“You’ve been holding back ever since we mated.” She pressed closer, feeling the evidence of his desire hard against her belly. “You’ve been holding back because you’re afraid of being too much, too strong, too Vultor. But I’m not fragile, Valrek. The sea made sure of that.”
A low growl rumbled through his chest.
“If I stop holding back…”
“Then I can be with all of you.”
For a heartbeat, he didn’t move. She could see the war happening behind his eyes—the civilized male wrestling with the beast that wanted to claim and possess and take.
The beast won.
His mouth crashed into hers, all teeth and hunger and barely restrained need. She moaned into the kiss, her body arching against his, her skin flaring as sensation overwhelmed her careful control. He lifted her without breaking contact with her mouth, her legs wrapping around his waist as he carried her deeper into the cave towards the private space they’d carved out for themselves in the past month.
New furs. A wider sleeping platform. A niche in the wall where she’d started collecting shells and sea glass.
He laid her down like she was precious, but the look in his eyes was anything but gentle.
“You want all of me?” His voice was gravel and smoke. “Then you’ll have all of me. Every growl. Every bite. Every mark I want to leave on this beautiful, impossible body.”
“Yes.”
“Say it again.”
“Yes.”
He tore her shift in his haste to remove it, and she didn’t care, couldn’t care, not when his mouth was following his hands down her body, not when his tongue traced the delicate line of her gills, not when he sucked one peaked nipple into the hot, wet cavern of his mouth and her back arched off the furs.
His claws scraped lightly down her sides, a delicious counterpoint to the soft kisses he pressed against her belly. She was wet and wanting before he even reached the heat between her thighs, and when his breath ghosted over her most sensitive flesh, she cried out, her fingers tangling in the furs beneath her.
“You glow for me.” The words were spoken against her core, rough and reverent. “Every time I touch you, every time I’m inside you—you light up like the stars. Do you know what that does to me?”
She couldn’t answer. Could barely breathe. His hands were everywhere, his mouth was everywhere, and her body was responding with an intensity that bordered on overwhelming. The lines along her collarbones pulsed indigo. Her gills fluttered with each gasping breath.
And still he didn’t stop.
“I spent years alone.” He pressed his forehead to her stomach, breathing her in. “Years of cold nights and empty howls and teaching myself not to want things I couldn’t have. And then you came out of the sea like something from a story, with your shining skin and your impossible song, and you saved my daughter. You saved me.”
“Valrek—”
“I love you.” The words were spoken into her skin, branded there forever. “I love every strange, beautiful part of you. I love the way you hum when you’re thinking. I love the way you hold Lilani like she’s the most precious thing in the world. I love the way you look at me like I’m not a monster.”
Tears pricked her eyes. “You’re not?—”
“I know.” He lifted his head, his golden eyes blazing. “Because of you, I finally know.”
He kissed her again and she could taste herself on his lips, her desire flaring to meet his. She arched against him eagerly, but then he flipped her over onto her hands and knees.
“You want all of me? You shall have me.” He pulled her back against him and the thick head of his cock pressed against her entrance, making her whimper with need. His huge hands gripped her hips, holding her in place. “You’ll take me now. All of me.”
“Yes.” Her gills fluttered. “Yes, my Vultor. All of you.”
He pushed inside her in one hard, claiming stroke.
The world shattered.
Her back arched, her head falling back on a wordless cry as he filled her, stretched her, claimed her. She was a creature of the sea, but this, this was a drowning she welcomed. A complete submersion. He withdrew slowly, almost to the tip, before driving back in, setting a rhythm that was as ancient as the tides and as undeniable as the moon’s pull on the sea.
Her body responded, her skin a constellation of light against the dark furs. She could feel the vibrations of the echo-pipe in the back of her mind, a soft, harmonic counterpoint to the raw music they were making together.
