With a wink, he replaces his finger with his tongue, and then with his mouth, drawing me between his lips and teeth with a powerful suck that has me seeing a flare so bright it seems as though the stars above have all banged into each other to become one.
I grip his hair and scream his name as I unravel against his face, in this strange plane peopled by only the two of us. He laps at me slowly, as though to catch every last drip of my climax, then drags himself to his knees, clasps my ankles, and slides me along the sand. When my ass hits a lapping wave, he scoops my boneless body into his arms and walks us into the ocean.
It’s only when his engorged tip brushes along my swollen slit that I recall the end of my sentence.Inside of me.That’s what I thought he wanted.
He scrapes his stubbled jaw along my neck, then along my cheek. “Guide me home, Behach Éan.”
His rasped entreaty is so very sweet that it caresses my thundering heart, easing the chaos until my pulse is as smooth as the glowing ocean surrounding us. I tighten the knot of my legs and lock one hand around his nape, then reach between our bodies for the weapon gloved in silk.
Using my thumb, I angle him up, then sheath him inside my body in one fell swoop. Where I sigh in bliss, he looses a guttural groan that skips along the water and collides into the rocky cliffs. His hands squeeze my ass as I rock my hips. Instead of quickening the slip and slide of his flesh into mine, the water slows our rhythm.
Lore growls, and I cannot tell if it’s in frustration or contentment. He takes my mouth in a kiss that makesmeforget to move but evidently works wonders on his concentration because the man’s hands and hips never once falter as they pilot my body to the speed he desires.
It feels so real that for a moment, I wonder if it is. But it’s not real. I won’t be dripping with his seed because my mate is missing one crow.
Forget about my crow,he growls.Focus on—he drives himself in so deep that I feel his tip dig into my stomach; I feel the ridged underside of his cock scrape against my walls—me.
I frame his jaw with my palms and deepen our kiss, losing myself in the here and now, in this version of him that’s whole, in the breaths that cycle out of his lungs and into mine, in the powerful thrusts of his cock.
My body tenses before his does, shuddering with a second orgasm that feels as real as all the ones he gave me before we were torn apart. He suddenly stills and paints my walls with his phantom pleasure.
Dropping his head into the crook of my neck, he rasps,Mo ab’waile. Mo khroí.
While he speaks the foreign words inside my mind, I can feel them adhere to my raw flesh like sea mist.Tell me whatoh wahleeaandkreemean.
My home.He kisses one corner of my lips, then hovers his mouth over the other and murmurs, “My heart.”
Forty-Eight
Idon’t remember dropping from Lorcan’s mind, nor do I remember getting out of his tub and into his bed. All I remember is our lovemaking in the cove, and how he split me open first with his sex and then with his words.
Even though our tryst in the ocean was a figment of our combined imaginations, as I lie in the muted glow of a new dawn, with his sheets tangled around my legs, I swear I can taste salt on my lips and feel sand between my toes.
I bend one of my legs to check for some only to find my skin clean. And yet it had felt so real. As I stretch, my bones click and my muscles groan. I feel all at once broken and invigorated, bruised and healed. Sure enough, faint purple marks and fainter scratches still pepper my skin. My Shabbin blood will fix me before sundown, but until then, I’ll wear the memory of my escape with pride.
I look for my mate, first in his bed, across which I’m sprawled, then higher, I peer at the tall timber rafters, on the lookout for feathers. When I’ve raked my gaze across every slab of wood, I squint into the thick pool of shadows that extends to the craggy stone ceiling before finally calling out to him through our mind link.
Lore?I try not to worry. I’ve no reason to worry, right?
I prop myself up in bed so suddenly that my head whirls and I flop right back down. Oh my Gods, what if he was attacked last night after our tête-à-tête on the beach?
Then who carried you from the bath to the bed?my conscience queries.
I suppose there are a number of people who couldpotentiallyhave come to check on me had anything happened to Lore.
Icarried you, Little Bird.
I jump at the sound of his voice inside my head, then jump again when his shadows sweep over me like the waves rolled over his long legs last night. Palm clapped against my runaway heart, I mumble,“You’ve just rid me of at least one decade of life.”
He snorts as his shadows take on his humanoid shape and press into me from toe to forehead, forcing my legs to flop apart. When something cold and slick nudges my entrance, my heart begins to slam against my ribs for a whole other reason.
Did I forget to mention that I can make love to you in this form too?
Ghostly fingers begin to rake across my pebbling flesh, digging into my shoulder blades before swirling over my collarbone and caressing my heaving breasts. He must shape several more sets for I feel cool hands bracket my waist and knead the base of my spine while long fingers work the knots out of my sore legs, circling my ankles, my shins, my thighs.
Holy mother of Crows, this man’s talents were wasted on shepherding.
He chuckles into the bond as he adds one more finger to the mix, this time on my clit. I don’t see stars, I see meteorites; I feel them slam into my thrumming body and torch my veins.
