Page 181 of A Touch of Poison
“I like it. Give me more.”
A soft laugh, then his gaze slid to my fingers, which were pale against the dark wall. “Hmm.” He nestled at my entrance. “Let go, love.” His voice went raw as he thrust into me, faster but shallower this time. “Let go of everything else and just be here with me, now.” He gathered my hand and kissed my fingertips. “There is nothing else. Just this. Just us.”
I hadn’t even realised I’d been holding on until with his next thrust I exhaled a moan and the purple stains crept over my fingers. For the first time since waking up in Elfhame, I gave up trying to hold them back.
“That’s it. You can be yourself with me—all of yourself.” With another kiss, he drove into me again.
Each time, a little deeper, a little harder—letting me acclimatise, I now understood. The feel of him skimming along my clit, filling me before pulling out again, sparked along my nerves. So bright, it was as though part of them had been consumed with trying to control my magic and now they were free.
My body tightened, muscles coiling as they readied for that strike of bliss. I held his shoulders, using them to help me rock with him, chasing his full length with every thrust.
Breathless cries huffed from me with each drive as I spiralled higher and higher.
The way he watched me only heightened every moment as I tried to keep my eyes open for him. He panted now, gripping my thigh as his other hand palmed my breast. “You’re perfect, ember. Fucking perfect.”
With his praise, I teetered on the edge, barely in control of my body, a shuddering gasp away from breaking on him. It filled my heart, sudden and stunning—after all this time, after everything, we were finally not just fucking, but making love.
Like he knew my thoughts, he nodded and grazed his thumb over my nipple. “Go on, love. Come for me.”
I did. Stars above, I did.
Crying out, I surged around him, muscles pulling tight. I tried to keep my eyes open but gods knew if I succeeded, because everything went dark with lights sparking like the entire universe was bursting apart and not only me.
Blinking into the dim room, I sagged against the wall, though some part of me kept my hips rolling with his thrusts, and more pleasure seared through me.
With a dazed smile, he cupped my cheek. “I’ve wanted to feel that for so long.”
“So have I.” I wrapped my arms and legs around him more tightly, eager to feel every part, to make us one as thoroughly as I could, and he kissed me, sweet and deep.
But that was the problem.
Gripping his hair, I pulled away. “You’re holding back,” I huffed with his steady rhythm. “You told me not to, and yet…”
He frowned, slowing.
“Yet you don’t hold me down. You haven’t dominated me. You’ve been perfectly sweet. But I don’t want perfectly sweet, Bastian. I wantyou.”
His throat bobbed as he slid his fingers down my hair and pulled from me. “I didn’t want to frighten you.”
Of course not—not after how I’d reacted to lying beneath him. But that hadn’t been about him, just the past. “You could never frighten me.” Yet my heart hammered. “What I feel for you—that scares me sometimes, yes, but… not you.” I released his hair and cupped his cheeks. “Never you.”
He bit his lip, eyebrows tight together. “I thought after your experience before, this would be better.”
And I loved him all the more for it.
So I pressed a kiss to his lips and nodded. “You have eased me in beautifully, love. But now I’m ready for my bastard.”
He sucked in a breath, gaze skipping to my lips, dick twitching against me. “Say that again. Call me your bastard.”
Like in the training yard, but now I understood.
He’d been called bastard like it was the worst thing—the marker of a man who’d never known the one who sired him and who’d killed one of the only fathers he had known. Not a name he deserved, but one he’d been given anyway, and if the way I said it reframed it for him…
“You’re my bastard, Bastian. My beautiful fucking bastard.Mine. And now I want you to show me everything that means.”
He smiled slowly and caught my wrists. “Are you saying you’ll obey me?”
A thrill chased through me. “I will.”
