Page 19 of 13 Nights

She does. Her gaze is dark, present, and slightly furious, as if she resents how much she's responding. Good. I want her angry and aroused in equal measure. I want her aware of every decision I make with her body.

My hand moves between her thighs. She's wet through the fabric, and the knowledge of it registers where sensation alone falls short.

I press my thumb against her clit through the cotton and her hips jerk.

"Still," I command. "Don't move until I tell you."

The effort of obeying costs her. I can see it in the tension of her neck, in the tremor running through her legs.

I strip the last of her clothing with unhurried, exacting care while she grips the table edge with white knuckles and holds herself still because I told her to.

When she's bare on the kitchen table with her chin raised and her shoulders back, I look at her and understand that I haven't wanted anything this badly since the night I refused to cross the Gate. The defiance in her posture makes the submission underneath it devastating.

"Beautiful," I say. "And mine. Tonight, in this kitchen, you belong to me. Tell me you understand."

"I understand."

"Tell me you want this."

"Shut up and fuck me, Severin."

A low sound escapes me, half laugh, half warning. "Foul language doesn't become you. Don't use it again."

"Or what?"

"Or I'll find a better use for that mouth."

She said my name. Wrapped it in profanity and defiance, but she said it, and her voice reaches me without the barrier that dulls everything else. Not her heat. Not her skin. My name. For a moment the numbness tears open and I feel the syllables the way a living man would feel them, raw and close and devastating.

The moment passes. The barrier settles back into place. But it's thinner than it was.

I shed my own clothes. Her eyes track every movement with an attention that borders on clinical, and I let her look.

My body is whole, functional, and cold. When I step between her parted thighs, her hands come up toward my chest.

I pin both wrists behind her back in one hand. "I didn't give you permission to touch."

"I wasn't asking."

"You will." I tighten my grip until the chill registers against her pulse. "Before this is over, you will ask me for everything I give you."

I enter her slowly, reading her face as her body opens around me. The sensation arrives through the muted barrier, pressure and heat and the tight hold of her body around my cock. What I feel with absolute clarity is her response.

The way her breath shatters. The involuntary arch of her spine. The low, broken noise she makes when I'm fully inside her and I hold there, motionless, until she understands that I control the pace.

"Severin." Her voice is hoarse. "Please."

"Please what?"

"Move. Please move."

"No. Not until I decide."

"You're enjoying this." Her eyes narrow even through the desperation. "The control."

"Yes. And so are you. Say it."

"Yes." The word costs her, and the admission heats her skin more than anything my hands have done. "Yes, I am."