Riven leaned back into the plush, ridiculous chair, legs spread wide, his grin smug and hungry as he beckoned Thane with a lazy curl of his fingers. “Think you can take it?”
The glint in Thane’s eyes sharpened like a blade catching sunlight. He didn’t answer with words—just stalked forward until he was standing between Riven’s knees. He reached down and gripped the arms of the chair, caging Riven in.
“You’re lucky I indulge you,” Thane growled, voice rich with amusement and warning, before capturing Riven’s mouth in a kiss that scorched. His tongue swept deep, his hand slipping to Riven’s throat in a gesture more possessive than punishing.
And then Thane dropped to his knees.
The sight alone stole the breath from Riven’s lungs. Thane Virellien, heir and blade, power made flesh, kneeling like a devotee before him, gaze dark and locked on his.
Thane didn’t hesitate—he leaned in and took Riven’s cock into his mouth with slow, deliberate confidence, the heat of him unbearable. Riven groaned, fingers sliding into that thick silver hair, anchoring himself.
Thane set a pace that was maddening—deep, unhurried pulls, the wet heat of his mouth exquisite. Riven thrust shallowly, testing, and when Thane didn’t flinch, didn’t falter, just looked up at him with a cool, wicked approval in his eyes—Riven lost it a little.
“Fuck, you’re good at this,” Riven rasped, his hand tightening in Thane’s hair as he began to thrust more deliberately, hips rising to meet each stroke of Thane’s mouth.
And Thane—gods, he took it.
Didn’t gag, didn’t blink, just opened for him, a smug flicker of amusement in his gaze even as Riven fucked into the heat of his mouth.
It was a battle, and Riven wasn’t sure who was winning.
Chapter 52
When Thane finally rose to his feet, the shift in energy was immediate—he didn’t have to speak to reassert control. It was in the set of his shoulders, the dark glint in his eyes, the deliberate grace of every movement. Riven’s breath caught. He knew that look, and he knew what it meant.
He was ready to give over everything.
But Thane didn’t shove him down or drag him up. Instead, he turned his back to Riven and reached back, curling fingers around the length of Riven’s cock with a confidence that made Riven’s heart thud in his chest.
And then, slowly, exquisitely, Thane began to lower himself.
Riven’s hands immediately went to Thane’s hips, his thighs, then slid up, desperate to touch, to anchor himself. Thane’s muscles flexed above him as he sank down with a patience that nearly undid Riven. The pressure, the impossible tightness of him—it was overwhelming.
But it was the sight of Thane’s back, bare and strong, that undid him completely. The pale, ink-covered skin was marred by the faint remnants of the burns from earlier—hardly there, already healing, but still a reminder.
Riven leaned forward, lips brushing gently across the damaged skin.
He kissed the edges of the fading marks, worshipful, while his body groaned with pleasure from the slow, unbearable stretch of being enveloped so completely. Thane made a sound then, quiet and raw. A soft moan, edged with something vulnerable, something intimate.
Riven kissed him again. And again. Trailing gentle touches along his spine with his mouth, his fingers, even as he felt Thane take more of him, until the weight of him was flush in Riven’s lap, every inch seated.
“Fuck,” Riven breathed, voice shaking with pleasure and awe.
His hand slid around Thane’s front, fingers wrapping around the velvet hardness of his cock. He felt Thane shudder under his touch, and in the space between them, the air thickened with want and the deep, unspoken ache of two people who weren’t supposed to find each other like this.
Thane’s head bowed forward, silver hair sliding over his face as he exhaled raggedly.
And Riven, still stroking him gently, still buried inside him, whispered against his skin, “You feel like fire.”
Thane began to move, slowly at first—an easy rhythm, but every motion was deliberate, every descent designed to push Riven deeper into the ache that was building inside him. Their breath mingled in the warm air of the room, the sounds between them shifting.
Riven didn’t speak. He couldn’t. He could only touch—his hands roaming every inch of Thane’s torso, over the hard planes of his chest, the subtle rise and fall of muscle over ribs, the ink that curled like shadows down his sides. He held him like Thane might vanish otherwise, palms splayed across his body, fingertips pressing as if to memorize the shape of him.
And then Thane shifted, lifting himself slightly before turning in Riven’s lap, facing him now.
The look in his eyes nearly broke Riven apart.
It wasn’t desire, though that still burned there. Unspoken things finally surfaced between them in the quiet intimacy of skin and shared breath.
