Chapter 52: Female’s Dont..

Dove sucks in a sharp breath, heat flooding her cheeks even as her hips tilt up toward his hand without her permission. "Shut up," she manages, which is not a denial, and they both know it.

He laughs again, quiet and warm, and then his fingers find her, slow and exploring, tracing through slick heat until he finds the sensitive bundle of nerves that makes her whole body jolt.

"Oh," she gasps.

He massages slow circles there, watching her face the entire time, gauging every flinch and gasp like data he’s cataloging for later use, and Dove’s hips roll against his hand helplessly, chasing the building pressure low in her belly.

"Good?" he asks.

"Don’t stop," she manages, which isn’t really an answer but conveys the message clearly enough.

He doesn’t stop. If anything, he gets more deliberate, fingers working her with a focus that should be unsettling given his size and the claws she knows are hiding just beneath blunt human-looking nails, but instead it just makes her trust him more, because he is being so careful, so controlled, when she knows exactly how much strength he’s holding back.

Then one finger slides inside her, slow, and Dove’s entire body goes tight.

"Oh my god," she gasps.

"Okay?" he checks immediately, pausing.

"Yes—yes, don’t you dare stop now."

He doesn’t. He curls his finger, finds some spot inside her that makes stars burst behind her eyes, and adds a second finger when her hips start rocking against his hand in a rhythm that’s entirely involuntary. The drag and press of his fingers combined with the heel of his palm grinding against her clit has her climbing fast, faster than she expected, pleasure coiling tight in her core until she’s right on the edge of something huge.

"Thorne, I’m—" she starts, not even sure what she’s trying to say.

"I know," he murmurs, voice rough with his own restraint. "Let go."

She does.

The orgasm crashes through her in a wave, her whole body arching, a moan tearing loose that she doesn’t even try to muffle, and Thorne works her through it with the same careful focus, slowing his fingers as the aftershocks fade, watching her face the entire time like he’s trying to memorize every twitch and gasp.

When she finally comes back to herself, boneless and panting, she becomes aware of exactly how hard he still is, pressed against her hip, and some reckless, newly-confident part of her decides that’s simply unacceptable.

Dove reaches down, fumbling with the laces of his pants until she gets them loose, and when her hand wraps around him, she freezes.

"Oh my god," she says again, for entirely different reasons this time. "It’s so huge."

Thorne laughs, the sound rough and startled, and there’s something boyish in it that doesn’t match the scars or the claws or the reputation.

"Is that okay?" he asks, and there’s a thread of genuine uncertainty in it that undoes her a little.

"Yeah," she breathes, already stroking, exploring the hard length of him with careful curiosity. "Yeah, it’s—yes. Okay."

He groans low in his throat, hips twitching into her grip, and the sound of it—this big, scarred, dangerous man coming undone from her hand—sends a fresh wave of heat through her.

She finds her rhythm, stroking him slow and firm, and he responds by sliding his fingers back inside her, picking up where he left off, until they’re both chasing the same high, bodies moving in uneven counterpoint, breath mingling in ragged gasps between kisses that keep breaking apart because neither of them can stay still long enough to maintain them.

"Dove," he says, voice strained, her name sounding like something sacred in his mouth.

"I know," she says, echoing him. Her hand stills on him. Then she shifts down his body, her breath ghosting over where he’s hardest and most vulnerable.

His entire body goes rigid. "What are you?" Panic edges his voice, a genuine confusion that halts his breathing. "Females don’t-ah that’s not... Dove, wait-"

But she doesn’t wait. She takes him into her mouth, all of him, the sheer size of him a shock against her tongue.

He makes a choked, broken sound, half-protest and half-pleasure, hands fisting in the blankets as if anchoring himself to reality.

She works him slowly at first, learning the shape and taste of him, then builds a rhythm—up and down, her tongue tracing the length of him each time she rises.

She watches his face the entire time: the disbelief in his gold eyes, the way his jaw trembles, the raw vulnerability as he comes completely undone beneath a touch he never imagined possible.

When he finally spills into her mouth with a guttural roar, it’s with the shuddering surrender of a man who has just been rewritten.

For a long moment, neither of them moves. The only sound is their breathing, ragged and uneven, fogging in the cold air between them.

Then Thorne lifts his head and looks at her, really looks at her, gold eyes searching her face with an intensity that should be unsettling and instead feels like being seen for the first time in her entire miserable new life.

Dover grins and licks her lips, "suprisingly yummy."

"Are you okay?" he asks again, quieter now.

"Yeah," Dove says, and means it more than she’s meant anything in weeks. "Are you?"

Thorne shifts beneath her, already trying to roll, already murmuring something about let me and my turn and I should—

"Nope." Dove plants a hand flat on his chest and shoves. He goes down easy, too easy, like his body wants this more than his pride does. "Behave."

He blinks up at her, pupils blown wide in the dark, gold eyes catching the thin light from the broken skylight. His mouth opens like he’s going to argue, because of course he is, because he’s spent three months being the wall nobody gets past, and walls don’t just lie down.

"I was going to—there’s a proper way to..." he starts, voice already fraying at the edges.

"Thorne." She says his name like a warning and a promise at the same time. "I did not ask for a seminar."

He stops talking.