He makes a sound that I feel more than hear, somewhere between a growl and relief, and pulls me flush against him.His mouth finds mine, and the kiss is nothing like our first one.That was hunger.This is recognition between two beings that have always belonged together, finally in the same place at the same time, who have chosen each other.
One of his tentacles trails up my spine, and even through my shirt, the touch sends heat flooding through me.
“The bond is sealed,” he murmurs against my mouth.“You’re mine now.Completely.Mine.”
“You’re mine too,” I remind him.
The smile that crosses his face is wickedly dark and full of promise.“Yes, I am.”
He lays me against the dark sheets, his tentacles already beginning to move.
Chapter Thirteen
Lilith
The bond changeseverything.I don’t realize how much until Theron touches me.
It’s just his hand at first, cupping my face the way he did the very first night, his thumb tracing my cheekbone.Simple and familiar.But where before his touch sent electricity racing over my skin, now it goes deeper, straight through skin and muscle and bone, down into something that doesn’t have a name.I feel him in my bloodstream.I feel the pulse of him behind my sternum, slow and enormous, the same rhythm as the blue light in my veins.Like two instruments finally playing the same note.I make a sound I didn’t intend to make.
His eyes darken.“You feel it.”
“God,” I breathe.“Is it always going to be like this?”
“Even better.”
He kisses me, and I stop being able to form thoughts.His mouth is unhurried and thorough, as if he has centuries and intends to use them.I melt into it because I have nowhere else to be and nothing else I want.
His hands move to my waist, pushing my shirt up.I lift my arms and let him strip it over my head.My bra follows.He pulls back to look at me, and the way his gaze travels over my body, slow and reverent and absolutely certain of its welcome, makes heat pool between my legs.
“Lie back,” he demands.
I do.The dark sheets are cool against my back, and he’s warm above me.The iridescence of his skin catches the candlelight.
I reach up to pull him down, but he catches my wrists.He pins them above my head with one hand and holds them there, and I feel the intentionality of it.He’s letting me know that tonight, he’s taking his time, and I’m not going to rush him.
“I have waited,” he says, his mouth dropping to my throat, “three centuries for this.”
I whimper.He takes that as encouragement.His mouth moves down my throat to my collarbone, to the curve of my breast.Then his lips close around my nipple, and I arch off the bed.The hand holding my wrists tightens.He works me slowly, his tongue tracing patterns I feel in my spine, and by the time he moves to the other side, I’m already trembling.
His tentacles move.They emerge gradually, unfurling from his skin as usual, but tonight they’re different.They know me now.The bond runs both ways, and he can feel exactly what he’s doing to me, which means he knows precisely which places to find and how long to stay there.
One wraps around my right thigh, the suckers creating that familiar pull-and-release against my skin.Another slides up the inside of my left leg, unhurried, taking its time.A third trails up my side, over my ribs, and curls around my breast with a slow, squeezing pressure that makes me cry out.
“You okay?”Theron rumbles.
“More than okay.Don’t stop.”
His mouth continues its path down my stomach while his tentacles work my body with a focused, patient attention that borders on torturous.He releases my wrists.He doesn’t need to hold them anymore because I’m not going anywhere.A couple of his tentacles immediately take over, wrapping around both my wrists and pinning them far more thoroughly than his hand did.The suckers latch gently along the inside of my forearms, and I feel the restraint in every nerve ending, delicious and inescapable.
I pull against it instinctively, but the tentacles don’t give.They tighten slightly as a reminder of his power.
“Give it up.I’m in control.”
His mouth reaches the top of my inner thigh and stops.I can feel his breath against my pussy, warm and deliberate, and I would give him absolutely anything he asked for right now.
“Please,” I say.It comes out wrecked already.“Theron, please don’t stop now!”
A tentacle slides between my legs instead of his mouth, and I sob.It parts my folds slowly, dragging through the slick heat of me, and the suckers catch against my clit with a rhythmic pull that makes my hips buck up off the mattress.His tentacles pin my hips back down.The other tentacle keeps moving while his mouth finally presses to the inside of my thigh and works its way inward.
