His breath hitched.
I kissed him from above—slow at first, then deeper. My tongue slid along his, met hesitation, then a hungry reply. He tasted like heat. Like nervous surrender. Like promise.
The fold of hisserethad loosened with our movements, slipping from his shoulder. My knuckles brushed against his skin—warm, smooth, alive—and he shivered. I chased the shiver with my mouth.
The bond pulsed again, louder than thought.
A weight behind my sternum. A throb behind my teeth. A demand.
His fingers found my sash. Trembled there.
“Do you feel it now?” I breathed, lips brushing his jaw, my voice rough with longing.
He nodded, too breathless to speak.
Then he opened his mouth—whether to answer or beg, I didn’t know—and I kissed him again before he could finish the thought.
Callis trembled beneath my hands, and the pulse of the bond echoed through him like a drumbeat I could feel in my palms, my mouth, the base of my spine. I kissed him until he tilted into me completely, no space left between us but the thinnest air. The air that tasted of him.
The bedpost dug into his back, but he didn’t flinch. If anything, he leaned harder, needing the anchor. My hand slipped from hisseretto his bare shoulder, then lower, tracing the subtle path of his spine. His skin was flushed, heated from within—no longer shy, no longer still. His hands, hesitantmoments ago, now moved with purpose. One gripped my waist. The other flattened over my chest, right above my heart, as if trying to feel the bond through flesh and bone.
His head tipped back again, and I kissed the corner of his jaw, then lower—beneath his ear, along the column of his throat, down to the place where his pulse leapt like a secret begging to be found. I lingered there, lips pressed to skin, and breathed him in.
“Tell me you feel it,” I whispered.
“I do,” he said, breathless. “It’s… everything.”
I pulled back just enough to look into his face. His lips were kiss-bruised, his eyes wide and glinting with something like awe.
“I thought it was just the bond,” he admitted. “That it was supposed to ache.”
“It’s supposed to bind,” I said. “Not break.” Then, quieter: “You’re not breaking, are you?”
He shook his head. “I’m burning.”
So was I.
The backs of my fingers brushed his cheek, down his throat, then slipped into the gap of hisseret. His breath caught again. My lips found his collarbone, and he clutched at me—no longer patient, no longer hiding behind reverence.
The bond roared now.
Not a thread, not a hum, but a tidal pull so strong it bent the air around us. I wanted him with a need that had no name in our tongue.
“Come with me,” I murmured against his ear.
He didn’t ask where.
He just followed.
We circled the bed. I led him backwards, lips never parting long enough to let doubt creep in. The hem of hisserettrailed over the marble. Mine slipped from my shoulders as we reached the bed, forgotten. By the time we sank into the sheets, the world had narrowed to lust, breath, and the space between our hearts.
And then, no space at all.
Callis moaned softly into my mouth as I pressed him harder into the mattress, our bodies slotting together like hunger meeting heat. His lips opened wider beneath mine, pliant now, hungry. My hand slipped from his hair to the curve of his neck, fingers splayed over the pulse beating there, fast and wild like mine.
I pulled back just far enough to look at him. His eyes were glassy, mouth flushed, chest already rising in quick breaths beneath the folds of hisseret.
The bond was building still. It wrapped around me like flame. I didn’t wait for permission this time. My hands swept down his sides, drawing fabric with them. Hisseretfell open, sliding down his arm, baring the length of his chest to the silver moonlight. Smooth. Pale. Already marked with a sheen of warmth from the kiss. I kissed down the line of his jaw, his throat, the hollow just above his collarbone, and felt him shiver.
