Chapter 13
Flynn drank in her scent and her heat, feeling it pour into him like hot whiskey. He ran his hand down her side, over the curve of her hip to her bare thigh. Lean hard muscle and soft silky skin. He brushed it with his palm—like warm velvet, all the way up to the curve of her ass.
He pulled her closer, mouth still on hers, savoring the warmth and the taste and the madness. This was fucking crazy, all of it. Sex would bind them tighter, and it wouldn’t cure her.
It would blow up his entire life as he knew it.
But he still pulled her closer, his hand sliding under the silk of her panties, his dick hard as a rock between them. She moved her thigh between his and pressed her hips to his, deepening their kiss, their tongues meeting in a desperate battle for something unnamed and terrifying.
Blue sparks surged between them. It was like a dam breaking—wild and raw and more powerful than anything he’d ever felt. Like drowning in a raging river, and loving every second of it.
Her shirt and her panties were obstacles, irritations to be tossed away. He had to have her, every inch of her skin. She squirmed and twisted so he could get them off her quicker, wrapping herself around him, wiry muscles and soft wet heat.
His lion roared. He wanted to ravish her and worship her, plunder her and kneel at her feet. They were naked, skin to skin and still not close enough. Flynn kissed her neck, ran his tongue over her breast, nipped the sensitive place at the curve of her hip.
He spread her thighs and tasted her core. A shudder went through her and her back arched. He could feel a rumble in her chest, somewhere between a growl and a purr.
Her response drove him wild. He plunged into her, tongue laving and circling, teasing and stroking.
Her hands were everywhere, fingers touching, nails raking. He could feel her rushing to a climax, already, too soon, as if everything inside her had been dammed up, pulsing at her, waiting.
Waiting for this. For him.
And then she was over the edge, crying out, bucking and moaning in total abandon. The cool, calculating warrior lost in the wild, passionate woman.
It was magic: more intoxicating than liquor; a bigger rush than a fight.
He had to be inside her. Needed to be inside her, to wrap that passion around himself and let it take him, the way he’d never let any feeling take him away.
Her climax was ebbing now, the aftershocks coming slower, but she still moved against him as if she wanted more. Needed more, just like he did.
He gave her one final kiss on her soft pussy, and trailed his lips up her belly to her breasts. He had to detour there, they were so round and firm, nipples hard and begging for his tongue, for sucking and licking and more kisses.
His lion was purring now, her pleasure shooting through him in waves. He was desperate and yet this had to last, he couldn’t fucking stand for it to be over.
When she was moaning again, head back, he let his lips move up her neck, biting the soft skin just hard enough to make her gasp and quiver.
He slid his hips between her legs, feeling her open to him, and she went still, one hand cupping his face.
“Flynn,” she whispered. “You don’t have to.”
He touched her face, tracing the fine bones of her skull, remembering the blood dripping from her nose such a short time ago.
Are you going to let her die this time? Alone?
Every cell of his body yearned toward her, and suddenly it didn’t matter if it was because of the handfasting spell, or some deeper magic that chose true mates, or the longings in his own heart. It was only ever going to end up here, with them together.
He’d never really had any other choice.
He slid his hands up her arms, capturing her wrists, pinning them above her head.
The other hand cupped her cheek, and he kissed her—slowly, softly, but with the underlying desperation of rising, unstoppable passion.
Then, slowly, slowly, he slid into her.
She made a noise that was partly the ecstasy of tasting something amazing for the first time, partly a yearning for everything she’d never had. And partly a sound of coming home.
It nearly finished him. He thrust deep inside her, stroking her core. All of his own longing, desire and loneliness pooled inside him, driving him deeper into her, longing to be healed.
Even if he couldn’t be healed, this was the place where he would die trying. He felt the energy between them rising and falling, a perfect rhythm within him. It drew out the pleasure in wild waves that never quite crested, just went on and on in an exquisite rush of bliss.
He knew instinctively that it was supposed to be like this—that it had to be like this. Riding that great ocean of magic and destiny, until the time was right…
He lost himself the way he’d never lost himself in anything before. Not watchful, not on guard, not thinking. Just feeling—Kira, the heat of her, her heartbeat, every move and moan and sigh and need; his own needing and wanting that he had never thought would be sated or fulfilled.
Time stood still, then evaporated completely. There was only sweetness and fire and sensation, on and on and on until he couldn’t bear it anymore, until she was biting his shoulder with need and desperation, and he was hot and hard and yet part of her softness, burying himself inside her over and over, faster and faster, and then the wave crested, rushing in like a tsunami and breaking on the shore, shattering everything in his path.
Blue fire rippled over their skin, both of them together.
They clung together, shaking, until they finally spiraled back to earth, to an ordinary bed in a cabin in the woods, the same place they’d left.
Except that everything was different.