Page 79 of A Hunt Bound in Blood

Instead, I decided to find out what it would feel like if I relaxed my shoulders. They dropped away from my ears, and with that removal of tension, my lungs released their death grip on my breath.

Faster than I was prepared for, the muscles down my sides and in my stomach let go, following the cues of my shoulders, and to my surprise, as soon as my abdomen loosened, the muscles between my legs tightened.

The response was so immediate, so sudden, that the rest of me locked up again, but Cammon’s fingers continued their soft stroke on my arm, reminding me who was in control despite my vulnerability.

With another deep breath, I tried again. Shoulders, chest, stomach relaxed—heartbeat faster, my sex clenching.

I swallowed, caught somewhere in the middle between relaxed and not. Between aroused and terrified.

Cammon shifted, his spicy, musky scent filling my nose, filling all of me. As though I were the pot and he were the water, and by accepting him, I would be fulfilling my purpose. Complete.

A tiny, pitiful whimper slipped from my lips, but Cammon, this prince among demons, caressed my brow and brushed my hair out of my face, soothing and reassuring.

“Whatever you want, Glory,” he murmured against my ear.

And in his lack of pushing, in his pure, unfiltered understanding of everything I’d been denying, I accepted that what I wanted in this moment was him. All of him. More than that—I wanted him to have all of me.

Unseeing, trusting the sensations, I reached for him. My fingers brushed against his wide shoulder, his back twitching beneath my touch as I ran my hand up the side of his smooth neck and into his soft hair. I imagined my pale skin mixing with his chestnut locks, and the combination of the two, both of us intertwined, sent another surge of desire shooting through me.

A low moan escaped him, but still he didn’t move. My hand reached the back of his neck, and I dragged him towards me.

“Fuck me, princeling,” I whispered.

Another groan, this one louder, as he bent his head and kissed me, claiming my mouth with his, his tongue stroking mine. “Hands on your head, mage.”

I did as I was bid and arched closer to him, desperate for his weight, but he slid away from me. I whimpered, writhing to make contact again, but he stayed out of reach. Except for those fingers, which returned to my body in those light, teasing touches.

“Relax,” he murmured. “Remember? Trust me. I won’t let you suffer. Not for too long, anyway.”

His words sent the embers in my blood spinning, and I embraced the heat, choosing to trust. Choosing to let him indulge in this game for the sake of his experiment. Could he deliver on the pleasure he promised?

I didn’t doubt it, especially when the throb inside me built with every new caress. He coasted his hands over my breasts, and this time, instead of skirting around my nipples or torturing me with those too-light touches, he lingered. The rough pad of his thumb circled one pebbled peak until he caught it between his thumb and the crook of his index finger and pinched just hard enough for me to draw breath. Then he eased the pain with his hot mouth, sucking and rolling it around his tongue.

I reached for his hair again, but he tutted, and I returned my hands to my head, cursing his name and enjoying the thrill more than I ever would have imagined.

While Cammon’s mouth worked, his hands continued their exploration, leaving a trail of sparks across my stomach and down my thighs. I braced for him to toy with me again, to hop from one thigh to the other without pause, but a deep moan rushed out of me when his fingers slid towards my slick folds.

I was so wet for him. I needed him to relieve the pressure that had heightened with the extended play with my breasts, but he refused to be kind. He stroked my clit, then stopped and trailed his finger down to my opening. A slight dip inside, not nearly enough to satisfy, then back up to that bundle of nerves. Again and again, never spending time in either place long enough to be anything other than maddening.

My breaths sped into panting gasps. I wrapped my hands in my hair, needing to hold on to something and hating that I couldn’t curl my fingernails into his broad shoulders.

My right nipple popped out of his mouth, and he kissed his way over to my left, starting there what he’d begun on the other side. The sensations shot up into my head and down into my lower belly, and I didn’t know how I was still capable of thought. Such minimal contact. Barely anything at all, yet my body was on fire. I was about to combust—but I couldn’t. Not at the pace he’d set.

He chuckled against my breast, his breathy laugh sending yet another spray of sparks across my skin. “So needy. You’re doing so well, mage. Being so patient.”

Every word was another shock to my desperate system, but I refused to give up and take over. With every passing moment, I chose again and again to trust him, and each time the decision came a little bit easier.

When his finger finally slid inside me, I couldn’t hold back my cry and my back arched right off the floor. He slowly guided it in and out, and the wet sounds of my arousal filled the silence of the cave. It was obscene, but so sexy that no shame followed as it had in the past. Cammon had brought me to this point, and I hoped he took those noises as a point of pride.

His thumb ran circles around my clit, and when he added a second finger to the first, I saw stars. And still his tongue worked, now leaving my nipple and travelling up my neck to lap my pulse. His teeth nipped at the crook of my throat, and that tiny pinch of pain was enough to take me right to the edge, where I teetered. Waiting. Completely at his mercy.

“Do you want to come, mage?” It came out as barely more than a growl, as though he were struggling to hold back as much as I was.

“Yes. Please. Yes.”

I didn’t care that I was begging. I would have kept on begging if he’d asked me to. I was his toy to play with as he would, and the freedom of realizing it—accepting it—was such a novelty that another gush of pleasure slipped out from around his fingers.

“Then come for me,” he said, and he curled his fingers in such a way that they hit a spot I hadn’t even known was in me.