“That’s twice,” he murmurs against my lips. “Shall we try for five, mermaid?” He slides one, two, three fingers inside me, and I whimper. “Or maybe seven? How hungry are you, Zephyra? How much can you take?” He says it like a challenge, but if this is a competition, I’ve lost sight of the rules. Goddess, I know what the prize is—it’s him. It’sArion.
“Please,” I hiss, and that’s all it takes for him to drag me off the hammock. He lies down and lowers me onto his face. His tongue slides inside me, and I curse. I scream. After a few minutes of the sweetest torture, I shatter again.
“Three,” he counts before flipping me over, onto my back—justas he promised—and slamming inside me. He’s not gentle. He doesn’t take his time. Because he knows I want that. Because he knowsme.
I see you, Zephyra. The worst parts and the best parts.
If I thought his hands and mouth were good, his cock is…more. So much fucking more. He fills me exquisitely, stretching me beyond belief until I feel him everywhere.Goddess.I never want to forget this.
I never want this to end.
This—it’s the accumulation of a thousand moments, seconds and minutes and hours shared between us. Between two people who should have never met. Who shouldn’t be anything but strangers, if not outright enemies.
It’s the accumulation of a noose around my neck, my hands around his throat, both of us drowning in the deep blue. It’s the accumulation of his furious insults and my reckless sabotage. It’s the accumulation of Arion on his back in the middle of Crestfall, and me locked in a prison cell under his watchful eye.
It’severything.
“That’s it, Zephyra. You take me so well.” He pulls out, running the thick tip over my drenched cunt. Teasing. Always fucking teasing me. “I knew you would. Your pussy is perfect.”
“Fuck me, Arion,” I growl, impatient, rising on my knees to glare over my shoulder at him.
He seizes my neck, pressing me into the wood floor as he lines up his cock with myperfect pussy. His hips slam forward. His cock impales me in one hard thrust. I scream and palm the wood around me. Drag my nails over the floorboards.“Shit.”
He fists a hand in my hair, yanking me upward so I’m forced to ride out his wild thrusts alongside him. In time with him. And I do. I fucking ride him as if my life depends on it. I writhe and buck and twist my hips, matching him thrust for thrust. He pulls my hair. Slaps my ass so hard, I know his handprint will last long, long after this moment ends.
And when I come again, it’s to his hand wrapped around my throat as he continues fucking me with abandon, it’s to the lowgrowl of his voice in my ear as he says, “That’s four. Do you have another in you, mermaid?”
Tears burn my eyes because I’ve never done this before. I’ve never come this much in one night before. “I don’t… don’t know,” I manage between gasps for air.
“Then I’m going to keep fucking you.” He drives into me. Again. Again. Again. Harder. Harder. Harder. And I scream. I can’t stop screaming. And though Arion has maintainedmostof his promise to not use his magic anymore, I can tell he’s silenced this room. Simply for the fact that no one has barged inside and told me to shut the fuck up yet.
He snarls and pins my arms behind my back. “You feel so”—thrust—“fucking”—thrust—“good.”
I have no choice but to bend to his will, to follow his rhythm, to relish the bruises he makes with his hand and fingers becauseIchoose it. BecauseIwant it. He kisses my cheek. My neck. Drags his tongue over my spine before biting.
And though it shouldn’t be possible, though my legs arequakingand I can hardly see through the potent haze of lust and pleasure and pain, I come. Again.
“That’s five, mermaid.” Arion sounds victorious. Sexy as fuckandvictorious. He still doesn’t quit thrusting, dragging me to the brink of another explosion. “You’re fucking perfect.”
The tears in my eyes drip over my cheeks. Onto the wood. And I can’t stop them because I am wholly out of control. Wholly at Arion’s mercy. The salt water of my tears—of my lust and pleasure and pain—burst fissures of moonlight beneath my skin, and call forth my tail at an exceedingly inopportune moment.
Because Arion is about to remember just how imperfect I really am.
My scales appear. My legs vanish. And then I’m beneath Arion in my truest form. All mermaid. I roll over, and he braces his hands on either side of my head. His gaze drops to my scales, to the tears on my skin. And he hesitates.
“Don’t run screaming,” I say through shaky lips. “Not right now.”
His brow furrows. “Run screaming?” He removes one hand to setit on my tail. I gasp at the touch. “Now why would I do that, mermaid? I’m still not done with you.”
It’s the last thing I expect him to say. It’s the exact thing Iwanthim to say.
Goddess, my heart aches. Ithurts. For him. For the warmth in his gaze and the softness in his voice. I attempt to curl my tail inward, to make myself smaller, but he stops me. “No,” he says. “You’re here with me, Zephyra. So be here with me. I’m not running from you. I willneverrun from you.”
“I’m a—”
“I know exactly who you are,” he growls, “and I wouldn’t change you. Not for anything. Not for anyone.”
I want to argue. I want to tell him that he’s wrong and he doesn’t know everything yet. That once he finds out, he’ll leave. He’llhaveto leave. Because I am not made for happy. Because I am made to hurt. And Arion isn’t any different from the others. From Eos or even Jacin.
