She felt the tremor running through his arms where he held himself back. Felt his breath against her mouth. Felt herself tightening around him despite the ache.
"Move," she whispered.
He did.
There was no gentleness beyond the care not to hurt her. Each stroke deliberate, drawing almost all the way out and pushing back in until the rough fullness tipped into something hot and wet and devastating. The table knocked softly against the wall. A jar somewhere rattled.
He kissed her throat, bit lightly at the base of it, and thrust deeper.
He reached between them and found her clit with his thumb, rubbing in time with the thrusts, harder. The angle changed when he pulled her hips to the table edge. Every stroke hit a place inside her that made her see white.
She came the second time with his name torn out of her, heels digging into the table edge, body shaking so hard she barely felt the first hot pulse of his release.
Then she did.
He shoved deep and stayed there, cock jerking inside her as he spilled. Thick heat flooded her cunt in heavy pulses. His forehead dropped to her shoulder.
For a long breath neither of them moved.
The workshop smelled wrecked. Oil, sweat, sex, pigment, lamp heat.
Mavrek lifted his head first. His gaze went over her face as if taking inventory after a storm.
"Iva."
"Do not," she said, because whatever tenderness might be arriving would be unmanageable.
Something in his face gentled anyway. "Aye."
He withdrew slowly. She hissed at the emptying stretch and the first thick slide of his seed. He took a clean cloth from the stack and held it out. She snatched it and pressed it between her thighs at once. Warm wetness kept coming.
"Excellent," she muttered at no one.
His mouth twitched. "Aye."
She climbed off the table on shaky legs, nearly stumbled, and glared at the floor. Her underclothes were ruined. Her chemise bunched halfway to her ribs. Her blouse hung open. Pigment dust streaked one hip. Maruk oil glowed faintly on her forearms where his hands had held and turned.
Evidence. Everywhere.
She made it to the basin with the cloth clenched between her thighs and every step reminding her exactly what had just been inside her.
She braced both hands on the basin rim and scrubbed.
Hands first. Forearms. Throat. Soap bit. Sand cloth rasped. Pigment came off. Some of the oil came off. The scent thinned and stayed. Maruk clung to the inside of her wrists. He clung between her thighs in heat and soreness and the intimate wet drag of aftermath.
Behind her Mavrek moved quietly through the workshop, righting what they had disturbed, setting brushes back in order. That particular restraint had become one of his more maddening habits.
By the time she pulled herself back together, her pack still sat on the worktable exactly where she'd abandoned it before he asked her to choose.
She took it up.
Mavrek stood by the door now, shirt half-buttoned, hair loose.
"You may go by the back stair," he said. "Fewer eyes."
She stared at him.
He reached for the latch and stopped. "Woman."