Page 219 of Anathema

“Could have.” The way he looked at me left me struggling for breath. “You are dangerously stunning.” Still clutching my face, he seized my mouth with another kiss, and I melted into him. He skimmed his lips over my jaw to my neck and guided my murdering hand downward, inside of his trousers.

I felt his breath catch against my throat, the moment my hand made contact with his stiff length. At first, he held me there, and rested his forehead against my shoulder, his body trembling against mine.

My heart pounded, anxious and unsteady, like a planchette awaiting its possessor’s command. “Is this okay?” I asked.

He nodded against me. “I didn’t know it would feel like this.”

Knots wound in my stomach, and the niggling remorse from before crept over me, but then I felt him smile against the crook of my neck, and he squeezed his hand around mine, his muscles flexing around me as he banded his arm tight across my back, pressing me close. He let out a grunt and shifted his hips, exhaling a shaky breath against my neck. Heat pulsed against my palm where I held him, and though I hadn’t yet given a single stroke, he let out a deep, masculine moan.

A downward glance showed a silvery band of light where my hand met his flesh. A brief panic shook my nerves at the visual of hurting him, but the heat spiraled up my wrist into the familiar black ribbons of flame, as his power pulled into me, drawing me like tiny threads, tugging at my womb. A delicious sensation that had me squirming beside him.

His hand gripped mine tighter, the length and girth making it difficult to wrap my fingers around. “I’ve not allowed a woman to touch me like this in centuries.”

I silently chided myself for taking pleasure in that, wanting to slap the satisfaction right out of me after the scars I’d seen.

He finally released my hand and shoved his trousers down his thighs, guiding my palm to him once again. With his forehead pressed to mine, he stared down between us, as though enraptured by the sight of his cock in my hand.

The metal rods pressed into my palm, stirring my imagination. What they must’ve felt like inside a woman. My belly coiled at the visual of them rubbing across my most sensitive flesh. “May I touch them?” I asked, and at his nod, I let my fingers explore his swollen flesh. The smooth, blunt ends of the rods that tickled my fingertips, the soft skin that pulsed with thick veins as I skimmed them to the curved ridge of his tip.

Both hands tangled in my hair, he clutched either side of my face and kissed my forehead. “You’re driving me mad, woman.” He let out a groan, and an exhilarating weakness rippled down my spine.

His words goaded me to keep going, gently circling my finger over the tip that wept a sticky fluid. I spread it over his skin, recalling the night before when he’d sucked my arousal from his fingers. The curiosity to know what he tasted like watered my mouth.

Lost to my musings, I raised my hand to my lips, and closed my eyes, sucking away the salty flavor that coated my fingers. Opening my eyes showed him staring back at me, and I quickly lowered my hand from my face.

He seized my wrist, his gaze never veering from mine. Though he didn’t say a word, his expression was clear. Focused.

Intrigued.

The moment he released me, I slipped them into my mouth again and sucked them clean, savoring the taste that time. As I licked the last of him from my lips, I watched the satisfaction and lust darken his eyes. I reached down again, running my fingers across those rods, and he licked his own lips, staring down at me.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, and curled his fist into my hair. “I don’t ever want to hurt you, Maevyth.”

“You won’t.” I leaned forward and kissed his neck, while my fingers caressed his flesh and he shuddered. Even the smallest touch seemed to affect him so profoundly. “Can I …” A flare of humiliation swelled inside of me, and I shook my head. “Never mind.”

“Can you what?”

“I want to feel them against my tongue.”

He chuckled. “These curiosities will be the death of me.” Again, he kissed my forehead. “My body belongs to you, Maevyth. It is yours.”

A thrill wound through me, as I stared at his massive, muscled form and slid my free hand over the deep ridges and hard planes of his chest. Mine. Like a vast night sky claimed by a single star. A fierce and beautiful darkness that I had neither the right nor business to call my own.

I imagined him as a grand feast spread out before me, one I selfishly wanted to consume without leaving a single crumb.

I straddled his legs and ran my fingertip over one of the piercings. “Do they hurt?”

His tongue swept over his lips and he shook his head.

Planting my palms against the mattress, I leaned forward, giving one more upward glance, to see him staring down at me. The sight of him watching me, the hunger in his eyes, had my stomach flipping over on itself. I lowered myself to his groin, breathing in his delectably masculine scent, and ran my tongue over one of the piercings. The same, salty flavor as the liquid that leaked from his tip watered my mouth, as I wrapped my lips around the end of a rung.

His thighs flexed beneath me, and he hissed, the back of his head pressed hard into the pillow, the veins in his neck pulsing to the surface.

A metallic bite lingered on my tongue, as I dragged it over the thick vein of skin that ran the center of each rung and along the velvety length of his shaft.

He moaned and writhed, but didn’t push me away. As I made my way to the tip of his cock, I circled my tongue over the small slit there and sucked the fluids away.

“Maevyth, what are you doing to me?” Threading his fingers through my hair, he slowly thrusted his hips forward and let out a grunt, as the tip breached my lips.

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