Page 280 of Elemental Becoming

The connection snaps shut, his shields locking back into place. A wall rebuilt in an instant. As though he can somehow take it back. As though I didn’t hear him.

As though I didn’t understand.

Unhurried, he rises to his feet, his gaze devouring me as I lean back. I see his eyes fall to the fullness of my breasts peeking out from the water. The way he hardens beneath his leathers, the strain undeniable.

Thane moves to the side of the tub and kneels. When he speaks again, his voice is like fire against my skin.

“Now,” he says softly, “I’m going to help you forget the weight of the world for a little while.”

His hand dips back into the water. I feel it slip between my legs, fingers moving with devastating precision.

Teasing. Circling. Stroking.

Dragging me apart with a touch so controlled, so excruciatingly patient, it borders on cruel.

He pushes one finger inside me. Then two. A slow, purposeful rhythm. He gently pulls out, then pushes in again. Over and over.

A moan slips from my lips, my body tightening, trembling. His fingers curl, pressing against that spot. I gasp. He moves them again. And again.

Thane’s other hand tangles in my hair, firm but careful.

“I want you to look at me.”

His fingers tighten slightly as he tilts my head back.

“See what you do to me . . . while I watch you come undone.”

I meet his gaze. The storms in his eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them.

My body tightens around his fingers, pleasure coiling in my spine, sharp and electric. The pressure builds, cresting. My breath hitches, my nails digging into his flexed arm as I teeter on the edge of oblivion.

And then I shatter.

My cry is swallowed by the air, the heat, the sheer force of what he does to me. And my magics answer.

Wind stirs first, spiraling around us in soft, whirling currents. The candles flare brighter, their flames stretching higher as fire pulses outward in shimmering waves. Beneath us, the stone floor hums with a deep, steady vibration, the earth answering in its own quiet way.

And then the water rises.

It lifts from the bath in delicate ribbons, weightless and gleaming, swirling around us in a slow dance of liquid light. Droplets catch the candlelight as they drift through the air, suspended between breaths, between heartbeats.

The energy hums through my veins, singing beneath my skin. As my breathing begins to calm and the aftermath washes through me, the water settles. The ribbons drift downward, slipping back into the bath as though they had never left it.

I’m still gasping, still undulating, lost in the pleasure he just gave me.

But Thane? Thane is watching me like he has only just begun.

By the gods, can I take more?

His fingers are still inside me, moving lazily, stroking, playing, dragging me back to the edge before I’ve even caught my breath. I whimper, my hips shifting, my thighs tightening around his wrist.

“Sensitive?”

The question is gentle.

The look accompanying it is not.

I try to answer, but the attempt dies somewhere betweenmy lungs and my tongue. Instead, my body responds, arching against him, chasing more, even as the pleasure builds to consume me all over again. His other hand wraps around the back of my neck, holding me in place.