"Celeste?" He reaches up to touch my cheek, catching a tear on his fingertip. "What is it? What did you taste?"
I should tell him. Should say the words, let him know I felt it, that I feel it too. But the emotions are too big, too overwhelming. Language feels inadequate.
Instead, I kiss him.
He tastes like blood now. Like me and him and something new, something we've created together. His hands grip my hips and pull me down onto him, and I realize he's fully hard, ready for me, and I'm ready too, more than ready, my body responding to the intimacy of the blood with renewed hunger.
"Again?" I murmur against his mouth.
"Again," he agrees. "But slower this time. I want to savor you."
He rolls us so I'm beneath him, his weight pressing me into the mattress. But he doesn't rush. Doesn't claim. He kisses me soft and deep, taking his time, letting the heat build gradually instead of crashing over us all at once.
His mouth leaves mine, traces down my throat. Soft kisses. Gentle scrapes of teeth. Nothing like the biting hunger of last night. This is worship.
"Last night was about need," he says against my collarbone. "Tonight is about want. There's a difference."
"Show me."
He does.
He maps my body like he's charting unknown territory. Every curve, every scar, every sensitive spot I didn't know I had. He finds the place beneath my ribs that makes me gasp. The inside of my wrist that makes me shiver. The dip of my hip bone that makes me moan.
"You're sensitive here," he observes, running his tongue along the crease where my thigh meets my hip.
"I'm sensitive everywhere when you do that."
"Good." He looks up at me, eyes dark with desire. "I want you feeling everything."
He settles between my thighs, and I feel exposed. Vulnerable. Completely at his mercy.
His hands grip my hips, thumbs tracing circles on the sensitive skin of my inner thighs. So close to where I need him, but not close enough.
"Maximus. Please."
"Please, what?" He presses a kiss to my inner thigh. "Tell me what you want."
"Your mouth. I want your mouth on me."
His smile is slow and wicked. "As you wish."
The first touch of his tongue tears a cry from my throat. Pleasure explodes through me, and I fist my hands in his hair without conscious thought.
He groans against me, and the vibration adds another layer to the sensation. His tongue works in slow, devastating strokes, learning my body the way his hands learned it earlier. Finding the spots that make me gasp. The spots that make me moan. The spots that make my thighs tremble around his head.
"You taste incredible," he murmurs. "I could do this for hours."
"I won't last hours."
"Then I'll bring you to the edge and back. Again and again. Until you're begging."
He does exactly that. Every time I get close, he pulls back, gentles his touch, lets the wave recede before building it again. It's torture. The sweetest torture I've ever experienced.
"Maximus, please, I can't..."
"You can." He slides two fingers inside me, curling them perfectly. "One more time. Show me how beautiful you are when you fall apart."
I shatter with his name on my lips.
