Page 29 of Beast of Blood and Ash
My fingers kept wandering—this time with more certainty—skating up his forearm to his bicep. It was hard as weapon-forged steel but underlaid with a living heat that pulsed against my palm. My hand trailed along the curve of his chest, finding the faint rises and valleys of old scars, the texture as familiar as my own nightmares. He grunted, a low, involuntary sound sharp enough to make me freeze.
He didn’t flinch. “Don’t stop,” he rumbled, softer this time, as if he was afraid I’d vanish if he spoke too loudly.
His encouragement went off in my veins like a shot of something dangerous and heady. I let my hand drift farther,mapping the heat, the dizzying landscape of his anatomy. Over the dips of old wounds, over the place where his scales faded to something softer above his heart. His chest rose and fell, his breath stuttering. I could feel it, a trembling under the surface, a coil of pleasure and tension, both vulnerable and terrifying.
His body wasn’t human. It wasn’t safe. But it wasn’t a threat, not right now.
My hand slipped lower, curiosity untethered from shame. I found the ridged lines of his belly, the plates of scale giving way to something silkier, stranger. My heart hammered. I half thought he’d stop me, but he stayed almost painfully still, his chest heaving, the only sign I wasn’t dreaming this.
I let my hand trace the instinctual line down, below his waist, toward the forbidden. I told myself I was only curious, only cataloging the alien. But the ache between my thighs told a different story.
My fingers found slickness, hot and silken under my touch.
His cock.
I should have recoiled. I should have curled away. Instead, I pressed in, exploring the strange anatomy. Scales at the base gave way to thick, ridged flesh, with thicker veins pulsing beneath the skin.
I curled my hand around him. Slick with his own fluid, hot and alive, the tip was crowned by a moving, fleshy lip that was almost like a tongue, twitching as I pressed my thumb along its seam. The head was wider than any human I’d known.
And a scent rose up between us, alien but magnetic: copper, smoke, a sweetness that made my mouth water and my core clench.
A part of me wanted to dive in and taste him. I was going absolutely fucking insane.
Omvar sucked in a shuddering breath. His hips jerked, a subtle but unmistakable movement. He was hard. For me.
I froze, shame and wonder warring for dominance. I couldn’t see his face, not in this dim light, but I could hear the way his breathing fractured, a guttural, helpless note buried under restraint. He tried to roll away, but my grip tightened. I didn’t want him to move. I wanted …+
god, I wanted this. The feeling scared me. It lit me up and unmade me all at once.
“You don’t have to,” I said, the words tumbling out, echoing his earlier. It shocked me how much I meant them. I wanted him to know I was choosing this. Just this once. Choosing him.
How long had it been since I’d let myself want something that wasn’t survival?
He was still, as if waiting for some final, invisible permission. I gave it with my hands. I stroked him, slow at first, learning his body by feel.
The slickness, the way that lip flexed and curled with every pass of my fingers, the way the scent deepened and thickened as his pleasure built. I pumped my hand, gentle at first, then harder, chasing the sound of his breath, the stuttering grunts and soft gasps that made heat curl low in my belly.
His hand covered mine, huge and careful, his claws just barely pricking the spaces between my fingers. The contact sent sparks through every nerve ending, a delicious, sharp brightness. I liked it. I liked the danger, the way he could break me and chose not to.
He jerked once, a sharp gasp on his lips, and then his body shuddered, a pulse of wet heat spilling through my grip. He came in my hand, the fluid flooding my palm, the scent of him thick and wild, marking the air between us. The slick, musky heat of him coated my skin. It was both alien and achingly intimate.
He faltered, his body trembling against mine. For a moment, all I could hear was the thundering of his heart, loud anduneven against my back. I should have felt powerful. In control. Remaking my body as mine, not just a cage of trauma. Instead, I felt everything at once: arousal and fear, grief and want, all twisting together like molten metal.
Omvar leaned in closer, careful, reverent, his breath a hot whisper at my ear. “Let me give you this,thravena.”
The word was an invocation, hungry and gentle. I felt it in my bones.
A thousand reasons to say no avalanched through my mind. What if I froze? What if the pleasure tipped into panic? What if I couldn’t stop once I started? What if I needed this more than I wanted to admit? But the ache was bigger. I wanted to feel something that wasn’t fear.
I nodded. Maybe I whispered yes. Maybe I just offered my body, trembling and raw, to the moment.
He moved slowly, as if I might shatter. His hand brushed my hip, his claws tracing a whisper-light path down my thigh. He guided me onto my back, his wing and arms caging me in a world apart from everything else. He paused, his breath warm against my belly, waiting for the flinch that would end this.
Instead, I reached for him. I threaded shaking fingers through the coarse silk of his hair, giving him permission with the only language I knew.
He lowered his head. The first touch of his mouth at my inner thigh was so gentle it almost undid me. His tongue, long and impossibly agile, tasted the inside of my knee, painting a slow, burning line up to where I ached for him. Every nerve lit up, confusion and pleasure winding together until I couldn’t tell them apart.
He licked up, then down, circling, teasing, drinking in the shudders that racked my body.
