RISING (#2, of Crows and Thorns)

Chapter 104

I had to touch him now.

Our mouths chased and captured each other in a feverish kiss. The thrust of our tongues kept tempo with the urgent need thrumming inside my sex. I tripped my fingers blindly down the taut lines of his side, his muscles twitching with my gentle exploration until I met his hip. Slipping my hand between our rolling pelvises I encountered male power. Vulnerable yet iron-hard.

Varen stilled like stone, the only part of him moving was his erection pulsating wildly against my touch. He briefly squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. "Fuck."

His cock strained as my thumb tentatively swept over his slit, throbbing when I smeared silky precome down its shaft. He was so large my fingers and thumb didn't meet when I gripped his girth. For a moment I panicked at his size, until I reassured myself, right now, all I had to do was stroke my hand back and forth. Maybe later, I'd be brave enough to bend at the waist and take him inside my mouth. Maybe later, I'd hook my ankles around his back as he thrust fast and deep inside.

Except Varen had other ideas.

Just as I was about to move my hand he stopped me by resting his over mine. He reached for my other hand and placed it around his cock right beside the other, and squeezed my fingers until I was a vice around him.

Anticipation and exhilaration thickened the air as I wondered what he intended to do.

Water rained gently down from above to pelt our skin and slide over our bodies in hazy rivulets, drummed against the backs of his fingers, and slid through the gaps. Glowing willwips spun above us and washed the gloomy light in pale lilac and heather.

I peered at Varen beneath the fringe of my eyelashes, my heart stumbling.

Varen's dark gaze locked with mine

A heartbeat later he thrust his hips and speared himself straight through my fisted fingers. The sharp gasp leaving my throat made me sound as innocent as I was. My eyes flared wide at the veined ridges, the velvet tip with its curved crown as he pushed against my tight grip. "That's what it would feel like," he rasped hoarsely. "I'd push in gently, take it slow, and break through your pretty hymen to claim what is mine."

My intimate walls clenched helplessly around nothing. I could practically feel what it would be like, him nudging at my entrance, parting my slick folds, and thrusting inside my sex. How full he'd make me feel. A stretch. A pinch. Until he consumed me entirely. His massive body pinning me to the stone wall as he took my virginity.

His lips feathered against mine in a kiss that stole another piece of my heart with its tenderness. "And I'd kiss you and keep kissing you until the sting receded," he breathed.

The weight of his hands on mine disappeared. His calloused fingers scraped my skin as he braced his hand around the nape of my neck, his thumb lightly resting in the hollow of my throat.

Varen peeled his torso from mine, arching his spine back so we could both look down where we were connected, my slender fingers curled around the hot angry length.

His outstretched arm was braced taut, his large palm cinched around the nape of my neck. While the other arm, tattooed right to his wrist, hung by his side with fingers curled into a loose fist. Droplets of water coursed lazily down his golden chest and the ripple of muscle. Wide-eyed and breathless I watched his abs and pelvis roll in a seductive wave as he pumped his hips to stroke languidly back and forth through my clenched hands.

My arousal tightened like a corkscrew.

His deep voice grew more uneven, breathing gusty. "I'd take you slow and deep and careful. Even though I'd want to fuck you rough and hard and fast. Pull your hair. Bite your neck."

An echo of a phantom sting heated my scalp and burned at my throat with the ghostly feel of sharp teeth biting. I wanted it badly. Everything he could give me. Everything I could take. My carnal desire must have shown on my expression because his eyes shone bright with hunger and he whispered, "Gods, you're perfect, perfect, perfect..."

He watched me the entire time as he snapped his hips back and forth. His cock stroked through my grip, sliding against my soft palms, pushing against my hold. He wasn't even inside me, but I was gasping and moaning as if he was.

His free hand brushed up and down my side, grazing the outer swell of my breast, skirting the sharp hip bone to fan wide and almost touch my sex. His voice was low and husky. "I'd have you moaning and squirming beneath me, clawing at my back, meeting the thrust of my hips, begging me to go faster. But I wouldn't. Fuck no. I'd take you slowly, so slowly it'd be torture."

My sex turned to liquid heat. My panties were too constricting. Gods, I wanted him.

This is what it would be like if I accepted him inside my body, the stretch and fullness. The naked intimacy of the act if our bodies were clasped together. Nowhere else to look but into one another's eyes as we both drowned in each other's pleasure.

"What am I doing to you, Tabitha?" He raised his hand to run his thumb along the inside of my lower lip. The roughened pad rasped against the soft flesh, tugging gently. "I know those dirty books you read. I've experienced that filthy mouth first hand."

There was no hesitation. I captured his thumb and sucked.

Hot sparks raced down my spine at his strangled sound of surprise and the way his thick eyelashes flashed wide, the flex of his cock in my hands.

Leisurely, with a flattened roll of my tongue I pushed his thumb from my mouth. Maybe he expected me to say something else, but I spoke the truth instead. "You're f-fucking my hands with your c-cock."

A joyous laugh barked from him and his large shoulders shuddered with the rich sound. He smiled broadly down at me, teeth shining in the muted light. I soaked that magnificent smile up like a flower opening up for sunshine.

A blink later I stole his breath and his amused expression faltered, then startled, when I pumped him at the same time he thrust. "Holy fuck, Tabitha...fuck."

I did it twice, once more, relishing the sting on my scalp as his fingers dug through my hair, the shudder that wrecked his entire body. His luscious mouth slackened as he moaned my name. Kept moaning it along with a string of muttered curses. His eyes rolled back as he let out a filthy groan, bucking his hips up to meet the glide of my fingers feathering softness at the base of his shaft. The climax washed over him, straining his sharp jawline, deepening the creases around his pinched eyes. His parted lips glistened with a heavy, gasping breath. He was beautiful and wild. Lost in the abandonment of dark pleasure. And it heightened my own.

It was the abrupt lack of motion, the sharp pain at the rough clasp of his hands on my body, before a thunderous rumble clawed from his throat.

Shock erupted, swift and fierce, as warm stickiness struck the backs of my fingers. A hot ropey line splattered up my chest. A wild ribbon across my breast. A pearlescent droplet on my nipple.

Varen canted forward and he crushed my body against the stone wall, a river of water splashing over my shoulders. His forehead tipped against my own and his grip on my neck loosened its hold. Trembling fingers stroked through the rope of my hair. His voice was low and hoarse. "That's it, Tabitha, you understand now how I'm at your mercy. How I'd do anything for you."

We breathed one another in. While his panting slowed and eased, mine increased.

I was breathless and shaking, every single inch of me.

There was a desperate ache between my legs.

I'd been wound overly tight. A twist too far. And I was going to shatter.

Slowly, I became aware of sticky brushstrokes sweeping across my breast, as he kissed the corner of my mouth, then the other, while he smeared his cum over my body as if to say mine, mine, mine.