“You do.” His voice dropped, not in volume but in register. “You please me the most when you are simply yourself. Wanting. Feeling. That is when you are the most beautiful to me.”
The flush had reached her hairline. Even her ears were hot.
“If I say stop,” she said, hugging the phallus to her chest, “you stop watching.”
“I’ll close my eyes immediately.”
“If I say something embarrassing, you won’t repeat it.”
“I never would.”
“If I cry afterward, you won’t ask why.”
He nodded slowly and opened his arms to her. “I’ll know why.”
“I’m going to feel ridiculous,” she said, leaning into him as they both tipped into the furs.
“You’re going to feel whatever you feel.” His voice was low and unhurried as he stroked her arm. “And I’m going to be here.”
She drew an unsteady breath. Unlacing her bodice, she loosened the fabric until it slipped off one shoulder. The air touched the gnarled scar of her mating bite and cooled the flush that splotched her chest and neck.
His lips grazed her shoulder, and the delicate thrum of his purr started. The sound was warm and tactile, vibrating through her like a plucked string, and it settled into the low places in her body where the heat was already gathering.
She pulled the front of her shift lower to expose her breasts, which were fuller than they’d been before the pregnancy, the nipples darker and taut. Rikard’s purr stuttered and resumed at a deeper pitch.
“You are extraordinary,” he said, not touching her except where she leaned against him. “So brave.”
She would have denied it if the compliment came from anyone else, but the way he said it destroyed her doubt.
Leaving the phallus in the furs, she gathered the hem of her shift, bunching it past the swell of her belly, until she was bare from the ribs down. Her thighs closed reflexively, not from modesty or shame, but an instinct to protect herself, like a hand covering a wound.
She closed her eyes. Breathed and counted behind her dark lids.One. Two. Three.
“I’m here,” Rikard said in her ear. “Nothing happens that you don’t choose.”
When she felt brave enough, she let her knees fall apart and opened her eyes.
The air touched her private places, and she shivered, but the shiver melted away under his gaze. She could feel Rikard’s attention like sunlight, warming the surface. His purr wrapped around her like an embrace as she brought the bone phallus between her legs.
She held it against her inner thigh like a lover would, letting her ardor increase. The smooth surface was nothing like a hand or a body. It was neutral, carrying no history except Rikard’s thoughtfulness. She ran it slowly along the crease of her thigh, letting the sensation register without the painful edge of memory.
“How does it feel?” Rikard asked, his breath stirring her hairline and tickling her ear.
“Warm and smooth, like silk.” She used it to trace the outer edge of her sex, and her breath caught. “I feel your purr through it.”
The sound scraped to a halt. “Does that bother you?”
“No. It makes me feel... held. Even though you’re not touching me, you are.”
The purr swelled anew. She closed her eyes, letting the sound wash over her. With her eyes shut, the world contracted to sensation: the velvet texture of the pelts beneath her, the cool air on her exposed skin, the warm bone in her hand, and the steady, vibration of her husband’s happiness, who wouldn’t touch her but was present in every other way a body could be present.
She eased the tip of the phallus against her entrance. The stretch was modest, and she was slick enough that the boneglided with minimal resistance. It didn’t hurt at all. She pressed it deeper, an inch, then two, and the fullness was startling. A sensation she’d forgotten could exist without pain.
A sound escaped her, soft and involuntary, and Rikard shifted behind her restlessly.
When she glanced back at him, his gray eyes were fixed on her face, not the phallus. Not her bare breasts or exposed belly, but her face, as though her expression were the most important part of what was happening.
“What are you thinking?” she whispered, afraid of the answer.
