He groans. “I love when you say my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s the answer to a question you’ve been asking all your life.” He kisses her, slowly, lazily, and she can feel the smile form on his lips. “Like you’re desperate to have me inside you.”
She laughs and he grins at her, lowering her to the edge of his bed. Then he straightens, remains standing, looming over her. Surveying her naked form. She bites her lip and he hums in appreciation, pressing his thumb to her mouth and stroking along the seam. Astrid sucks on it, drawing it into her mouth so she can taste him, and he swears, nostrils flaring.
He withdraws, hands going to his belt buckle, fingers moving purposefully as he undoes it and slides off his belt. It drops with a thunk to the floor. Then he undoes the top button of his pants. The next button. And the next. Astrid is mesmerized by him. By his gloriously powerful body, by the contraction of each muscle as he works, removing everything he’s wearing until he’s bare in front of her. There are no brands on him, no tattoos, not like other soldiers she’s seen—the only stories on his skin are told by his scars. He is perfection. She allows her eyes to stray from the sun-kissed skin to the paler parts of him untouched by the Vatran heat. And her mouth goes dry. Yes. Every single inch of him is perfect.
There’s a cocky smile playing around his lips. He knows exactly what she’s admiring. She yelps as he lifts her, throwing her farther back onto the four-poster. He crawls over her, bracing a hand on either side of her head, staring at her as she smiles up at him.
“Those dimples. So. Fucking. Beautiful.” He punctuates each word with a kiss, making Astrid gasp with each one.
The only sound in the room is her erratic breathing, and she clings to his arm to anchor herself. She’s on the brink of spiraling, or detonating—she’s not sure. But when he lays a hand over her heart, she immediately begins to calm. Watching him as he watches her. The heat flowing off him is scorching, his chest rising and falling quickly. She glances down when she feels him against her to see that he’s rock hard. What wouldn’t she do to have her mouth around him.
She exhales as he sits back and clasps her knees, his fingertips digging into her flesh. Then he slowly pushes her legs apart until she’sfully revealed to him. She holds her breath, eyeing him as his gaze trails lower, lower, and lower. Until he stops. Licks his lips. She feels herself tense, a place low in her belly tightening, and she knows he must see how ready she is for him, how much her body wants him. He strokes his hand along her inner thigh, gradually making his way up her leg until he’s hovering exactly where she wants him to touch her, stroking and teasing around the very place she needs to feel him. She arches her back, wanting more, moaning his name at the crackle of electricity left in the wake of his fingers.
When she thinks she might just depart this mortal plane, he finally gives in, slowly circling her clit with his finger. It is agonizing, delicious, and when he curls his finger inside her, she jolts at the sensation, the pressure so good, so right. He starts to move his hand precisely, expertly, stroking inside her with his finger while his thumb moves on her clit. He takes her nipple in his mouth, sucks so hard that the line between pleasure and pain is blurred, then moves to her other nipple, kissing and scraping and nipping, all the while thrusting his finger into her. She strokes his neck, scratches her nails along his back, and he groans on her breast, the vibration rumbling through her. He adds another finger, starts to move faster, hitting just the right place until she thinks she might collapse in on herself.
“Please,” she moans, dying for more, and he smiles against her skin. He stops and she protests the absence of him, but he grips her hips and moves her closer to him, laying her legs over his shoulders.
He lowers his head until she can feel his breath on her center. “I need to taste you, Astrid.”
She almost explodes on the first lick. Her back bows as he strokes his tongue along her again, sucks her clit into his mouth, applying the perfect pressure. The moan that comes from him nearly undoes her.
“I knew it. I knew you’d taste this fucking good.”
Astrid grabs his hair and lifts her hips, urging him to taste more of her, and he pushes her back down, pinning her hips to the bed.
“Zryan,” she demands, and he answers her by plunging his tongue inside her. She cries out, trembling as he destroys her, one hand gripping the flesh of her thigh, the other working her clit, while his tongue laps at her, punishes her. She’s never felt pleasure like it, never wantedsomething to last and to end at the same time. His fingers replace his tongue, curling against that sensitive spot inside her, until she thinks she might lose all sense of who she is, and then his mouth is on her again, licking, stroking, and sucking, and she squeezes her eyes shut, willing her body to last under the torment.
“Zryan,” she pleads. He hears that change in her voice and stills, though he doesn’t move away from her. “Zryan, I need you to fuck me. Now.”
He rises slowly, lips glistening, eyes dark and lids half closed. She’s at the edge and the way he’s looking at her almost has her falling over it. She sits up, limbs shaking, and runs her fingers down the thick white scar along the center of his torso, then along his right arm, along the scars there.
“You’re perfect,” she tells him again. Like thunder made flesh. He’s too wild to be merely mortal. Too beautiful to be only human. He smiles lazily at her, patiently waiting to see where her hand will go as she continues to trail her fingers down the hard edges of his stomach, to the harsh V of his hips. Then she pauses, captures his eyes with hers, and takes his cock firmly in her hand, stroking once, twice. He groans, his head falling back. She can see his control slipping, and she wants to see him unravel completely. “And you’re mine.”
Her words are his ruin. He moves, lifting her onto his lap so she’s straddling him, and kisses her so hard she knows her lips will be bruised in the morning. Who cares—she’ll be dead not long after that anyway. She drapes her arms around his shoulders, sweeping her tongue into his mouth, tasting herself on him, and, Goddess, if she could die here, die now, she’d be happy.
“I’m yours.” He nips at her lower lip. “I will only ever be yours.”
He holds her hips and lifts her, the muscles in his forearms flexing with the effort, and pushes the tip of his cock against her. He pauses.
“Look at me, Astrid. I want your eyes on me while I fuck you.”
Stars, when he talks like that she could devour him. He waits, making sure her gaze is locked on his, then slowly, excruciatingly slowly, he starts to fill her up. He watches her, wanting to see her come apart, and she will—for him. She cries out as he fills her completely, so deepshe wonders if this joining is permanent, if he is part of her and she is part of him now.
“Fuck,” he pants. “You feel… like you were made for me.” He knots her hair around his hand, pulling her back so he can look at her. They remain unmoving, breath mingling, luxuriating in the feeling of their two bodies being one.
“Mine,” he murmurs, then he lowers her to the bed, ensuring they’re connected the entire time, like he can’t bear to be separated from her for even a second. He attempts to push his weight off her, but she clings to him, relishing the feel of his body lying heavily against hers. So, he kisses her languorously, like he has all the time in the world, until she’s almost out of her mind with desperation—she needs him to move, she needs more, she needshim.
He knows what she wants. He rocks back, pulling almost all the way out of her, before pushing one of her knees up and thrusting back into her. She moans at the feeling of him stretching her as he pushes deeper and deeper, before sliding out and slamming back into her again. And again. And again. She cries out as his hips pound against her, his pace building to a demanding rhythm as she meets him thrust for thrust, moving her hips in time with his. He presses his mouth against her throat and sucks, his hand at her breast, caressing, pinching, soothing. She sinks her teeth into his shoulder and he hisses, but he fucks her harder, as if urging her on. Urging her to take more of him.
His blood on her tongue is as rich and sweet as wine, and she sucks, drawing more into her mouth, wanting to commit the taste to memory. She kisses the hurt, incanting his name, savoring him while praying to be released from this madness.
He sweeps his thumb over her clit, keeps stroking as he feels her start to shake beneath him. “Come for me, Astrid.” He sucks her nipple into his mouth, flicks her peak with his tongue. “I want to feel you come around my cock.”
Stars appear in her vision as he moves faster, pace unforgiving, his cock hitting the perfect spot inside her. A pressure is building in her belly, her magic unspooling and seeking, reaching out for Zryan, and she knows the moment they connect, her Gift rushing out to meet hispower. He curses as he feels it slam into him, as their essences wrap and twine together, mountains and seas, storms and stars, and she’s on the precipice, she’s leaping, she’s falling. She’s gone.
