“Erich.” Her voice is stronger now, like some of the haze has lifted. “I’ve always loved you.”
Her words are like a balm to my burning soul as I blink down at her, a wet droplet falling from my eye as well. “You have?”
A small smile dances across her luscious lips. “Since the day we met.”
A breath I didn’t know I’d been holdingwhooshesfrom my lungs, my shoulders loosening along with it. “Say it again.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “I love you, Erich.”
I grasp her face between my palms, lean my forehead against hers, graze the tip of her nose with mine. “Again.”
“I love you.”
Twice before in my life has the beast in my chest awakened: The day I met Nyx, and the night she kissed me.
Right now, it roars like a wild animal, not with fury, but with pride that courses through my veins.
“I will love you for eternity.”
My words are sure and filled with reverence before I devour her lips.
Nyxeris
The kiss Erich bestows on me is like a gift full of love and passion, his lips feeding on mine, his tongue caressing the inside of my mouth in languid strokes, the small barbell at its center gliding along my wet muscle.
This kiss is not like the fierce, rushed one we shared before fighting the GBE. This kiss is comforting and slow, letting my desire build until I whine into his mouth, fist his shirt in both hands, which he grasps before leaning away, his ice blue eyes shining down at me.
“You’re a needy thing, aren’t you, Nyx?”
My response is an unbidden whine I clamp my mouth shut on.
Erich’s head tilts to the side, and I expect him to tease me. Instead, he kisses my forehead tenderly, takes two steps back, grips the hem of his shirt with both hands and pulls it off his torso, over his head.
I’ve known Erich for just over a decade, and I’ve never seen him with his shirt off.
Universe, he’s more magnificent than I imagined. And yes, I’d imagined his nude form before. A lot.
His body is muscular, the artist’s ideal Y shape to his frame, with a bit more bulk than I thought he had. But what really catches my attention the most are his tattoos.
All black across his pale skin, from the flames licking his hands and fingers that travel up his arms—those I’d seen all the time, like what crawled up his neck—to the sections revealed to me now for the first time. Those same flames, all connected, dance up his biceps, run across his clavicle and lick up his neck to his jaw then down to cover his pecs and ribs.
I swallow the pool of saliva that’s formed in my mouth and blink at him.
As if he knows exactly how his body is affecting me, he reaches for the button of his jeans, then turns his back to me, revealing more flames that crawl down his back, cover his shoulder blades and slide along his spine.
My body grows hot, every inch of skin aching for Erich’s touch. A moan turns to another whine as slick seeps from my core and into my waiting panties.
When Erich turns back around, he’s wearing only black boxer-briefs that hang low on his jutting hip bones.
I want to lick them so bad.
It’s hardly a blink before he’s right in front of me, grabbing my shirt and pulling it over my head, letting his knuckles scrape along my sensitive skin, drawing a groan from my chest.
He gently shushes me, pecks my lips and stays hunched at eye-level as he speaks. “I’m going to make you feel so good, baby. So, so good.” His palms glide up my sides, and I sigh as he engulfs my covered breasts in his large hands. “But my knot?” Hetsks.“You’re going to have to earn that, Omega.”
Earn it? What?
I barely have a moment to register his words before he grips my bra cups and yanks them with force enough to tear the article apart down the center. I cry out once as my hot flesh meets the cool air, then again as Erich sucks one of my nipples into his hot mouth and moans, letting the vibrations reverberate along my skin. He pulls the remnants of my bra down my shoulders and arms, tossing it aside before pushing my back to the mattress, swapping his mouth for his fingers pinching my nipple as he lathes my other one with his flat tongue, the hard nub of his tongue ring drawing shocks of pleasure from me.
