“Did you think I wouldn’t help you ease the ache?” he rasped. “Did you think I wouldn’t chase you down and stroke you like you need me to? Is that why you want to claw my eyes out? You’re all soft for me and that pisses you off, doesn’t it?”
Viktor dipped his head to press a searing kiss to the corner of her jaw. She gasped, astonished by the potency of such simple, chaste contact.
They were roughly the same height, so he didn’t have to contort himself to hold her, to smooth his lips over the curve of her cheek and swirl of her ear. Every brush of his skin against hers was torture — gorgeous, pleasurable torture.
“The best damn thing I ever smelled,” he murmured, giving her throat a tiny, proprietary squeeze. “Like wildflowers and honey. I want to lick every fucking inch of you, sweetheart, and after that, I want to soothe every worry, everything that hurts you. And then do it all again. I’m starved for you.”
Camille looked down to watch the progress of his fingers as they slid under her skirt, her breaths rapidly turning to pants. She knew that she should stop this. She knew that she still could. Viktor, for all that she had against him, was not a man who would force his attention on an unwilling partner.
But she was so, so hungry for him.
Not even twenty years of separation could stop that, no matter how much she denied it and fought it and buried it. Elves were possessive, touch-hungry beings. They dug their claws in and didn’t let go — and to her body, to her instinct, Viktor was hers.
Anger and grief sweetened, transforming into the rich syrup of arousal in her veins. Two years of constant stress and worry momentarily lifted from her chest, allowing her one desperate, selfish breath, and by all the gods, it tasted like him.
Camille shuddered under the onslaught of yearning that rushed in through the gaps of her defenses. “Vik, I…”
“It’s okay, sweetheart, I know.” His touches were unbearably gentle, full of reverence, when he whispered, “I know. Let me make it better, then we’ll talk.”
What will it hurt? she thought, turning her head just enough to coax him closer, to ask for what she couldn’t articulate with her lips and teeth and tongue. Pride would not allow her to beg.
I’m screwed anyway. The symptoms will be torture no matter what I do. Might as well make it worth the pain.
And after the last few years she had, Camille thought she deserved one awful, reckless decision. She couldn’t have a lifetime of Viktor, but she could pretend for a moment, right?
Camille bit back all the things she wanted to say to him. She hemmed in her hurt and her anger, sweetened though both feelings were. She boxed them up and put them aside for later. Now, she wanted to feel something other than the raw, brittle heartbreak she’d carried for so long.
It wasn’t giving in, she decided. It was taking what she was owed.
Her hands fell down to her sides and sought out the sturdy muscle of his thighs. Flexing her claws, she squeezed hard muscle and canted her hips back, pressing herself against him.
Viktor hissed against her cheek. She felt the tantalizing drag of his teeth as he scraped them against her jaw. His tongue followed, tasting the stinging flesh. “So sweet,” he breathed against her damp skin. “I swear to the gods, you taste like my fucking dreams.”
She closed her eyes, blocking out the sight of the darkened feed screen and the shadowy room.
In her mind, they were in a softly lit bedroom, one that smelled like him and her, and he was not wearing a suit but the battered jeans she knew he preferred. When she slid her palms up and over the rigid muscles of his thighs, tracing a sensual path toward his belt, she imagined that this was something special, something good, and not a strike that came with crippling pain.
Viktor let out a huff of air against her jaw when she gave his belt a sharp jerk, pulling his hips into the soft curve of her backside with unmistakable intention. He nipped her again, grumbling, “Bossy, bossy.”
Without warning, he slid his hand into the opening of her skirt and cupped her. Camille rocked up onto the tips of her toes, her eyes snapping open as the heat of his palm blazed through the thin, soaked material of her panties.
“Fuck,” he rasped, slowly sliding two fingers up and down, tracing her aching center like he wanted to savor the task. She could feel his fingers through the whisper-thin material of her panties just as she knew he could feel every bit of her. His breathing stuttered. “Is this all for me, sweetheart?”
Camille made an inarticulate sound in the back of her throat. She wasn’t capable of more than that when he began to slowly rub her, moving the wet silk over her skin with firm pressure and ruthless slowness.
His voice was tight, his desire a ragged note that struck her like a lightning bolt when he said, “You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined touching you. Tasting you.” He dragged his tongue down the curve of her jaw again, seeking the thin strip of her throat not covered by the high collar of her ice blue dress. A deep, bone-rattling coyote growl filled the air when his lips hit the silk there.
“Fucking elvish clothes,” he muttered, pushing down the edge of the collar with his thumb. She shivered, pleasure coursing through her blood like molten honey, as he gently nipped at the sensitive skin he uncovered.
Elves guarded their throats because the quickest way to kill an opponent was to go for the jugular. That awareness meant that baring one’s throat to someone was a deeply intimate act of trust, one usually reserved for consorts and young.
But shifters were different. They didn’t have any problem baring themselves to others. In fact, she knew that they enjoyed nudity and display — particularly when it came to the bite.
An elvish lover’s embrace involved locking the jaws around a lover’s throat, but they didn’t actually bite. Not like she knew shifters did. When they mated, they sank their sharp teeth into the throat and held on, searing their wild magic into the m-paths of their partner, forever locking them together.
Camille knew that Viktor would never give her his bite. She also knew that she would never give him leave to embrace her like her basest instincts craved. He would never get that kind of trust from her again.
But she could let him kiss that small patch of skin he uncovered. She could let him scrape his teeth against it and taste her as he stroked her. She could pretend.
Camille rocked her hips forward and back, seeking out more from his fingers and the rigid bar of the erection she could feel through his slacks. Her fingers danced away from his belt to find it straining against his thigh.
Viktor sucked in a shuddering breath.
She suddenly wished that she was not wearing gloves. Of course she couldn’t take them off, not when he might know what the sight of her retracted claws meant, but she wanted to feel his skin against her fingertips, to trace the length of him and soak in the heat he radiated like a furnace.
Hunger rode her hard. Letting out a small growl of frustration, she cupped him and squeezed firmly enough to make his hips jerk. “Viktor, I want you to touch me, not play with me.”
“Fuck,” he gasped, fingers losing their rhythm. The musky smell of him increased, thickening like a masculine perfume in the air — wild and aroused and hers. Making an innately coyote sound, he clawed through the material of her panties, sending the shredded remains to the floor. The action was raw, wild, absolutely lacking in civility; a far cry from the handful of sexual experiences she had previous to this.