Page 158 of Bound

He took that hand. Kissed her palm.

“Yours,” he swore. “As you are mine.”

She sighed. There was no ensuing panic. No horrid, creeping wrongness.

Because it was true. Perhaps not as instantly as it had been for him.

But gently.

Patiently.

Much the same way he entered her at last. A warm, full stretch that didn’t hurt. It didn’t. Well, maybe a little.

Not enough that she wanted him off of her. But maybe.

“Wren,” Braum breathed.

His hand was on her chin, and his body was very still.

He wanted her to look at him.

Which seemed a terribly funny sort of thing to do when they were as together as two people might be.

Her brow furrowed, and the rumble in his chest increased. But she looked. Saw him tense and worried.

And she didn’t want that. She was fine. Would be fine.

“You do not feel pleasure,” Braum extrapolated.

Retreated.

Leaving her empty and wanting and that wasn’t what she meant, wasn’t what she wanted and yet he wasn’t quite wrong either.

She grappled with her heels against him, trying to keep him close. “It’s new,” Wren reminded him. “Or...” Perhaps it was wrong to say that. It was, and it wasn’t. “I don’t want to stop.”

That was the important part, wasn’t it?

Braum gave her a dubious look, and she smiled at him as sweetly as she could. No crying. No shoving down her feelings to protect his.

“Can you... touch me? Like before? While you...” She was certain she was flushed all over, for they were certainly not things she’d ever imagined asking of another person.

But he wasn’t just anyone. This was Braum, and he was her friend, and her mate, and so she supposed that made it all right.

She hummed. Not a purr, just the sound he made when he was thinking.

Not just thinking. Evaluating a problem and how he might fix it. And she was almost offended by it.

Would have been. If he hadn’t started over again.

Touching her all over. Kissing her and coaxing until she forgot about much of anything at all. Just him. The feeling of warmth. Of safety. Of being surrounded and loved and cherished and if she did cry again, it was because...

Because it was good.

They were good.

Together.

He was nuzzling at her cheek again. After the tensing and the coiling and the sudden, urgent relief that loosened every part of her.