"You have been patient enough for both of us."
He opened the blouse the rest of the way and looked at her with the same terrible exact gaze he'd given her notes and her brushwork. Heat rushed through her so fast she wanted to cover herself and arch into it at the same time.
He dragged the chemise strap aside and bared her breast to the lamplight.
Iva sucked in a breath. His mouth closed over her nipple and the world fractured.
"Fuck."
He backed her toward the edge of the worktable. Brushes rattled in a crock. The table edge caught the backs of her thighs, and he lifted her onto the broad scarred wood with such appalling ease she could have bitten him for it.
Pigment dust marked the heel of her palm. Of course. Her skirt rucked higher under his hands. He pushed the chemise up her belly, looked once at the bare skin, and groaned.
When his fingers touched the damp linen between her legs she jerked.
He held still, looking at her face, not her body now. "Iva."
The use of her name there -- low and rough with wanting -- felt worse than woman.
"If you stop now," she said, "I may actually die of it."
Then he hooked his fingers into the soaked gusset of her underclothes and dragged it aside.
Two thick strokes through wetness and she was gripping the table edge. He worked her with one finger and then two, curling them until her thighs shook open around his hips. He rubbed his thumb over her clit with measured strokes that made the tension climb and climb and never break.
"Let it come, woman."
She did, suddenly and violently, one hand clapped over her mouth too late. The orgasm hit all through the body at once. Her cunt clenched hard around his fingers. For a second she lost every organized thought she'd had since arriving in Brineshell.
When she came down he was kissing her again, his cock a hard brutal line against the inside of her thigh through his loosened trousers.
"Do you want this still?"
"Yes," she said.
He stepped back long enough to shove his trousers down. His cock came free heavy and thick, the blunt crown already wet. He took the maruk flask from the table and poured a little into his palm.
"It warms," he said roughly. "On the skin."
He spread the oil over his cock and the scent punched through the room all over again. The same blend he would use in daylight on claimed skin if she ever lost the sense to let him. Then he slicked two oiled fingers through her cunt and over her clit, and the heat of it there made her whole body jerk.
He hooked one arm behind her knees, opening her wider over the table, and lined himself up.
"You will tell me if you need me slower."
She had time to thinkthis is insane and chosen and mine.Then he pushed inside.
The stretch was immense. A burn first, then pressure, then more of him, until she was clutching at his shoulders with both hands and breathing through parted lips. He stopped halfway in, forehead against hers.
"Too much?"
"No. Do not you dare stop now."
He sank the rest of the way in with one slow hard thrust.
Pain and pleasure crossed wires so quickly she could not tell which had lit first. Full. Gods, too full. The heat of the maruk, the shut door, the lamp, her own pack still sitting where she'd put it down. All of it became one unbearable fact.
He stayed still, giving her the chance he had promised.