His fingertips feather my wrist as I follow him to the bathing room attached to the bedroom I chose, where he turns and nudges me backward against the wall by the door, a slow, prowling movement before my back presses to the hard surface.
Once again, his head lowers to mine, but this time, he brushes his lips across my other cheek and to my other earlobe, tantalizing touches and a whispered breath inhaled against my skin.
I arch forward, but he steps back, pulling my wrist to his lips, planting kisses across my palm. My left hand. Free of the blade’s image. Free of the blood bind. His lips progress to myforefinger, drawing the tip into his mouth before letting me go.
My heated exhale ripples the Lethian armor across my body, but I’m still wearing the training suit, confining the magical threads beneath it.
As Stellen steps to the pump at the side of the bath, he pulls his tunic up and over his head, dropping it onto the floor. His boots follow. But his focus seems now to be on the bath.
He pumps the handle, and as the water pours in, he extends his hand into the flow, a soft hum on his lips, a melody nearly drowned out by the rush of liquid, but my ears must be so attuned to his Voice that another shiver runs through me, rippling to my core. And again, the Lethian armor pushes across my skin, this time with more force.
I find Stellen watching me beneath his lashes, his fingertips still in the water, the soft hum still on his lips.
Peeling myself off the wall, I draw the training suit down over my arms and to my waist. I step up beside the bath, a full two paces away from Stellen before I push the rest of the suit down my legs and completely off.
My Lethian armor remains, and I could certainly take it off by myself, but…
I tip my head up, a challenge in my eyes.
I’m prepared to ask for what I want, but he seems to anticipate me.
He rises to his feet, water dripping from his fingertips before a sheen of frost rushes across his hand turning the droplets to ice. With his focus on me, he closes his fist and the ice becomes powder, floating to the floor.
His gaze flows down my curves and I anticipate he’ll close the gap between us, but instead of reaching for me, he backs away, careful steps taking him to the stool in the corner of theroom.
My brow creases when he takes a seat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped in front of himself, his focus intently on me, his pale eyes darkening behind the white strands of his luminous hair.
He hums a note low in the back of his throat.
The furrow in my brow vanishes because…
The tension in my stomach unfurls, a subtle but undeniable sensation.
He waits a beat, as if he were letting the sensation settle, but his silence is brief before he hums another note, still in the back of his throat.
Heat flows from my stomach to my pelvis, a stronger sensation than the first, now pooling in my core.
A moan leaves my lips as I sway on the spot, my hip nudging the side of the bath, my hand finding its edge, an anchor as the pleasure swirling from those two notes unfurls and grows, spreading up through my chest and down through my legs, radiating like echoes.
One corner of his lips rises and the heat in his eyes intensifies, the dilation of his pupils so much more obvious because of his pale irises.
He inhales, a simple, quiet, calm pulling of the air that tugs on me like a string.
My other hand finds the side of the bath, both now gripping hard as deep pleasure spirals through me, no longer from any specific point, filling every inch of me.
At his slow exhalation, he sings another note so heated that I can’t stifle my cry.
My arms straighten and I bend at the hips, my back nearly parallel with the floor as I stretch out beside the bath.
My moan sends the Lethian threads into a frenzy, their form shifting rapidly, tightening beneath my breasts, creating a corset that supports me while around my legs the threadsbegin to softly churn, swirling to a pulse I can’t hear, can onlyfeel.
Dear Goddess, Stellen has sung only two notes and taken a deliberately controlled breath and I am…
Losing my sense of time and space with every passing second.
Through the haze of pleasure wrapping around my body, I’m aware of him rising from his seat.
Soft and slow, he begins to hum again, but this time, the notes don’t stop.
