He lifts me like I weigh nothing, presses me against the cool metal of the wall. My thighs wrap around his waist. His mouthfinds my neck, trailing down with slow, dragging kisses that make me squirm.
“You’re so warm,” he murmurs, tongue flicking against my pulse. “So soft.”
“And you’re—fuck, Darun?—”
His clawed fingers find the waist of my pants, tugging them down, sliding along my thighs with exquisite slowness. I arch into him, impatient, and he chuckles, low and smug.
“Needy little human,” he rumbles.
I reach between us, fingers grazing the thick bulge in his pants. “You’re not exactly subtle yourself.”
He growls and yanks his waistband down. His cock is huge, ridged, red like the rest of him, already leaking at the tip. My pussy clenches at the sight of it.
“Want you inside me,” I gasp.
“You’ll get it,” he promises. “But I’m going to make you beg first.”
He sinks to his knees, spreading my legs with those broad, callused hands. Then he buries his face between my thighs, tongue lashing against my clit in slow, devastating circles. I cry out, one hand flying to his head, gripping the bony frills there like a lifeline.
He moans into my pussy, the sound sending vibrations through me. His tongue is long, agile, curling into me, tasting me, licking me like it’s the only thing keeping him alive.
“Oh fuck—Darun—please?—”
“That’s it,” he growls, standing abruptly. “That’s the sound I wanted.”
Before I can respond, he thrusts into me, burying himself to the hilt. I scream. Not from pain—from stretch, from fullness, from the blinding pleasure of finally being whole again.
“Mine,” he snarls, pounding into me with brutal, perfect rhythm. “This pussy’s mine.”
“Yes,” I sob. “All yours?—”
My back scrapes against the wall, his claws digging into my hips, holding me in place as he fucks me harder, deeper. Every thrust hits something perfect, sparks exploding behind my eyes.
“I love you,” he says, voice breaking. “Always have.”
“I love you too,” I choke out.
My orgasm slams into me like a detonation. I scream, my body locking around his cock as pleasure tears through me. He roars and follows, hips jerking, cock pulsing deep inside me.
We collapse together, tangled, shaking.
Later, we sit back-to-back on a sun-warmed slab of wreckage, watching the horizon melt into rust and gold. The wind’s died down, and the air smells like iron and something faintly sweet—like scorched flowers.
I pull my knees to my chest. “We shouldn’t.”
His voice comes after a pause, low and steady. “We did.”
I nod. Because we don’t regret it. Not even a little.
CHAPTER 16
DARUN
The camp smells wrong.
Not blood. But thepromiseof it. That dry, static buzz in the back of my throat, the kind that says something’s about to break. There’s dust in the wind and silence in the eyes of the soldiers lining the perimeter. They look thinner than before. Hungrier. The kind of hungry that eats at reason first.
Amy walks beside me, her fingers brushing my armor now and then, grounding herself. Me, too, if I’m honest. We should be glad to see familiar faces, to return to base intact. But there’s no relief here.
