"Hm?"

"When I'm…exploring. Touching you."

"That's the point of doing it," he said, shrugging.

"Well, yes, but…you'll have to give me some indication when it goes right."

His eyes closed, and his chest shook. I considered attacking the line of buttons down his chest but moved to his left shoulder instead, repeating the process.

"I will endeavor not to hide my pleasure from you, Mairwen. But I don't predict that being a problem."

I paused, both of his shoulders unbuttoned, the first dark curls of hair on his chest exposed. "Really?"

He lifted his head and stared down at me. "Have I seemed indifferent thus far?"

My mouth opened and shut. He had at dinner, sitting at the opposite side of the table. But in the hall…his hands gripped and squeezed me, dragging me closer, dark sounds of hunger echoing from his mouth into mine.

"I suppose not," I said, taking a solid breath and plucking one silver button after another down the line of his chest. He had a glimmer of rust and gold scales under the dark hair covering his chest, and I fought the urge to touch him for a moment before realizing that was precisely the bargain we'd made together.

Ronson groaned and his head fell back as my fingertips slid into the curls, stroked down, and tapped against the smooth and tensing planes of his stomach. He was the largest man I'd ever met, which was only right considering he was the alpha, but I'd always felt too tall, too heavy. He dwarfed me. And he lifted me off my feet with one arm, flying me around the island and carrying me through the castle as if it required no effort on his part.

He could've tossed Adelaide around like a feather, I supposed, frowning slightly.

And then Ronson's hands covered mine over his stomach, and I forgot about the other omega, the one who by pure and strange luck—and terrible judgment—had lost her chance at being chosen by this alpha. Ronson guided my hands down to his hips, where a twin line of buttons would open his trousers.

"We can stop," he offered in a low, rough tone.

My hands were shaking slightly, and it was more obvious as his steady grip held mine. I was stubbornly avoiding thinking about one moment to the next, about the fact that I'd agreed to undress down to my thin slip, about how small I'd made the nest around the bed and how close Ronson and I would be, alone and surrounded by the thin swathes of cotton.

But I was curious.

"No," I said, continuing as his hands had guided, working on either line of the buttons at the same time.

Ronson's breath made his chest fill and sigh quickly, and he jerked his arms back, pulling his shirt off as I opened his trousers. He had another single line of buttons down a short placket over his groin, keeping his drawers fixed around his hips, and I undid those as well, until the layers of black wool and cream linen sagged. The dark hair of his chest narrowed to a thick line leading down between two beautiful arcs of muscle, and then widened again to a familiar, thick coat of curls, not entirely unlike the one at the V of my own hips.

"I forgot about my damned boots," Ronson muttered. "Come to the nest."

I blinked as he spun us around, ignoring the loose hang of his pants as he strode toward the bed. I gaped, remaining in place for a moment, watching his golden back shifting between the frame of massive black wings. I certainly hadn't taken those into account when I'd built the nest.

He had dimples at the base of his back, and he had to shuffle as his pants continued to droop, revealing a round swell of a firm ass.

He chose me? I thought. And I'd just declared that I would explore him for the night. Have my turn first. Perhaps that had been a mistake. I'd been recalling the rough force and uncomfortable jerks of my body Mr. Evans had delivered the night before and thinking it would be better if I could hold onto some control to start. But Ronson's touches and kisses had left me weak and melting and biting down on my tongue to keep from begging for more.

"Actually, I'd better deal with the boots myself," Ronson said, grunting as he yanked on the heel of a boot.

My lips quirked at the sight of him. He was seated on the bed, the curtains of the nest I'd built draped open and hanging over his wings. I twisted my arms behind my back, pulling the laces of my dress loose, checking to make sure he was distracted as I lifted it up over my head. One boot thunked against the floor, and I turned at the waist, attending to the ties of the petticoat around my middle.

My maid had dressed me in one of the longer corsets, attempting to flatten and slim my shape according to my mother's instructions, but it meant the laces were all in the back and harder to reach. I wrestled and strained for a few moments, glaring at the glittering sea out of the large windows, until a warm and large pair of hands caught mine.

"Let me."

My breath froze in my chest and my hands hovered behind my back as Ronson's warmth billowed around me, the bindings of my laces tugging and loosening as he pulled them through their loops. My arms drooped, hands hanging numbly at my side, and I shivered and swallowed a whimper when his knuckles grazed through my thin chemise along my spine.

"Why do you wear these so tight?"

I had to swallow twice before I could answer. "It's fashionable to be…willowy and small. I am neither." Not that he would've needed me to point as much out.

His breath puffed over my shoulder, down into the increasingly loose collar of my chemise. "I've been looking forward to taking this off you all day, Mairwen," Ronson rumbled.

I had no idea what to say to that, and then the laces were gone and I could breathe, breathe and groan as my back bowed and my breasts pounded, aching and unbound. Ronson shoved the stern panels of the corset to the floor, and his arms wrapped around my soft stomach, tugging me back into his chest. I could feel the soft brush of his chest hair through the thin fabric of the chemise, and the gentle prod of his—Oh!

I tried to twist, but he was surrounding me, rubbing his evening beard against my hair. His lips grazed the shell of my ear and his voice purred, warm and low, "If tonight was my turn, I would take your breasts in my hands and squeeze and stroke them. I'd pull your collar open until I could kiss the marks of the corset away, make you all pink and tender with my mouth. Are your nipples sensitive, Mairwen?"

I let out a strangled noise, and then Ronson lifted one index finger up, grazing over my left nipple, and it budded to a tight peak. I whined, and the alpha holding me rumbled.

"Oh, very sensitive," he rasped, and then his head ducked, burrowing his face against my throat, his breath cascading hotly over my flesh. "Tomorrow, I'm going to suck and bite and lick your perfect, full breasts until you gush, omega."

My eyes widened, and if it weren't for Ronson's arms around my waist, I would've collapsed. I ought to have been entirely ignorant to what he meant, but mostly I was just shocked at the idea that such a thing were possible. Just from…my breasts? Usually it took⁠—

"Oh!" I gasped, clutching my arms around Ronson's shoulders as he caught my legs with one arm and carried me toward the nest. "It's—I could f-fix the nest a little more if⁠—"

"Leave it," Ronson ground out, catching the edge of one sheet with a hook of his wing, pushing it aside and ducking down. He nearly took the whole thing down with us, and the bedsheet was cool against my back as he slid us both into the small hollow of space I'd created at the heart of the vast bed.