipping her head to him, her eyes unfocused in the dark. “That was fast, human.”
Brioni snorted a single laugh through her nose as if he hadn’t been teasing her the entire bath. “Maybe to you.”
“Next time, you won’t be so quick.” Ragnar’s tail released her wrists, and her arms sank into the tub. “Or else.”
“Hmm?”
There was no answer as he drained the water and urged her upward to bundle into an extra fluffy linen.
Sleepiness was taking over as he rubbed her body dry, and she forgot she was naked and could be fondled again, instead grabbing at Ragnar’s shoulders and pulling herself against him.
When he placed her in bed, she didn’t let go.
“No floor tonight,” she pleaded. “Say you’ll sleep in the bed with me because I was so good. ”
The demon hesitated, but then he was climbing in beside her, rolling her to face away and tugging her back toward his chest.
“You’re a good healer,” she said as he wrapped an arm around her middle, the linen still between them.
“I am not, but thank you for saying so.”
“Even if you don’t have the magic, you still take such good care of Moar and the veilhounds and me.”
“It’s no trouble at all.” Ragnar gave her a squeeze. “Well, sometimes it is with you.”
Brioni giggled, eyes closed, the feel of Ragnar’s breath warm on her neck and lulling her toward sleep. “I know I said I was sorry that I ran, and I really am, but I’m glad I got hurt.”
The demon’s questioning hum vibrated from his chest through her back. “Oh, are you?”
“Because now you’re paying attention to me like I wanted,” she admitted, grinning to herself in the dark.
“Well, you won’t be so glad when you’re all healed,” he warned. “There will be consequences for your bad behavior.”
Brioni’s heart might have hitched at that warning, if she weren’t so tired, but delight and fear mingled as her body melted into his, and she drifted off to sleep.