Page 38 of Claim the Light
My lips part with an immediate response, but then I stop myself.
What do I want? What do I like?
My only experiences of sex were dictated to me. It was all abouthim, not me.
“I don’t know what I like,” I say, worrying at my lip before I take a deep breath. “Not yet. But I want to find out.”
“We’ll find out together,” he says with a vulnerable smile. At my surprised look, he shrugs. “I’m still figuring things out, too.”
I move to close the gap between us, taking it slowly. My hands press to his chest, soaking up the feel of his skin, warm now. His dragon scales ripple across his torso, following the path of my hand, as if his body is reacting to my touch by revealing his power.
It makes my heart warm—and it also makes me curious.
Carefully, I tug his left hand from my back and bring it forward to my stomach, watching as my own scales appear where he touches me, then fade as his hand moves on.
“Look at that,” I whisper. “Is this a mate thing?”
He doesn’t answer me right away, his gaze following his hand across my diaphragm, across to my arm where his fingers trail up to my shoulder, leaving a blossoming line of scales rippling in their wake.
Then up the side of my neck, tracing the moisture on my skin.
“It must be,” he finally says, his voice husky.
I can’t stand the distance between us any longer, leaning forward to taste the droplets of water on his lips and inhale his groan. My center presses up against his hard length and gravity sends spirals of pleasure through my core.
My body has never been ready this quickly before. Never.
Any surprise I feel is overtaken by the need building within me. A spark that I don’t want to control or stifle, but I know I can’t be selfish in this moment.
“You were hurt,” I say. “We should get dry and—”
“Sophia,” Micah growls against my mouth, stopping my speech with a kiss. “Your body is telling me you want more.”
I don’t stifle my sigh of need, running my hands to his stomach and wanting to go lower. “But what I want and what you need right now are different things.”
“Your needsaremy needs,” he says, reminding me of my vow to him earlier—that we would protect and care for each other. “Give me permission to use my hands and I will.”
“Only your hands?” I ask, preparing to give him permission for so much more, but he gives me a firm nod.
The press of his lips and seriousness in his brown eyes arrests my attention as he says, “We need to take this one step at a time. I want you to trust that I’ll always put your needs first.”
“But I do trust you.”
“I know you do,” he says. “But it’s easy for someone to make promises. I want you to know that I mean what I say. Always.”
I take a moment to marvel at the intense desire in his eyes, the way he isn’t hiding it, but more than that—the fact that he isn’t acting on it. Tyler would have had me on my back by now.
“You want me,” I whisper.
“So much,” he says, his hands gliding up to the base of my breasts and stopping there.
I close my eyes as pleasure rides my body at his touch. “But you’re waiting.”
“I’ll wait until the end of time if that’s what it takes to prove myself to you, Sophia.”
I open my eyes. “You have my permission to use your hands.”
He doesn’t use them how I thought he would, gliding them around to my back and stroking all the way up to my neck, then back down again, a light, tingling touch that makes my toes curl.
