“I want you,” she whispers. “I wantthis.”
She rocks her hips against him as he shudders.He reaches for the shoulder strap of her clothes. Tears it as he yanks it aside in his haste to taste her. She moans as his mouth settles over her breast, crying out when he takes it into his mouth. His hips move against her core, his arousal straining against his pants.
She pulls the laces of his tunic open, revealing the span of his broad chest. When her hands stroke over his bare form, his runes burn white in response. Her own mana flares.
When he weaves his fingers with hers,Ourunion hums like a singular ethereal note betweenOurskin. The sensation is like fire inOurveins, a pulsing that unifiesOurvery heartbeats.
Ourmouths meet. Slower. Deeper. As if the vision had shattered whatever walls had remained betweenUs. No hesitation now. No fear. Onlyneed.OnlyOurnew discovery of one another, two souls lost to time and space and longing.
Her hands tremble in his hair, his name a prayer on her lips.
“Kail…” she breathes. “Mark me.”
He freezes, panting. “What?”
Her thumb traces the ridge of his jaw, then slides lower, over his throat, his chest.
“My skin,” she whispered. “My body. My heart. I’m afraid this is a dream. That you’ll disappear and I’ll return to that cottage. To that quiet.”
If you stop touching me, I’ll suffocate. I’ll have nothing left.
Never.
He wills the word into being. Gives it shape. Threads it into a vow.
His hands explore—cradling, mapping. He presses adoring kisses to her neck, her collarbone, the hollow of her throat. His fingers find her, slipping against her welcoming heat—drenched, open, aching for him.
“Auryn,” he hisses, “you’re shivering like youwant to be devoured.”
Her hips roll, confirming it. He nuzzles against her ear, biting until she mewls. She writhes beneath him as he eases his fingers into her, her hands clutching his shoulders, thighs wrapping around his waist like primal claiming.
“You want my touch this much?” His teeth graze her jaw, then her throat. “Then feel me. Feeleverything.”
He thrusts his fingers deeper, grinding his palm to her aching center as his fingers work her into a frenzy. Her back arches, lips parting on a broken moan.
“Kail—”
“That’s it,” he murmurs into her skin.Come apart for me, starlight. Break. Let me hear it, claim it,taste it.
The Bond betweenUsscreamsawake.
Sparks of runelight flicker across his body. Across hers. He tears the tunic over her head. Pressed together, skin to skin, they melt into one another.
My starlight...my sweetAuryn.
The Bond pulses between them—no longer a thread but a roar. A wildfire howling across the Veil.
“You feel it, don’t you?” His voice cracks with the effort tonotlose himself in her. “This thing between us…this Bond…it’s aching.It wants this.Wewant this.”
He hovers above her, lost in her and all she is. All she means.His thumb traces her mouth, red and swollen from kissing, biting, hunger. She shivers as his finger traces her tongue, rasps against her teeth.
Take me, Resh’Agar. Kailorien. My Kail. My breath.
“Part for me,” he says, pressing himself at her entrance, “open to me…begfor me. I’m going to ruin you, sweetfire. Ruin you until there’s nothing left butus.”
Her name leaves his mouth again, reverent and wrecked, as he pushes inside her—slow,deep, every inch stretching her open.
His eyes go wide. A strangled sound tears from his throat.
