“I know.” I reached up, touched his face. Felt the feathers soft against my palm, the hard line of his jaw beneath. “I know what I’m choosing.”
The sound he made wasn’t human. A keen. A cry. His mouth found mine in the dark, and there was nothing careful about it.
He kissed me like he was drowning. Like I was air and he’d been holding his breath for centuries. His hands were everywhere, my hair, my shoulders, sliding down my back to grip my hips and pull me against him. I felt the hard length of him pressed between us, separated by nothing but thin fabric, and I wanted even that flimsy barrier gone. Wanted nothing between us.
I reached for the hem of my shift but he caught my hands.
“Wait.” His voice was wrecked. Shaking. “Wait. I need to, I want to?—”
He couldn’t finish the sentence. But his hands found the hem instead, and he drew the fabric up slowly. Over my hips. My stomach. My breasts. Over my head and away.
The cool air hit my skin. I should have felt exposed. Vulnerable. Instead I felt powerful, watching his eyes trace down my body with something like reverence.
“Wren.” Just my name. But he said it like a prayer.
His hand settled on my ribs. Slid up, slowly, until his palm curved over my breast. The heat of him. The careful way he touched me, like I might break if he pressed too hard.
“You won’t hurt me,” I said.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.” I arched into his touch. “I know you’d die before you hurt me.”
His thumb brushed my nipple. I gasped, and his eyes went dark with satisfaction.
“I want to touch you,” he said. “Everywhere. I want to learn what makes you gasp like that. What makes you shake. What makes you say my name.”
“Then touch me.”
He did.
His mouth followed his hands. Down my throat, across my collarbone, lower. When his lips closed over my nipple, I made a sound I didn’t recognize. When his teeth grazed the sensitive peak, my hips jerked against him without permission.
“There,” he murmured against my skin. “Just like that. Let me hear you.”
He worked his way down my body with devastating patience. Kissing. Tasting. Learning every inch of me while I writhed beneath him, my fingers tangled in the furs, my breath coming in sharp gasps.
When he reached my hip, he paused. Looked up at me, gold eyes bright in the darkness.
“I want to taste you.” His voice was rough. Almost gone. “Will you let me?”
I couldn’t speak. Could only nod.
His hands parted my thighs. His breath was warm against my center, and I was already shaking, already desperate, and he hadn’t even touched me yet.
Then he did.
His tongue traced a slow line through my folds, and I stopped breathing. He made that sound again, the chirr, the vibration of pleasure without language, and it rumbled against my most sensitive flesh, and I nearly came apart right there.
“Tavrin!”
“Shh.” His hands gripped my hips, holding me still. “Let me.”
He took his time. Learned me with his mouth the way he’d learned me with his hands. Long slow strokes that built the pressure gradually. Quick flicks that made me cry out. He found the spot that made my back arch off the furs and focused there, relentless, patient, driving me higher and higher until I was shaking, until I couldn’t think.
“Please.” I didn’t recognize my own voice. “Please, more…”
He sealed his mouth over me and sucked.
