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Sitting up slowly, Tamsyn reached out to pet his chest lightly, stroking the patch of hair covering his pectorals. It wasn’t as coarse as his beard, not as soft as the silver pelt on his head, but a strange combination of the two.

More than that, the muscles beneath were firm, defined, warm.

She ran a fingertip over his nipple, surprised when it reacted to her touch. Apparently, she was incapable of getting her own bud to respond, but his worked just fine. Toying with it, she discovered a profound delight in simply exploring him, tracing his muscles, skimming her fingers up and down warm skin.

Heavy, lazy heat gathered in her lower belly.

A different song was playing now, something with a slightly faster beat, and her fingers roamed over him to the rhythm. Up and down, side to side, drawing circles on his flesh. For a few minutes, she even amused herself by practicing writing his name and hers on his upper chest.

Curiosity finally got the better of her when she noticed the bulge behind his zipper swelling quickly. Did she dare touch that part of him?

No, it was wrong. Even though she’d had her hand on him before, it seemed wrong to do so when he was asleep.

What would she do if the tables were turned and he was the one stroking between her legs while she was sleeping? The thought immediately switched the ache in her belly to a throb, drawing wet heat to the very place she imagined his fingers sliding inside again.

Tamsyn rested her palm on his stomach, drawing a line along the skin where that trail of hair disappeared beneath the waistband.

Would he use his fingers again if she asked? It had been painful at first, her flesh stretching and burning around his finger, but by the end, the pleasure was beyond anything she’d felt before. There was somethinginsidethe pain she couldn’t figure out, like a string was tied around her throat, beckoning her to follow the sharp tugs of discomfort.

“Think you’re ready for it?”

She jumped when his voice rumbled, thick with sleep, startling her from her thoughts. Her gaze whipped up to his, anxiety rising so fast she felt sick until she saw the amusement on his face. Her fingers curled into his stomach lightly.

“It’s an easy question, little owl. You want to see what I’ve got, take it out.” His lips curved in a rueful smile. “Be warned it’s a case of be careful what you wish for, mind you.”

She frowned, her hand poised over the zipper.

“Ever seen a cock before?” he asked, and though the question was terse, his voice was the opposite. “Aside from the one you almost had in you not so long ago?”

Tamsyn wrinkled her nose, preferring not to remember that particular incident. She was relegating that to the vault of stuff she refused to think about, although it was getting pretty full. She shook her head slowly, because in all honesty, community men didn’t go around flashing their unmentionables at people; things like that led to the temptation of women, or so her father said, as if seeing a man’s tool would send every woman in the vicinity into a desperate sexual frenzy.

No, community men liked to hide their secrets until their wedding nights.

Merrick lifted his arms, stretching before folding his arms behind his head, appearing to be confident in himself. A study of his face told her he really wasn’t bothered whether she unzipped him or not, although… was that a whisper of worry in the green if she looked hard enough?

Testing them both, she pinched the metal tab between her fingers, pulling it down an inch while staring at him directly. She just got an easy shrug of his shoulders that did wonderful things to the rest of his muscles and a lopsided smirk.

“It’s your choice, little owl. I’m just laying here, perfectly willing to be taken advantage of if the mood strikes.” He groaned quietly when she eased the zipper down another inch; she felt his erection pushing against the barrier and wondered if it hurt the way she hurt when he put his fingers inside her. “Either you’re an expert tease or you’re gonna be brave.”

Brave wasn’t the word she’d use. She was curious about his anatomy, that was all. Sex was an integral part of the community, the driving force behind everything the elders did, yet it was only spoken about in whispers between the wives, passed down to the ladies-in-waiting when an opportunity presented itself.

Warnings usually—which husbands were cruel, which ones liked pain. Whether they were big or small inthatdepartment, whether they had a complex about it.

Over the years, it became a code.

A code taught to girls by their mothers before they were old enough to be traded, to be sucked into the system and ultimately discarded in favor of another, more satisfactory exchange.

Tamsyn tugged the zipper down as far as it would go, waiting expectantly for his cock to pop free. Her brow furrowed when nothing happened, then realized when he chuckled that he wore underwear beneath his jeans.

“Want me to take them off?”

She nodded once, firmly.

“All of them? Jeansandboxers?”

He was teasing her, the rat. But wasn’t it nice to reach the stage where he could tease her, and she could see the humor in it without anxiety gripping her spine in hard fists and twisting until she bowed to it?

Crossing her arms awkwardly over her chest, she gave him a baleful stare.