The soft, padded indigo cotton of the bathing robe was a cold whisper against her fevered skin.
Sari didn't bother to tie it closed.
The two weeks since their wedding night had been a slow, exquisite torture, a constant hum in her blood that sleep only amplified with dreams so vivid she'd wake up aching, her sheets tangled, her body slick with a need that felt like a separate, desperate creature living inside her.
Tonight, the creature was winning.
She lay in her own bed, in the Lady's Suite of the sprawling, too-quiet house, her fingers tracing the dip of her own stomach. The memory of his hands, his mouth, the shocking, perfect fullness of him from that single night was a film reel stuck on repeat behind her eyes. She could almost feel the ghost of his weight, the imprint of his hips against hers. A tremor started deep in her core, a familiar, tightening coil. Her own touch drifted lower, a fleeting thought of taking the edge off herself—a quick, shameful release in the dark.
No.
The word was a crack in the silent room. She was married. He was her husband. The law, the ceremony, the ring on her finger—it all meant something. It meant he was the answer to this. This wasn't shameful. It was claiming what was hers and using who was hers.
Decision, hot and sudden, burned through the haze of arousal. She slid from the bed, the heavy cotton robe falling open completely. The midnight air in the hallway was freezing on her nakedness, a stark contrast to the heat she carried within. She didn't walk; she moved with a purpose that was almost a run, her bare feet silent on the polished cypress floors. One hundred feet felt like a mile and an inch.
The heavy painted door to the master suite was slightly ajar, a sliver of moonlight cutting across the floor from the tall windows.
He was a dark shape in the center of the vast bed, the sheets rumpled around his waist. Nobu sat up as she entered, the movement sharp with alertness. "Sari?" His voice was sleep-rough, edged with immediate concern. "What's wrong? Are you—"
She didn't let him finish. The sound of her name in his mouth, that protective worry, only fed the fire. She went to the bed, the indigo robe slipping from her shoulders to pool on the floor at the footboard without a sound. Moonlight caught the curve of her hip, the slope of a breast, the nervous-triumphant beat of her heart at the base of her throat. She crawled onto the mattress, the cool linen under her knees and palms, and moved directly into the space he occupied.
Without ceremony, without a word, she climbed into his lap, straddling his thighs under the sheet.
His breath stopped. The concern in his stormy blue eyes melted, replaced by a stunned, dawning intensity. He was shirtless, the hard planes of his chest warm against her. She felt the rigid line of his arousal through the thin sheet, a thick pressure against her inner thigh that made her own body clench in greedy response.
"Sari," he said again, but this time it was a different word entirely. A question. A prayer.
"I can't sleep," she whispered, her voice trembling not with fear, but with the sheer force of want. Her hands came up to frame his face, her thumbs brushing the high cut of his cheekbones. "I dream of you. And then I wake up, and you're not there. And I'm so… empty." She pressed her hips down, a slow, deliberate grind against him, feeling him swell and harden further. "I don't want to be empty anymore."
A muscle jumped in his jaw. His hands, which had been frozen at his sides, came up to settle on her waist. His touch was hot, possessive, his large fingers spanning the narrow curve. "You came here for this?"
"I came here for you," she corrected, leaning in until her lips were a hair's breadth from his. She could feel the warmth of his breath, could see the dark dilation of his pupils. "To use my husband. To let him ruin me in all the ways that make me shake. The way you did before. The way I haven't stopped thinking about."
That broke him. A low, rough sound tore from his chest. His hands slid from her waist to her hips, gripping, anchoring her as he finally closed the infinitesimal distance between their mouths.
The kiss wasn't tender. It was a claiming, a conflagration. His mouth was hot and demanding, his tongue sweeping past her lips to taste her, to conquer the little gasp she made. She met him with equal hunger, her fingers tangling in the thick silk of his black hair, holding him to her as if he might vanish. He tasted of sleep and mint and something uniquely, essentially Nobu—a dark, spicy flavor that went straight to her head. She moaned into his mouth, the sound swallowed by his kiss, her body arching to press her breasts against the solid wall of his chest. The friction was exquisite, the softness of her yielding to his hardness.
He tore his mouth from hers, his breathing ragged. "Two weeks," he growled against the corner of her lips, his own mouth trailing a searing path down her jaw to her throat. "Two weeks of watching you across the dinner table, smelling your perfume in the hall, hearing you laugh in another room… and thinking I was going to go out of my fucking mind."
His teeth grazed the sensitive cord of her neck, not biting, but promising. She cried out, a sharp, wanton sound, her hips rolling against him in an instinctual rhythm. The sheet between them was a maddening barrier. She reached between them, her fingers fumbling, and he helped her, shoving the fabric down impatiently. His cock sprang free, thick and heavy and hot against her stomach. The sight of it, the feel of it, made her mouth water and her inner muscles flutter with anticipation.
"Look at you," he murmured, his voice a velvet rumble. One hand left her hip to cup her breast, his thumb circling her nipple until it was a tight, aching peak. "Coming to me like this. Naked and desperate in the moonlight. My wife."
"Yours," she breathed, the word a vow and a surrender. "Only yours. Please, Nobu…"
"Please, what?" He pinched her nipple lightly, sending a jolt of pure pleasure straight to her core.
"I need you. Inside. Now."
He didn't need more invitation. His hands gripped her ass, lifting her effortlessly as he guided himself to her entrance. The broad head of his cock pressed against her, and she was so wet, so ready, she could feel her own slickness coating him. He didn't thrust up. He let her control the descent, his eyes locked on hers, watching every flicker of sensation cross her face.
She sank onto him, a slow, inexorable slide that stole the air from her lungs. He was so much. The stretch was breathtaking, a delicious, burning fullness that erased every lonely ache of the past fortnight. She took him inch by agonizing inch, a low, continuous moan vibrating in her throat, until she was fully seated, her body sheathing him completely. They were joined, pelvis to pelvis, her heat enveloping his.
"God," he choked out, his head falling back, the cords of his neck standing out in stark relief. His hands tightened on her ass, his fingers digging into the soft flesh. "Sari… you feel… unreal."
She began to move—a tentative rock of her hips, then another, finding a rhythm. The angle was deep, perfect. Each rise and fall dragged his length against a spot inside her that made stars burst behind her eyelids. She braced her hands on his shoulders, her head thrown back, her hair a dark curtain down her back. The room filled with the sounds of their joining: the slick, wet sounds of her body taking him, their ragged breaths, the soft creak of the bed.
"Faster," he urged, his own hips beginning to piston up to meet her downward strokes. "Use me, Sari. Take what you need."
She did. She rode him with a growing frenzy, her need coiling tighter and tighter with every driving thrust. The pleasure was a white-hot wire, pulled taut from her core to the very tips of her fingers and toes. He sat up, capturing her mouth in another bruising kiss as his hands roamed her body—kneading her breasts, skimming down her spine, gripping her hips to guide her pace. He broke the kiss to lavish attention on her breasts, his mouth hot and hungry, sucking one peaked nipple deep, then the other, until she was sobbing with the overload of sensation.
"I'm close," she gasped, the words torn from her. "Nobu, I'm so close…"
"Not yet," he commanded, though his own voice was strained with the effort of holding back. In one fluid, powerful motion, he rolled them over, pressing her into the mattress without ever slipping out of her. The new position drove him even deeper. He loomed over her, his weight a glorious anchor, his eyes burning down into hers. He hooked his hands under her knees, pushing them back towards her shoulders, opening her wider, exposing her completely. The vulnerability was dizzying, erotic beyond measure.
He began to thrust in earnest. Hard, deep, relentless strokes that shook the bed and stole her breath. Each one hammered into that perfect, sensitive place, the impact radiating through her entire body. She was babbling, a stream of incoherent pleas and his name, her nails scoring down his back. The coil inside her was at its breaking point, a screaming tension that demanded release.
"Now," he grunted, his rhythm becoming erratic, brutal. "Come for me. Let me feel you."
It shattered her. The orgasm ripped through her without warning, a violent, convulsive wave that clenched around him, milking his length in rhythmic pulses. A raw, broken scream tore from her throat as the pleasure crested, blinding and absolute, shaking her from the inside out. She felt him stiffen above her, a guttural roar erupting from his chest as her climax triggered his own. He drove into her one last, searing time, burying himself to the hilt as he spilled inside her, his release hot and endless, filling the empty spaces he had just stretched so perfectly.
For long moments, there was only the sound of their heaving breaths and the frantic pounding of her heart in her ears. He collapsed beside her, his arm slung heavily across her waist, his face buried in her hair. They were both slick with sweat, tangled together, utterly spent.
Slowly, the world swam back into focus. The moonlight. The rumpled sheets. The heavy, satisfied ache between her legs. He shifted, propping himself up on an elbow to look down at her. His fingers traced the line of her cheekbone, her swollen lips.
"Ruin you, huh?" he said, his voice a soft, smug rumble.
A slow, sated smile touched her lips. "Thoroughly."
He kissed her, this time softly, a slow, lingering exploration that tasted of salt and satisfaction. "That was just the first course," he murmured against her mouth. His hand drifted down her body, over the quivering flat of her stomach, through the damp thatch of curls, until his fingers found her swollen, sensitive flesh again. She jolted at the touch, a fresh spark of desire igniting in the aftermath. "Two weeks is a long time. I have a lot of making up to do."
His fingers began to move, a gentle, circling pressure that made her hips lift off the bed involuntarily. A soft, surprised gasp escaped her. "Nobu… I just…"
"You came to be ruined," he reminded her, his eyes dark with renewed intent. "You think one shaking is enough?" He shifted lower on the bed, his kisses trailing down her body—over her collarbone, the valley between her breasts, the sensitive skin of her abdomen. He nudged her thighs apart with his shoulders, his breath a hot promise against her inner thigh. "My turn to use what's mine."
He didn't ask. He took. His mouth found her core, and Sari cried out, her back bowing off the bed.
His tongue was a revelation. It wasn't tentative or exploring; it was a deliberate, hungry assault. He licked a broad, flat stripe from her entrance to her clitoris, gathering her wetness, tasting her. The sound he made—a deep, appreciative groan—vibrated through her, setting every nerve ending alight. "So sweet," he muttered against her flesh, the words a hot puff of air. "All for me."
Then he feasted.
He used his tongue like a weapon of pure pleasure, licking, sucking, delving inside her with a focused intensity that stole her reason. He would lap at her entrance, drinking her in, then swirl his tongue around her clit, applying just the right amount of pressure to make her legs tremble. When she tried to close her thighs, overwhelmed, his hands were there, strong and insistent, holding her open, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her inner thighs. She tangled her hands in his hair, not to push him away, but to anchor herself as the sensations built again, shockingly fast on the heels of her first climax.
"Nobu… oh, god, right there…" she chanted, her voice a high, thin thread.
He hummed in response, the vibration against her most sensitive spot making her see white. He sucked her clit into his mouth, applying a gentle, rhythmic pressure with his lips while his tongue flicked over the taut bud. One of his hands left her thigh, his fingers sliding down to replace his tongue at her entrance. He pushed two fingers inside her, curling them upward, finding that spongy spot deep within that made her entire body convulse.
The dual assault was too much. He was fucking her with his fingers in a slow, deep cadence while his mouth worked magic on her clit. The coil, which had never fully unwound, wound again, tighter and hotter than before. Her breaths came in sharp, ragged gasps. Her hips bucked against his face, but he held her firm, his grip unyielding. The pleasure was a cresting wave, towering, inevitable.
"I'm… I'm going to…" she tried to warn him, but the words dissolved into a shattered moan.
He redoubled his efforts, his tongue a relentless, silken stroke, his fingers pumping steadily. The orgasm crashed over her, a tidal wave of sensation that was less a shaking and more a total dissolution. It ripped through her in endless, pulsing waves, wracking her body with spasms so intense she feared they might never stop. She screamed, the sound raw and unfiltered, as the pleasure tore her apart. He didn't stop, didn't let up, drinking from her, drawing out every last shuddering pulse until she was limp, boneless, tears of overwhelming release leaking from the corners of her eyes.
Finally, he lifted his head. His lips and chin were glistening in the moonlight. He looked up her body, his expression one of dark, male satisfaction. He crawled back up her body, kissing her stomach, the underside of her breast, before claiming her mouth again, letting her taste herself on his tongue.
"That's one," he said, his voice thick.
His mouth still tasted of her, a musky, intimate flavor that lingered on her tongue as she kissed him back, her body humming with the aftershocks of a second, more devastating climax. The weight of him against her, the solid warmth of his chest, the possessive curl of his arm around her waist—it was everything she'd ached for in the silent, lonely dark. But the ache wasn't gone. It had simply changed shape, transformed from a hollow need into a pulsing, greedy hunger to give, to claim in return.
She broke the kiss, her lips brushing his as she spoke, her voice a low, smoky thing she barely recognized. "You said that was one."
Nobu's eyes, dark and heavy-lidded with satisfaction, gleamed. "I did."
"And you have more to give."
"A lot more." His thumb stroked the damp skin just below her navel.
A new kind of tension coiled inside her, not the desperate need for release, but the thrilling, terrifying urge for power. He had ruined her. He had taken her apart with his body and his mouth. Now, she wanted to see him come undone. She wanted to be the architect of his shaking.
"My turn," she whispered.
Before he could respond, before that confident, smug expression could fully settle on his face, she moved. She planted her hands on his shoulders and pushed. It was not a gentle nudge. It was a firm, decisive shove, fueled by a surge of adrenaline and desire. He was a big man, all hard muscle and disciplined strength, but he was also sated, relaxed, and utterly unprepared for her sudden aggression. He grunted in surprise, his body yielding, rolling onto his back as she scrambled over him.
She straddled his chest, her knees pinning his powerful arms to the mattress for a fleeting second before he could react. The position put her core directly over his face, the damp, swollen evidence of her pleasure just inches from his mouth. His eyes, wide with shock, then darkening with instant, blazing comprehension, locked onto hers.
"Sari…" His voice was a rough scrape.
"You feasted on me," she said, the words trembling with the force of her intent. She leaned forward, bracing her hands on the headboard behind him, caging his head between her arms. The movement lifted her hips, offering herself. "Now you're going to feast for me. You're not going to stop until I tell you to. You're mine to use. Understood?"
A shudder ran through him, a visible tremor that started in his shoulders and vibrated through the chest under her thighs. The possessiveness in his eyes didn't fade; it mutated, merging with a raw, surrendered hunger. He gave a single, sharp nod, his gaze dropping to the apex of her thighs. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, a gesture so blatantly eager it made her own breath catch.
"Understood," he growled, the word vibrating against her inner thigh.
That was all the permission she needed. She lowered herself onto his face.
The first contact was electric. His mouth was already open, waiting, his breath a hot brand on her sensitive flesh. He didn't wait for her to find the angle. His hands, now freed, came up to grip her hips, but not to guide her—to pull her down, to bury his face deeper into her. A broken, guttural sound escaped him, muffled by her body, as his tongue found her.
It was different from before. Where his earlier ministrations had been a deliberate, controlled conquest, this was pure, unadulterated worship. He licked into her with a desperate, starving intensity, as if he were dying of thirst and she was the only spring. His tongue was a flat, hot stroke over her entire slit, lapping up the combined slickness of their previous couplings and her fresh, rising arousal. The sensation was so immediate, so overwhelming, that her vision blurred. Her fingers clenched on the wooden headboard.
"Yes," she hissed, the word torn from her.
He moaned in response, the sound a deep, resonant hum that traveled straight to her core. He settled into a rhythm, but it was a frantic, devouring one. He would lick broad, possessive stripes from her entrance to her clit, then zero in on that tight, throbbing bud, sucking it gently into the heat of his mouth, his tongue flicking over the tip with a precision that made her thighs quake. His nose nudged against her, his stubble a delicious, rough contrast to the silken softness of his tongue.
She began to move, rocking her hips against his mouth, setting a pace that was hers to command. Each forward grind smothered his face deeper into her, each backward roll gave him access to trace teasing circles around her entrance. He followed her lead perfectly, his mouth and tongue adapting to her rhythm, amplifying every sensation. One of his hands slid from her hip to her ass, kneading the soft flesh, then dipping lower to trace the delicate, forbidden furrow behind. She jolted, a shock of new, unexpected pleasure shooting through her.
"Oh, god… there," she gasped, pushing back against his teasing finger.
He took the hint. As his mouth continued its relentless assault on her clit, sucking and licking with a fervor that bordered on madness, his finger pressed gently against her other entrance, not entering, just applying a tantalizing pressure that stretched her awareness, made her feel utterly exposed and utterly claimed. The dual sensations—the wet, sucking heat on her front, the firm, promising pressure behind—threatened to unravel her too quickly.
"No," she panted, her hips stilling for a moment. "Not yet. I'm not done with you."
She lifted herself off his mouth with a wet, obscene sound. His face was a mess—glistening with her, his lips swollen, his eyes black with a desperate need that mirrored her own. He looked wrecked. He looked owned. A fierce, feminine pride surged through her.
"I want to taste you," she said, her voice low and thick. "I want to feel you lose control in my mouth."
She didn't slide down his body gracefully. She climbed down, her hands and mouth leaving a trail of possession over his skin. She kissed the hard plane of his chest, her tongue flicking over one flat nipple, earning a sharp hiss from him. She licked a path down the rigid line of his abdomen, tracing the defined muscles that clenched under her touch. The scent of him—sweat, sex, and his own clean, masculine musk—filled her senses, intoxicating her further.
When she reached his hips, she paused, kneeling between his splayed legs. His cock stood thick and proud against his stomach, flushed a deep, angry red, the head glistening with a bead of moisture. It was a formidable sight, a testament to his arousal and his restraint. He was watching her, his chest heaving, his hands fisted in the sheets at his sides as if holding onto the last shreds of his control.
"Look at you," she murmured, echoing his earlier words. She wrapped her fingers around the base, feeling the hot, velvety steel of him, the powerful throb of his pulse against her palm. "So hard for me. All for me."
She leaned in, but didn't take him into her mouth immediately. Instead, she pressed her lips to the inside of his thigh, just where it met his hip, a soft, lingering kiss. He jerked as if shocked. She did the same to the other side, her tongue darting out to taste the salt of his skin. She was mapping him, claiming this territory too. Then, finally, she turned her attention to the main event.
She started with a slow, deliberate lick from root to tip, gathering the salty-sweet precome on her tongue. The taste was uniquely, powerfully Nobu—musky, slightly bitter, utterly male. A ragged groan tore from his throat, his hips lifting off the bed involuntarily.
"Sari… fuck…"
Encouraged, she took the broad head into her mouth, swirling her tongue around the sensitive corona. She used her hand in tandem with her mouth, pumping the length she couldn't yet accommodate. She was inexperienced but driven by a primal instinct to please and to dominate this way. She listened to the sounds he made—the choked-off curses, the guttural moans—and learned what he liked. A harder suck here made his abdominal muscles jump. A flick of her tongue against the frenulum made his entire body tense.
She took him deeper, relaxing her throat, letting him slide into the wet heat. Her eyes watered, but the feeling of him filling her mouth, the weight of him on her tongue, the sheer intimacy of the act, sent a fresh rush of wetness between her own legs. She looked up, meeting his gaze. His eyes were burning, locked on the sight of his cock disappearing between her lips. The expression on his face—a mixture of awe, agonizing pleasure, and utter surrender—was the most potent aphrodisiac she'd ever known.
She established a rhythm, bobbing her head, her hand working in concert with the other, cupping and gently rolling his heavy sack. The sounds were obscenely erotic: the wet, sucking noises of her mouth, his ragged, panting breaths, the creak of the bed as he strained not to thrust. His hands came up to tangle in her hair, not forcing, but holding, his fingers trembling against her scalp.
"I'm not… I can't last…" he warned, his voice strangled.
She pulled off with a pop, her lips slick and swollen. "You will," she said, her own voice husky. "Until I say." She went back down, taking him even deeper, her nose brushing the coarse hair at his base. She hummed, the vibration traveling through his shaft. He shouted, a raw, unfiltered sound of pure ecstasy, his hips bucking off the bed.
She released him again, stroking him firmly with her hand. "You are mine," she breathed against the wet, glistening head. "Every pulse, every drop. You come when I allow it."
The command, issued from her kneeling position of service, shattered something in him. A look of pure, unadulterated need crossed his face, stripping away the last of his control. "Please," he begged, the word ripped from him. It wasn't a command. It was a supplication.
The power of it rushed through her like a drug. She wanted to grant his plea, but on her terms. She wanted the ultimate surrender.
She crawled back up his body, straddling his hips once more, but this time, she positioned herself over his straining erection. She guided him to her entrance, which was dripping, swollen, more than ready for him again. She held his gaze as she sank, taking him inside her in one slow, breathtaking slide.
The fullness was even more intense this time, a deep, stretching ache that was pure pleasure. She was so sensitive from her orgasms, from his mouth, that every inch felt magnified, electrified. She leaned forward, bracing her hands on his chest, and began to ride him, a slow, grinding, circular motion that rubbed her clit against the coarse hair at his base.
"Now," she panted, her rhythm becoming frantic, desperate. "Look at me and come. Give it to me. Now, Nobu."
Her words were the final trigger. His eyes, locked on hers, blazed with a final, helpless intensity. His hands flew to her hips, gripping her like a lifeline as his body bowed beneath her. A harsh, broken cry was torn from his lungs as he erupted inside her. She felt the hot, pulsing jets of his release, the violent clenching of his muscles, the utter, total capitulation of his powerful body to the pleasure she had wrung from him.
She rode him through it, milking him with the tight, rhythmic clenches of her own inner muscles, watching his face contort in a rictus of ecstasy until, spent, he collapsed back onto the pillows, his eyes closed, his chest heaving.
She stayed there, impaled on him, feeling the aftershocks twitch through him, feeling his seed spill inside her. The sense of possession was complete, mutual, and dizzying. She had used him. She had commanded him. And he had given her everything.
Slowly, carefully, she lifted herself off him and slumped onto the bed beside him. The silence was profound, broken only by the ragged symphony of their breathing. The moonlight had shifted, painting a new silver path across the rumpled battlefield of sheets.
After a long moment, he turned his head on the pillow. His eyes were dark, soft, utterly sated. He reached out a hand, his fingers tracing the curve of her cheek with a tenderness that belied the ferocity of their joining.
"Wife," he said, the single word laden with a universe of meaning—awe, possession, gratitude, surrender.
She caught his hand, bringing his knuckles to her lips. "Husband," she whispered back.
A slow, exhausted, deeply satisfied smile touched his mouth. "You," he said, his voice a sleep-rough murmur, "are full of surprises."
She shifted closer, molding her body to the heat of his side, her head finding the hollow of his shoulder. The frantic, desperate need was gone, replaced by a heavy, liquid warmth that seeped into her bones. "You have no idea," she murmured, her eyelids growing heavy.