Lips and tongues and teeth met in a frenzy as they stumbled, only parting when the backs of Luna’s knees finally hit the mattress and she sprawled back across it.
Brand was halfway onto the bed when he was caught by her beckoning, sea glass eyes, swirling with silver, and they stilled him in a way nothing else ever had.
Trembling hands replaced fervid ones as he laid himself between her thighs. He didn’t want to rush. Didn’t want to lose this moment to a lapse in control. Didn’t want the memories to blur years and years from now because he hadn’t bothered to savor every damned second.
Brand’s gaze followed his fingertip as it traced the high arch of her brow, over faint lines that held the secret details of her life in their furrows.
“I would memorize this face,” he whispered. “Immaculately rendered by the Sisters and housing a soul that was crafted beside my own.”
He trailed down her jaw and around the edges of her gasping lips, to the iridescent freckles concentrated there, blurring the boundary between blush and ivory.
“It will greet me in the mornings and be the last thing my eyes see before they close at night.”
Across her cheekbones, to a tiny scar above the bridge of her nose, the story of its presence one he longed to hear.
“It will be the beacon of my life. The shining light that leads me through every darkness.” He gripped her chin and pulled her to him. “And Sisters, how I love it more than any other sight.”
His lips brushed hers. A single sob left her as she trailed her fingers through the short hairs of his beard. Up into his hair, nails scraping along his scalp.
The sound burrowed its way into him as he notched his cock against the molten center of her, clinging to the hills and valleys of her soft sublimity.
No sooner had he felt her readiness than his horns started curl.
Heart pounding. Eyes screwing shut.
Shite.
Ringing started in his ears. He wouldn’t change completely, but he’d forgotten to tell her. Didn’t want to frighten her. To?—
“Brand, look at me.” He did, and she clasped his hand and brought it to her chest. “This heart beats for you, remember? It’s yours,” she husked.“Take it.”
The command in those words was punctuated by a tempestuous look of longing so stark it snatched his breath away. He jolted when her hand wrapped around him, teasing and pumping, urging him closer. Deeper.
His greater half rushed to the surface in answer, his markings flaring to life as he surrendered to it. To her.
Eyes on hers, breath sawing, he let his touch trail like whispers up the length of her leg. “Who am I to deny you?”
Brand splayed his fingers around her thigh and buried himself to the hilt.
Luna’s body lifted from the bed and surged against him, and he felt it to his bones when they cried out in tandem. The old version of himself was ripped away with the sound, replaced with something better on his next gasping inhale.
At last.
Stars swam in his vision and he stilled, trying to breathe through the life-altering sensation of being joined with her.
Her, who filled his lungs and pierced his skin. Her, who swept through to undo the aching knot in his chest and fill him with ease. Her, who strengthened him. Made him new.
Her, her, her. Everything washer.
“Luna.”
“Stars, you feel so…” she moaned, the silver in her eyes multiplying. “Do you feel that, Brand, how perfect it is?” Luna dug her heels into his backside, taking even more of him as her lids drifted shut and she uttered pleas formore.
Power rippled out when he began to move, the canopy ruffling and doors rattling, their souls and bodies and magic twining together as the mating bond began to forge itself in the fire between them.
He fuckingburnedfor her.
Light poured from him, glowing pieces of his markings abandoning him to dance over her skin and sear themselves into her flesh, connecting their bodies in yet another way.
