The floor was hard beneath my back, and the air was thick with humidity, but it was perfect. I was exactly where I wanted to be: with Lokos.

He pressed his mouth to mine with heated need, his groin rocking against mine and reminding me of what I longed for so desperately. I felt his hardness through my pants. He was big. I knew that from when I touched him, but it had been so long ago that I was surprised again by its size. His tongue probed into my mouth and stroked the undersides of my teeth, teasing me from within. I mewed against his lips as my desire ballooned.

“Patience,” he whispered into my mouth.

I groaned. I didn’t want to be patient, not even a little. I wanted him to plunge inside me and shove me across the floor with his force, filling me until I forgot my own name. The attraction I’d felt for him from the start was riling me now to writhing pleas, but it was lifted to unbearable heights by my feelings. Yes, I had fallen for him. His strength, his compassion, his intelligence, his brooding demeanor, his commanding tone. Everything. The first thing he had ever done for me was to save my life, and he could’ve walked away after that feeling like he’d done his good deed for the day. But he hadn’t. He’d continued to watch over me even though he had no obligation to in probably the most selfless act I had ever witnessed. This man, this A’li-uud, this stunning creature had put me above all else.

I belonged to him.

One of his hands snaked under my shirt, lifting the fabric as it moved until I felt the moist breath of Pentaban air on my belly. He didn’t stop there. It shimmied further and further north until it was gathered above the curves of my breasts. I wanted to tell him to take it off, but our mouths were glued together in a passionate frenzy of tongue dances, and I was unwilling to break it apart.

He dipped a finger between each of my bra cups and my skin, and I felt his fingernails clip the nubs of my nipples as he skirted them down. My hips lifted of their own accord in response, the sensation electrifying my nerves, and he chuckled dangerously against my lips. He walked his fingers back upward over the undersides of my globes until he reached my nipples again, and he tweaked the tips experimentally. Again, my hips lifted, but this time a whimper accompanied it.

“So sensitive,” he whispered, finally breaking our kiss.

He was looking down at me through hooded eyes, his white irises flashing as if lightning had struck him. I bit my lip, trying to hold back the flood of begging threatening to break through. Patience, he wanted. I would try.

The edges of his nails traced circles around my nipples so lightly it was almost imperceptible. I shuddered against the floorboards and clamped down harder on my lip. My need for him was growing exponentially, and I was beginning to worry I would burst into a million pieces if I didn’t get him. He stared at my face, carefully observing every twitch and flicker, testing the bounds of my sensitivities. The pads of his fingers circled my now peaked nubs and tugged, and I sucked in a fast breath of air. He frowned and shook his head.

“That will not do,” he murmured. “No, I want this to be slow.”

It sounded ominous, full of foreboding, and it lit a heat so searing between my thighs that I actually moaned aloud. He brushed the tip of my nose with his and flicked his fingertips over my areolas, tickling them with such gentleness that I couldn’t stop the giggle that bloomed in my throat from bubbling out. His brows lifted in surprise.

“I amuse you?” he asked. He had never sounded so dangerous.

“No,” I said quickly, pink spreading over my cheeks. “It just tickles.”

He paused, looking at me distantly as though he was considering something. My stomach flipped with nervous excitement. Then, he bent low and kissed me again.

“Does this tickle?” he asked softly.

“No,” I groaned, the heat between my legs beginning to throb.

His mouth skimmed the border of my jaw to my ear, and his teeth caught the edge of my lobe. “Does this tickle?” he asked, his lips brushing the curve.

“No,” I gasped. I couldn’t take much more.

Suddenly, he resumed flicking my nipples, but he did so with such quickness that my nerves cascaded pleasure over me. Bumps raised on my skin, and my head involuntarily rolled back, pulling my ear away from his mouth. He lunged forward to take my lobe between his teeth again, unsatisfied that I’d withdrawn it, and continued the rapid flicking.

“How about this?” he purred. “Does this tickle?”

“Yes!” I squealed. Another giggle exploded from my mouth, but it was almost instantly severed by the thick, sharp wail of a moan. The sensations rocketing through me were exquisite and overpowering, able to steal my every sense and render me useless beneath him. I could feel his thrill for my predicament against my thigh, hard and thick and pulsing, and his breath became shallow in my ear.

“I love you,” he said in a low, hoarse tone.

For a moment, I thought I had heard him wrong. I thought, perhaps, he’d said he loved that sound again or something similar. When it broke through the thick strands of pleasure radiating all over me and processed, however, I realized what he’d said, and a new, powerful feeling burst within me.

“I love you, too,” I said breathlessly.

His fingers stopped moving, his mouth lifted from my ear, and he looked down at me. He was still dangerous, still carnal and hungry, but he was also glowing. Emotion poured from his eyes, his lips, his soul, and I could feel the potent devotion beating inside him. It was matched by my own, which filled my chest to the point of bursting, and I reached up to take his face between my hands.

“I belong to you,” I told him, staring deeply into his eyes.

He drank in the sight of me for a moment longer, and then he swooped down, assaulted my lips with his, and took me.