Chapter 21 #3
"One rule." My hand at her jaw, tilting her face up to mine. "If anything hurts, you tell me. Anything else, I'll know."
Her breath catches.
"Okay."
"Say it."
"If anything hurts, I tell you."
"Good girl."
I kiss her hard. Different from before. Deeper. My hand at her throat, tilting her face up, the other arm wrapping all the way around her ribs. Her hands fist in my hair. Her body presses into mine and she makes a sound against my mouth.
I lower her back to the pallet.
Hand behind her shoulders, easing her down. Her arms locked around my neck. Her face going into my throat as I follow her down.
Then I'm over her. Weight on one elbow, my other hand on her ribs, looking down at her. Her hair is fanned out on the pallet, her chest rising and falling fast.
I kiss her again.
Slower this time. Working into her mouth. Letting her open. My hand at her waist sliding under the hem of her shirt, palm flat against her bare skin, and she gasps and arches into the touch.
"Off."
She sits up. I pull her shirt over her head.
The room is dim, her skin glowing pale gold. Scattered with freckles. The small scar on her left shoulder. Her chest rising and falling fast.
I look. Long. Properly.
"What?" She's flushed. "What is it?"
"Looking at you."
"You're—Keer, just—"
"Let me look."
Her hands drop from where they were halfway to covering herself. She holds still.
I take my time.
My mouth drops to her throat. Her collarbone. Her shoulder where the small scar is—I press my lips to it without thinking and she makes a sound that breaks in the middle.
I lift my head.
Her eyes are wet.
"Nobody's ever—it's a stupid scar."
"It's mine now."
She closes her eyes.
I kiss it again.
Then lower. Down her chest. Mouth finding her breast. Her hand fists in my hair when I take her nipple between my lips—careful, slow—and her back arches up off the pallet and the sound she makes goes straight through me.
"Keer—"
"I've got you."
I work her like that. Mouth on one breast, hand on the other, learning what makes her gasp, what makes her thigh hook over mine, what makes her hips lift looking for more pressure.
So responsive.
Every place I touch she answers. Her hand in my hair tightening and loosening and tightening again.
My own body's a problem I'm ignoring. Hard since she said stay.
But not yet.
Her first.
I move down to her stomach. Her hip. The edge of her trousers. My hands on the waistband, working them down without asking, slow, watching her face.
Past her hips, her thighs, her knees, her ankles. Drop them off the side of the pallet. She's watching me. Both hands fisted in the bedding.
I look at her. All of her.
"Keer—"
"Wait."
The soft curve of her stomach and the freckles on her thighs.
She's smiling again.
I move up her body, settle between her thighs, brace myself on my elbows over her. My weight off her but everywhere. Chest above hers. Hips between hers. Mouth at her ear.
"I'm going to taste you."
She makes a sound.
"Spread your legs for me, Melori."
She does. Slow. Watching me.
"My girl."
I move down.
Then I'm there. Between her thighs. Her smell everywhere—wet and warm and Mel—and I press a kiss to the inside of her thigh first, soft, then the other thigh, and she's already shaking, already trembling—
I lower my mouth to her.
She makes a sound I'll think about for the rest of my life. High. Broken. Surprised. Her hand goes to my hair and pulls and I groan against her and the vibration makes her thighs lock around my head.
"Sorry—sorry—"
I push her thighs back open. Hold them open. Eye on her.
"Don't be sorry. Strangle me with those gorgeous thighs all you want. Move how you want. I want to feel it."
I work her with my mouth. Slow. Tasting her. Learning her. Finding what makes her sound break. What makes her hips chase me. What makes her fingers go tight in my hair. Her thighs shaking around my ears. Her breath broken pieces of my name.
She breaks.
Sharp and sudden—her body curving up off the pallet, my name cracking out of her throat, her hands fisted in my hair pulling hard enough to sting, her thighs locked around my head and her hips rolling against my mouth as the wave goes through her.
I work her through it. Slower as the shaking eases.
Gentle. Until she's twitching and her hand is pushing weakly at my forehead and she's laughing—actually laughing, breathless and dazed.
"Oh my—wow, that's—that was—"
I pull back. Wipe my mouth on my forearm. Look up at her.
"That's one."
She's flushed all the way to her chest. Hair stuck to her temple. Eyes glazed.
"What—"
"You heard me."
"Keer—"
"Come here."
I crawl up her body. She pulls me down and kisses me—doesn't flinch from her own taste, just opens her mouth for mine and pulls me closer.
Her hands go under my shirt, working it up, and I sit back to pull it off.
Then I'm bare from the waist up and her hands are everywhere—across my ribs, over the long scar, over the thick one at my collarbone, learning me.
"You're warm." She's tracing the scar across my stomach. "You're so warm."
"I run hot."
"Wow. Bold of you. I mean—you're not wrong, look at you, I could rock climb off these abs—"
"Mel."
"—but bold."
"Body temperature."
"Oh. Ooooh. That's what you meant."
"That's what I meant."
"Useful."
I laugh. Even now. Even underneath me, she talks. She finds the joke.
She makes me laugh.
Her hand drops to my waistband.
I catch her wrist.
Sit back on my heels and work my pants off while she watches. Her eyes go wide when I'm bare. She looks. Doesn't look away.
"Oh."
"Oh?"
"You're—that's—okay. That's a thing. That's a—Mel, you're going to be FINE. People do this all the time. People have BEEN doing this. Bodies are designed for—"
"You're rambling."
"I am rambling. I'm definitely rambling. LOOK at you, Keer. You're fucking huge—I'll stop."
"Don't stop on my account."
"Just—" She holds her hand out. "Come here. Come back. I want you back."
"Where do you want me, Mel."
"With me. On me. In me. Anywhere, just—come back."
I come back.
Settle over her. Bare against bare. Hard against her stomach. She makes a sound when she feels it and her hips lift up into me on instinct.
"Easy." Against her ear. "I've got you."
She breathes out. Hand finding the back of my neck.
"Keep talking for me." My mouth at her temple. "I want to hear it."
"You—you want me to keep TALKING?"
"You always do."
Her eyes go wet again. Different kind of wet.
"Keer—"
"Talk to me, Mel."
"Okay." She nods. Once. "Okay. I'll talk."
I reach between us. Find her. Wet—soaked, ready—and I groan against her throat at how ready she is for me. My finger slides into her easy. Then two. Slow. Working her open. Her hips rocking up to meet me. Her hand fisted in my hair.
"Oh—oh that's—that's good, that's so good, you're—Keer, you have very nice hands, I've thought that for a while, I've been quietly noticing your hands—oh—okay nope can't talk about hands right now, can't think, can't—"
I laugh into her throat.
She breaks off into a gasp when I curl my fingers.
"More—Keer, please—I'm ready, I want—"
"I know what you want."
I withdraw my fingers. Settle myself between her thighs. Hand at the base of myself. Lining up. Eye on her face.
"Look at me."
She looks at me.
"You've been mine since the woods, Mel. You know that."
"I know."
"Say it."
"I'm yours, Keer."
I push in.
Slow.
Just the tip—and she gasps and her hand grips my shoulder and I freeze.
She breathes.
"Keep going—oh—keep going, I'm okay, I'm—keep going—"
I push in another inch.
She arches. Her thigh hooks over my hip. Her breath catches.
"Don't stop. Don't stop. I just need to—give me a second—oh you're really—yeah okay you're really in there, that's—wow—"
"Breathe, Mel."
I feel her body settle around me, accepting me.
"Move. Slow. Just move."
I move.
The first thrust pulls a sound out of her that almost finishes me. Tight and hot and slick around me. Her fingers digging into my shoulder. Her whole body taking me in inch by inch. I press my forehead to hers. Holding still. Holding.
"Mel." Her name shaking out of me. "Mel—fuck—Mel."
"I'm here."
"I'm not going to last."
"Then don't last."
"Mel—"
"It's fine. I just had—you took care of me. Now you. Just you. Take what you need."
She kisses me. Breathless. I groan into her mouth.
I take what I need.
Slow at first. Long and deep, trying to make it last, trying to memorize every part of being inside her—the warm clutch of her, the gasp she makes when I bottom out, her thigh tightening around my hip, her hand staying on the side of my face. Holding me there.
It builds anyway.
My pace changes. Faster. Deeper. Can't help it. Her body opening more for me. Her sounds going higher. Her hands everywhere—in my hair, on my back, against my chest, fingernails finding the silver lines of old scars and digging in—
"Keer—Keer I'm—oh—oh—"
"Again." Against her mouth. "I want you to come again. Mel. Look at me—"
She looks at me.
I move my hand between us. Find her. Her body bucks into the touch and she makes a broken sound and her teeth catch my lower lip.
"That's it." I kiss her hard. "Come on my cock, Melori. Mine."
She breaks.
Again. Harder this time—her whole body clenching around me, her cry cracking against my mouth, her nails digging into my back—and the feel of her coming around me is—I'm gone.
My hips snap forward and I follow her, groaning against her throat, her name coming out of me ragged and broken—Mel—Melori—Mel—fuck—Mel—
I empty into her in long shuddering pulses—and bite down.
Hard. Where her shoulder meets her neck. The small scar I kissed earlier. Teeth breaking skin. Blood—warm, copper, Mel—filling my mouth and the wolf in my chest goes still in a way it has never gone still in my life.
Mine.
Her cry against my throat. Half pleasure, half shock. Her hand fisting in my hair. Holding me there. Not pushing me off. Holding me there.