When Serenna dared to look at him, she found his eyes burning in the dark, reflecting her desire back.
“Tell me,” Fenn breathed, his voice a whisper against her cheek. “If I touch you here…” His fingers drifted higher. Unbearably slow. “How quiet do you think you can be?”
Serenna inhaled sharply as the warmth of him hovered near the seam of her trousers. One gasp too loud would betray them. But before that thought could anchor, Fenn’s mouth claimed hers.
As if time itself bent to his will, he kissed her with devastating patience, his claw slipping beneath her tunic. Calloused fingers traced along her ribs until her body arched into him. Another sound escaped her—barely a whimper—yet he caught it with his mouth, stealing it before the night could hear.
Serenna tangled her fingers in the dark sweep of his hair, angling him closer until caution dissolved. Fenn growled against her lips, the sound vibrating through her. Then he shifted, muscles coiling with intent, one arm braced low around her back.
“Hold still,” he whispered.
In one fluid motion he lifted her, drawing her into his lap until she straddled him facing the sea. Her spine melted against the furnace of his chest, her knees framing the width of his thighs.
Like her own shadow made flesh, warmth spilled from Fenn’s breath as he nipped lightly beneath her jaw. Serenna gasped and his chuckle rumbled dark against her throat.
“Wouldn’t want to distract you from your watch,” he murmured.
Words deserted her. A shiver rippled through her body, an ache bending itself into demand as she leaned back into him. Stars blurred at the edge of her vision, the sky suddenly too near, her own inhalations too shallow as Fenn’s fangs kept teasing the tender slope below her ear. Each kiss sank lower, unhurried, his fingers grazing the bare strip of skin above her waistband.
“Stay quiet for me,” he breathed, thumb caressing the base of her spine. “Wouldn’t want to rouse the others.”
A sound crept to her lips—half laugh, half moan—but she bit it down as his palms closed over her hips. He guided her back with the faintest pressure until she felt the unmistakable length of him, heated weight nudging into her with every lungful of air he drew.
“Fenn,”Serenna warned through the bond, though her body curved into him even as her mind scrabbled for restraint.
“Shhh.” His mouth brushed her ear as he rocked his hips once, a dark provocation that sparked every nerve. “Eyes on the horizon, she-elf. You’re still on watch.”
Something rustled down the slope—Jassyn turning in his cloak, or maybe the wind threading through the grass. Either way, the night cinched taut, and every breath Serenna drew balanced on the precarious edge of being caught.
Fenn’s grip tightened at her waist. “Lift for me,” he urged, low and commanding in a way that left her spine tingling.
Serenna obeyed, knees sinking into the cool grass, one hand braced against the earth for balance. Fenn’s deft fingers worked the ties at her waist. The fabric surrendered beneath his touch, easing over the swell of her hips until the night air skimmed bareskin. She moved for him to strip the rest away, all remaining clothing whispering down her legs in a single sweep.
Fenn’s exhale tore loose in a rough growl. Heat spiraled up Serenna’s thighs as his palms returned, his mouth trailing fire along the curve of her neck. She shivered when his voice slid to her ear, dark enough to scrape the breath from her lungs.
“Now…don’t make a sound.”
Adjusting beneath her, his thighs widened as he drew her back flush against him. His thumbs stroked the bare ridge of her hips, coaxing rather than guiding, though the tremor in his touch betrayed how he held himself in check. Fangs skimmed her shoulder, the faint sting chased instantly by a kiss far too tender for the way his hips moved, slow and ruthless, the thick length of him grinding into the cradle of her body.
The roughness of his leathers only sharpened Serenna’s awareness, friction and heat colliding low until it felt as if he’d already touched the place between her thighs that throbbed for him most.
“Fenn,” Serenna all but whimpered as her hips rocked against his, reckless for more. She reached back blindly, fingers closing around the thick, straining length beneath his trousers.
A guttural snarl tore from his throat as he thrust into her palm, control splintering with the sound.
“Take them off,” she hissed, urgency tight in her voice.
He stilled. For a heartbeat, he only breathed against her ear—harsh and uneven—his length nudging again into her hand, as if answering for him.
“Say it again,” Fenn growled, voice gone to gravel.
Serenna tilted her head back, biting the ring in his lip. “That’s an order, Captain.”
The wrecked sound he gave landed somewhere between surrender and hunger. Fenn released her long enough to fumblewith the fastenings at his waist. Leather rasped as he pushed his trousers down his hips, just enough for his arousal to spring free.
His thighs flexed beneath her, dragging heat against her aching center.Serenna’s breath hitched as he pressed along her seam, a breath shy of entering, gliding slickness with every subtle rock of their hips. Her nails dug into his legs for balance as she fought to stay upright.
Fenn’s mouth found her shoulder again, this time biting harder, a groan rumbling into her skin. “File my fangs,” he snarled, voice ragged, words hot at her ear.
