"That's it," I encouraged, beginning a slow rhythm that had him arching against me within moments. "Let go. Let me take control."
The bond flared between us, carrying echoes of sensation that made it impossible to tell where my pleasure ended and his began. I could feel his need as clearly as my own, could sense the way my touch affected him through the connection that linked us soul to soul.
But feeling his responses so clearly also gave me perfect control over them. I could sense when he approached the edge, could feel the telltale tightening that preceded release, and use that knowledge to keep him suspended in that sweet space between desperation and satisfaction.
"Please," he gasped when I slowed my rhythm just as he was about to fall over into bliss. "Kaelen, please, I need?—"
"I know what you need," I said firmly, my free hand moving to his throat in a gentle but unmistakable claim. "Trust me to give it to you when the time is right."
The combination of denial and possession sentshudders through his frame. Through the bond, I felt his submission deepen, felt the way surrendering control fed something vital in his nature. This was what he'd been made for—not the harsh dominance the militant Order demanded, but the sweet yielding that came from trusting someone else to guide his pleasure.
I worked him with methodical precision, building him toward climax only to ease off at the crucial moment, reading his body's responses through our connection with academic accuracy. Each denial made him more desperate, more pliant, more perfectly mine.
"I can feel what you feel," I told him, my lips brushing the shell of his ear as my hand maintained its maddening rhythm. "Through the bond. I know exactly how close you are, exactly when to stop, exactly how much you can take."
The knowledge seemed to undo him completely. His head fell back against my shoulder, exposing the long line of his throat for my lips and teeth, while broken sounds poured from him like water from a cracked vessel.
"Please," he begged, the word barely recognizable through his desperation. "Please, I can't... I need..."
"What do you need?" I demanded, though I kept my touch light, teasing, just enough to maintain his arousal without pushing him over.
"You," he sobbed. "Inside me. Claiming me. Making me yours completely."
The raw honesty of his plea shattered whatremained of my control. With movements made clumsy by our shared urgency, I positioned him how I needed him—bent forward slightly, hands braced against the bath's edge, water lapping around our joined bodies as I pressed against his entrance.
"Yes," he hissed as I began to push inside, his body opening for me with the ease of familiarity even as the sensation remained overwhelming for both of us. "Yes, Kaelen, please..."
The feeling of being inside him again, of claiming him in the most intimate way possible, sent the bond singing with harmonics I'd never experienced before. It wasn't just physical pleasure—though that was exquisite enough to make my vision blur—but spiritual recognition, the profound rightness of two souls joining as one.
I moved within him with increasing urgency, driven by a need that went beyond mere desire into something approaching desperation. The water around us turned choppy from our movements, splashing against marble in rhythm with our coupling, adding percussion to the symphony of our shared moans and gasped endearments.
"Mine," I growled against his neck, biting down just hard enough to mark him.
"Yours," he agreed breathlessly, pushing back against my thrusts with movements that spoke of perfect surrender. "Only yours."
The words triggered something primitive and possessive in my nature. My rhythm became more demanding, more claiming, driving into him withthrusts that made the water around us surge and splash. Through the bond, I could feel his pleasure building to impossible heights, could sense the way each movement pushed him closer to the edge he'd been denied for so long.
But this time, I didn't pull him back. This time, I drove him forward, using every technique I'd learned about his body to push him toward the kind of climax that would remake him from the inside out.
"Come for me," I commanded, my hand finding his cock once more. "Come while I'm inside you, while you're completely mine."
The combination of command and touch sent him over the edge with explosive force. He came with a cry that echoed off the marble walls, his body clenching around me in rhythmic pulses that triggered my own release. I buried myself deep inside him as my climax crashed over me, marking him with my seed while the bond between us flared to new intensity.
In that moment of perfect joining, I understood what the Elyon priests meant about bridges to the divine. This connection we'd forged went beyond physical pleasure, beyond temporary arrangement, beyond anything I'd thought possible between two mortal souls.
We collapsed together in the warm water, both trembling from the intensity of our joining. The bond hummed between us with new strength, carrying echoes of shared pleasure that would linger for hours.
"That was..." Rion began, then trailed off, apparently lacking words for what we'd just experienced.
"Sacred," I finished softly, pressing a gentle kiss to his shoulder. "That was sacred."
And for the first time in my scholarly life, I found myself believing in something that couldn't be measured, quantified, or explained.
Only felt, with the full force of a heart finally learning what it meant to be complete.
Chapter
Twelve
