Free Rites of Blood: Cora's Choice Bunble 4-6 by V. M. Black Page B

it in my clit and nipples, the tingling surges that rippled down into my arms and to my feet, planted firmly against the shower floor.
    The contractions weakened, weakened to a quivering shadow of what they had been, and still he thrust into to me, again and again until I pressed my flushed face against the shower wall and he came in a great shudder that overtook his powerful frame. I closed my eyes as he filled me, feeling the pumping of his balls against the back of my thighs.
    I welcomed that, too, and took it as my due. And then he said my name, and I almost came undone again.
    A minute later, he withdrew and turned me, pulling me into his embrace and kissing me again and again. He reached for a container of body wash—not mine, because my own shower things were still on the deck of the tub—flipped it open with one hand, inverted it and squeezed it onto my belly, rubbing it across me before the shower could wash it away. His palm caressed my neck, my breasts, and slid down to wash between my folds.
    I caught my breath as his fingers explored them, efficiently and thoroughly.
    “You’re enjoying this,” I said, half an accusation.
    “Completely,” he agreed, his hand sluicing water over my buttocks, his fingertips brushing up the crease in my buttocks so that I shivered and turned my face into his chest.
    “I will have that, too, in time,” he said, the words a promise. “And you will give it to me. Gladly.”

Chapter Nine
    H is hands moved up my back then, caressing the red marks, already healing, on my hips and moving up to my shoulder blades under my hair.
    There were no lines of my making, I thought. The only limits were his. Each time we were together, he pushed me a little farther. I denied him nothing—and I never would.
    The end would be wherever he decided. And I knew it would be far beyond anything I would choose.
    He stepped away and retrieved a bottle of shampoo, and the thoughts fell away. They were so slippery in his presence, my fears too hard to hold onto. And that was, perhaps, the most frightening thing of all.
    “That’s girly stuff,” I said, distracting myself as Dorian poured a dollop of shampoo into his hand.
    “This is your bathroom,” he said. “What do you expect it to be?”
    He motioned at me to turn away. Heating with the memory of what had happened the last time I’d done so, I obeyed. He began to massage the shampoo through my hair, and I tipped back my head so that it would run down my back and not into my eyes.
    “So you even picked out a shampoo for me?” I asked, some part of my bitterness seeping into my voice.
    “Worth did. But she’ll buy whatever brand you desire,” he said evenly, his fingers moving through my hair. “She couldn’t predict what you would like.”
    I felt a small twinge of relief at that—and then an even smaller echo of horror that I had reached the point of fearing that even my choice of soap would be taken away.
    “So she defaulted to Fekkai?” I asked lightly, covering my reaction.
    I could hear the smile in his voice. “Only the best.”
    “Did she buy them after you...we...the bond happened?” I finished lamely. “Like the clothes? That seems quick.”
    His fingers stilled in my hair for a moment, then resumed their motion. “This room has been ready for you since before you were born,” he said quietly. “Once every two years, the toiletries are replaced. Every ten years, I order it to be redecorated. Every twenty, the bath is remodeled.”
    Again, I was reminded of how I had stepped into a place that had been waiting for the right person to fill it. All those years, lying empty, waiting for Dorian to find a cognate. And then I came, only to try to reject everything. I insisted that I would continue my old life at the university, and the future that had been laid out for me, so neatly, so long ago, would sit unused.
    But would it? Already, I’d asked to stay—for the night, maybe, but how hard would it be to stay for