Chapter 25 #3
He came over her then, lowering his body over hers without quite settling his full weight yet. The couch’s clever curve supported her hips, tilting her up to meet him. When his head touched the core, she bit back a cry. Every inch of her felt like a nerve ending exposed to air.
“Blaise”
His mouth found hers again, slower this time. His tongue stroked along hers in languid, claiming sweeps. His hand slipped between them, finding her center, testing her readiness with a confident, practiced touch. She trembled, and he groaned quietly.
“You want more,” he said, as if confirming a hypothesis rather than stating the obvious.
“Yes,” she whispered. The word felt too small.
His gaze devoured her face. “Say it plainly.”
“I want you,” she said, the last tattered scrap of modesty dropping away. “Inside me.”
His features tightened; for a heartbeat, control and hunger warred across them. Control lost.
“Iris, I do not wish to hurt you. Please forgive me,” he muttered and shifted his hips.
Iris felt the blunt heat of him at her entrance, followed by a taut, stretching pressure as he began to push forward. She gasped, nerves trembling. It had been years of emptiness, of a body unused and unclaimed.
He stilled at once, every muscle going rigid.
“Breathe,” he said, voice rough but steady. “Look at me, Iris. Only at me.”
She obeyed, dragging her gaze up to his. His eyes were dark but clear, pinned on her with almost fierce focus. He stroked her cheek with his thumb, the gentleness at odds with the thick, heavy reality of his body inching into hers.
“Tell me if it hurts,” he said.
“It does,” she admitted, wincing at the slight burn.
“Do you wish me to stop?”
Her hands came up to frame his face, fingers brushing the line of his scar.
“No,” she said. “Do not stop.”
He shut his eyes for a heartbeat, as if the words struck him physically. Then he obeyed, pressing forward with excruciating slowness, giving her body time to accept him. The stretch turned from burn to fullness, from discomfort to an almost unbearable sense of being claimed.
Iris cried out.
The couch’s angle allowed Blaise to go deeper, adjusting their bodies until, with a low groan, he seated himself completely within her.
They both froze, chests heaving, eyes locked. Blaise huffed out, then he began to move.
The first thrust was slow, a withdrawal that made her cry out at the loss, followed by a careful push that gave her body time to adjust to each new angle.
Pleasure sparked along the path of his entry, building with each measured stroke.
The couch cradled her, allowed her hips to tilt to meet him, and took him exactly where she suddenly, desperately needed him.
In the mirror to their side, she saw her pale, arched body and his darker one bowed over her, muscles flexing in his back with every movement, the two of them joined in a rhythm that had its own inevitable logic. The sight spurred her.
She lifted her hips to meet his next thrust with a small, instinctive movement, a conscious choice to give and take instead of merely receive. He groaned harshly, hands clamping at her hips.
“Iris,” he groaned her name.
Sensation gathered like a storm with each thrust, building at the base of her spine, and radiating out through her limbs until her toes curled and her fingers dug into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
“Do not stop, Blaise,” she panted.
Something shattered in his gaze then. He bent his head, kissing her fiercely, almost savagely, as if to swallow the words, to keep them safe somewhere inside himself. His thrusts became rougher and more erratic as the couch rocked beneath them and the room filled with the sounds of their joining.
Blaise shifted suddenly, angling his hips, and struck some precise, devastatingly sensitive place inside her. She sobbed his name.
“Again?” he rasped.
“Yes,” she cried. “Again, please, Blaise!”
He obeyed mercilessly, driving into that spot again and again until she teetered on the edge of something vast and terrifying. The earlier climax had felt like a chain snapping, but this felt almost otherworldly.
“Let go,” he said breathlessly. “Iris, look at me and let go.”
She stared into his dark, intent eyes and tumbled over the brink.
Pleasure exploded out from her center, a flooding, searing release that blanked her mind and robbed her of breath.
She cried out, hardly recognizing the sound as her own.
Her body clenched around him in helpless, rhythmic spasms, dragging him after her.
Blaise cursed and thrust deep one last time, burying himself fully as he shuddered. His face contorted, all composure ripped away, leaving only raw, unguarded rapture. She felt his pulse within her, filling her; his body pressed hard to hers as if he might merge them entirely.
They rode it out together, clinging, every muscle trembling. For a long moment, neither of them moved until, at last, Blaise lifted his head, eyes heavy-lidded, and the scar on his face stark against the flush of exertion.
“You are going to be the death of me,” he said hoarsely.
She smiled, sated and exhausted. “Then it seems we are even.”