Think of It as a Dog Bite

Reift averted his gaze as I approached, one shoulder strap slipped down to leave my chest bare, and held out only the hand that gripped the bottle.

All I had to do was seize the vial and tip it into my mouth. My hands shook so badly I couldn't even manage that. I managed to bring the half-spilled bottle to my lips, but I couldn't swallow what little remained. Blue potion ran in a thin stream down my chin.

Reift swallowed a sigh and took the vial from me. He drew out a handkerchief and wiped the medicine from my jaw and my throat, and at that touch the potion ceased to matter at all. He couldn't bring himself to follow the droplets down to my chest. As he withdrew his arm, I caught it.

I don't know where the strength came from in a body that couldn't even hold a bottle, but I hooked my arms around his neck, pulled him down, and crushed my mouth to his. I shut my eyes so I wouldn't have to meet his. I rubbed my lips against his unmoving ones and gathered his neck and his head into my arms. I sucked at his tightly sealed mouth. I licked it.

"My lady."

The moment he opened his mouth to call me, I pushed my tongue inside and pressed myself flush against him. The blue potion that had run down my chest smeared across his white shirt. I ground my fevered body against the hard plane of his chest — and Reift seized my shoulders and shoved me back.

He sent me down onto the bed and caught both arms as I tried to cling to him, pinning them above my head. One enormous hand crossed my wrists and held them fast, leaving me trapped beneath him, unable to move.

"Hah… hah…"

I looked up at him, breathing hard. I traced the deep furrow between his brows, the jaw muscle that flexed and stilled, the sheen of my own saliva on his lips. And as I did, a slow ache kindled low in my belly.

With the hand that wasn't pinning mine, Reift searched his coat and produced another vial, identical to the last. He uncorked it one-handed and brought it to my lips.

"You have to drink this."

"I don't need the medicine…. Hold me."

I twisted beneath him, pleading. I watched his amber eyes waver with a light they hadn't held a moment ago. I couldn't bear it any longer.

"Hold me…. Please — hurry…."

Reift closed his eyes, heavy, then opened them again. He tipped the vial against my lips.

"Swallow."

The liquid seeped into my mouth, little by little. I couldn't taste it. I never had. I forced it down, and it tangled with my breath — a violent coughing fit tore out of me.

"Cough! Kh— cough, cough."

Startled, Reift pulled me upright and struck my back.

"Are you all right?"

"Cough, cough, cough."

He held me half in his arms while I coughed myself ragged, and the hand at my back was so careful it hurt. It was dreadful, how even choking I resented that courteous touch — and before the fit had even subsided, I was burrowing into his chest. He couldn't push me off while I was still catching my breath. I used that opening to climb astride him entirely, clung to him, and rubbed my lips against his throat.

"My lady…. Lady Dvorden."

I wished he would stop calling my name. Every time he reminded me who I was, the shame made me want to die. I wished he wouldn't push me away, either. The desire boiling through me was enough to kill me — enough to make me forget even the shame.

I managed to pull back just enough to meet his eyes. His amber irises had lost their bearings; they trembled. I had been feeling it for some time now — something hard and heavy, pressing up against me from beneath. I had no experience, but I knew what that reaction meant. Even now, he was holding himself back.

That it was his patience that made me ache — I hadn't expected that. I would regret this night once the drug wore off. But I had no patience left.

"Please. Me…. Take me…."

He couldn't push me away any longer, not with me begging like this. The muscle in Reift's jaw jumped, then settled. He lifted a hand and cupped my cheek. His thumb brushed the corner of my eye, wiping away tears I hadn't noticed falling. His fingers drifted down, grazing my lips. I must have bitten them raw — a sharp sting and a strange pleasure struck me all at once.

"It's my failing that I didn't warn you about the drug. You've done nothing wrong, my lady."

He was saying something, but I closed my eyes and felt only his hands. His voice came from very close.

I didn't know what he meant, or even what had touched my lips. The slow, grinding pleasure against that sensitive skin sent me clutching at him, mindless. I sucked and licked at the heat that filled my mouth, and the only sounds I made were wet, broken moans.

"Nnh…"

The kiss traveled to my cheek, then to the shell of my ear. I hadn't known another person's ragged breathing could be this intoxicating. The feel of his tongue on my earlobe melted my thoughts to nothing.

"Ah… ah. Wai— nnh…"

I raked my fingers through Reift's hair, stroking his head, then wrapped my arms around his back. Still astride him, my hips rolled of their own accord. Whatever pressed against me dragged with the motion, and Reift's body jerked. He gathered me up and rose, climbing fully onto the bed. He laid me down and kept kissing me, and I clung to him, lost — raking my nails down his back, following the shift of hard muscle with my palms, then hooking my legs to pull his hips into the cradle of mine. Wanting skin, I shoved my hands up under his shirt, and the back of the man licking my throat jerked again.

Reift caught my wrist and pinned it beside my ear, and with his other hand dragged down the remaining strap of my dress. When that large hand closed over my breast, my back arched off the bed. I hadn't had a single coherent thought in some time. My body wanted him the way instinct wants. I locked my legs around his waist and pulled him tighter.

"Ah — yes…. Nnh."

When Reift took my stiffened nipple into his mouth and rolled it on his tongue, I couldn't stop the sounds that tore out of me.

"Ah — aah. Hah—"

I rolled my hips, grinding my soaked lower body against him, and Reift pushed himself up and tore his shirt off as if ripping it from his own skin. He planted a palm on my stomach and looked down at me with a savage expression. With every ragged breath, his chest swelled and fell. The skin beneath his hand itched for more. I wanted him to touch me again. I wanted him to do something to me — anything — now.

I reached up, stroking his arm, his thigh — and my eyes caught on the strained front of his trousers, standing rigid. My hand went there of its own will. Reift made a sound like a groan torn from his throat and caught my wrist. Then he crushed his mouth to mine, devouring.

His hand stripped away the last of my underthings and found the hottest part of me. He laid his palm against me and rubbed, slow and deep. He swallowed even the moan I gasped as my hips bucked, and his hand moved faster.

"Hah — ah. Nngh."

I thought I might lose my mind. My hips rocked without my meaning them to; my head fell back. Reift kissed a trail down my throat and across my breasts, descending. He pressed my thighs apart until my legs were spread wide, and buried his face between them. Something that was not a hand touched the swollen peak of me.

"Hah—!"

I fisted my hands in his hair and curled in on myself — then the pleasure crashed through me and my head snapped back as I collapsed. And through it all he didn't stop: licking, then sucking, utterly absorbed.

"Ah — aah. Ah. Ah."

I could only cry out, the pleasure beyond language, until a moment came when the world went white. My whole body shuddered. Then the strength ran out of me and I went slack.

Reift lifted his head, wiped his glistening mouth with his fingers, and climbed back up. He licked away tears I hadn't known I'd shed, then gently stroked my forehead and my hair. The sensation that had torn through me wouldn't settle. I trembled in his arms in fits and starts, and Reift stayed beside me without a word.

Time passed. The sweat cooled. The reason that had gone numb began, slowly, to return. The antidote I'd been forced to drink seemed, at last, to be taking hold. The moment I remembered what I had just done, the shame I'd forgotten crashed over me. I wanted to flee somewhere — anywhere — but I couldn't face him, so I squeezed my eyes shut and pretended to sleep.

Worse still: even now, my body was burning. Having tasted pleasure once, it still thirsted for him. A sly desire prodded me to blame the aphrodisiac — but from here on, that would be nothing but an excuse.

I put every ounce of will I had into feigning sleep as Reift carefully rose. He drew the covers over me, then left the bed without a sound. I thought he had left the room. I would have gone on thinking so, if not for the sounds that came through the thin bathroom door.

"Kh… hh…"

I turned my ear toward the sound, then understood what those stifled groans were, and pulled the covers over my head. I didn't move a muscle until Reift returned, checked on me, and opened the door to leave. And then I was left entirely alone, in the dark and the silence.

My body was still hot. His moans from a moment ago seemed to keep echoing in my ears. My hand drifted down toward where his mouth had been — then I buried my face in the pillow and muttered,

"Come to your senses, Teredoa."