The Dragon's Match

XXIII

His fingertips were very close to the place between her thighs where liquid need and heat were pulsating with dire urgency. Her stomach clenched, hips shifting against his hand where he held her firm, a muffled whimper escaping her as she lay against his chest. She'd never entertained flirtations before, never stolen kisses or succumbed to illicit embraces, and the way her body was responding to his irrepressible teasing was nothing short of exciting, sweet torture.

It was pride and pride alone that prevented her from begging him to touch her in the places that were aching and throbbing , yet she couldn't repress the way her hips arched against his palm, the drag of his fingers against the area just above her pubic bone almost rendering her delirious with need.

"And how would you do that?" she asked, to her own detriment, as his fingers traced slow circles along the skin of her pelvis.

Before he spoke, the hand on her breast snaked across her chest to lavish attention on the other. Though his embrace was light and bordering on tender, she felt caged against him with the movement as his arms banded across her body.

"There are any number of ways." The fingers at her abdomen dipped again, subtly, and strayed against the edge of the coarse hair at the juncture of her legs. She stifled a choked groan, writhing in his arms, her thighs squeezing tightly together. That part of her spasmed and throbbed, silently begging him when she would not give him her words, yet Lillian was sure he was well aware of the dire needs of her body. "Your body is so responsive to my touch it wouldn't take much to drive you to new heights of passion- and I would do it gladly, over and over again, but just when you think you are close to exploding, to exquisite release, I'd deny you." His fingers skirted lower, sliding between her thighs and lightly caressing the seam of her body. A shuddering breath parted her lips, her legs widening for his explorations that were so teasing and so light she was seconds away from grinding against his hand. At her ear, his lips found her sensitive flesh, exacting slow and heated kisses from the line of her jaw and down the column of her neck. "I'd deny you, and restrain you so you couldn't move, couldn't touch your own body to give yourself relief, could do nothing but wait for my next caress, my next kiss, wait for my fingers or tongue to find the places that make you cry out."

And she did cry out then, as if to emphasise his sinful words, because a finger parted her gently, slowly, and dragged along her flesh with languid purpose as if to discover her, revel in her. She clutched at his wrist angled over her stomach, his tendons and muscles firm and shifting against the palm of her hand. Water lapped at the edges of the tub, indicative of her harried and restless movements.

"I could keep you suspended on the precipice of exquisite pleasure for hours, Lillian," he murmured wickedly, dragging his finger along her heated flesh with a possessiveness that made her writhe and ache and crave for something more. "There are ways to expound on your body's responses- magically- to make your climax almost excruciating when I finally allow you to attain it-"

"Are you using it now?" The words were a soft string of gasps, her abdomen clenching with each thorough slide of his finger along her flesh, endlessly tormenting and rhythmic.

His lips ceased their exploration of her neck and he lifted his head to stare down at her, his eyes dark and glinting, glazed in his own desire and need of her. "Never without your consent," he told her fiercely. "This," he found the entrance to her body easily, hot and slick and pulsating with an urgent yearning, and his finger slid deeply within her. Lillian lurched with the sensation that undulated through her veins, fiery sparks eddying from her core and shooting up her spine. "This is your body's natural response to my touch. This is your body begging to be claimed by mine, even if you will not give me your words."

She turned her face away from him to hide the extremity of feelings spiralling through her, biting her lip to quell the cries that were desperately trying to escape her lungs. His hand shifted between her thighs, angling so that the finger buried deep within her passage pressed in a manner that caused new, different sensations to turn her limbs into weak, trembling things.