He pressed deeper. Another inch. Another.
Her legs tightened around his hips, heels digging into the hard muscle of his backside, trying to find leverage, trying to ground herself against the overwhelming sensation of being opened. The ridges she had seen dragged against her inner walls with a friction that bordered on pain.
Her hands found his shoulders and held on.
"Halfway," he said. His voice was gravel, barely controlled. "You are taking me so well."
She wasn't sure if she was taking him well. She felt split open, remade around something too large for her body to contain. The stretch burned at the edges, a sharp counterpoint to the impossible fullness pressing against places inside her she hadn't known existed.
"More?" His voice was gravel, barely controlled.
"Yes."
He sank deeper. She felt every ridge as it passed, each one dragging against nerve endings that sent sparks up her spine. Her breath came in short, sharp pants. Her fingers had gone white-knuckled on his shoulders, her nails biting into green skin.
Then his hips met hers, and he was fully seated.
She couldn't speak. Couldn't think. Could only feel the weight of him inside her, the way her body had stretched to accommodate something it should not have been able to hold. His pelvis pressed against her mound. His chest heaved against her breasts. His arms caged her, his hands planted in the furs on either side of her head, and she was surrounded by him, covered by him, filled by him in a way that left no room for anything else.
He withdrew a fraction of an inch and pressed back in.
The sound that tore out of her was not a word. It was raw and broken and desperate, and his answering growl vibrated through every point where their bodies connected. He did it again. Another small withdrawal, another slow press forward. The ridges dragged against her inner walls, each one a separate point of friction.
Her hips moved without her deciding to move them, tilting up to meet his next thrust. His hand found the curve of her hip and gripped, fingers sinking into soft flesh, holding her at the angle he wanted.
"Yes," he said, the word grinding out of him. "Like that. Take what you need."
She did not know what she needed. She only knew that her body was moving, rocking against him, her heels digging into his backside to pull him deeper. The stretch was still there, still enormous, but no longer pain. It had become pressure. Fullness. A claiming she had not known she wanted until it was happening.
His pace increased. Still controlled, still careful, but faster now. The slide of him inside her grew slicker with every thrust, her body learning his shape, accommodating him in ways that should have been impossible.
His hand slid from her hip to her belly, palm pressing flat against the soft curve of flesh. She felt her stomach jump under his touch, the old instinct to contract, to hide, surfacing for just a moment before his fingers spread wide, moved higher, hand cupping her breast, testing the weight of it.
"I have thought about this every night since you arrived."
She arched into his palm. Her nipple pressed against the rough callus at the base of his thumb, and the friction sent a spike of sensation straight down to where he filled her.
"I thought about taking you in my quarters." He thrust deeper, and she cried out. "Against the wall. Over the table. In the chair where you sat reading my books."
His mouth found the side of her throat. His tusks pressed against her pulse point, cool ivory framing the heat of his lips.
"Across my desk in the council chamber." His teeth grazed her neck. "I thought about making you come with Tormund in the next room."
She should not find that arousing. The councilroom. Cold stone and treaty documents and the possibility of interruption. But the image seared through her mind—his hand over her mouth, his body blocking hers from view, the risk of it making everything sharper—and her inner walls clenched around him.
He felt it. His hips stuttered, his rhythm breaking for just a moment.
"You like that." It was not a question.
"I don't—" She didn't know what she liked. She had never done any of this before. But her body knew things her mind had not yet caught up to, and her body was responding to the image ofbeing taken where they might be caught with a fresh surge of slick heat.
"I will remember that." His voice dropped lower, a promise. "When you are healed. When you can take me without care. I will remember exactly what makes you clench around me."
He shifted his angle. Deeper. The head of his cock pressed against something inside her that sent sparks cascading through her pelvis, and her back bowed off the furs.
"There," she gasped. "That—"
"I know."
