“Zaph—” I started, but the word never finished.
His mouth crushed against mine, and the world shattered. It wasn’t a kiss. It was a claim. Fierce, searing, and hungry enough to burn me from the inside out. His lips moved against mine like fire licking across dry kindling, devouring, consuming. My hands curled helplessly into his chest, but instead of pushing him away, I pulled him closer.
I’d never been kissed like that, never been undone like that. My body answered his with terrifying eagerness; heatroared through my veins, and flames licked across every one of my nerve endings.
It was a fire. An all-consuming fire.
His kiss deepened, his teeth grazed my lower lip, and a growl reverberated through his chest and into mine. His hand fisted tighter in my hair, angling me to take more of him, to let him devour me whole.
May future me have mercy on current me—I let him.
I melted against him, my body, my traitorously pliant body, strained to get closer. Heat curled low in my belly; it was as fierce as a firestorm. Never had I felt that alive before. This was no gentle exploration, no tender press of lips. This was war in its own right, his fury, my defiance, colliding in something dangerously close to surrender.
A whimper tore from me before I could stop it, my body’s betraying signal swallowed instantly by his mouth, greedy and insistent. I could feel his aura flare, hot and gold, licking at the edges of his darkness, red surging beneath as if stoking a living flame, and though black threatened, it was retreating, momentarily overwhelmed by the onslaught of something brighter. I felt it wrap around me, this force that was him but also not-him, this second skin of sensation that seeped into my own, until the line between my racing pulse and his was obliterated. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel my body as a solitary boundary, but as a membrane barely containing a volcanic collision. We were fusing, elemental, and all my thoughts scattered like frightened birds.
And then reality came down like a hammer, too sudden to brace for.
I tore my mouth free with a gasp, my lungs sounded ragged, and my chest was heaving as if from a near-drowning. My lips tingled, raw and swollen; my jaw ached from the force of our kiss. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. My body screamed for more, begged for another instant of that annihilating connection, even as my mind scrabbled for purchase and tried to make sense of the chemical disaster happening in my blood.
Oh God.
What the hell was I doing?
What thefuckwas I doing?
I staggered back a step, nearly tripping on the edge of the bed. My knees threatened mutiny, and I caught myself against the mattress, clutching the covers as if they could anchor me to sanity.
“That—” My voice was strangled, the word a broken thing. “That cannot happen again.” Even as I spoke, I could taste the lie of it, feel my body’s betrayal in the way my hips canted forward and my hands flexed, desperate to grab and pull him back.
He fixed me with a stare that went right through my clothes, through my skin, all the way to the marrow of my bones. His eyes were still cracked through with fire, black and gold at war, and for one terrible moment, I thought he’d leave, heed my plea, stride away, and end this madness in a neat, clinical motion. But then he smiled, wolfish and knowing, and in that instant, Irealized I had never had a chance. He crossed whatever little distance I managed to get between us in a single stride, the movement predatory and inevitable, and when his hands found my hips, I lost the last scraps of resistance.
He hauled me against him with the kind of force that made it clear he’d been holding back before. His lips crashed into mine, and the hunger in the kiss curled my toes. I whimpered into his mouth. The room spun. My legs caved, and I only noticed I was airborne when I landed, sprawled on the bed, half-crushed beneath the heat of his body. His hands—those enormous, calloused hands—made quick work of pinning me down, but not with violence. He held me like I was something delicate, a thing to be simultaneously devoured and cherished. The paradox made me shudder.
I surrendered—heart, soul, skin, everything. I didn’t care if this ruined me.
I let my lips part under his tongue, let the taste of him flood over my senses. God, I was so fucking lost already. He kissed me like he was starving, like every second without my mouth on his was a second wasted. I felt the hard line of his cock pressing against my thigh, and a low, shuddering moan escaped me. Deep inside, my body twisted around the ache, hungry in a way I’d never felt before, not even in my most desperate, lonely nights. It was as if he’d reached in and flipped a switch labeled NEED.
His hands left my face, crept down my sides, mapping every inch of me like he was memorizing the shape of mybody for some future where I might be gone. His fingers fanned at my waist, then descended, bunching the hem of my dress in his fists and yanking it up until my legs were bare and trembling. The air kissed my exposed skin, raising goosebumps, but his touch was fire, leaving molten tracks in its wake. He gripped my thighs, spreading them, and I didn’t even think to resist.
This was madness. Total, irreversible madness, and I was powerless to stop it. I could only gasp and writhe as he slid lower, the heat of his breath threatening at the apex of my legs. My skirt gathered around my hips, and with a single, savage pull, he tore my panties off, the elastic snapping loudly before he tossed the fragment aside. I heard myself cry out, but I wasn’t ashamed. I wanted this. I wanted him. With absolute clarity, I knew he would stop if I told him to, that he took the lead because he knew I had teetered on the verge. The problem was I didn't want him to stop. I wanted him to take control. I needed to lose myself if only for a little while.
“You smell delicious,” he murmured, his voice was thick with intent, and before my brain could process his words, his mouth was on me.
I jerked, every muscle in my body seized as his tongue slid against my clit, slow and exploratory at first, then purposeful, then relentless. The sensation punched a hole through my spine. My hands scrambled for the sheets, twisting them so tightly I thought they might rip. I arched off the bed as he licked again, his tongue more skilledthan any lover I’d ever imagined. I tried to say his name, but it came out as a desperate plea.
He groaned, and the vibration against my flesh sent a tremor all the way up my body.
“You taste even better,” he rasped, and then he flattened his tongue, licking a long, brutal stripe that made my vision go white at the edges. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but feel. I was reduced to a bundle of nerves, every one of them lit up, screaming for more.
He sucked my clit into his mouth, circling it with his tongue, and I gasped so loud I thought the windows would shatter. My thighs clamped around his head, but he just pressed closer, greedy for every sound I made. He added a finger, then two, pushing inside me without warning, and I nearly convulsed off the bed.
“So tight,” he growled, not letting up on the sweet, torturous rhythm of his tongue.
The orgasm didn’t creep up on me; it hit like a detonation. I shrieked, half-choked on my own breath, clapping a hand to my mouth to muffle the sound, but it was too late. My body locked up, then shattered. Wave after wave of pleasure ripped through me, leaving nothing but sparks. I thought I’d black out; I half-hoped I would, so that I could remember it as a fever dream. But I didn’t. I rode every second, pulse fluttering, skin burning, his mouth and fingers relentless as he drank down every aftershock.
When I opened my eyes, the room was spinning. I felt boneless, liquefied, as if I’d been melted down and poured into the shape of myself. He stood at the foot of the bed, between my legs, staring down at me with a look that was equal parts pride and predation. He didn’t say a word at first; he just reached out, traced a single finger up the inside of my thigh, and watched my body convulse helplessly in answer.
“I like the way you look undone,” he said at last, voice low and rough with satisfaction.
