He lowered his head and pressed his mouth to her stomach. His lips were hot against her skin, tracing a path across her belly that left fire in its wake. She felt the press of his tusks—smooth, hard, strange—and the contrast made her shiver.
"What—" Her voice came out breathless. "What are you doing?"
"Showing you." He kissed her hip. The curve of her waist. The soft flesh beneath her ribs. "What you deserve."
Each word was punctuated by another kiss. Another touch. His hands roamed her body, mapping every inch of her he could reach, lingering on the places she'd learned to hate. He cupped her breasts, ran his palms down her thighs, pressed his face into the soft swell of her belly and inhaled.
"The scent of you," he growled against her skin. "Do you know what it does to me?"
She shook her head, beyond words.
"It drives me mad." His mouth moved lower, kissing a trail down her stomach. "Every moment. Every breath. You smell like everything I never knew I wanted."
When he pressed her thighs apart, Delia tensed.
He lifted his head to look at her. "Do you want me to stop?"
"No." The word came out too fast, too desperate. "No, I just—I've never—"
His thumb stroked soothingly over her hip. "We go slowly. As slowly as you need."
He lowered his head again, pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh, and Delia's head fell back against the furs.
His mouth was devastating. Hot and wet and impossibly skilled, tracing patterns on her sensitive skin that made her writhe. He kissed his way up one thigh, then the other, always stopping just short of where she was beginning to ache for him.
"Please," she heard herself whisper. "Ralvar,please—"
His growl vibrated against her core.
And then his mouth wasthere.
The first touch of his tongue wrenched a shocked sound from her throat. It was nothing like she'd imagined, nothing like the whispered stories she'd heard from other village girls about fumbling encounters in haylofts. His tongue moved against her like he was savoring her, parting her with slow strokes that made her hips buck. He tasted her deeply, his tusks pressing againsther outer lips, framing the heat of his mouth in a way that felt both dangerous and divine.
"Oh—" Her hands scrabbled for purchase, found his hair, gripped hard. "Oh—"
His hands tightened on her thighs, spreading her wider, holding her open for his mouth. His tongue found the swollen bud at her center and circled it, pressing with just enough force to make her see stars.
Delia's hips bucked up involuntarily. The world narrowed down to the feel of his mouth, his hands, the heat of his breath against her most sensitive flesh. Pleasure coiled in her belly, tight and building, unlike anything she'd ever felt before.
"That's it," he rumbled against her. "Let go. I have you."
One of his hands left her thigh. She felt him shift, felt his finger brush against her entrance, impossibly thick, circling gently before pressing inside.
The stretch stole her breath. His finger felt enormous, filling her in a way that bordered on uncomfortable but didn't quite cross into pain. She clenched around him, and felt him pause.
"Too much?"
"No." She panted, trying to adjust. "No, just—different. It's—oh—"
He'd curled his finger, found something inside her that she hadn't known existed, and the world exploded into sensation. Her back arched off the furs. Her grip on his hair went white-knuckled. A sound tore out of her that might have been his name.
And through it all, his mouth never stopped moving, his tongue lashing against her bud, his tusks pressing into her folds, his growls vibrating through her as he drank her in.
The pleasure was too much. Too big. Too overwhelming. It crashed over her in waves, each one higher than the last, and she could feel herself climbing toward something terrifying and inevitable.
"I can't—" The words came out broken. "Ralvar, I can't—"
"You can."
