Page 121 of Renegade Kingdom
He rolled off and settled beside us, his hand resting on my thigh, and now it was Tank beneath me with his hardness pressing against my lower back and his breath ragged in my ear.
“My turn.” His voice was gravel. “If you can.”
“I can.” I could feel his need like a physical weight through the bond. “I want you.”
He lifted me with an ease that was mostly bear, turning me around as he set me astride him. I looked down at him from above for the first time that night. His chest was broad and scarred and his eyes were so dark they looked black in the firelight. He reached up and cupped my face with both hands.
“My queen,” he said simply. “My goddess.”
I lowered myself onto him.
The Spring bond exploded through me, the deep old magic of earth and root and stone, and I heard myself cry out. Tank’shands gripped my hips, steadied me, and he let me take him at my own pace. When I was fully seated, he sat up beneath me, wrapping his arms around my back, our chests pressed together.
“Look at me,” he said.
I looked.
“Breathe with me.”
I breathed.
He started to move, slow and steady, rolling his hips up into mine. Every thrust sent a wave of green-gold light through the bond in my chest, and I felt it reaching, reaching, looking for the Summer thread that Maddox had filled with power and left humming inside me.
They found each other like two magnets with only one possible choice. The two bonds wound together inside me and the braid started in earnest. Two threads twining into one.
I came around Tank with my face pressed to his shoulder and his name on my lips. He followed me over, slower, deeper, his arms tightening until I could barely breathe and I didn’t care. The bond sang inside me and it was almost like I could feel myself leaving my own body.
When he finally lowered me down beside him, I was trembling.
Maddox was there immediately, his hand in my hair. He kissed my forehead and murmured something that I didn’t catch but felt warm anyway.
Across the room, three men were watching.
Ryder was sitting on the edge of the bed, one leg tucked under him, his chin resting on his fist. His eyes were dark with heat and something softer, something that might have been awe. When he caught me looking, the corner of his mouth tilted up in the crooked smile I loved.
“Hi.” His voice was rougher than I’d ever heard it.
“Hi.” I was breathless.
“Are you okay?”
It was such a Ryder question. Even now. Even here. I laughed and felt tears spring up at the same time.
“I’m okay.”
“Can you keep going?”
“Yes.”
He moved. He crossed the space between us on his knees and gathered me up off the furs and into his arms, and the Autumn bond we shared rose through me like a gust of wind through dry leaves.
He kissed me. There was no sweetness in it this time. There was only want, hungry and honest, and I felt his hands shake where they cupped my jaw.
“God, Alyssa.” The words were broken against my mouth. “Watching you like that. Watching them with you.”
“Come here.” I pulled him down with me.
Then Damon’s shadows joined us. I felt them before I saw them, dark silk winding up my calves, over my thighs, coiling around my wrists. They weren’t cold. They weren’t warm. They were Damon. They felt like him, and they knew exactly where to touch.
