Page 65 of The Viking in the Vault
His fingers tighten. “How much do you want?” he growls. “I need you to be clear. Precise.”
“I want…” I swallow hard, my eyelashes fluttering as my hips move on their own, the seam of my PJ pants rough against my clit. “Oh gosh?—”
“Fenvarra,” Ragnar presses, gripping my chin to force me to look at him. “Use your words…please.”
I move my hands from his shoulders to his beard, finding it soft and curly…then up to his antlers. I grip them in my hands, discovering they’re very nice to hang onto.
“I don’t want to have sex tonight,” I breathe.
His hands move down to my ass, cupping my cheeks to keep me still. “Sex can be all kinds of things, my mate.”
“I don’t…I’m not ready for your—for your…you know, for your thing to be inside me.”
He smirks. “For my cock?”
Ragnar’s smirk is pure sin, but his eyes are warm, patient. He holds me still, hands firm on my ass, waiting for me to say exactly what I want.
I bite my lip, heat rushing to my face. “Yes. That.”
His thumbs sweep over my skin, slow and deliberate. “That is perfectly fine, fenvarra. We will wait. But…” His voice drops lower, a rasp of hunger. “That does not mean I cannot touch you elsewhere.”
A full-body shiver runs through me at the implication. My grip on his antlers tightens, and his eyes darken as he groans softly, hips thrusting subtly like he likes the way I hold onto him.
He leans in, his lips brushing my ear. “Tell me what I can do.”
I swallow hard, my body burning from the inside out. “I—” My breath catches when he shifts beneath me, the thick length of him pressing up against the heat between my thighs. Even through my pajamas, I feel him, and it makes my mind go blank for a moment.
His patience is infinite, but I can feel the tension thrumming beneath his skin, the way his fingers flex, his chest rising and falling with heavy, restrained breaths. He’s waiting for me to guide him, to set the boundaries.
“I…” I swallow. “I want you to touch me.”
His exhale is slow and deliberate, like he’s keeping himself in check. “Where, fenvarra?” His hands skim up my back, then down again, tracing the curve of my hips. “Tell me.”
I press my forehead to his, inhaling the warm, spiced scent of him. “Everywhere.”
“Be specific.”
“Between my legs,” I whisper.
A deep, satisfied growl rumbles in his chest. “My pleasure.”
I gasp as he takes me in his arms and lays me out in front of the fire, looming over me. His fingers hook beneath the waistband of my PJ pants and my panties at the same time, dragging them lower with agonizing slowness, baring more of my skin to the flickering firelight. Normally, this is where I would start to get embarrassed, tell whoever I’m with that I’m not very experienced, that I was always too busy to try new things…but he looks at me like I’m the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, from the stretch marks on my thighs to the thatch of dark hair I’ve never bothered to shave.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmurs, pressing a slow, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of my knee.
I gasp, propping myself on my elbows to watch him.
Ragnar groans. “Ah, you like that, don’t you?”
He doesn't wait for me to answer. He knows. He feels the way my breath stutters, the way my thighs twitch in anticipation.
His lips brush higher.
Then higher.
I can’t move. Can’t breathe. The fire crackles beside us, but I barely register the sound over the rush of my pulse, the heat curling low in my belly.
Ragnar’s hands slide up my thighs, his touch slow and deliberate, reverent in a way that makes me ache. His breath is hot against my bare skin, his lips teasing along the inside of my thigh, closer, closer?—
