Torin watches my face as he touches me, tracking every flicker of response. His thumb circles slowly, deliberately, and the bond flares bright enough to make my vision shimmer.
More? he asks, and the restraint in the word nearly undoes me.
Yes, I send back, shameless. More.
He gives me another breath, then kisses down my jaw, my throat. The press of his mouth on my skin underwater feels obscene—intimacy multiplied by the fact that every second depends on him keeping me alive.
My wing shivers against the stone. He slides his hand up, fingers finding the base again, stroking while his other hand keeps working between my thighs.
I jolt, lightning skittering along my ribs. The sparks dance in the water, bright pinpricks that vanish as his water magic wraps around them, containing them, turning sting into heat.
His control is breathtaking. My power wants to explode. His wants to hold, to guide, to keep us both intact.
Tell me if it’s too much, he sends, and his voice in my head is rough now, fraying at the edges.
It’s not enough, I answer honestly, and his eyes darken.
He lifts me with a smooth, sure motion, weightlessness making it effortless. My legs wrap around his hips without me thinking. The position pulls me closer, aligns us, makes the hard length of him slide against me.
I whimper into his mouth.
Torin freezes, watching my face. Another silent question: Now?
Now, I send, and then I whisper it against his lips because I need to hear it in the water too: I want you.
His gills flare. His eyes flash.
He guides himself to me, the head of him nudging at my entrance, slick with my need. Even underwater, the sensation is devastating—pressure and heat and the promise of being filled.
He shares a breath with me, then holds my gaze as he pushes inside.
Slow. Inch by inch. The stretch is intense, sharp for a heartbeat, then turning molten as my body yields.
I claw at his shoulders, nails scraping over scales, and lightning crackles out of me in a bright arc. He contains it with a wash of cool magic that makes me shudder harder.
So full, I try to say, but it comes out as bubbles and a broken sound. Through the bond he feels it anyway—the ache, the pleasure, the overwhelming rightness of him inside me.
You’re okay? he asks, still careful, still Torin even when he’s shaking with restraint.
Yes, I send, fierce. Don’t stop.
The word snaps something in him.
He begins to move—not fast at first, just a steady rocking that slides deeper, pulls out, sinks in again. The water tries to separate us, but he holds me tight, pinned between his body and the stone.
Every thrust sends a pulse through the bond. Pleasure echoes back and forth until I can’t tell which sensations belong to me and which are his.
I feel his hunger like it’s my own. I feel his awe. I feel the way he’s fighting not to take too much, not to break me, even though the bond is begging him to claim.
I kiss him hard, stealing breath and giving it back in the same motion. My lips are bruised with it. My lungs are full of him.
His hand slides between us again, thumb finding the sensitive spot that makes my entire body seize. I cry out into his mouth, the sound swallowed by water and magic.
Torin groans, deep and broken, and the vibration travels through me where we’re joined. It pushes me closer to the edge instantly.
That’s it, he sends, voice wrecked. Let go, Zara. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.
I can feel him thick and hard inside me, the way my body clenches around him every time his thumb circles. I can feel my lightning gathering, frantic and bright.
