Chapter 14: Slow Hands

I locked nothing, and I took him upstairs at noon.

The council would sit at dusk, and I had six hours, and I meant to spend them.

His room was full of grey light.

The curtains were open, and the rain had stopped, and the sheets on the bed still smelled of us.

"Shirt," I said.

Darius pulled it off over his head, slowly, because of the gauze.

I pushed him down on the bed with one hand flat on his chest.

"Hands on the headboard."

He looked at me.

"Both of them. Wrap them around the rails. If you let go, I stop."

"Mara."

"That's the rule for today."

He reached up and took hold of the iron rails behind his head, and the muscles in his arms went tight.

I stood at the foot of the bed and took my time.

I unbuttoned my cardigan one button at a time, and I watched his jaw work.

I took off my shirt, and my bra, and I let them drop.

His eyes dropped to my breasts and stayed there, and his knuckles whitened on the iron.

"You said last night I was the one who got to decide," I said.

"You did."

"Then I decide I'm going to look at you for a while."

I climbed onto the bed and knelt between his knees.

I undid his trousers and drew them down his legs, and I took my time over that too.

His cock was already hard, lying thick against his stomach, and when I breathed on it, it jerked.

"Christ," he said.

"Hands."

His fingers tightened on the rails.

I ran my tongue up the underside of him, from the base to the head, slowly, and tasted salt.

He made a sound I had never heard from him, low and almost pained.

I licked the head, around and around, and then I closed my mouth over it and took him in.

He was too big to take far.

I knew that, and I did it anyway, sliding down until he touched the back of my throat, and then I pulled up and did it again.

"Fuck," he groaned. "Fuck, Mara, your mouth."

I wrapped my hand around what I couldn't fit and worked it in time with my mouth.

I sucked him hard, and I felt him shaking under me, every muscle in his body locked so he would not grab me.

I looked up the length of him.

His head was thrown back, his throat working, his eyes shut.

I had never seen a man so close to the edge and holding so still.

It went to my head.

I pulled off him with a wet sound and licked my lips.

"Look at me."

His eyes opened.

They were black, and wild, and they were fixed on my mouth.

"You want to come?"