"You're so beautiful it hurts to look at you," he says. Not smooth. Not rehearsed. The words land clumsy and raw, like he didn't choose them—they just fell out.
His mouth finds my hip bone. Kisses it. Tongue tracing the ridge. Then the crease where thigh meets pelvis—and my hips jerk so hard he has to pin them down with his forearms.
"Easy." His breath ghosts across my cock. "I've got you. Just feel it. Don't think."
He lowers his mouth.
The first touch of his tongue sends a shock through my entire body. I arch off the mattress—fists clenching in the sheet, a sound tearing out of me that's half-moan, half-sob. His lips close around me and his tongue moves—slow, devastating, and his bound hands grip my hip for leverage. He can't use his hands separately. Can't stroke me. Can't grip. Just his mouth, wet and warm, and the impossible tenderness of someone who's been drugged and restrained and is using every ounce of clarity to worship me.
I'm close in seconds. The heat amplifies everything—every nerve ending dialed to maximum, every sensation doubled. My hips move against his mouth. My hands find his hair. I'm gasping his name—fragmenting—
But the ache inside me is building faster than the pleasure. The hollow, clenching emptiness that the heat demands. The biological need for something his mouth can't give. It starts as discomfort. Becomes pain. Becomes something unbearable—a cramp that locks through my abdomen and wrenches a cry out of me that has nothing to do with pleasure.
"Stop—Bane, stop—I can't—it hurts—"
He pulls off immediately. Crawls up my body. Cups my face. I'm crying—tears streaming, body shaking, caught between arousal so acute it's agony and the heat-cramp that's hollowing me out from inside.
He kisses me. Deep. Slow. Unhurried. His mouth tasting like me, his breath warm against my lips, his forehead pressed to mine. Not a kiss that demands. A kiss that saysI'm here. I'm not going anywhere. Tell me what you need.
"It's killing me," he whispers against my mouth. "Watching you hurt. Not being able to—" His jaw works. "My body is screaming at me, Max. Every instinct I have is telling me to serve you. To give you what you need. That's what alphas are for. That's what this—" He lifts his bound hands. "—is keeping me from doing properly."
"I'm scared." The words come out small. Smaller than I want them to be. "What if it changes things? What if—"
"It won't change anything that wasn't already changed the second I walked through that door."
I look at him. His face above mine. Hazel eyes glassy from the sedative but focused—completely, entirely focused on me. His jaw tight. His shoulders tense. The physical evidence of his restraint pressing against my thigh—hard, straining, his body fighting his control.
And I think about the word chosen.
"Okay," I say. "But slow. Please. I need it to be slow."
"Slow," he repeats. "Whatever you need. However you need it."
He doesn't rush. He shifts down the bed instead—bound hands sliding along my outer thigh, his mouth following. Lips pressing against the inside of my knee and then opening me wide. Then higher. A slow, open-mouthed kiss on my inner thigh that makes my leg tremble.
"Relax," he murmurs against my skin. "I need to get you ready. I won’t hurt you."
His fingers find me. Slick-wet and swollen and aching—my body has done most of the work already, the heat making me open and desperate in ways I'd be ashamed of if I could think straight. But Bane doesn't rush it. One finger slides in—slow, careful—and my breath catches. Not from pain. From the pressure. The stretch. The intimacy of someone being inside me with this much care.
"Okay?" His lips press against my thigh again. A kiss. Soft.
"Yeah." Barely a whisper. "Yeah, it's okay."
He moves the finger. Slow. In and out. Letting me feel it. Letting my body adjust. His mouth stays on my thigh—kissing, dragging his lips across the sensitive skin, the scratch of stubble sending sparks up my spine. When my hips start to rock against his hand—when the tension in my legs releases and my breathing shifts from panicked to wanting—he adds a second finger.
The stretch makes me gasp. His mouth presses a kiss right next to where his fingers disappear inside me.
"Still okay?"
"More." The word comes out wrecked. "I can take more."
He scissors his fingers. Slow. Stretching me open with a patience that borders on reverence. His mouth trails higher—kissing the crease of my thigh, the ridge of my hip, the spotbelow my navel that makes my stomach clench. A third finger. The fullness is exquisite—pressure and heat and the slow give of my body softening around him.
"There you go," he breathes. "That's it. You're ready."
He withdraws his fingers. I whimper at the loss—the emptiness rushing back, the ache doubling.
"Turn over," he says. Quiet. "On your side."
