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A sharp breath burst from me. The world narrowed to the heat of his hand, the sure way he stroked me like he had every right to. Each pass of his fingers drew me tighter against him, need curling through me in a low, helpless wave.
Then everything dimmed. Sound fell away. Light thinned. It was only me and him. And a flicker. A shimmer.
Silver and gold threads rippled into existence above us, unfurling like an aurora brought to life—beautiful, impossible, achingly intimate. They drifted in slow, deliberate sways, as if aware of us. As if watching. One brushed along his shoulder, and I saw it: the shiver that cut through him, the taut pull of something inside him straining against invisible chains.
He kissed his way down my body with devastating focus, murmuring my name against my skin like a prayer, a promise, a claim he barely managed to contain. Heat followed every kiss, every breath, every soft scrape of his lips.
When he eased between my thighs, he looked up at me with a hunger so raw it made the world tilt. Then he lowered his mouth and pressed that first kiss to where I ached for him most.
The threads above us pulsed—bright, alive—and the whole world seemed to inhale with me.
“Beautiful,” he breathed against my center. “So damn beautiful.”
The first sweep of his tongue had me crying out, hips bucking shamelessly against his mouth. A groan rumbled through him—as if he were the one receiving pleasure—and his large hands gripped my thighs, holding me steady. He licked deeper, slower, learning me with every stroke. Every gasp. Every helpless whimper that fell from my lips.
Still controlled. Still measured.
“August,” I sobbed, fingers tangling in his dark hair. “Please—I need—”
“Let me worship you as you deserve.” His mouth was hot against my sensitive flesh, and pleasure spiked through me.
It was exquisite torture.
Too exquisite. My senses twisted in on themselves—my ears buzzing, my legs trembling so badly I couldn’t feel my feet. I didn’t know if I was unraveling or ascending. Maybe both.
“You don’t know,” he breathed, lips brushing my center, “how long I’ve dreamt of tasting you. . . how long I’ve kept myself from this.”
Another slow kiss. Another shudder from him.
“I would’ve lost myself,” he said, voice thick with hunger, “if I’d let myself want you the way I do. Yet, here I am anyway, completely lost in you.”
The truth in his tone hit me harder than his touch. It wasn’t just desire—it was need. Starvation. A man who’d denied himself until the moment he broke.
And he was breaking for me.
The lantern beside us flickered violently, the flame guttering low as if the threads were drawing all the light to themselves. In the sudden dimness, they blazed brighter, silver and gold radiance casting wild, shifting shadows across the tent walls.
“Tell me what you want,” he growled.
“You,” I breathed. “I want you.”
His control shattered like glass.
He surged up my body with a snarl that sounded more animal than man, pinning my wrists above my head as his mouth crashed against mine. This kiss wasn't gentle. It was consuming, desperate, all teeth and tongue and barely leashed violence turned to hunger.
“You want me?” he growled against my lips, and nothing of his careful control remained. “You want to see what I am when I stop pretending to be civilized?”
“Yes,” I gasped. “God, yes—”
He claimed my mouth again, harder this time. His other hand—the one not pinning my wrists—slid down my side, over my hip, gripping hard enough to bruise. Possessive. Claiming.
The threads multiplied, wrapping around us in a cocoon of light and magic. They bound my ankle. Curled around his throat. Tightened like silk ropes holding us together. Another wrapped so tight around his forearm I saw his muscles flex against it. The magic was almost too much, pleasure and pressure blurring together until I couldn't tell if I was gasping from him or from them.
He positioned himself at my entrance, the thick head of him nudging against my slick heat—no hesitation, no warning, no space to think.
Then he thrust.
A single driving stroke that slammed him fully inside me, filling me in an instant.
