It aroused her, sent heat through her until she almost could not bear it. She guided his hand to her breast and sighed to feel the same touch that had frightened her only moments ago. What a mystery it was, all of it – how it satisfied but stoked the flame higher, how it made her want to lean down and put her mouth to his chest, his belly, run her tongue across his skin while he fondled her.

When her fingers curved around his cock, he gasped again and jerked as though touched by fire. A groan of pleasure came from him and seemed to echo all through her. It must be a sin to delight in it so much, this feeling of holding all his lust in the palm of her hand, to stroke the length of him and hope to hear his gasp again. He gripped her wrist, hard, stilling her hand as air hissed through his teeth.

She looked up at him and watched his throat work to gulp air. It only made her want him more.

“God save,” he gasped, his voice strained to the breaking point. “I cannot... You must stop, or I....”

She slackened her hold but did not take her hand away. She leaned closer, pressing her breast into his hand and her lips close to his ear. “I want you to.”

Her mouth pressed along his jaw and then his lips. She pulled back so that he might see her face and know she understood that he would spill his seed, and she wanted it. His eyes fixed on hers, dazed, and she knew at last a little of what it meant to wield beauty like power. She had always rejected it, knowing the beauty they said she possessed could be used in that way. But the way men looked at her never made her feel powerful; it only frightened her. Until now.

His palm circled hers around him, guiding her in a firm stroke of his flesh. His other hand grasped her breast tighter, pressing the stiff tip between thumb and forefinger, pulling a sound of lust from her. She felt him grow impossibly harder as her hand moved with his, rhythmically, the excitement in him building to a frenzy. His hips lifted – a powerful thrust as an animal groan rose from the back of his throat. She put her mouth on his to catch it, her hand moving on him as he convulsed beneath her.

When he lay still, panting, she savored his mouth, dimly amazed at herself. She felt wild and reckless. Ravenous. She only pulled back from him when his hand slipped off her breast and moved to pull the linen over his head. He wiped it across his belly, cleaning himself, his eyes refusing to meet hers.