11. Safe Words
SOUNDTRACK: Chokehold by Sleep Token
~ VOSKI ~
I slid hands around Grace’s body, pushed the shirt and jacket aside.
‘Let your arms fall back.’
She did as I asked, and I slipped hands up, up, up, my palms sliding over her breasts, then higher, to push back until the garments fell to the floor with a thick slap.
I slowly tugged the shirt out of its tuck at the back of her trousers.
She almost lost her balance and fell into me—but caught herself before she touched me.
‘Good girl,’ I rasped in her head, and her lips quirked up in a smile.
The world shrank in those minutes while I unwrapped her like a present, then made her watch as I finally bared myself completely as well, until we stood, toe to toe, unclothed, both panting.
The air was heavy, warm, the firelight flickering over her skin in ways I wanted to follow with my fingers. With my body. The anticipation was a painful ache in my belly, and my cock strained.
I swallowed hard. “The delay,” I croaked. “It increases the fire for both of us. I’m going to show you—but if at any time it’s too intense, or you feel unsafe, use the safe words we agreed upon.”
Her brow pinched. “The safe words?”
She felt so close, so connected, I tried something new—taking a memory and placing it in her head as I would with Kham. Though it wasn’t nearly as easy. I was sure she missed pieces of it.
But she blinked rapidly, her expression twitching from awe to confusion to concentration—but she saw enough, at least. Those moments in the clearing, the first time she’d found me, when her appearance had almost sent me out of my skin, and I’d hurt her. Frightened her desperately.
God, my chest ached at the memory…
I’ll give you a signal. If I lash out in future, if I’m hurting you, you use that to tell me, and I’ll listen. I’ll stop.”
“A signal?”
I nodded, scrambling, praying she wouldn’t ask me why I’d had reasons to use safe words in the past. “Yes, a word or phrase that is benign. But one we won’t use by accident. Something you can say to remind me. To tell me when I’m being harsh. And when you say it, I’ll remember to cool off.”
She swallowed, her eyes trailing off to the woods around her. “I… I’m not sure… it seems—”
The burn behind my navel surged, and I prayed for cool, clear mountain water to douse it. “Tell me the fire needs tending,” I blurted. “Remind me to douse the flame.”
Her brows pinched down over her nose. “The fire needs tending?”
“Yes, if I am being hot-headed. If I’m burning you, or others around me, remind me. Please. I’ll listen. You have my word.”
Sickened by my own short-sightedness and cruelty to her, I sucked in and pushed the memory away, but Grace nodded.
“If you’re hurting, or it stops being pleasurable, you use that signal,” I rasped.
“Douse the flame… tend the fire?”
I nodded. “Either one. That’s your safeguard. The moment you say either of those, I will stop whatever I’m doing immediately. Here, today. Tomorrow. Anywhere, Grace. You have my word.”
She blinked quickly again, but nodded. “I believe you.”
And her simple trust, given so easily, when I’d treated her so poorly, cracked something open in my chest. I hadn’t intended to kiss her yet, but I couldn’t resist. I opened a hand to catch her jaw in the cleft between my thumb and forefinger, holding her throat, but not applying pressure, lifting her chin, and with a thundering breath, I finally kissed her.
A tiny whimper broke from Grace’s throat as our lips touched, and I found her sweet tongue with mine. My hand on her throat trembled and twitched, the other grasping at her hip, as I walked her backward toward the bed, in slow, shuffling steps.
And when her legs hit the box frame and she overbalanced, I let her fall, but followed her with my hands, leaning over her.
I would have kissed her again, stroked her, started the true seduction—but she’d misread my intent.
She pushed up on her hands, drew her knees up to dig her heels into the bed, and scooted herself back, smiling, her eyes inviting me to follow.
I grinned back, but caught her ankle, shaking my head, and with one short, sharp tug, pulled her back to me, catching the other leg under her knee and opening her legs, pulling her up against me, hard.
Her mouth made an O of surprise, but dropping one leg when she was in the correct position—seated at the edge of the bed, both knees wide, so I stood between them—I caught the back of her neck and held her, kissing her deeply.
Then I broke the kiss with a sharp inhale, taking hold of myself. “Class is in session,” I rasped.
Grace giggled—until I kissed her again.
But as her breath ratcheted up, and her hands began to explore my neck and shoulders, I kissed my way down—down her neck, across her collarbones, down to her breast—using both hands on the backs of her thighs, pulling them wider to make room for my shoulders as I dropped to my knees once more, pausing only to suck at first one nipple, then the other.
Grace stiffened at those attentions, her back arching, and her hands sliding into my hair to hold me into the kiss. I would have broken her grip, but a sudden inspiration took me, and I smiled as I teased and laved that delicious peak.
‘Remember the safe words,’ I sent as I nipped, then opened my mouth wide and sucked.
Grace gasped and arched harder, but still pulled me in. “I will.”
‘Remember to tell me what you like.’
“I like it!” she squeaked.
Huffing with self-satisfied laughter, I began to tease her, nibbling, pinching that peak between my teeth, lightly at first, flicking it with my tongue. At the same time, I slipped one hand between her thighs, and found her, slick with want.
A growl rolled in my throat before I could stop it, and Grace shivered, but her fingers tightened in my hair.
‘Tell me.’
‘I like it!’ she whimpered. ‘Don’t stop!’
Still smiling, I cupped one hand under her thigh, then tipped her up so that she fell back once more, flat onto the bed, and sucked so hard as I did so, that her breast stretched for a moment, before breaking my suction with a soft pop!
She gasped and tensed, pulsing around my fingers as I caught her eyes, the question looming in the bond.
“St-still like it!” she whispered.
I couldn’t stop the smile. Still touching her, teasing, rubbing, mentally noting anything that made her tighten on my fingers, I braced the other hand on the bed and lowered myself back to the other breast this time, sucking again until I felt her hips buck.
Then grazing with my teeth, flicking with my tongue, until she twitched, and tightened around my fingers.
She kept up small, gasping affirmations through it all, and her body responded. But I knew she was eager to please—and she needed to trust me. Not blindly. Not because her heart was good and willing to risk herself. But because I proved myself to her.
So, I tested her.
Nipping first, I closed my teeth on her nipple, pinching it.
Her breath caught, but she clenched again, twitching when I flicked that little rivet with my tongue.
Then I bit harder, and she gave a little cry.
Then harder again.
My heart began to pound when she didn’t struggle, and I almost reminded her. But just I began to bite with such force I feared I’d break the skin, she slapped a hand to my shoulder.
“D-douse the—tend the fire—”
She sucked in, but I had already released her, bracing on my free hand, body rigid with want and fiery arousal, gasping because the sight of her was stunning.
She’d instinctively clapped a forearm over her breast, but her eyes were wide, and her cheeks pink.
Her hair, already messy from the flight, was now falling out of the braid because she writhed with such force on the bed.
I stroked her again, using my thumb this time, and her jaw dropped, as her eyes searched mine. I smiled at her, nodding, letting her feel my arousal and my approval in the bond.
‘Very good girl.’
Her lashes fluttered, and she sucked in like she’d speak, but I dropped my head to the other breast, laving, sucking, enjoying her trembling, then biting, slowly increasing the pressure, until she stopped me once more—quicker this time, I noted.
And this time, I released her only to kiss her, deeply. Roughly. Demanding.
‘Never hesitate. The moment you want relief. The moment you need it to stop. Always tell me. I’ll cease. Every time.’
She nodded into the kiss, one trembling hand tangling in my hair and gripping it in her little fist when I inserted a second finger, and began to beckon her forward.
“Oh… Voski, I—”
She cut herself off, swallowing convulsively. I lifted my head to meet eyes with her and search her—and the bond—for what had stopped her.
“Tell me,” I rasped.
She swallowed again. “I want you,” she panted. “I want you… inside me.”
Holy shit. The roar of arousal, of sheer need, threatened to scour my sanity.
With a low groan, I dropped to kiss her again, and removed my hand.
She whimpered a complaint, but I used that hand to cup under her knee, and pull it higher, toward her chest, dropping my hips now to press myself against her—and when the hardest part of me drew over that precious bundle of nerves, she bucked, gasping.
Again. Again.
She trembled now, her entire body shaking, and her need clanging in the bond. I’d intended to wait longer, to draw this out further, but I couldn’t.
Pulling her knee up, I slipped it over my elbow, opening her wide as I pressed her into the bed with my weight.
Her eyes slid closed, and I almost demanded that she open them.
Instead, when she broke the kiss and dropped her chin, rolling her hips in an attempt to take me, I grasped the back of her hair, and tugged her head back to watch as I entered those slick, hot depths with a single, slow stroke.
And she was so ready, she took me all the way to the hilt.
Her eyes flew open and her chin dropped back, her head pressing my hand into the mattress as she cried out and her hand clapped to my shoulder.
Shuddering, I withdrew slowly, unbreathing, felt her pulse on me, then plunged into her again, and she gasped my name.
I couldn’t stop. She pulsed around me, her body trembling, fingers clawing, nails biting into my flesh, as she rose toward her peak.
She was stunning, stretched for me, one leg bent up and caught over my arm, the other hooked around my hip.
Her eyes were wide, as if she’d been startled—not alarmed—and she searched mine.
She must have found whatever answers she sought, because she met me, thrust for thrust, clinging as if I might flee, little gasping cries begging.
She was almost there, already. And to my horror, so was I.
But she needed to trust me on every level.
To know I’d stop if she hurt or grew afraid.
And to know I’d bring her pleasure and release.
So, gripping what was left of her braid, I pulled her head further back and kissed her deeply, delving the sweet cave of her mouth as surely as my body sought hers.
And then, when her breath began to catch and hold, when her body tensed, and her breasts tightened under my chest, I braced on the hand that held her leg up, leaned back, and added a thumb between us, stroking her in time with powerful, sharp thrusts.
I’d intended so much more for her tonight. But her eyes rolled back in her head, and she began the final climb to that summit, tightening on me with every thrust.
“Grace… oh God—”
“Don’t stop. Please!” she gasped.
With a snarl to my body to retain my control, I pulled out of her completely, freezing when Grace slumped.
Her eyes flew wide and she whimpered, “Why?”
I drove forward, into her, as deeply as the first time, lifting her hips from the bed—and she cried out with pleasure, calling my name as I took her once, twice… and on the third time, threw her over the edge.
Grace threw her head back, her body bowed, nipples small and tight, mouth wide, my name garbled on her tongue as I pumped, and pumped, thumb stroking, wringing every last twitch and buck from her, until she shuddered, and sucked in a breath, her eyes open.
And the moment our eyes locked, I came.
As I hovered over her, jaw slack and body roiling with bliss, I reached for her in the bond, instinct overriding thought.
‘Do you see me, Grace? See what you do to me? See how I want you?’
Whispering my name, she cupped her hand to the back of my neck and pulled me down, writhing, rolling with me, as my body twitched and bucked.
And when that wave of pleasure rolled back out, I slumped over her, flattening her to the bed, my face buried in her neck, and my heart pounding so loud, it thumped in my ears.
I don’t know how long we lay there, but she stroked my hair, fingers trailing, sending prickles of pleasure down my neck, her nails scraping gently on my scalp. And I wanted nothing more than to stay in that moment forever.
But eventually, I worried I’d crush her with my weight, and forced myself to lean up on my elbows and stare down at her.
I would have made a joke to cover for my loss of control.
Might have said something sweet or heated, to distract her from my shaking.
But the moment our eyes locked, her fingers tightened in my hair again, and she smiled. Beaming.
“More,” she whispered.
I smirked, heart still pounding, and shook my head. “I can’t teach you everything in one night,” I said, my voice so ragged I sounded ill.
“Not everything,” she said with a shrug. “Just more.”
I was so overwhelmed, so gratified, so undeserving, I just stared at her. And then, because I didn’t have words, I picked her up, carried her up the bed to lay her down with her head on the pillow, and kissed her.
Later, when she fell asleep as the sun was rising, I knew I needed to rest too. But I couldn’t stop staring at her.
She was a marvel.
A gift.
A terrifying necessity.
‘Mate,’ Kham rumbled in my head. ‘She is mate.’