Her body clenched around his fingers, drawing him deeper, and he made a low sound of satisfaction against her throat. Each curl and thrust of his hand pulled sounds from her she didn't recognize as her own—desperate, wanton things that would have shamed her if she could think beyond the sensation.
The warmth spiraled tighter with each stroke, building toward something immense that would shatter more than just her control. When his thumb circled her clit, she crested with a cry, the warmth exploding outward in waves.
But he didn't stop. If anything, her release seemed to break something in him.
His hands left her body only long enough to shove at his trousers, not even bothering to remove them completely. She watched through heavy-lidded eyes as he fought with the leather just enough to free himself, shoving the material down his hips with graceless urgency.
The sight of him still mostly dressed, cock hard and ready, his control so wrecked he couldn't manage even this basic patience, should have reminded her of what she was to him. Something to be taken quickly, selfishly for his own pleasure. Instead, that treacherous warmth pulsed in welcome, and she heard herself make a sound that might have been his name. His eyes snapped to hers at that small encouragement, dark with a hunger that looked almost like pain.
He moved over her with predatory intent, the leather of his partially-removed trousers rough against her inner thighs as he positioned himself.
"Briar," he said, her name rough in his throat as he moved over her. Not 'little thief,' not 'pet'—her actual name. When he pressed against her entrance, the warmth flared, ready and eager, and she realized with distant horror that her legs had parted wider of their own accord, inviting him deeper.
He pushed inside her in one smooth thrust, and the warmth sang. She was giving herself to the monster who'd stolen her life, and worse, she wanted it. Wanted him.
The realization brought tears to her eyes even as pleasure coursed through her.
How could she ever face Arion again? How could she face herself? She was supposed to be fighting for freedom, not spreading herself beneath her captor and begging for more with every ragged breath.
It was overwhelming, not just the physical sensation but the rightness of it. And that rightness terrified her more than any threat he'd made, because it suggested something she couldn't accept: that maybe she'd never been meant for freedom at all.
The warmth pulsed between them, building a circuit of sensation. She could feel echoes of his pleasure mixed with her own, doubling and redoubling until she couldn't tell where she ended and he began.
"What is this?" he said through gritted teeth, moving in her with deep, purposeful strokes. "What have you done to me?"
"I don't—I don't know—"
But her body did. The warmth did. It recognized him at some fundamental level, knew him in ways her mind couldn't grasp. Each thrust made it pulse brighter, and with each pulse she felt him more clearly, felt his confusion, his need, the way something in his chest answered her warmth with darkness that felt like completion.
Could he feel her too?
"Home," he said again, the word torn from him as he drove deeper. "You called me home."
She was climbing again, impossibly fast. The warmth wound tighter with each movement, each place where their bodies connected.
His hips snapped forward, driving deeper, the head of his cock dragged against something inside her that made her whole body seize. Lightning shot through every nerve ending, white-hot pleasure so intense it bordered on pain.
Her back bowed off the bed, fingers clawing at his shoulders, leaving marks she knew would linger. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, could only feel as he recognizedher reaction and deliberately rolled his hips again. And again. Each thrust targeted and precise now, watching her face with dark satisfaction as she came apart beneath him.
His name pulled itself from her lips, not once but over and over, a broken litany she couldn't stop. "Eliam—Eliam—please—"
Without warning he shifted angles, pressing one hand to her lower belly while the other gripped her hip, tilting her pelvis just enough that the sound that tore from her throat was barely human. Her legs wrapped around his hips trying to pull him impossibly deeper. The pressure of his palm combined with the new angle meant she felt him everywhere, each thrust dragging against her in a way that made coherent thought impossible.
"Yes," he said fiercely. "Say it again. Tell me who you belong to. Who this warmth burns for.”
“You!” the admission escaped in a whimpering cry as she peaked.
Her second release triggered his. She felt it through the warmth, felt the moment his control broke completely. He drove into her one final time, her name on his lips, and the warmth exploded between them in a feedback loop of sensation that left them both gasping.
He collapsed partially on her, catching his weight on his forearms. For long moments, they just breathed, bodies still joined, that warmth pulsing contentedly between them.
Finally, he pulled back enough to look at her. His expression was unreadable—satisfaction mixed with something else she couldn't identify.
"This isn't normal," he said quietly.
"I know."
"The warmth. It's..." He pressed his hand against her chest, feeling it pulse. "It shouldn't exist. You shouldn't exist. Not like this."
