Her body melted against mine like she was made for me, and hell, maybe she was. Maybe this was why I’d been made. To find her. To lose myself in her.
I pulled back to look at the mark blooming on her neck—dark, delicate, mine.
It wasn’t about ownership. Not really.
It was about belonging.
To each other. To this moment. To something no one else would ever touch.
“Do you feel that?” I asked, voice low, almost raw. I brushed my thumb over the mark, watching her with a hunger I no longer tried to hide. “That’s what you do to me.”
She looked up at me—lips parted, breath unsteady—and I saw it in her eyes.
Surprise.
Need.
Surrender she didn’t know how to give, but was already offering anyway.
I leaned back in, my mouth finding that same spot, my teeth grazing gently over the already tender skin. Her breath hitched—music to my goddamn soul.
And I gave in again.
Each kiss was a vow.
Each tug of my mouth against her throat, a prayer.
Every gasp she gave me, a thread pulling me closer to worship.
I didn’t just want her.
I wanted to devour her.
And God help anyone who tried to stop me.
I kissed her like the world was ending and she was the only thing worth surviving for.
Everything else—the books, the air, the noise in my head—disintegrated. There was only her. Only this. My hands gripped her waist, fingers digging into the soft curve of her hips as I dragged her against me. I needed her closer. Needed to feel every breath, every tremble, every goddamn heartbeat.
Her lips parted for me, sweet and reckless, and I didn’t hesitate—I deepened the kiss, my tongue sliding into her mouth with a hunger that bordered on savage.
She tasted like war and wonder. Like something holy I had no right to touch.
But fuck, I couldn’t stop.
She shivered against me and it sent a rush straight to my blood. My hands slipped to the small of her back, pulling her tighter, as if I could mold her body to mine—make her stay.
And then she did it.
Her hands grabbed my shirt—fistfuls of black cotton clenched between her fingers—as she yanked me down to her, closer, harder, like she couldn’t breathe without me.
That one move?—
It wrecked me.
I growled low in my throat, the sound involuntary, feral, as her fingers threaded into my hair and tugged.
She melted into me, bold and beautiful, soft and unrelenting. And still I kissed her, consuming everything she gave like it was oxygen and I’d been starving for eternity.
