A Court of Innocents

38: Bliss

"Why are you looking at me like that?" asked Tamlin from where he had settled himself on the bed.

I blinked. "Like what?"

"Like you're falling in love with me all over again."

"I think I might be."

His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "Over my boring room?"

Before he could move back or push me away, I crawled into his lap, brushing my mouth against his. "There is nothing boring about you, Tamlin Vernal. I think you might be the most interesting person in the world, actually."

When his hands settled onto my waist, it wasn't to push me away. He drew me closer against him. We pressed tight against each other, and I could feel the hard definition of his chest between our clothes. My nipples pebbled at the proximity, at the toe-curling heat. I left quick, tender kisses along his jaw, breathing in his masculine scent. It was overwhelming, having him this close.

"Everything about you is fascinating," I said, and then nibbled on his earlobe. "Take your neck, for instance." I placed open-mouthed kisses along his pulse point, grinning when it jumped unexpectedly. Those promising kisses were quickly followed by teasing bites. "I could spend hours looking at your neck, picturing my mouth on it, imagining what it smells like..." I breathed in a lungful of fresh rain, wet earth, and pure man, and sighed, trying to memorize it all.

Something hard pressed into me. Hard, and thick, and burning just as much as I was.

I pretended like his erection pressing into my core wasn't my undoing, pretended like my thoughts were still clear and my breathing still controlled. But when I pulled away to focus on his right hand, I couldn't hide the way my own began to shake. Not with fear. There was no sign of that suffocating ocean of darkness in sight. I was shaking with restraint simply because it took all my willpower to keep from ripping our clothes to shreds.

I wanted to devour this man.

Callouses marked the inside of his palm from years of swordplay. I gazed at them; at the way my own fingers were swallowed up in his longer ones. I wasn't a frail, tiny woman. In fact, it was rare that I came across another female who was taller than me. And yet Tamlin still towered over me. He was bigger in height and muscle, and that did something to my insides that made my head spin.

I said, "I love these hands. You have no idea how much I absolutely love these hands. Probably too much. I think I've dreamt about them too often."

"What do you dream about?" His other hand dragged down my bare thigh, and it took a minute for his words to process in my hazy mind.

I licked my lips. "Your fingers digging into my skin a little too roughly, leaving marks for me to find the next day. Those callouses. Just... everything about those callouses, especially when they're pressed against my soft folds. The number of times I've come just at the thought of that... too many. Definitely too many."

He hissed, and only when a spark of heat echoed throughout my body did I realize that I had ground my hips against him, rubbing myself on his erection.

We were no longer on the bed. One moment, I was straddling his waist on the edge of the mattress. The next, he had me on the desk.

Dark eyes roamed down my dress, and he murmured about how much he liked the fabric—before tearing it to shreds. I gasped at the sudden movement, at the sound that shook the room. When we saw me utterly naked beneath, he growled. It was louder than before. Completely unhinged.

He sunk to his knees before me. My legs pressed together desperately, and just as quickly, he yanked them apart, throwing them over his shoulders as he inched towards my core. That handsome face morphed into something darker as he breathed in my dripping arousal. "I'm not going to make you beg. Later, when we have hours, when we can take it slow, I'll make you weep for me. But not tonight."