Hands fisted his hair and yanked.
Her look said it all.
Take me. Now.
Maxen chuckled, bending over her, bracing his forearm beside her head, his other hand sliding to guide his cock to her entrance. “Didn’t you like that, love?”
She stilled. “It’s not that I didn’t, but shouldn’t something else go there?”
Another chuckle as he teased the tip of her breast with nose. “My lips are still part of my body, is it not?” He nudged inside.
“It’s different,” she said. “I want to be one with you. Be one with me.”
“Look at me,” he whispered.
She did.
“Tell me you want me.”
Her lips parted, before whispering, “I want you.”
He pushed into her.
She clutched at him, and he bit back a groan that sounded so much like surrender. He sank deeper, and she rose to meet him, and somewhere in the meeting a piece of him he’d kept walled in for years broke loose and fled. When he reached a barrier, he pressed his mouth to the hollow at her collarbone, over the beat of her pulse as he drew back and thrust through it.
Boodyhome.
But the word wasn’t big enough. Nothing was. He felt her open to him, stretching, reaching. She took him in as if the world had been arranged for this, and the feel of her around him—hot, tight,his—cut through every scar he’d ever worn.
“Christ.” His head dropped to hers. “I can’t lose this. I can’t.”
“Who says you will?” she whispered, the words a thread pulled straight from her core to his.
He moved, slow first, finding her rhythm, then faster as she urged him with hands and hips and those small, wrecking sounds he would hear in his sleep for the next thousand nights. She unfurled, stretching, reaching, embedding deep into his soul. And he was a man whose shadow could black out her stars.
Perhaps it would.
But shewasthe damn stars. He could never smother them. Not when she cast all her light on him. They burned too bright. She was the light that evaporated his shadow. He had no power to hide himself from her.
“I need—” His voice broke. “Calliope. I need—”
Bloody everlasting hell.
“Take it,” she voiced on a sigh. “Takeme.”
He set a hand beneath her thigh and hitched her higher and drove deep, until she was shaking, until his own bones rattled from the pleasure. Every shudder, every gasp told him where to lead. His thumb found her, circling in the rhythm she set, taking his cue from the frantic dance of her hips, until she broke apart against his hand and his cock.
“That’s it, love.” He pounded harder. “Show me. Let me feel you.”
“Beast,” she said.
“I’m not a gentle man, love.”
“I know,” she croaked. “I chose you.”
Something in him howled at that—something young and starved and damn unworthy. He was moving harder now, drowning in the heat and clutch of her, and still it wasn’t enough. Nothing would ever be enough. He would spend the rest of his life trying to get closer and it wouldn’t be close enough.
“Promise me,” he said, the words ripped from some dark place. “Promise you’ll never leave Brighton without telling me, Calliope. Promise me.”
