I clung onto his shoulders as his tongue swept over my clit, making me jolt. I clenched around his fingers as the coil inside me grew tighter and tighter, hurtling toward release.
He withdrew his fingers, eliciting a noise of protest that was quickly cut off when his tongue darted out to plunge into my core.Tastingme.
My whole body tensed, taut as a bow. I hadn’t expected this. No one had ever touched me like this, not even August, and my first instinct was to stop him. What if he didn’t like it? What if?—?
But then a soft, involuntary groan slipped past his lips, and I forgot my embarrassment and unraveled entirely.
As he lapped at my core, his fingers continued pumping a steady rhythm, and I couldn’t cease the instinctive rocking of my hips against his mouth, seeking friction. I forgot to be gentle as I raked my nails over his back until I felt the soft skin break, marking him.
He drew back to murmur a slew of curses against my inner thigh, his own breathing growing unsteady as I shuddered and clenched around him, my mouth a hot gasp against the pillow.
“Casimir, please,” I begged, and at the sound of his name, he finally gave me the pressure I was desperately craving. I didn’t see the cliff approaching as I fractured over the edge and fell, my body shattering into a thousand pieces and trembling with the force of my climax.
He guided me through the waves of pleasure until I was limp and gasping in his arms, breathing his name like a mantra, like it was the answer to my salvation, the spell of my undoing. Slowly, he withdrew, dragging his way back up my body to laugh softly against the column of my throat. The sound crested over me like the sun emerging from the clouds.
As the waves of pleasure grew fewer and farther apart, I began to pick up the fragments of myself. I glanced over to see Casimir watching me, his eyes dark and his expression inscrutable.
The roaring fire in the hearth downstairs must have died down, because the light was dimmer now, its faint glow casting Casimir’s bronze skin with shadows. Together with the faint blush in his cheeks from our exertions, he looked positively devastating.
As my lustful haze began to lift, a sense of dawning horror sharpened my senses. Oh my gods. Had I really just let Casimir fuck me with his mouth and fingers while I begged him and moaned his name? Yes, I had. The truth of it was written in the smirk ghosting across his lips, in the sheen of sweat that still clung to his skin.Mysweat.
He leaned down to kiss me, and I tasted my essence on his tongue, salty and floral. I hadn’t been with anyone like this since August. I felt as vulnerable and exposed as I had during those first mortifying training sessions.
Noting the change in my expression, Casimir withdrew, regarding me with some wariness. He was waiting for me to speak, to declare my regret for what had just occurred. Of all the things I could’ve said or done to reassure us both at that moment, what I did instead was this: I reached for the metal buckle of his belt and began to undo the loops, the implication clear. I wanted to return the debt—to make us even.
The moment he registered my intent, his hand darted out to intercept mine. “Stop,” he said, shaking his head, the heat suddenly extinguished from his gaze.
I recoiled as though slapped. “Why?” To my utter horror, my voice came out sounding hurt and churlish.
Gently, he brushed a lock of hair behind my ear. It was a gesture meant to show me that this was not a rejection, merely his way of drawing a boundary for tonight. “We don’t have to do… everything tonight. Go to sleep now. You’ll need your rest for tomorrow.”
I frowned, but did not argue with him further. I didn’t need to glance at mirror across from the bed to know that I looked like an absolute mess—like some wild beast who had never come across a hairbrush in her life. I patted at the wild, dark tangles and groaned in dismay.
“What’s wrong?” Casimir asked, halfway through the act of changing into sweatpants.
“My hair,” I groaned, making him laugh.
“I like your crazy hair.”
I shot him a death glare. “Well, I don’t.”
He rolled his eyes and tossed me a comb from the dresser drawer. While I snagged the proffered comb through my tangles, I took the opportunity to examine my reflection and immediately regretted it. Not only was my hair a snarled nest, but I’d also sustained more than a few love bites.
“I can glamour those for you, if you like,” came his sly offer from his repose on the bed.
I froze halfway through the act of untangling a knot, my gaze colliding with his in the mirror.
He was watching me ready myself for sleep. The act struck me as somehow more intimate than anything we’d just done.
I tried to cover up the moment by offering him a weak smile. “I suppose your abilities do come in handy from time to time,” I conceded.
I opened a drawer with the intent of borrowing one of his black T-shirts to wear to sleep, but when I discovered that the drawer in question contained over a dozen identical black shirts, I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from teasing him for this eccentricity. Once changed, I crawled back into the huge bed.
Casimir encircled me in his arms, warming me as he pressed a kiss onto my hair. “Sleep, Arden.”
I wasn’t sure I’d ever sleep again.
Our limbs entwined beneath the covers. I felt safe. Warm. His knuckles traced hypnotic circles on my cheek and down my neck and shoulders, and before long, fatigue coaxed me until I slid under the black wave, succumbing to unconsciousness.