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“Where?” His fingertips ghost along my collarbone, not quite touching. “Here?”

I shake my head, pulse hammering.

His hand moves lower, hovering just above my breast. “Here?”

“Lower,” I breathe.

“Here?” He traces the air just above my nipple, close enough that I can feel the cold radiating from his skin.

“Kieran, please?—”

“Please what? Use your words, troublesome thing. Tell me exactly what you want.”

The demand in his voice makes something deep in my chest purr with satisfaction. “Touch me. Put your hands on me. I need to feel you.”

“Much better.”

His palm finally contacts my skin, frost-touched fingers spreading across my heated breast. The temperature contrast sends shockwaves through my system, making me arch against him with a cry.

“By the old gods, you’re so warm,” he groans, thumb brushing across my nipple in slow circles. “Like touching liquid flame.”

Where his skin meets mine, frost patterns bloom in delicate spirals, beautiful and strange and somehow right. The thorn patterns beneath my skin respond, glowing brighter as our magic recognizes each other.

“More,” I gasp, hands reaching for him.

“Greedy.” But his mouth follows the path of his hands, pressing open-mouthed kisses to my throat, my collarbone, the sensitive space between my breasts that makes me writhe beneath him.

When his lips close around my nipple, the sensation is so intense I nearly come off the bed. Frost-cold mouth on burning skin, his tongue swirling in patterns that make rational thought impossible.

“Kieran,” I moan, hands fisting in his dark hair.

“I love the way you say my name,” he murmurs against my skin, teeth grazing my nipple just hard enough to make me cry out. “Say it again.”

“Kieran, please?—”

“Please what?” His hand slides down my stomach, fingertips tracing thorn patterns until he reaches the ache between my thighs. “This?”

He cups me with his palm, not moving, just holding me while I writhe against his hand.

“Yes,” I gasp. “God, yes.”

“You’re already so wet for me,” he says with satisfaction, one finger sliding through my folds without entering. “So exquisite.”

“I need?—”

“I know what you need.” His finger circles my clit with maddening precision, building pressure without giving me enough to find release. “But I want to hear you beg for it first.”

“Kieran—”

“Beg, troublesome thing. Let me hear how much you want this.”

Pride wars with need, but need wins decisively. “Please. Please touch me properly. I need you inside me. I need?—”

He slides two fingers into me without warning, making me cry out at the sudden fullness. “Like this?”

“Yes,” I sob, hips bucking against his hand.

“You feel incredible,” he groans, pumping his fingers slowly while his thumb works my clit. “So tight and wet and divine. I could do this for hours.”