The scent hit me so hard I gasped and inhaled water. Choked. Surfaced coughing and sputtering. But the smell was everywhere now that I'd noticed it. In the water, soaked into the stone, hanging in the air itself. Concentrated. Overwhelming.
My body responded before my brain finished catching up.
Wetness flooded between my legs, different from the water, hotter and slicker. My chest tightened painfully. The pulse between my thighs went from constant ache to demanding throb in the space of one heartbeat.
"You found it."
His voice came from directly above me.
I spun in the water, searching. He was perched on the basin's edge twenty feet up, wings folded tight against his back, completely still. Watching. How long had he been sitting there? How long had he been watching me strip and bathe?
"The oasis," he continued like we were having a normal conversation. "I've been preparing it for weeks. Every day, marking the territory. Making sure my scent soaked into everything. The stone, the water, the air."
I tried to speak. My throat had closed completely.
"You're breathing it in right now," he said. His eyes tracked my every movement. "My pheromones. Concentrated. Designed specifically to make females ready for breeding."
Oh god. Oh no.
"The water's carrying it into your skin through every pore. Into your lungs with every breath. Straight into your bloodstream." His gaze held mine. "How do you feel?"
I felt like I was dying. Like my skin was three sizes too small. Like I needed to touch myself right here in the water in front of him because the alternative was screaming until my voice gave out.
"You're burning up," he observed.
He stood. Spread his wings. Dropped.
The dive was controlled and precise. He landed on the basin's edge ten feet from where I was treading water. Close enough that I could see him clearly now. Close enough that his scent got exponentially stronger.
Both cocks were hard.
"Come here," he said.
Every cell in my body wanted to obey immediately.
"No."
"Stubborn." He sounded amused instead of angry. "That's good. You'll need that for what comes next." He crouched at the water's edge, balancing easily. "But you're going to lose this particular fight eventually. Your body's already decided. It's just waiting for your mind to catch up."
"Stay away from me."
"Why?" He tilted his head like the question genuinely confused him. "You're in my territory. In my prepared space. Soaking in water I've saturated with my scent specifically to make you desperate." One hand dipped into the water casually. "This was all planned, little human. Every step you've taken since you arrived, I've been guiding you here."
The hand in the water moved. Not toward me, just disturbing the surface. Creating ripples that carried his scent even stronger toward where I was treading water.
"There it is," he said with clear satisfaction. "Your body's responding. Heart rate accelerating. Pupils blown so wide I can barely see the color. You're clenching around nothing right now, aren't you?"
I was. God help me, I was clenching desperately around nothing while wetness kept flooding between my legs.
"Come here," he said again. "I won't touch you, I promise. But come here and let me show you what you're fighting."
I shouldn't. I swam to him anyway because my body wouldn't listen to what my brain was screaming.
He stayed crouched at the edge as I approached through the water. Didn't move when I reached the stone lip. Just watched as I gripped the smooth obsidian and looked up at him from the water.
"Closer."
I pulled myself up to the basin's edge with water streaming off my naked body. We were maybe three feet apart now. So near that his warmth rolled off him in waves, suffocating and addictive. Close enough that breathing meant inhaling him with every gasp.
