His free hand returned to the hem of her dress.

He was not in rush at all. He found the edge of the fabric where it had ridden up to mid thigh and rested his fingertips there, barely touching, letting her feel only the warmth of his skin against hers. The contact was so light it was almost a question.

And yet Cixi’s breath caught.

His fingers began to move. A single, slow circle traced along the outside of her thigh, just above the knee, following the natural curve of muscle beneath her skin. He completed the circle and began another, slightly higher this time, his fingertips trailing the sensitive inner edge where the skin grew softer, thinner, more responsive.

Cixi pressed her face into the sheets. Her fingers curled above her pinned wrists, grasping at nothing.

Higher.

His hand moved upward by the width of two fingers, no more, and traced the same patient circle again. The hem of her dress followed, pushed gradually by his knuckles, the fabric whispering against her skin as it inched upward, exposing the backs of her thighs to the cool air of the room. The contrast between the cold air and his warm palm made her muscles tighten involuntarily, her skin prickling with sensation.

Cassian lowered his head.

His nose brushed the nape of her neck, and he inhaled her scent deeply. The way a man breathes in something he has been craving for a very long time. Her scent hit him with a visceral certainty he had not prepared for.

Her warm skin and the faintest trace of jasmine that was simply her, and the same scent clung to her pillows, her scarves. He knew it. He had catalogued it without meaning to, and now, this close, it filled his lungs and settled into the marrow of him.

His lips parted against her skin. He exhaled, warm and unsteady, and Cixi felt it travel down her spine like a lit fuse.

"You love me, Cixi McLore" he murmured into the curve of her neck. His voice was low and rough, stripped of the sardonic edge he wore like armour. "Did you mean it?"

Cixi did not answer immediately. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her temples, in her wrists beneath his grip, in the hollow of her throat. She had told him she loved him. She had said the words out loud, and she could not take them back, and she did not want to.

"Yes," she whispered into the sheets.

His hand stilled on her thigh.

One beat. Two.

Then his grip on her wrists tightened, just a fraction, and his free hand resumed its slow climb.

The circles grew even smaller now, more focused, his fingers tracing the inner curve of her thigh where the skin was impossibly soft, where no one had touched her, where every nerve ending seemed to live closer to the surface than anywhere else on her body. His thumb swept a half arc along the crease where thigh met hip, and Cixi’s entire body tensed.

A sound escaped her. Something between a breath and a whimper that she buried in the sheets before it could fully form. Cixi’s toes curled against the sheets.

Cassian’s thumb traced a slow line along the innermost edge of her thigh, so close to where the ache had gathered that her hips lifted off the mattress without her permission, her body chasing his touch before her mind could intervene.

He pressed her back down, gently. His free hand flattening against the small of her back, holding her still, holding her there, pinned between his palm and the mattress.

"Don’t move," he murmured against her skin.

His voice had changed. She could hear it in the roughness at the edges, in the way his breath had quickened against her neck, in the way his fingers trembled, just barely, against her thigh before steadying themselves. He was not as controlled as he wanted her to believe. His body was betraying him the same way hers was betraying her.

She felt him pressed hard against her hip, and her body instinctively moved, rubbing against him. Uneven breaths escaped her lips as Cassian found the nape of her neck, sucking and nibbling, his fangs just beginning to elongate. Cixi, caught up in the moment, used his body to anchor herself, barely noticing as the tips of his pointed fangs gently pinched her skin.

His hand resumed. Slower and yet massaging vigoursly, if that were even possible. His fingertips traced featherlight patterns along the crease of her inner thigh, circling, retreating, circling closer again. Each touch sent a pulse of heat radiating outward from the point of contact, spreading through her lower belly, pooling between her legs with a heaviness that made her press her thighs together.

Cixi’s white panties were soaked with her desire. At this point, she didn’t want Cassian to stop; she craved his touch even more, aching to feel his fingers on her. Sensing her desperation, Cassian nudged his knee between her thighs. Gently but firmly, parting them.

Cixi’s breath stuttered. Her fingers opened and closed above her pinned wrists, grasping, releasing, grasping again. The sheets beneath her face were damp from her breath. Her heart beat so hard and so fast she was certain he could feel it through her ribs, through the mattress, through the thin inches of air that separated his body from hers.

He lowered his mouth to her shoulder. His lips parted against the bare skin there and he pressed a kiss so slow it felt like a wound opening. His teeth grazed the surface, not biting, just letting her feel the edge of them, the possibility of pressure, and the restraint behind every careful movement he made.

His fingers traced one final, devastatingly slow circle along the innermost edge of her thigh. His thumb brushed the border of her underwear, just the edge of it, the thin line of fabric where cotton met skin, and he let his touch rest there.

Cixi moaned loudly.

She stopped breathing.

Every muscle in her body drew taut. Her spine arched.

Cassian released both of her hands, and with his free hand, he gathered her hair into a loose bunch and gently moved it to one side.

Her fingers locked around the sheets above her head. The ache between her legs was so acute, pulsing heat that throbbed with each heartbeat, demanding something her pride would not let her ask for.

Cassian held still. His breath was ragged against her shoulder, his chest expanding and contracting against her back in rhythms that no longer belonged to a man in control. His thumb rested against that thin border of fabric, unmoving, devastating in its stillness.

"Cixi," he whispered. Her name left his mouth like a confession.

She turned her head. Just enough. Her cheek pressed against the sheets, and she could see him in the mirror above, his face half buried in her shoulder, his dark eyes watching her with an expression that was no longer sardonic or imperious or composed. It was fervent. It was stripped bare. It was the face of a man standing at the edge of something he had not planned on wanting this much.

A single tear slid from her left eye. From the sheer, overwhelming intensity of being wanted like this, of feeling her body respond to someone with such completeness that it frightened her as well as excited her.

What was happening to her?

What was she doing? Why was she letting this happen? Why did she want to lose herself tonight, here, in this bed, under this man’s hands? Why did she want to be held? Why did every fibre of her exhausted, battered, cursed body want nothing more than to stay exactly where she was, pinned beneath Cassian Crown, feeling his chest rise and fall against her back like a wall she could finally lean on without it crumbling?

She had spent years standing on her own. Years holding herself together with clenched teeth and empty stomachs and the stubborn refusal to break in front of anyone. She had been slapped, starved, humiliated, sold, thrown from a bridge, kidnapped, cursed with immortality, and dragged into a family that was kidnappers.

She had swallowed every blow, absorbed every insult, and kept walking not lettiing expecting much from life. And now here she was... wanting from Cassian. Wanting him.

"Don’t stop," she pleaded.