I treated Varen like he was my own personal plaything.
Wet hair tickled the backs of my fingers as I ran my fingers through his short locks and kissed him. I kept kissing him until he chanted my name in a desperate messy slur and grew lust-drunk on the taste of me. Then I got handsy. Really handsy.
Varen Crowther was at my mercy and tonight I gave him no quarter.
I'd always wondered what was hidden behind those crisp white shirts and expensive suits. He was a wild beast with warnings marked all over his chest in black ink and silver scars. Such strength coursed through his body, coiled tight in muscle and flesh. He could easily overpower me, flip me over, and pay me back with his own villainous touch. Instead, my savage beast allowed me to touch him in whichever way I desired.
Curiosity had me wanting to map his terrain, to learn what would draw out a hitched breath, a groan, a gritted hiss. While his calloused hands sensually stroked up and down my spine, my own wandered everywhere. If I ran the tips of my fingers like a serpent down his washboard abs, he stretched into the touch and hissed through clenched teeth. When I fluttered kisses down his throat and gently bit his Adam's apple, he growled. A soft exhale of breath against his ear drew out a shiver, his fingers digging into my skin. And when I brushed my palms softly over the curve of his pecs, flicking his hard nipples with my thumbs, he bit his lower lip and loosened such a filthy grunt it ignited fiery need right through my core.
Holy hells...
All those throaty sounds he was making were becoming increasingly louder and louder the more I teased him with my touch. And this was just kissing and making out. What the hells was he going to sound like if we took it even further?
"Shush, you're so loud," I scolded into our kiss. His lips were as hungry and restless as his hands following the ripple of my spine.
"I know, I know, I know..." He was so intoxicated on kissing, all he'd been doing the last ten minutes was repeating himself three times.
A feminine thrill flared inside my chest to know that I could render him helpless. I was a sacrifice in his lap, but it was I who held power over him.
Our movement, the way we explored each other, stretching and arching, flowing over one another like dark smoke, caused water to swell and splash over the edge of the pool. The immersion of water heightened every scintillating sensation, our bare skin sliding against one another, his hot velvet lips moving over mine and our tongues tangling and meeting thrust for thrust. I was burning up like the night sky on fire with fireworks, a burst of scorching sparks striking my flesh every place we touched.
Varen dipped me backward and the strands of my hair drifted on the surface of the water as he kissed along my collarbone. I stroked my palms down his arms. I loved forearm veins. I loved men's hands, broad and strong and work-roughened, imagining what kind of pleasure they could wring out of my body.
When he raised me back up to meet him, I evaded his mouth hunting mine, to nudge my nose against his throat. Varen arched his neck to allow me to graze my lips along a coil of ink. Inhaling his masculinity and the hint of anise—gods he smelled good. So, so, so good. I wanted to eat him up like the big bad wolf. I darted my tongue out to taste desire on his skin and pressed my lips to the hollow in his throat and his low rumbling groan vibrated against my mouth. Leaning up further, I brushed my cheek along his own, charmed by the five o'clock scruff abrading my skin. "I miss the beard."
"I'll grow it back, back, back..." he muttered, pulling back to chase my mouth and claim it in a dirty kiss with a rolling tongue that had me moaning and wriggling against his marble-hard chest. His hands finally roamed past the dip in my back to my butt just as he nipped my lip, gently dragging his teeth over it.
"Don't you dare," I sighed, relishing the sting of his teeth and the feel of his fingers squeezing my soft flesh. Well maybe on occasion he could grow it back, but right now I didn't want anything in the way between my cheek and his. The beard had been wild and sweet and suited his brash, unfiltered character, even if I'd suspected it had been a shield of despair. A way to hide from himself.
Gliding a palm over the raised skin of his wyrm brand I skimmed the rise of his shoulders down to those ridiculous biceps I couldn't even cuff with my hand. I felt so tiny straddling his lap, my backside resting on his thick thighs, and my sex, slick with arousal, spread wide against his raging hardness. Desire crackled from the tips of my toes creeping up my legs with an oncoming climax. Rocking my throbbing clit against him, I gasped for breath as I gripped his bunched shoulders tightly, driving it onward.
Holy hells, hells, hells...
I wanted it. I needed it.
My nipples were sharp points and were in agony. I wanted him to rip my bra off to lick and suck and ease the ache. But as yet he hadn't touched me in any private place. Rotating my hips in a slow seductive move, I ground up against him, stealing pleasure from the friction of fabric separating us. An electric pulse right at the apex of my thighs set an exquisite buzz thrumming inward and pushed me right to the edge of the cliff.
Varen's head suddenly fell back limply as he released a loud wanton moan. His fingers bit into my butt. "Tabitha...fuck...wait, wait, wait..." His entire body clenched and he shuddered. "Oh fuck, fuck, fuck..."
All of a sudden I was shoved away. I floundered in the water with a startled yelp and the impending climax was cut short and disappointingly dissolved away.
Varen's burly shoulders rounded as he rubbed his hands briskly up and down his thighs beneath the water. He blew out a breath and a string of curses. Strands of black hair slithered over his forehead and his face was deeply creased in pain.
For a moment I worried I'd actually hurt him.
A second fear slammed into me, more crushing than the first, that perhaps he'd had enough of me. I rose quickly to stand in the small pool, my heart braced for hurt. "I'm sorry, so sorry... Did I do something wrong?"
Varen glanced up, mortified. "No... Shit no, Tabitha."
Relief sweetened the air in my lungs. He grabbed hold of my wrist to tug me to him as he stood, creating waves with his body cresting the surface of the water. His fingers slid under my wet hair to cup the nape of my neck and tilt my head back so he could place a sweet kiss on my forehead. His gruff voice rumbled against my temple. "I'm about to fucking jizz in my briefs like I did in the glassware cupboard."
Oh...oh...
A pleased feeling had me biting my lip to stifle the smile. I reached for him and his hands whipped out to ensnare mine and trap them by my sides. Wet locks of his hair swayed as he shook his head. "I just need to take a moment to calm the fuck down."
He let me go, lifting his hands in surrender, slowly backing away as if I were going to pounce on him and do despicable things. Which, admittedly, were starting to cross my mind.
In a smooth movement, he twisted around and hauled himself from the pool. I watched in mild dismay the water sluicing off his mammoth figure as he disappeared into another passageway cut into the small cavern, and I was left alone with just the slap of water against stone and the mating willwips to keep me company.
The pool was a watercolor of swirling hues reflecting the clouds hovering below the ceiling. I crossed my arms on the pool edge and rested my chin on my forearm, waiting for Varen to return and wondering what he was doing. Perhaps he was pacing back and forth... Perhaps something else.
My body flushed with heat, hotter than the rising steam, to think that I'd done that to him. I'd worked him up so badly that he had to take time out to calm down. Calm it down.
But it wasn't just Varen who had been wound up tight. I was too. Desperation ached between my legs and it wouldn't abate, no matter how much I rubbed my thighs together.
The light sound of my fingernails rapping against stone drifted through the air as my gaze flitted to the passageway Varen had disappeared into. No one knew I was here with him. No one knew what we were getting up to. I'd left a message for Aunt Ellena to say I was taking advantage of the Night Bazaar and was going to stay until the majestic light show had ended in a final burst of luminosity.
I wanted more. I didn't want this night to end. I wanted to share a precious moment with Varen and tuck it into the safekeeping of my heart to be cherished forever.
Pulling myself out of the pool, water rippled down my body to splatter at my feet and spill outward. My chest was filled with an eager fluttering and my fingers trembled slightly as I pulled my hair over a shoulder, twisting it into a rope to squeeze the excess water out.
Should I do this?
But my feet were already carrying me forward.
Varen's water trail pooled in small dips and grooves, leading me in wet footsteps to him. I padded silently into the narrow passageway where the hewn walls glimmered with muted greens and steam flowed like languid fog. Rounding a corner, the passageway became brighter and filled with the sound of moving water and I stepped out into an open space of sorts. A wide yawning fissure had been cut right through the black rock, all the way to the surface high above like a chimney flue. Moonlight cast shadows and silvery light on the water raining from cracks in the ceiling and drizzling down the walls like a natural shower. Warm, I realized, as the water struck my body and rushed around my feet in shallow swirling eddies to seep away through thin rents in the rocky floor.
Varen hadn't noticed my arrival. He had his head tipped back and his eyes were squeezed closed. Dark lashes fanned the high swell of his golden cheeks. One hand was braced against the wall, and the other he dragged across his hair plastered to his scalp. He stood in front of a smooth black wall where water slithered in wide sheets from crevasses above.
My gaze slid down his body to the iron column of his erection straining against the boxer briefs. He must have sensed my presence because he turned to look over his shoulder, blinking through the dripping water, surprise widening his gaze. He parted his lips and he might have been about to say something, but I silenced him with movement alone. My footsteps were hesitant but I couldn't stop walking toward him, ducking under his arm to lean up against the wall with water caressing my back. I craned my head to stare up at him.
The rich violet eyes he turned on me were intense and challenging and tempered with curiosity. Wondering, I suppose, what I was doing. He hadn't invited me, I'd been the one to step innocently into his den.
Silence embraced us and our breath swirled through the glistening clouds of iridescent steam. Electricity coursed beneath my skin, a conduit of tension and need arcing across the divide between us. I needed to ask him for what I wanted but the words got caught in my throat.
Varen's gaze drifted across my face soaking up my unasked question. He cocked an eyebrow and lazily drawled, "You want to touch me, Miss Catt? Is this why you've come all this way to see me?"
My tongue was heavy in my mouth, gone as dry as a desert.
I could only nod.
He dipped his chin in reply.
My fingertips stretched toward his chest but I still couldn't place them on his body. They drifted downward millimeters away from his skin, yet his muscles twitched with the ghostly stroke as if I'd physically touched him. I hovered at the edge of his boxer briefs hugging his hips.
The question rasped weakly from my throat. "What would it be like between us, if you know... We did...? " The words heavy with meaning drifted apart and my heart pounded in my ears as I waited for his reaction. Part of me feared he'd turn me away.
His gaze slid over me dark and knowing. "Did what?"
"You know, that..." I whispered, still too shy to say it out loud.
He laughed, a short boisterous laugh, cut short when he suddenly boxed me into the wall with both his hands beside my head. Heat radiated from his tall looming body and wavered in the narrow space between us. I held deathly still as he gently tucked an errant lock of hair behind my ear. His gaze followed his thumb and finger pinched around the wet strands as he trailed the length to its end. He let go and it fell limply across my wet bra sticking to the shape of my breasts. He brought his gaze back to mine and shadows stretching across his face turned his irises from blackened violet to the silver shine of a hunter. "You can't even say it, Tabitha. How can I show you what it would be like if you can't even say fuck."
My spine stiffened and indignation blazed briefly before the fire was doused by unease when I realized the few times I'd verbally spoken the word, it had been in anger. This time it meant something else altogether. However, if I wanted to go through with this I needed to say it. My chin angled up and my teeth rested lightly on my bottom lip as I tried to push the word out strong and full of defiance. "F-f-fuck."
His pouty lips curled into a smile that gleamed in his gaze. "And?"
I knew what he was asking and I still wasn't sure if I could say what he wanted.
"Please say you don't refer to it as a throbbing member, Miss Catt."
My nostrils flared. Maybe.
I began forming an alternative name that was less abrasive. My lips parted and my tongue curled just behind my upper teeth to say the word di—
Varen's finger pressed against my lips stopped me. He tsked. "Boys refer to it as a dick, Tabitha. Men have cocks."
The word clanged through me. Carnal and sinful. And it plucked a string deep inside that vibrated right to my core like a sweetened note ringing from a tuning fork. My entire body tightened with arousal.
His gaze sharpened and an undercurrent of danger trembled in the air. He lowered his head so we were at eye level. It was like the evening of the kitchen cool room when he'd stared at me unblinkingly like a starved Bengal Tiger. While I'd hoped he hadn't noticed me then, now I was pleased he had. I could practically feel him running a hungry tongue over sharp teeth.
"You want to touch my cock?"
Holy hells. It was one thing reading the word in ink on paper, another thing altogether hearing it falling from his mouth. Cock.
I nodded jerkily.
"Then ask me," he whispered leaning closer, his breath caressing my mouth.
Sucking in a deep lungful of air, I dropped my gaze to the safety of the coiled serpent branding his chest. "I would very much like to t-touch your c-c-cock."