Then his mouth is on me. Tongue tracing patterns across my ribs, teeth grazing the underside of my breast, hands spanning my waist and holding me pinned to the mattress when I try to arch into the contact. He takes his time. Maps every inch of available skin with methodical precision, learning what makes me gasp, what makes me whimper, what makes me forget my own name and reduces me to nothing but sensation and need.
The mirror on the opposite wall catches fragments of the scene. My wrists bound above my head, metal glinting. Kruk's massive frame dwarfing mine, green skin stark against my paleness. The contrast is obscene. Beautiful. Terrifying in its intensity.
"Look," he commands, lifting his head just enough to meet my eyes in the reflection. "Watch what I do to you."
I can't look away. Can't do anything but obey as his mouth travels lower, as his shoulders force my thighs apart, as he settles between my legs with the focus he usually reserves for tactical planning.
"So fragile," he murmurs against my inner thigh, the words vibrating through skin and muscle straight into bone. His breath is hot, deliberate, ghosting over sensitive flesh and making me squirm against the restraints. "Soft. Delicate. Breakable."
The assessment should probably offend me. Instead, it sends heat pooling low in my belly, making my breath catch in my throat. There's something in his voice—reverence mixed with possession, wonder tinged with dark promise.
"I'm not going to break," I manage to protest, though the words emerge thready and unconvincing even to my own ears. My voice wavers, betraying exactly how close to shattering I already feel, and we've barely started.
"No." He presses a kiss to the crease where leg meets hip, surprisingly gentle despite the tusks that bracket his mouth, despite the hands that could snap me like kindling if he chose. His gold-capped tusks graze my skin, a reminder of danger held carefully in check. "Because I won't let you. I'll keep you safe. Even from this. Even from me." Another kiss, this one slightly higher, and I can feel the smile against my skin. "Always."
The promise settles over me like a weighted blanket. Grounding. Intoxicating.
Then he puts that clever, wicked mouth to work in earnest, and all capacity for coherent thought becomes utterly, completely impossible.
I lose time. Seconds blur into minutes into small eternities measured in heartbeats and gasping breaths and the relentless, devastating pleasure he wrings from my body with tongue and fingers and the occasional careful scrape of teeth. The handcuffs hold me in place when I thrash. The weight of his hands on my hips keeps me from bucking away from stimulation that borders on too much.
He's vocal. Groans vibrate against oversensitized flesh, punctuated by snarled Orcish that I don't understand but recognize as praise by the reverent tone. He tells me I taste like heaven, like addiction, like something he could spend hours worshipping without ever growing bored.
I believe him with every fiber of my being. The conviction in his voice, the intensity burning in those pale eyes, the protective possessiveness radiating from every inch of him, it all combines into an undeniable truth that settles deep in my bones.
And then he proceeds to prove it by doing exactly that, with a dedication and focus that could probably solve world hunger if he applied the same level of tactical precision to anything other than completely dismantling my sanity.
When he finally lets me come, I'm sobbing. Not from pain. From the sheer overwhelming intensity of sensation layered upon sensation until I can't tell where I end and the pleasure begins. The orgasm rips through me like a storm, leaves me shaking and gasping and utterly destroyed in the aftermath.
Kruk crawls back up my body. Kisses me slow and deep, letting me taste myself on his tongue, sharing the evidence of what he just did to me. His weight presses me into the mattress, grounding, the solid reality of him anchoring me when I feel like I might float away entirely.
"Beautiful," he murmurs against my mouth, his breath warm and possessive, mingling with mine in the scant space between us. His hand comes up to cup my face, thumb tracing the tear tracks still wet on my cheek with surprising gentleness. "You are so fucking beautiful when you surrender. When you stop fighting and just let go. When you trust me enough to fall apart completely."
I want to argue. Point out that I'm a disaster, that my hair is a rat's nest, that I probably look like I've been through a war. But the way he's looking at me suggests he sees something entirely different. Something worth keeping.
He reaches up. Unlock handcuffs with quick, efficient movements. Immediately begins massaging my wrists, checking for damage, making sure the metal didn't bite too deep or leave marks that will linger longer than intended.
"Okay?" he asks for what must be the hundredth time tonight.
"Perfect," I tell him honestly. "But we're not done."
His eyebrows climb. "You want more?"
"I want you." I push at his chest, knowing I can't actually move him unless he allows it. "Inside me. Now."
For a moment he just stares. Then something dark and possessive flickers across his features. He shifts, positioning himself between my thighs. The blunt pressure of him makes my breath catch all over again.
"The mirror," he says, angling us so I can see. "Watch. I want you to see how we look together. I want you to remember this every time you doubt you're mine."
I watch. Can't help it. The image burns itself into my brain, searing and indelible and completely obscene in the best possible way.
He enters me slowly. So slowly it borders on torture, every inch a deliberate claiming, a measured taking that leaves no room for doubt about who owns what here. I'm not small, but he makes me feel fragile anyway. Delicate. Precious in a way I've never experienced before.
"Breathe," he reminds me when I forget. When the stretch becomes almost too much and my body tenses automatically. "Relax. Let me in."
I will try. Force my muscles to unclench, my lungs to remember their function. He rewards the effort by sliding deeper, filling me completely, bottoming out with a groan that rumbles through his chest and into mine.
"There," he says, sounding wrecked. Undone. "Perfect. You feel perfect."
