Page 109 of Sunder

She’d done that.

Or... they’d done that. With a few kisses. A few removed clothes. And suddenly she could see the last tendrils of hispatience. When he brought his mouth back to hers, when he asked without words.

For her touch. For her to move. To do anything at all.

Why was that so much harder? To fear she was doing wrong, that she would seem ignorant and inexperienced, without even medical training to guide the way, if only in a rudimentary form.

But this was Athan, and he needed her.

She took a breath, and it was full of him, and the world felt suddenly smaller. Stuck to the confines of her bed. Their bed. To what they were making inside of it.

Her hands stroked down his back, and he shuddered over her. Such a simple thing, but it could affect him so.

It would be so easy to get lost in her own feelings. To the persistent touches, the stretch and pull, the fervent pulses that threatened to take the last of her wits and turn her mind to nothing else.

She needed to do this first, though. Of that, she was determined. She wouldn’t be selfish, wouldn’t forget him as she got lost in her own pleasures. Orma reached down, wondering at her mother’s words about insides and outsides and how men and women differed once they were ready to celebrate the bond.

She swallowed thickly as she found him, not neatly tucked away as she’d expected, but firm to her touch and ready. Athan’s own touch wavered. Retreated.

His kisses, too.

And it might have frightened her, might have made her pull away and ask if she’d done something wrong, if perhaps he did not like to be touched there after all. Except the bond was strong and steady, the threads almost blinding in the lamplight as they thrilled and danced, securing them together in ways she hadn’t known they needed.

“Are you all right?” Orma asked, feeling the length of him, careful to keep her touch gentle. She wouldn’t hurt him. Shemust be careful, just as he was with her. She let her hand retreat, and suddenly Athan could breathe again, his eyes opening to give her a sheepish glance.

“Utterly bothered,” he insisted, and she had to smile because he was kissing her again, and perhaps he was afraid as she was. How was one generous enough with such matters? To focus on loving the other while receiving what the other wished to give?

“I want to be good at this,” Orma confessed, smoothing her fingers down the length of him again, watching his throat bob as he swallowed thickly at such a simple gesture. Hers was the easier job, she decided. Since his parts could come to the outside, while he had to venture inward to find her greatest delights.

Athan chuckled, more breath than sound. “I have no complaints,” he promised her, kissing her lips and then her cheek, his voice strained even as he was careful to be tender with her as he eased back into her.

“But I will admit to a certain thrill at the prospect of practicing.”

She hummed, and then it was abruptly ended when he found some other part inside of her, one that sent bright little spots to her vision as he pressed. “Why was I afraid of this?” Orma whispered, not necessarily referring to the appendage currently subjected to her modest inspection, but all of it. Mating. His body on hers. She’d thought herself somehow removed, as if it might affect other people, but not her. She was wrong. Wonderfully so.

“Because you didn’t know it would be with me,” Athan reminded her, his lips just beneath her ear as he leaned in closed and nudged his face against hers.

She smiled and ignored the rest of it. How resistant she’d been and yes, still frightened.

But not now. When he was coaxing and plying and her hand fell away from him because she really could not focus properly when he seemed determined to draw all of her attention to what was happening between her legs.

She gasped. Wriggled. And his lips found the twist of bond beneath her throat and then he pressed his teeth lightly just there, and he had no business biting at her like that, and she certainly had no business liking it so well that everything tightened and lurched all at once and...

The bond glowed. She didn’t know how she saw it, her eyes too tightly shut as she was lost in the newness. So perhaps she simply felt it along with everything else.

It was sharp and twisting, and it was pleasure too, but it wasn’t satisfaction. Not entirely. Because she could feel Athan’s want, feel there was more, and when everything settled back into place, when he eased his fingers from her, she was the one to reach. To bring him toward her. To whisper she was ready, that she loved him, that she needed him.

And she felt his shudder, felt his restraint as he considered, and she couldn’t understand what he was waiting for. She was open and ready, and her hip wasn’t being nearly as troublesome as it might have been, and...

Her hand went to the back of his neck and she rubbed lightly. “Be with me,” she urged, and that was enough, because he was pushing—no, not pushing. Easing. Always careful, because this was unfamiliar, and her muscles were untried, but the way was easier than she expected.

A little slick. Warm. Full. While Athan shuddered, his eyes closed as he wrestled, both with the bond and the sensations that were just as new to him. And she was happy she was present enough she could cup his cheek. Could lean forward just a bit and kiss wherever she could reach. Until he murmured something in her ear and the angle shifted, and there was thatspot again, the one he’d found before, this time rubbed and stroked while Athan felt his own pleasures.

It was so much... more. Bright and shiny, and she tried to keep her eyes open. To see the threads as they tangled and fused, twisting together in a glorious harmony.

But her body seemed to have a will all its own, and her eyes fluttered closed, and Athan was finally certain of her comfort enough to move in earnest. She loved him for his care, but she loved him for his confidence as well. He did not carry worry around with him like an old friend. He did not dwell on his misgivings.

“I love you,” she managed, because she remembered that was important. That he needed to hear it.

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