Page 39 of Bite Bonded Bride

"You've been quiet," I say.

He doesn’t reply. I know why.

I set the cloth aside. "The warriors you lost tonight weren't your fault Zareth."

His temple ticks. He says nothing. Which means I'm right, and he'd rather swallow the guilt whole than hand it to me.

I want to take it from him. I want to reach into that enormous, ancient chest and pull the grief out with my hands.

Then I make my decision, slide off the stone and kneel between his legs.

His entire body goes very still. His eyes track me, unblinking, glowing brighter at the pupils.

I hold his gaze and slide both hands up his thighs, deliberately, watching his face the entire time. His muscle twitches under my palms through the fabric.

"What are you doing," he says. It isn't a question. His voice has dropped to something low and scraping, like stone on stone.

"Helping you relax." I reach his waistband and find the cord of his loin cloth with easy fingers. I know exactly what I'm doing.

I hold his eyes as I work him free, and the sound that leaves him when cool air hits his skin is between an exhale and a curse. He's already hard, thickening, heavy, the length of him darkening at the tip and I sense the Blood Bond flare in my sternum when my fingers curl around him.

He's enormous.

I part my lips and look up at him, mouth open, expression shamelessly hungry, watch his nostrils flare, eyes lit like coals dropping to my mouth.

His hand slides into my hair. Slowly gripping. His thumb presses against my temple with devastating gentleness for a man who just killed a dozen elven soldiers with his bare hands.

He holds me there, not pushing nor pulling. Stopping me. A fraction from what I want.

He's fighting himself. I can feel it through the Bond, his want crashing against the restraint, enormous and barely contained.

I drag my tongue slowly across my bottom lip. His grip tightens in my hair. His breath comes out jagged and he lets go. I take him into my mouth, keeping my eyes on his face.

I want to see every second of it. His expression as I take the broad head of him past my lips, the way his chest expands on a rough inhale, the way his free hand grips the stone beside him hard enough that I hear it crack. I work my way down slowly, hollowing my cheeks, keeping the suction tight and deliberate, watching his eyes glaze at the edges, that eerie crimson glow brightening and dimming like embers catching.

When I take him fully, when my nose presses into the flat of his stomach and his tip finds the back of my throat and I swallow around him, My eyes fall shut and I moan.

He breathes out a sharp, ragged exhale, his whole body shuddering once from the base of him upward, his hand fisting in my hair without pulling, like he needs something to hold onto or he'll come apart at the seams.

I suck my cheeks in and constrict around him, tight and wet and airless, feel his thighs tense on either side of me.

I start to move.

Slow pulls up, dragging every inch of him back through my lips before pushing back down. My breath ghosts against his stomach. His grip in my hair tightens and loosens in rhythm like he can't decide whether to control the pace or surrender to it. I make the decision for him. I set a rhythm, measured and relentless, and let him feel everything. The wet heat of my mouth. The soft scrape of my teeth along his length, conscious and calculated, feeling him pulse and throb with every graze, pre-cum bitter-salt on my tongue.

"Cybele." My name in his mouth sounds wrecked. Barely recognizable.

I pull back just enough to look up at him, lips stretched, eyes heavy-lidded and completely unashamed.

"This is to help you relax," I tell him, voice hoarse, breath warm against his slick length.

He stares at me. His chest is heaving. He looks undone. This ancient, terrifying, immovable man, and I've done it with my mouth alone.

"You—" He stops. Swallows. "Relax?"

"It's working, isn't it?"

He lets out a half-growl, half-disbelieving exhale, and his hand tightens in my hair and then I'm being pulled up and off him in one fluid, irresistible motion.