His hands move back up my body, sliding from hips to waist, then higher, stopping just before they reach my breasts. It’s an almost-touch, a maybe-touch, and every nerve in my body leans into it.
I arch toward him, helpless to stay away, needing more pressure, more contact, morehim.
“Might be worth what?” I manage.
His eyes meet mine, dark and determined, pupils wide.
“Risking my life for just a taste,” he says. “Even if it costs my life, it’ll be worth it to ruin you for every other man who even dares to look at you.”
The words land like a live wire in my chest.
Something inside me that has always been wary of devotion, of people staking claims they don’t mean, shies away. But this isBran. He doesn’t waste phrases like that. He’s not poetic. He’s precise.
With that vow, he dips his head and slams his mouth against mine.
There’s nothing tentative or hesitant about the way he claims my lips. This kiss is…more…than the others we’ve shared. I taste decision on his lips. It’s bigger. Hotter. Hungrier. In the space it takes my heart to give a single hard thump in my chest, my eyes fall closed and my head tilts back, surrendering to the hot press of lips, the scratch of his beard, and the punishing demands of his tongue.
He surrounds me.
Not just physically—though he does that too, boxing me in with his arms, standing firm between my thighs—but in the way he envelops me in his scent and taste and strength. Every point of contact feels like he’s stamping his name into my skin.
And holiest of all things holy, I am here for it.
A sound escapes me, thin and high-pitched. A whimper of need and a plea all rolled into one. Bran seems to understand exactly what I need.
He grasps my thighs and lifts them, guiding my legs around his hips. I go willingly, instinctively, ankles crossing at the small of his back. He pulls me forward until my core is pressed against the solid length of him, and oh.
Oh.
I feel him, hard and thick against me through the thin barrier of my leggings, and I can’t stop myself from rocking against him.
More. I need more of that delicious friction. Heat and pleasure lick up my spine as he rocks into me, perfectly in sync, and I know he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.
Panic flickers, cold and sharp, intruding on the heat. He’s so much older than I am, so much more experienced. I’ve had one orgasm with him in a bed while half-asleep and suddenly I’m supposed to know what I’m doing here? What if he doesn’t like—
“What if I don’t what?” he murmurs against my mouth, like he’s reading my mind.
I freeze. Did I say that out loud?
His gaze feels heavy as he pulls back just enough to look at me properly, measuring my responses, like he’s studying me, finding the best way to take me apart and put me back together again.
I lift my chin. How hard can it be? I’m a fast learner. I taught myself three programming languages before I was sixteen. This is just…biology.
“Right here,” I murmur. My teeth sink into my bottom lip as my fingers twist into his shirt and give a tug, a silent demand with no margin for misinterpretation.
His eyes flare.
Bran complies, stepping back half an inch to get the leverage he needs to pull his shirt over his head in one smooth motion. He throws it somewhere to the side without looking.
His skin is hot and tensile, silk over acres of hard muscle with just the right amount of hair. He’s such aman, in a way I’ve mostly only seen in movies and on bad romance covers.
I hum in appreciation and take my time running my fingers over his skin, mapping him with slow, greedy strokes. The muscles in his shoulders flex under my touch; his abdomen tightens when I drag my nails lightly along the ridges there.
He lets me explore him for a moment, watching me with hooded eyes, then his hands slide under my sweater. The first brush of his palms against my bare waist makes me gasp.
He tugs the sweater up and over my head. I lift my arms without thinking, letting him strip it away.
I go still as he studies me almost reverently, taking in the plain black cotton cupping my breasts. The bra is nothing special, just a practical piece of armor I threw on the other day, but under his gaze it feels like something else.
