Her tongue brushed her bottom lip.
That nearly undid me.
I unbuckled my belt, watching the way her chest rose and fell faster with each sound of metal on leather. Boots. Pants. Every layer hitting the floor felt like scraping away the last restraints I’d ever had between us.
When I stepped out of the final piece of clothing, her breath caught—audibly.
“Furious,” I murmured, stepping close enough that heat spilled between us. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’m never letting you out of this room.”
“Good,” she whispered.
I sank into the tub behind her, pulling her gently into my lap, her back against my chest. She gave a soft gasp as my arms wrapped around her waist. Her body melted against mine, head tipping back onto my shoulder in silent permission.
“I want to touch you,” I said against her neck. “Every inch. Slowly.”
I pressed my lips to the slick curve of her shoulder. And then her throat.
And then the place just beneath her ear. She made a small noise of pleasure, and my cock twitched. Gods, I’d never been owned by anything like I was owned by that sound.
My mouth brushed her ear. “You’re mine, Aurelia.”
Her fingers tangled with mine under the water, guiding them between her thighs.
“And you’re mine,” she breathed.
The vow settled between us—heavy, binding, consuming—and I lowered my lips to her neck as I slid a finger inside her wet heat, ready to worship her properly.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Aurelia
Rydian’s finger slid inside me, and I shattered into a thousand sparks of light. My back arched against his chest, head falling onto his shoulder as my body clenched around that single point of contact. The water lapped gently at my skin, warm and languid, but everything inside me was fire.
“Gods, you feel so good,” Rydian murmured against my ear, voice like velvet and smoke.
I couldn’t quite form words to respond before his thumb found the sensitive bundle of nerves at my center and all that came out was a broken moan.
His laugh was low, dark, insufferably satisfied. “That's it, Furious. Let me hear you.”
The shadows he’d wrapped around the room pulsed in response—thick ribbons of darkness coating the walls, the window, every crack in the floorboards. No light crept in. No sound crept out. We existed in our own pocket of the world, sealed away from everything and everyone.
His free hand splayed across my stomach, holding mesteady as he worked me with devastating patience. One finger became two, stretching me, filling me, curling just so until stars burst behind my eyelids.
“Rydian.” His name came out half prayer, half warning.
“I've got you.” His lips brushed the shell of my pointed ear, breath hot. “I've got you. Just feel.”
So I did.
I let myself sink into the sensation of his body behind me—all hard planes and coiled strength, his erection pressing insistently against my lower back. The water was cooling now, but I barely noticed, not when his fingers moved in that relentless rhythm, not when his shadows crept along the surface of the water like curious things, trailing over my collarbones, my breasts, everywhere his hands couldn’t reach.
“So responsive,” he said, wonder threading through the roughness of his voice. “Every touch and you light up for me. Do you know how long I’ve wanted this? To see you come undone by my hands?”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t think. There was only the building pressure, the impossible tension coiling tighter at my core. My fingers gripped his forearm beneath the water, nails biting into muscle and ink as I chased something I couldn’t name.
“That’s it,” he coaxed. “Don’t hold back. You don’t have to be composed. Not with me.”
The words undid something in my chest—some wall I hadn’t realized I was keeping up.
