He doesn’t need to be told twice.
The first thrust steals my breath. He fills me completely, stretching me in ways that blur the line between pleasure and pain. I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and the sound that escapes him is pure possession.
“Look at me.” His voice is a command and a plea intertwined. “I want to see you.”
I force my eyes open, meeting his gaze as he begins to move. Slow at first—long, deep strokes that drag against every sensitive spot inside me. He watches my face with the focused attention of a predator learning its prey, adjusting his angle when my breath catches, repeating the motion that makes my nails dig into his shoulders.
“We have time.” He punctuates the words with a thrust that makes me cry out. “Centuries. I intend to learn every way to make you scream.”
“Less talking.” I clench around him, and his rhythm stutters. “More demonstrating.”
His control snaps.
The pace shifts from deliberate to demanding. He drives into me with the precision violence I’ve seen him apply to enemies—except this violence is pleasure, this destruction is creation, this ending is beginning. My world narrows to the points where our bodies connect—the friction of him inside me, the pressure of his pelvis grinding against my clit, the heat of his breath against my throat.
I’m close. The tension coils tighter with every thrust, every brush of skin against skin. My fingers rake down his back, leaving marks that will heal before dawn, and his responding growl vibrates against my collarbone.
“Come for me.” His hand slides between us, thumb finding my clit with unerring accuracy. “I want to feel you.”
The orgasm crashes through me like a wave breaking against stone. I shatter around him, muscles clenching, voice tearing free in sounds I can’t control. He follows moments later—his body going rigid, his cock pulsing inside me, his groan muffled against my throat.
For long moments, neither of us moves.
His weight presses me into the bedding. His breath comes harsh against my skin. I feel the racing of his heart where our bodies press flush, gradually slowing as the tremors of release fade.
“Again.” He lifts his head, meeting my eyes. His are still dark, still hungry. “I’m not finished with you.”
I laugh—a sound that surprises me with its lightness. “We have centuries.”
“Yes.” He shifts, and I feel him hardening again inside me. “And I intend to use them.”
The hours blurinto each other.
He takes me against the shelter wall, my legs wrapped around his waist, his hands bruising my hips as he drives into me with punishing force. The stone scrapes against my back with each thrust, and I don’t care. The slight pain only sharpens the pleasure, only makes me dig my nails deeper into his shoulders, only makes me cry out louder as another orgasm tears through me.
He takes me on my hands and knees, one hand fisted in my hair, the other reaching around to stroke my clit in time with his thrusts. The position lets him go deeper, harder, hitting angles that make stars burst behind my eyes. When I come, I come screaming his name, and he follows with a groan that reverberates through his entire body.
He takes me slow and deep, faces inches apart, eyes locked as if proximity alone could communicate what words can’t. This is different from the others—less urgent, more intense. Every thrust deliberate. Every breath shared. I feel tears prick my eyesand don’t know why, only that the sensation building in me is too large to contain.
“I have you.” His voice is low, steady, even as his hips move in that maddening rhythm.
When I shatter this time, it’s softer. Deeper. A wave that rolls through me rather than crashing, leaving me boneless and trembling in its wake.
I take him too. Push him down and ride him until his control fractures, until his hands grip my hips hard enough to leave bruises neither of us will regret. I roll my hips in slow circles, watching his jaw clench, watching his eyes darken, watching the moment when discipline gives way to desperation. When he flips us and pounds into me with all the violence he has been restraining, I welcome it.
I use my mouth on him until he’s gasping, wrecked, his fingers tangled in my hair as I take him deep and deeper still. I learn what makes his breath stutter, what makes his thighs shake, what pulls those sounds from his throat that sound like they are being torn from him against his will.
I claim him with teeth and nails and the fierce hunger that mirrors his own. Leave marks on his throat, his shoulders, the lean muscles of his stomach. Brand him with evidence of my ownership, even knowing the marks will fade before morning.
Though we’re far from being gentle, there’s tenderness in the way he brushes hair from my face afterward. In the way his fingers trace the old scars along my ribs without flinching. In the silence that stretches between us—comfortable, complete, requiring no words.
I press my mouth to the claiming mark on his shoulder and feel his arms tighten around me, and I understand that some truths don’t require speaking.
Evening falls over the shelter,painting the walls in shades of amber and gray.
I lie with my head pillowed on Arax, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. His fingers move through my hair in absent patterns—soothing, possessive, constant. The shelter’s stabilized boundaries hum at the edge of my awareness, a reminder of what my power has become.
“The gods won’t remain passive forever.” His voice rumbles beneath my ear. “Whatever they plan, it’ll come.”
