Page 156 of Bound
He hummed. No, it was the purr that came back. And something flared. Something she could not begin to name, but that knew that sound and felt it swirl about in her blood. Calling and prickling and making her feel all over.
And she squirmed. Because it was impossible not to. With him below her, with his mouth on her, with love between them.
This she could do.
Would do.
Because she wanted to, and wanted him, and it was natural and good and she needn’t be afraid of it.
Of him.
Never again.
“Can we try? And just... see? I’d... I’d like to.” She brought her lips to his ear, because it was embarrassing to talk of such things, and yet...
There was something rather thrilling about it all the same. “We have the bed to ourselves. Who knows how long it might last.”
That earned a chuckle from him—a choked, odd sort of sound as it contrasted with the purr and left her smiling in turn. “Seduced with the prospect of haste. That is not quite how I imagined it.”
She pulled her head up, but only just. “Did you? Imagine it?”
He did not look away from her. Only brought her braid over her shoulder and took up the end of it, painting the edges of her shoulders and tickling her exposed collarbones. “Oh yes,” he murmured. “There were usually biscuits,” he confided. “Then you would sit on my lap afterward.”
She blushed all over.
In the kitchen? Where they made their food?
But then, Merryweather walked wherever she pleased and she thought little of it other than to wash the cooking areas before use. So maybe it wasn’t so different after all.
He touched her lower lip with his thumb. “Have I shocked you?”
“No.” She wouldn’t have him worried about that. “You can’t grow your stock of grimbles without seeing how it’s done, you know.”
He smirked. Smiled. Then laughed outright. “Is that how you intend for us to be?”
It frustrated her that he did not flush with colour—perhaps it was her mother’s blood that formed that particular ability. “I don’t know,” she admitted, feeling some relief at the confession. “I just...” She took his hands. Placed them at her hips and held them there. “Do you ever waken and find that you just... are tense all over? That you need something even... even if you don’t know what it is?”
There was the purr. While his eyes grew heavy and his attention was fixed on the open collar of her nightdress, then the way it bunched about her thighs as she straddled his chest.
“I know,” Braum answered, so certain she couldn’t help but believe him. “When I wake, it’s because I need you.”
His palms smoothed up the softness of her thighs, up beneath the fabric. Then inward. Toward the part of her that was tense and pulsed lightly, threatening to grow in intensity if she did not do something.
“Do you need me, Wren?” he asked. A foolish query. Unnecessary too, as her breath hitched as he touched her. There was little room for it, situated as she was. Little need for it at all, as she could attend to it herself if given permission to use him as she pleased.
She’d worried about this? Truly?
“Would you like to stay like this?”
She made a strangled sort of answer, stiff and uncertain because it felt good where he was touching her, she liked the pressure and the weight of her body against him, and yet...
She gave a half-formed shrug, frustrated with herself. With all she did not know and all she wasn’t prepared for. She knew the fundamentals—had experienced...
It didn’t matter what she’d experienced.
None of it helped. To know what she liked and what he might like, and...
He made a sound that was perhaps a sigh, or maybe it was a laugh.