Page 27 of Fate

She rubbed.

Was rewarded with the feel of his head as he pressed it down against the curve of her shoulder, his body shuddering over her.

The angle was awkward for her, and she wished she knew how to coax him to the bed beside her. She’d climb on top of him. Coax his wings to spread and she could work properly. Wings could be a fussy business, and his reaction suggested perhaps his family was not tending to their responsibility of care for him.

She wanted to ask.

Didn’t.

Not about the bed, not about his kin.

Asked nothing at all when suddenly he was wrenching away from her hands, the bond tugging and wriggling, then settling when his mouth found her, insistent and needful.

Her sighs were lost between them, her attention only drifting from the want of him when his hand skimmed down her side, taking her shift with him.

She tried to help. To move her hips and use her legs to push it down and away from her. But doing so pressed their lower portions together in a way that made her breath catch in her throat, even as Lucian grew still and his breath heavy as he drew in heavy breaths over her.

Words failed her. There was only the sudden sense of urgency. That shifts were stupid and unnecessary. Just as were the trousers he wore to sleep. Most particularly when the knot hetied at the drawstring was not the same as the one on her shift, so she fumbled and murmured out a curse, only to be batted away so he could tend to it himself.

Which was fine. She could see the shift down her legs and threw it artlessly over the side of the bed while Lucian did the same.

It was almost enough to make her laugh at the both of them. That for two souls that had such difficulty talking with one another, they could be so aligned inthis.

But he was reaching for her again. Brought his hands to her hips and then the softness of her thighs, and pushed them open.

Which should have made her feel exposed and nervous. Should have made her want to grope for the bedclothes so they might do their explorations under some shroud of modesty.

But they weren’t particularly modest, were they?

The book was inadequate. The diagrams too.

There had been paragraphs about preparing a mate—of needing to stroke at a male so that his phallus might extrude and settle into her opening properly and without discomfort.

She reached for him. Perhaps that was something she should have asked about first, but the impulse came upon her so quickly that she quite forgot her manners. She only made one full stroke down the length of him before his hand caught at her, keeping her still. “The book said to prepare you,” she insisted.

There was that choked laugh again. The shaking of his head as he pulled her hand away and held it. “I am quite prepared, I assure you.”

Oh. Well. “All right, then.”

She waited for him to prod at her. The book was quite clear that copulation should begin quickly after readiness, lest essential moisture be lost in the meantime.

But he didn’t.

Instead, it was his fingers she felt down below. Gentle. Careful. Smoothing against her with a delicate pressure at first, so soft that it was almost a tickle rather than the jolt of pleasure she’d experienced before. She bit at her lip and wondered if it would be terribly greedy to ask him to be firmer. Wondered too if his book had been the same as hers.

Or...

What if he hadn’t had one?

Which was a rather sobering thought, and she was not at all prepared to give that sort of education in the moment, not when her pulse was racing and her fingers twitched with the want to reach for his wrist and hold him to her and make himtrulytouch her.

“What else did this book say?” Lucian asked, his mouth near her ear. Low. Intimate. Only for her. “What did it say that you needed?”

Something deep inside gave an exquisite pulse in answer.

“Well,” she swallowed, her thoughts feeling very far away when he was touching her like that. But he had asked a question and it would be rude not to answer, and they were so verybadat talking to one another... “I confess I paid more attention to the sections on you.”

That smile again. The one that was notjusta smile and made her stomach tighten when he looked at her. “Did you, now? And why is that?”