He kissed her again—slower this time, savoring rather than claiming. His mouth traced a path down her throat, over her collarbone, between her breasts. Each touch of his lips left a trail of fire on her skin, and she arched into him, seeking more contact, more sensation, more of everything he was offering.
His hands explored her with patient thoroughness, learning the places that made her gasp and the spots that made her moan. By the time his fingers found the slick heat between her thighs, she was trembling with need, her whole body strung tight as a bowstring.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please, I need?—”
“I know what you need.”
He stroked her with maddening slowness, building her pleasure in waves that crested and retreated like the ocean she’d justdiscovered. She clutched at his shoulders, his arms, anything she could reach, lost in a haze of sensation that blotted out everything else.
When she shattered, it was with his name on her lips.
But he didn’t stop there.
Before she could catch her breath, he was positioning himself between her thighs, the broad head of him pressing against her entrance. She looked up at him through pleasure-hazy eyes and saw the strain on his face—the desperate battle for control.
“This might hurt,” he warned her. “The claiming bite?—”
“I don’t care.”
He thrust into her with one smooth stroke.
She cried out—from the stretch, from the fullness, from the overwhelming sensation of being joined to him so completely. He held still, giving her time to adjust, his whole body trembling with the effort of restraint.
“Are you?—”
“Move,” she gasped. “Move.”
He did.
The rhythm started slow, deep strokes that made her feel every inch of him. But as her body adjusted, as pleasure began to build again, he picked up the pace. His hips snapped against hers with increasing urgency, driving her higher and higher towards a peak she wasn’t sure she could survive.
“Mine,” he growled against her throat. “Say it.”
“Yours.” The word came out broken, breathless. “I’m yours, Baylin, I’m?—”
His teeth sank into the curve of her shoulder.
The pain was sharp and bright, cutting through the haze of pleasure like lightning through clouds. But it was good pain—the best kind of pain—and it pushed her over the edge into an orgasm so intense she saw stars.
He followed her moments later, his roar muffled against her skin as he spilled himself inside her. She felt the hot pulse of him as he grew suddenly, impossibly larger, felt his teeth still locked in her flesh, and knew with absolute certainty that she would never belong to anyone else.
The mark would scar. She could already feel it—the way the wound throbbed in time with her heartbeat, the way something seemed to settle into place between them. A bond. A claiming. A promise that would last the rest of their lives.
When he finally released her shoulder, he immediately laved the wound with his tongue, soothing the sting. His eyes were wild when he looked at her—half-human, half-beast, swimming with emotions she couldn’t name.
“Did I hurt you?” His voice was hoarse. “Liora, tell me if I?—”
She pulled him down and kissed him, tasting copper and salt on his lips.
“You gave me exactly what I asked for,” she whispered against his mouth. “Thank you.”
He shuddered, his forehead dropping to rest against hers.
“I love you,” he said. The words seemed torn from somewhere deep inside him, rough and raw and undeniably true. “I’ve never said that to anyone. Never felt it before. But I love you, Liora. I have since the moment you opened that door and looked at me like I was a gift instead of a threat.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks, but she was smiling.
“I love you too.” She traced the line of his jaw, marveling at the miracle of being able to touch him like this. “I don’t have anything to compare it to—no other relationships, no past loves. But I know this feeling in my chest is the most important thing I’ve ever experienced. I know that you’re the only person I want to wake up next to for the rest of my life.”
