Page 23 of Eat, Slay, Love

I close my eyes. I imagine gathering all the magic in my body and moving, shifting it like waves, lapping against— “Oh.” My eyes fly open.

Jonah gives me a wicked grin. “Good,” he croons, rolling my nipple even harder while starting up again—deep, grinding thrusts.

I can’t even articulate what’s happening—every nerve, every thread of magic inside me drawn tight and funneled into a single, blazing point. It’s sensation and it’s awareness, hyper-sharpened and humming, like the world has narrowed to one bright, unbearable center. The intensity builds until it almost tips into pain, too much and not enough all at once. “This feels incredible,” I breathe.

“Remember your word, Mayari,” he tells me, a moment before I feel a pinch, a bright, delightful prick of pain. I glance down and oh shit, Jonah has claws, and he’s using them to clamp down on my nipple.

“Where the fuck did those come from?” I shriek.

He laughs and stops moving. “I can hide them. My horns, too. Want to see?”

I nod, and he goes very still.

There’s no crack of bone or grotesque reshaping. Instead, something subtle shifts beneath his skin. The surrounding air tightens, his magic pressing outward in a low, electric pulse that makes mine answer instinctively.

Then, just above his temples, the skin parts.

Two dark horns push through slowly, clean and elegant, curving back along the line of his skull. A few inches long and sharply defined, the color of polished obsidian with faint ridges that catch the light. They taper to smooth points, angled in a way that frames his face rather than distorting it. If anything, they make him more symmetrical. Devastating. The curve of them emphasizes the cut of his cheekbones, the chiseled line of his jaw. His eyes look brighter somehow, the blue more startling against the shadow his horns cast. Ancient and wicked and unfairly beautiful.

He lowers his head slightly, watching my reaction from beneath his lashes. “Well?” he asks.

I swallow. “Rude,” I manage. “You’re somehow hotter. Can I touch them?” I breathe.

He nods.

I slide my fingers up and down. They’re smooth and ridged at the same time, like polished stone that’s been shaped by centuries of erosion. Warm. Warmer than they should be. Something denser and more robust than bone, alive beneath the surface. The faint grooves along their length catch against my fingertips in a way that makes my breath hitch.

They’re grounded at the base, rooted deep in his skull, and when I press lightly near where they meet his skin, his breath changes—just slightly. A controlled inhale, combined with a subtle tightening of his jaw and a twitch inside me.

I grin. My magic hums curious and bright in response, as if it’s performing its own exploration, mapping him through touch. The texture of his horns shifts toward the tips, smoother there, almost satin-like, before narrowing into sharp, elegant points. I drag my thumbnail along one ridge and finally look at his face.

Jonah looks like he is moments from a torturous death, eyes squeezed shut and chest heaving against my breasts, and I feel him swell inside me, growing impossibly thicker and harder. Oh shit. Fuck yes.

“What’s wrong, baby?” I croon, gripping a horn tightly in one hand and jacking it up and down.

His eyes snap open, and the ice-blue of them turns severe. The silver threaded through his irises spreads like frost across glass, and for a heartbeat he looks less like a man and more like something immortal. Predatory. Beautiful. Dangerous, because he is about to snap.

It looks very, very good on him.

He pushes up, lifting onto his knees, bringing my lower half with him, and dribbles a line of saliva down to my clit. “Divide your magic between here,” he says, with another pinch to my nipple, “and here,” he says, bringing his thumb down to press on my wet clit.

Jonah can somehow tell when I do, because then he goes to town, two claws to my nipple, the thumb of his other hand rolling in deliberate circles, all while delivering a punishing, powerful pace to my core.

I scream when I come and my magic explodes out of me in brilliant, pulsing waves of light, my body locking tight in a full-body seizure. He fucks me right through it and into another one, and another, until I’m a sobbing wreck and his jaw looks like it’s going to pop right out of his skull.

“You,” I sigh, not sure what I mean, your turn, or you’re amazing, or just, simply, you, you, you. I take hold of both his horns and rub until his handsome face pulls into a snarl. He plants both hands on the floor and unleashes, and that’s when I realize he’d been holding back and is finally using his half-immortal strength to fuck me right into the kitchen floor.

“Why can’t I stop thinking about you?” he grunts between dangerous drives, our skin slapping together in a cacophony of loudness and lewdness. “Why was I so fucking devastated when you bled out onto the pavement? Why was carrying your lifeless body one of the worst moments of my life? What are you doing to me? Is this slayer magic?”

My heart and magic sing and soar. “Just me,” I whisper into his ear.

His thrusts become erratic. “Where?” he grinds out.

“In me,” I gasp, wanting nothing more than to be filled with him and not sure why. You, you.

With a groan that sounds like it comes from somewhere hellish, somewhere deep in the earth, his hips stutter, pistoning, and I’m flooded.

Warm.