Page 50 of Stranger's Choice
Sebin switched to her other breast, circling her nipple with his thumb. He moved his mouth lower and licked the breast his hand had just abandoned.
Auraelie’s hips rose of their own volition, searching for something, but Sebin’s hand slid down to press her against the bed before she found it. Then he released her wrists, but she couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but writhe as his fingers parted her folds and circled her. One finger speared inside her and Auraelie cried out, an inarticulate sound of pleasure and shock all in one. Sebin pumped his finger several times, then slid in a second one.
The feeling of being stretched brought a moan to Auraelie’s lips. Then his fingers were gone, and she wanted to cry. Before she could do anything, though, he was there, nudging at her entrance.
“Look at me.”
Auraelie opened eyes she hadn’t known she had closed and looked at Sebin. He began to push inside her. Her breathing hitched, and he stopped. She inhaled again, and he slid forward a little more. Little by little, waiting for her to grow accustomed to each inch, he eased forward until he filled her. Then he kissed her and began to move.
Auraelie felt her body coil inside, the tension an unbearable ecstasy.
Sebin continued to thrust, words in his native language falling from his tongue. Auraelie understood none of it and all of it as their bodies communicated in a manner beyond words. Then Sebin said her name, and she shattered with him.
She woke toarms around her middle, fingers brushing against her, legs tangled with her own. Auraelie kept her eyes closed and cataloged all the places where Sebin’s body touched hers, the contact foreign and wonderful in a way she could never have anticipated. She wanted to wake up in his arms every day.
Auraelie gently turned to face Sebin, only to find him already awake and watching her.
He smiled. “Good morning.”
She kissed him. “Good morning.”
“I don’t really want to say this, but it is getting a little late.”
Smoothing one hand down his torso, Auraelie raised an eyebrow. “Do you have a pressing need to be somewhere this morning?”
“No.” Sebin cleared his throat. “But this is the first time you have ever spent the night. Somebody might notice the change.”
“Let them. I plan on repeating the experience, so there’s no use trying to hide it. Surely you can think of a plausible reason for me to start staying the night instead of leaving your room after an hour or two in the evenings?”
“The harder question to answer is why I ever would have let you leave after an hour or two.”
Auraelie hummed her agreement, nestling her body a little closer to his.
He stroked his hand down her back. “I take it you have no regrets?”
She lifted her head enough to glare at him. “Do you have any regrets?”
He laughed and laced his fingers behind his head. “No, but I’ve heard the first time can be rough for women. Considering you’ve barely ever even been touched, I thought you might be sore at the very least.”
She was a little sore, but it was a pleasant feeling. One that made her long to repeat the activity causing her aches. She wasn’t going to tell him that—she did not want him to decide she was too sore. “I love being touched by you, Sebin. I love touching you.”
He pulled his hands from behind his head. He pulled her fully onto him and rested one hand on her bottom while the other began stroking over her bare back again. “I love it, too.”
Auraelie let herself drown in physical sensation. The feel of his fingers on her skin, the press of her breasts to his chest, the tangle of their legs.
Sebin held her in silence long enough that she drifted half asleep before he spoke. “Tell me about your home. The village where you lived before anyone knew you’d become the Emperor’s Oracle.”
Closing her eyes, Aurelie tried to recall that long-gone home. “Losesti is in the forest. The shapeshifters dominated the region, and I often saw them in animal form when I wandered beyond the outskirts of the village. Most of my memories are of running beneath the trees, trying to keep up with my brother.”
“You miss him.” Sebin didn’t make it a question.
“I miss who I remember him to be. The last time I saw him or my father, I was fourteen. I barely knew either of them even then, for we saw each other only once a year after I left Losesti.”
Sebin’s hand stilled, and his hold on her tightened. “You miss them.”
Safe in Sebin’s arms, Auraelie let herself admit the truth. “I miss having a family. The Will are supposed to be my family now, but I am as isolated among them as I was growing up and moving from village to village.”
“Kalitalo has never become a home to you, has it? You have lived here for over nine years, but is still not your home.”
