I want more.
More heat.
More risk.
More of him.
His hands, when they touch me, are almost gentle at first. Almost.
“Shula, you feel so fucking soft. How is it possible you are this soft, this fragile, but still you can withstand my flame?”
“Because I was made for you, Thorne. And you were made for me,” I reply, running my hands down his shoulders and back until I reach his backside.
He’s right there.
Poised at my entrance.
I feel him—hot, heavy, impossibly hard—nudging against the place that’s already aching for him.
My whole body goes tight, muscles trembling with anticipation. Every breath feels like it has to fight its way past the want knotting low in my belly.
I want him to move.
I need him to move.
To fill me.
To go deep. So deep I stop thinking about anything except the feel of him and this fire between us.
“This time,” I murmur, fingers curling into the corded heat of his shoulders as I tug him down to me, “don’t hold back, Thorne.”
His eyes flare—bright, molten, like someone just struck flint to steel inside his skull.
For a heartbeat, he just looks at me, like he’s memorizing the invitation, tucking it somewhere sacred.
“Careful, Shula,” he warns, his voice rough velvet and danger as his mouth descends toward mine. “I am not sure I know how to do anything else.”
The words flip something in me.
No safety net. No halfway.
Just us and the edge.
Then he pushes forward with his hips—and thought ceases to exist.
My body opens around him, stretching, burning in that perfect way that makes my toes curl and my fingers dig into his back.
Heat sprawls out from the point where he presses into me, radiating through my hips, my chest, my throat, until I swear I’m glowing from the inside.
My lips part on a broken sound—half gasp, half prayer. He swallows it with his mouth, kissing me like he’s starving, like he’s been waiting lifetimes instead of hours.
Fire licks over my skin, not painful, just there—a living thing that knows my name now.
Every glide of his hands, every shift of his hips, sends little sparks skittering along my nerves.
They gather at my spine, my stomach, my heart.
I arch up into him, helpless to do anything else.
