Page 74

“Does that feel good?” he rumbles, fingers tightening around the muscle of my thigh just enough to draw another quiet breath from my throat. “Would you like more?”

My eyes drift open. More? What could more even mean, when every part of me already feels stretched thin as old linen?

“Soulglimmer,” he says. “I can ease it, if you want me to. Truly help. Only if you ask.”

My head tips forward until my forehead rests against the front of his cloak. The choice is mine. He waits patiently, bare hands steady and still until I give it.

“Yes,” I whisper. “Please.”

That beautiful, syrupy warmth pours straight into the bone this time, bypassing the knotted scars and sinking deep into muscle and marrow. Golden heat blooms beneath his palm, rich and slow, ebbing and flowing like warm oil worked into tired flesh. A low, involuntary groan leaves me, and I feel the tension in the whole limb begin to melt, fibre by fibre, as the power moves through me in steady, generous waves.

“Let it take you,” he murmurs. “Let me remind you what it is to be alive.”

The golden heat curls higher, whispering through every vein until it pools deep in my belly, touching places even I haven’t dared to touch in an age.

“Iscairn—” I choke out, my hands flying up to tangle desperately in his cloak.

The bone of his beak drags along my jawline, catching the shell of my ear. “Yes, Ophelia Harrow?”

My pulse is beating so hard beneath my throat I can feel every thud of it. I had the words a moment ago. I know I did. But now he’s waiting for them, standing between my knees with one hand spanning my thigh, and all I can manage is a useless shake of my head.

“I think—I think I…” I swallow and tighten my grip on his cloak. “I don’t know.”

“Tell me,” he murmurs. “You have never struggled to find words before. Use them now.”

Black crosses and death fill my mind, but he’s there, he’s right there, and I need this.

“I want you to touch me,” I whisper, my face burning. “Between my legs.”

His hand leaves my thigh and travels higher beneath my skirts until his palm settles against my thin linen shift. I’m already wet enough that the fabric clings embarrassingly close, and the warmth of his hand sinks straight through it.

The first touch of his fingers against my cunt steals my breath, and he moves again, finding that small, painfully sensitive place through the damp linen and rubbing slowly enough that every pass gathers deep in my belly.

My fingers tighten in his cloak as my knees fall wider around him, all those heavy layers of wool suddenly unbearable when only one thin scrap of linen separates his hand from me.

“Iscairn—”

“I know…”

The soulglimmer’s heat unfurls between my thighs, sinking into muscle and nerve until something low and living begins to hum inside me. It doesn’t feel like ordinary touch. It feels like the faint thrum of summer bees under my skin, heating my blood and bones from the inside out.

“Christ—” I gasp as the feeling deepens.

His beak grazes my temple, cool bone against my burning skin, then lowers to the soft place beneath my ear.

“Let it happen,” he murmurs, the words vibrating through the mask into my throat.

He moves the sodden fabric aside and pushes his fingers into my slick cunt, stretching me just enough to steal the breath from my lungs. But he’s moving too slowly, far too slowly.

My thighs tense around his wrist, my hips shifting down, chasing more of him.

Then he finds that tender place inside me and strokes it once.

“Oh—”

He does it again, firmer this time, and the pleasure rips through me so hard my hips lift from the counter.

“That’s it,” I whisper, horrified by the need in my voice. “Right there.”