Drawing in ragged breaths through her nose, she answered, “I’d want to taste you, to bite you and claw at you until you pinned me down andtook.”Her hips rose unconsciously as her thighs fell apart beneath the sheets. “If you could hold me, you would bite my throat and slide between my thighs.”
A low sound came across the line: part growl, part groan, all pleasure. “You want my bite, sweetheart?”
Gods,did she want his bite. Camille had never known the pleasure, but she’d heard of it. The most intimate of embraces could bring pleasure like no other. It released a rush of endorphins, melding sex with pure instinct until they were indistinguishable.
During their brief liaison, Cyrus hadn’t asked and she hadn’t offered. Though she trusted him to never hurt her, Camille shied away from anyone coming that close to ending her life — or seeing her that unguarded.
Anyone except Viktor.
“Yes,” she whispered into the dark, guilt and old hurts be damned.
“Fuck.”The sound of fabric rustling came again, making her ears twitch. What was he doing? The possibilities were endless and each more tantalizing than the last. “I don’t think you know what a shifter’s bite entails, sweetheart. It’s not meant to hold you.”
When had her hand snuck under the sheets? She couldn’t remember. All she knew was the grating edge of his voice and the pounding heat in her core — that twisting, empty ache that begged for relief. Her voice shook when she asked, “What does it entail, then?”
Viktor hissed out a breath. It crackled through the speaker pressed against her ear, sending goosebumps over her sensitive skin. “It’s meant toclaim.”
Exhilaration and lust burst like bubbles in her mind, drowning everything else out even as her focus on him became the only thing that mattered, her only tether to reality. He was the only one who could soothe the needy, grasping thing inside her.
“Sweetheart, when I bite you, it’s not going to be some elvish dominance play,” he continued, ragged. “I’m going to sink my fangs into that pretty shoulder and make you mine. You can snarl at me all you want, but when the time comes, you’ll submit — and purr while you do it.”
The beast in her balked, lip lifting with the snarl he spoke of, but the woman who craved passion, possession, the heat of raw challenge, was blindsided with desire. Secretly, both the elf and the womanwantedwhat he offered, but were wary of letting him that close without first proving himself.
The beast wanted a test of claw and fang. The elvish courting dance was an intricate one of violence and restraint, lust and aggression. A partner had to be tested in order to sort out their own personal hierarchy, after all. Could the weaker of the pair trust that, even when they bite or swiped, that the stronger would always protect, never harm? If not, then the dance of dominance continued until the matter was settled.
The woman, of course, wanted a test of a different kind.
While she yearned to throw off the yoke of past hurt, she grappled with guilt and fear of the future. What if he left her? What if she became her mother? What if her choice to form a union was a terrible idea? What if she was already in too deep to end it?
To silence those doubts, she would needtrust.Unfortunately, she had no idea how to test for that sort of thing.
But in that moment, Camille was not thinking of the past, nor of the future. She was thinking only of Viktor, his voice in her ear, and her body, strung so tight with arousal ithurt.
“Vik,”she murmured, a plea and a prayer rolled into one syllable.
“Fuck, that is the sweetest fucking sound.” And there it was: the unmistakable sound of skin on skin.
She gasped, picturing his fingers wrapped around his cock, stroking rough and fast. The idea that he was unabashedly taking his pleasure while he spoke to her in that low purr was almost too much to handle.
Camille’s fingers slid between her legs. A low, keening sound escaped her throat as she felt how wet and hot she was, waiting for the touch of a consort who was not there.
Although it was unspeakably erotic to hear him stroke himself, Camille wanted to be the one to do it. She wanted to be the one who wrapped her fingers around his cock, that watched his face when he came. She wanted to claim that heady sense of power over a being so strong and beautiful — that taste of exquisite connection that terrified and tempted her.
“Shh,” Viktor soothed, breathing hard, “I’ve got you, sweetheart. Focus on my voice. I’m there with you right now.”
Frustrated tears pricked at the backs of her eyes. There was pleasure to be had in her own touch, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’thim.
“You’re not. You’renothere.” Camille was horrified by the whine in her voice, the accusation. It sounded like she was pleading with him to come to her — because shewas.
I’ve finally lost it.Her control had snapped and the beast roared to the forefront of her mind to take over her mouth.
“I know, sweetheart. I know you’re hurting.” Viktor sounded as pained as she felt, which went a small way to soothing her frustration. “As much as I want to jump in my car and hunt you down right now, I know I can’t. So let me take care of you in the only way that’s safe for you, sweetheart. Let me talk you through it.”
Despite the frustration and the ceaseless desire, Camille felt her chest tighten with an uncomfortable tenderness. She breathed out a shaky exhale. “Okay.”
“That’s my girl.” A little electriczingwent down her spine. “Where is your hand right now?”
“Between my legs.”
