Page 152 of Tempting Fate

We’d make our own rules, carve our own path. No more waiting. No more fear.

I crushed his lips to mine. “Those are quite the wedding vows.”

“Wedding vows?”

“Human bonding ceremony.”

“Then we do that. If we cannot bond the kri’ith way, we bond the human way.”

An actual wedding? “Yeah we need an appointed officiant to do that. Or a ship’s captain.”

“Then it is settled. We will ask my sister.”

I laughed, unable to visualise gruff Shohari standing in front of us saying the familiar human words. “Your sister… Sure. Why not. I’m sure she’ll love it.”

He rumbled a laugh. “I mean it. If you want that, we can do it. I will do everything I can to prove that I will never hurt you, always love you. I will show you every day, over and over until your fears are less than even an atom, and all that is left is us.”

The last threads of tension dissolved in a rush of relief. How could my fears have any comeback to that?

Airida rolled me onto my back, settling over me, caging me with his powerful body. His headspines dipped. “I want you like this, my mate. Will you let me?”

Like this? My stomach swooped. With everything we’d shared, we’d never had sex like this, I’d never been anything other than in control. “Claim me. I want everything.”

His whole body quaked, as if it was an effort to hold himself up. “I don’t know what’s come over me. This isn’t… I’m not normally like this.”

“I know, kitten.”

He gave a deep kri’ith growl. “I’m not your kitten now, taamthi.” His tongues curled around the word, forming it, offering it to me as a gift, creating our own reality even if the fates stopped their ears.

Taamthi. His soulbound mate. “Good. Give in to it. Take what you want.” If I couldn’t give up my soul to fate, I could give my body to this man who had captured all of me, heart and soul.

“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he gritted out. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

My sweet, feral kitten. “I see you. I trust you.” I could have been scared, but with him the only thing I felt was safe. “I’m yours.”

His eyes glittered, mouth split wide, and he notched the blunt head of his dick at my entrance. “Yes, you are.”

He claimed me in one stroke.

I cried out, and his only answer was a satisfied growl. He hooked my legs, splaying me open, hips pumping in an insistent rhythm.

I grabbed his arse, digging my nails in to those perfect muscles, driving him faster, deeper, closer, every drag of his ridged cock lighting up all my nerve endings.

He slowed, peppering a trail of rough kisses over my jaw, down my neck, biting and sucking until I whimpered. “Open your eyes.” His voice held a raw, ragged edge. “You’ve always seen me. I want you to see me like this, when I’m deep inside you.”

I gazed up at him, at those amethyst eyes that held so much adoration.

He shifted to his knees and sank his fingers into the flesh of my hips, holding me in place as he drove into me. “So beautiful.” Thrust. “So perfect.” Thrust. “Mine.” Thrust. “Gods, I could watch your cunt stretch around my cock forever.”

His beads dragged over my clit with every stroke. He brought the pad of his thumb there, rubbing in tiny, precise circles, sending me hurtling towards the edge.

A low rumble sounded in his chest. “Can you take all of me?”

Through the haze of pleasure, I murmured, “Greedy boy.”

He lifted one of my legs, kissing my ankle, never stopping fucking me, never slowing those insistent circles around my clit. “Of course I’m greedy for everything with you.”

Same, kitten. I wasn’t sure if I could take more, not deeper, nor how thick the root of him was, but I nodded, staring into his amethyst eyes.