Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FERAL
Iopened the door to our suite and drew her inside, nudging it shut behind us. The latch caught with a solid click, and I locked it without looking. No interruptions tonight.
“Acorn can pick locks,” she said.
“He can also take a hint.” I stroked her cheek. “Tonight I’m choosing to believe he will.”
Her hand stayed in mine, and she looked up at me with that focused expression she got when she was piecing something together. Me, probably. I hoped she was getting it right.
The room was quiet, the fire in the hearth casting shadows across the floor. Acorn hadn’t followed us up. Good. He could chase his squirrel friend or hoard more duskburst or whatever he chose as long as he didn’t enter the bedroom. Tonight was ours.
I turned to face her. She was already close, her free hand coming up to rest on my chest like she was checking to see if I was real. My heart kicked harder under her palm. She tugged at my shirt.
I kissed her, a proper one with my hand cupping the back of her neck to hold her steady.
Her lips parted right away, soft and giving, and she made a small sound in her throat that went straight through me.
I kept it slow, tasting her, feeling the way she leaned in, her body pressing against mine like she was investigating how we fit.
I’d taken what I wanted my whole life. She was the first thing I wanted to be given.
She kissed me back, her tongue brushing mine, and heat shot down my spine.
I wanted her. Fates how I wanted her. But I was starting to understand I was the kind of man who’d want to remember every single version of this.
I focused on her mouth and the faint sweetness from whatever she’d drunk at dinner lingering on her lips.
We kissed just inside the room until her breathing picked up and mine matched. I slid my hands down her sides, feeling the curve of her waist through her dress. She arched against me, breaking the kiss to look at me.
“Feral,” she said, her voice steady but with an edge I recognized from the other night.
“Victoria.” I walked her backward, further into the room, still kissing her, using shorter presses, and nipping her lower lip. She moved with me, her hands on my arms, steadying herself.
Stepping back, she reached for her gown, but I caught her hands, kissing each one. “Let me.”
Her eyebrows lifted, but she nodded, dropping them to her sides.
“I’ve been thinking about these laces since you walked out of the bedroom wearing this dress,” I said.
She blinked. “What in particular were you thinking about these laces?”
“I was thinking about the most efficient approach to undoing them.”
“That’s either very romantic or very strategic.”
“With you,” I tugged the first one loose, “it’s always both.”
The simple ties shouldn’t prove much of a challenge. I tugged the top one loose, and the fabric parted, showing a sliver of skin at her throat. I leaned in and kissed there, feeling her pulse jump under my lips. She tilted her head back, giving me room.
I stayed there a beat longer, just feeling her pulse going quick under my mouth. She was letting me do this. I was the one who got to do this. It felt like something I hadn’t earned, but I wasn’t going to question it now.
Another lace. The opening widened, exposing her collarbone. I kissed that too, slowly, dragging my mouth across the bone, her warmth setting me aflame. Her breath hitched, her fingers twitching like she wanted to touch but was holding herself back.
I kept going, lace by lace, kissing each new bit of skin as it appeared. Down her sternum, the swell of her breasts. The dress loosened enough that I could push it off her shoulders, ease it down her arms. She shrugged out of the sleeves, helping without rushing.
Her breasts were bare now. I cupped one, feeling the weight, brushing the nipple. It hardened under my touch, and she let out a quiet exhale. I kissed the other, flicking my tongue over the peak. She arched into it, her hand coming up to my hair, her fingers threading through.
I switched sides, sucking gently while rolling the first. Her grip tightened, pulling a little, and a low sound escaped her, not quite a moan but close. My cock swelled, but I focused on her and the way her skin flushed under my mouth.
The dress still hung at her waist. I slid it the rest of the way off. She stepped free, steady on her feet, now just in her underthings. It was simple fabric, nothing fancy, but on her it looked amazing.
Dropping to my knees, I kissed her belly. Her muscles tensed under my lips, then relaxed as I traced a line across her navel, down to her hip. She watched me, her eyes dark and her breathing uneven.
One eyebrow arched. “You’re very good at that.”
“The undressing?”
“The kneeling. You look comfortable.”
“I’m highly motivated.” I kissed her hip. “Stop distracting me.”
“You started it.”
Her smooth skin was warm from the dancing and the fire.
I hooked my fingers in the waistband of her underthings and eased them down, kissing the newly exposed skin as I went.
The curve of her hip. The top of her thigh.
She stepped out of them, one foot and the other, her hand on my shoulder for balance.
My wife. The word landed the same way it always did now, quietly, like it had been true for longer than the ceremony.
I had many years ahead of me if the Fates were generous. I’d give every one of them to be the male she wanted to claim as her own.
I stood, scooping her up, my arms under her knees and back. She wrapped hers around my neck, kissing my jaw as I carried her to the bed. I laid her down carefully, settling her in the middle, the pillows under her head.
She reached for me, and I climbed over her, bracing my body on my forearms. Her legs parted, making room. I kissed her again, deeper this time, while trailing my fingers down her side, over her hip, squeezing lightly.
She tugged at my shirt. “Off.”
I sat back on my heels and pulled it over my head, tossing it aside. Her eyes tracked over my chest, her hands following, her fingers tracing scars and muscle. One old mark from a border fight, another from a hunt gone wrong. She didn’t ask about them, just explored, her touch light and arousing.
I tensed without meaning to. Waiting for a question, a flinch, or the pause some people gave scars when they thought you weren’t looking.
She didn’t do any of that. She just learned them and moved on like they were part of the map, and the map was worth knowing.
My heart did something I didn’t have a word for yet.
“I have more.” The words popped out before I thought about holding them back.
Her hand stilled on my ribs. “More scars?”
“Some have better stories than others.”
She traced one lightly. “Tell me sometime?”
“Yes. Sometime.”
When her hands moved to my pants, I let her help unfasten them. She pushed them down, over my hips, and I shifted to kick them off, leaving me bare. Her gaze dropped, and she swallowed, reaching out to wrap her fingers around my engorged cock.
I groaned as she stroked up the length once. “Victoria.”
She gave me a small smile and did it again.
I caught her wrist before she could do it a third time and take me completely apart.
“You’re going to ruin me, and I’m going to let you,” I rasped. “That’s the part I can’t get over.”
“Probably.” Her smile came small and a little smug and it hit me below the sternum in the best way.
I turned her wrist over and kissed the inside of it, loving how her pulse jumped.
“You do that a lot,” she said.
“What?”
“Find my pulse. Check it.”
I hadn’t realized. “Is that strange?”
She considered. “No. I think I like it.”
I settled back over her, kissing her neck, easing my mouth down to her shoulder. Her skin pebbled, chills following the path. I moved to her breasts again, taking my time, licking and sucking until she was moaning under me, her hips lifting.
Her nipples had hardened and had stiffened to rosy peaks.
I rolled one between my fingers while I was kissing the underside of the other, feeling her breath snag in her throat.
She arched, pressing closer, and I gave her more pressure, pinching lightly.
A whimper escaped her, and my wolf preened at the sound.
I kissed lower, across her ribs, counting them as I passed. Her belly dipped when I reached it, the muscles tightening. I spread my hands over her hips, holding her steady, and kissed there too, dragging my tongue across the soft skin.
She squirmed, laughing with a catch to her breath. “That tickles.”
“Here?” I did it again, slower.
Her laugh turned into a gasp. “Not anymore.”
I loved this. Her. And I stayed there for a half-second, grinning against her skin like a fool.
“You’re laughing,” she said, still catching her breath.
“A little.”
“Is that normal?”
I looked up at her. “It’s the best possible sign.”
I moved to the crease where her thighs met her body. She parted her legs wider, her knees falling open. I hooked my arms under her, spreading her fully, my hands on her hips to hold her in place.
She was so wet, she glistened. I blew a soft breath over her, watching her shiver.
I looked up, finding her propped on her elbows watching me, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
“Hey,” I said. I didn’t know why.
Something almost like a smile curled across her lips. “Hey.”
I turned back to her as she lay back down.
Leaning in, I licked, flat and slow, from her opening to her clit. She jerked, a moan slipping out. I did it again, circling her clit with the tip of my tongue, light at first, testing.
This was the second time for us. I knew a little more than I had before, like what made her breath snag and where she wanted pressure, but not enough. I was working with a partial picture, and I intended to fix that.
Her hands found my hair, gripping tight.
“More,” she said, then seemed to think better of it. “I mean slower, and then…”
“I’ve got it.” I did. I gave it to her, sucking gently, then backing off to lick broad strokes. She tasted like before, sharp and sweet, and I lost myself in her, my world narrowing to her responses and the way her thighs tensed against my shoulders.
I traced her entrance with my fingers, savoring how she bucked to reach me. I pressed one in, slowly, feeling her open around it. Her body clenched as I stroked in and out. I added a second finger, twisting them to hit her spot inside.
Her hips jerked upward. “There. Yes.”
“There,” she said again, softer. Like she was telling herself.
I kept the rhythm, pumping my fingers while my mouth worked her clit, alternating between suction and flicks. Her breathing turned ragged, her body winding tighter. I could feel her orgasm building in the tremble of her legs and the way she pulled my hair.
“Feral—I’m—”
She came hard, crying out, her whole body shaking as she clenched around my fingers. I eased her through it, slowing my tongue, gentling the strokes until she went limp, panting, her hands falling away from my head.
I stayed where I was. The fire had burned lower. The room had gone quiet around us, and I was aware of my own heartbeat in a way I usually wasn’t, steady, a little too loud, like it was trying to tell me something I hadn’t asked to know yet.
Before her, I knew exactly who I was. I was starting to think that was a tragedy because I’d known nothing.
“You practiced,” she said.
I bit back a smile. “Even better. I paid attention.”
“There’s a difference?”
“There truly is.” I kissed her inner thigh.
Her warm thighs were on my shoulders, and her breathing gradually slowed. My own pulse ran harder than it had any right to for someone who hadn’t been the one coming apart. I noted that and filed it away with all the other things I was collecting about her.
I kissed one inner thigh, then the other. Climbing back up, I braced myself over her, grinning.
I took in her flushed skin and the way she watched me with those careful eyes, and my chest tightened with emotions I wasn’t ready to name.
“You’re going to wreck me,” I said. “I’d burn everything I’ve built for one more night like this one.”
“Let’s wreck each other.” Her fingers teased up my sides. “I want all of you, Feral.”