“You want this,” I rasp, biting down where her pulse hammers in her throat. “To be filled, to be claimed, to be taken so deep I ruin you. You can run, but your body knows the truth. Your soul knows the truth—you are meant to take me, to hold me. I will fill you, again and again, until you cannot think ofanything but the way I mark you from the inside out, branding my claim on you.”
I thrust up, gaining precious ground. Another pulse of her pleasure leaks down over me as I grunt out, “Inside you.”
She trembles in my arms, her breathless moans only spurring me on. Every word that falls from my lips, every declaration of my claim driving her higher.
I pull her closer, feeling her heat, her wetness, the way her body clenches around me. My voice is low, guttural, barely human as I lose myself to her. “Or shall I paint you in my seed again, let you wear me, let you feel what it is to be mine?”
She moans my name, her hips rolling against me, desperate, pleading as she rides the waves of pleasure.
Her head drops back between her shoulders, putting the round globes of her divine breasts on display. I fasten my mouth to one, devouring it, sucking the whole delicious mound into my mouth. I release it with a pop and tease the other side and feel her sink down another inch.
I slide one hand from her hip, back over the perfect swell of her ass and run my finger down the cleft, finding the spot that makes her skin redden.
“Do you want me to claim all of you?” I tease with my words and my finger.
“Yes,” she whimpers. “Eryon, please. Fill me up. I need it. I want it.”
Her words are my undoing. Her desire for me, my name falling from those lips. I lose all restraint, all finesse. Instinct takes over. I am not thinking anymore—only feeling, consuming, penetrating. A surge of precum fills her tight channel, and I must have more of her.
I flip her onto her back, hauling her to the water’s edge, caging her beneath me, locking her to the earth itself. She is so small, so perfect, and so completely mine.
I brace myself over her, watching as she unravels beneathme. I sink into her—deep, unyielding—until there is nothing left between us, until I am buried in her heat. Then, I begin to move. A punishing rhythm. A relentless claiming.
Every thrustcarvesme into her, binding her to me. Iwatchit happen—the way her body clenches around me, taking me deeper, accepting all of me.
“Sruhnar,” I growl, feeling the heat coil tight in my core, the unstoppable pull of release. The feel of her, the vision of our joining spiraling my pleasure out of control. “You are wringing me dry. Take what you need—let me feel it, let me drown in you. Now.”
My command is a desperate plea. She obeys and finally,finally, I am fully inside of her. I can’t help but look down, marveling at where we are joined. I note in rapt fascination how each time I pull out to the very tip and then drive myself home, the rounded curve of her belly swells.
Her entire body tenses beneath me, her legs locking around my waist, her fingers clawing at my back as she comes undone. Her core clenches at me, milking me, stripping away all restraint, all control. Freeing the beast that scrabbles at my skin just to be nearer to her.
Her heartbeat thunders in my ears, echoes through the chambers of my own heart until it reverberates through my marrow.
Mine, it whispers into every shadowy corner of my soul.Mine.
The moment she breaks, I lose myself. A snarl rips from my throat as I thrust deep, burying myself to the hilt, filling her, marking her, binding her to me.
Pleasure detonates, raw and relentless, splitting me open like a fault line in the earth. Heat and pressure coil tight, then release in a rush, flooding her, claiming her. She clenches around me, her body milking every pulse, wringing me dry, dragging me under until there is nothing but sensation—nothing but her.
She shudders, whispering my name like it belongs to her.
And perhaps—it does.
As I hold her, panting, trembling, filled with me, I know this was no ordinary joining. This was not just pleasure, not just need. This was devotion.
I tip her chin up, forcing her to meet my gaze. I need her to see what I already know—that she is mine. That she has always been mine. That she will always be mine.
But in her eyes, I see something else—something dangerous. Itgutsme.
She is already leaving me—if not now, then soon. The sadness of goodbye dances behind her eyes even as her heart pounds and she labors to catch her breath.
And for the first time since I pulled her from the snow, I feel something I cannot fight, cannot conquer.
Fear.
Because if she walks away from me, I do not know if I will have the strength to let her go.
Chapter Twenty-Four
