“If you ask me if that hurts one more time, I am going to throw something.”
“What will you throw?”
“I’m still deciding.”
His mouth touches the upper curve of my breast. Thought leaves. Completely. A miracle.
His hand opens over my stomach, not pressing, just there, warm-cool and steady. His mouth moves lower with devastating patience, avoiding bruises, finding unhurt skin as if pleasure is a route he can read by touch.
My body doesn’t know what to do with this much attention. It tries to tense, and he feels it. Stops. I almost scream from the sheer offense of restraint at exactly the wrong moment.
“Sera.”
“I’m not scared.”
“I felt you tense.”
“I’m overwhelmed. There’s a difference.”
His gaze lifts. Dark. Intent. Attentive.
I swallow. That word could eat me alive if I let it.
“I don’t know how to be looked at like this,” I say.
His hand strokes once along my side. “Like what?”
“Like I’m not about to be asked to give something.”
He closes his eyes. When he opens them, there is such tenderness in his face that I have to look away. He doesn’t let me hide long.
Not by force. Worse, by waiting until I come back. When I do, his voice is rough.
“I ask for nothing you do not want to give.”
My heart hurts. The bond answers. I slide my hand into his hair, curl my fingers at the base of one horn, and tug him down.
“I want to give this.”
He kisses me again, and this time I let the overwhelm come. Let it fill me instead of frighten me.
Let his hand learn me. Let his mouth turn my breath uneven. Let my body discover that pleasure does not make me smaller. Every place he touches becomes mine again in a new way, not because he claims it, but because I feel it again.
Because I choose to feel it.
The room narrows to skin and breath and blue-gold warmth.
Kavor’s restraint frays by degrees, and I love every thread. His breath roughens. His claws flex into the bedding instead of me. His body trembles with the effort of being gentle.
I press my palm to his chest.
“I’m not glass.”
“No.”
“Not a resource.”
“No.”
