She is a rainbow of colors. I don't know what that means. She's my mate and an enigma. My arms nearly break from holding back, but I wait. Because the walking back works both ways.
“Skylor, I know what it means. I know what you are. I know what this makes us." Her fingers stroke my jaw, her eyes steady and sure.
For half a heartbeat, I cannot move. She said yes.
Not lightly. Not blindly. With knowledge in her eyes and certainty in her voice. She looked at the edge of forever and chose to step off it. Smiling, fearless, one hand on my face like I am hers to soothe.
Fuck, I love this planet.
No. Too soon. Not love.
I lower my mouth to her throat.
Her pulse jumps under my tongue, fast and hot, and the scent of her floods me so completely I forget I am an Ak of Layn. Beatrice is slick around me, tight and soft, and still adjusting tothe size of me. Her fingers slide into my hair. One thumb grazes the base of my ear, and pleasure snaps down my spine so hard my hips jerk sealing my knot inside of her.
My tongue passes over the chosen place first, releasing the full strength of the aphrodisiac. Her body melts around mine. Her breath hitches. Her hand clamps on my shoulder. "Skylor."
There. My name like that. Dragged out of her by want. My teeth sharpen.
I bite.
She cries out, and the sound becomes the center of the universe.
The mark opens under my mouth. Her blood touches my tongue, hot and bright and intimate in a way Earth has no proper vocabulary for. The bond catches. Not gently. It slams through me like a door blown open by weather. Beatrice's pleasure pours into me, shocked and gold and blazing, and my body answers before I can command it.
The knot swells.
"Skylor—"
"I know." I barely recognize my own voice. "Hold on to me."
She does. Both arms around my neck. Legs locked around my hips. Teeth against my shoulder as I push deep, deeper, until the knot presses beyond the tight entrance of her body and stops.
She freezes. So do I. There is still time to hold back. To soothe. To wait. To be reasonable.
Fuck reason.
Her body flutters around me, slick and hot, resisting and asking at the same time. I bring my hand between us and circle the swollen center of her pleasure with my thumb. She jerks, gasping into my shoulder.
"That," she chokes. "Do that again."
I do.
Her body opens on the next slow push.
The knot seats.
I stop breathing. My orgasm tears through me. No elegance. No control. I spill into her in hard pulses, mouth still at the mark, hands shaking against her hips. The knot holds us together while her body clenches around me, dragging more out of me than I have ever given anyone. She comes too, sudden and violent, her cry breaking against my shoulder, nails scoring my back. My cock continues its pulses inside her, filling her with hot waves while the knot holds us joined. The sheath grips her from within, every velvet ridge locking us closer. Locking us together in a way the knot does not, as the intricate pattern plaits her to me with the same pleasure coating as my tongue. Her orgasm follows mine in a violent burst. Her body clamps around me. Her fingers twist around my ears, and the rush overwhelms us.
When the storm passes, I am still inside her, locked there by my sheath and the knot while the bond settles into place. I roll us carefully to our sides, keeping her gathered against me. She whimpers when the movement tugs at the knot, then melts when I still.
"Pain?"
"No." Her voice is small and stunned. "Full. Held."
Held.
The word roots in my chest.
