Page 63 of Fathom

"Delicious," I murmured.

I brushed my lips over hers, not kissing her, not yet...just feeling her. Savoring the closeness. Then I dragged my tongue across the corner of her mouth.

The taste of her, mingled with that lingering hint of seared meat, made me shudder. Not from revulsion.

Fromneed.

She dug her fingers into my hair, her soft, rounded nails sinking behind my ears as she rose onto her toes, closing the final breath of space between us. Her greased lips met mine, slick and warm, and I groaned as my tongue slid between them, tasting her.

Tastingit.

The flavor of suffering, rich and forbidden, lingered beneath the sweetness of her kiss. It was horror and hunger, death and desire, the exquisite rot of everything I had tried to purge from myself. But it was tangled withhernow, tangled with the scent of her skin, the press of her soft curves against my harder edges, the way she seemed to mold to me like she had always belonged in my arms.

She tasted like everything I feared… and everything I had ever wanted.

I gathered her to me, lifting her easily, the silk of her gown fluttering around us like liquid moonlight as I carried her across the room.

I laid her gently on the bed, her fingers still clutching at my shoulders, her eyes never leaving mine. I knelt over her, bracketing her in with my body, my knees to either side of her legs, my hands planted by her shoulders. She was beneath me, utterly within my reach, yet I felt breathless, like one wrong move would shatter this fragile, perfect moment.

"Stay with me," I whispered, the words ripped from somewhere deep and raw inside me. I hadn’t meant to say it. I hadn't meant to need her this much. But the thought of her leaving, of walking away from me, of stepping back into danger, into distance, was unbearable.

I’d lived numb for so long, drifting forward with the blind hope that I could do good without ever tasting power. Without getting blood on my hands. But she had bloodied herself for me already.

My mother was right and wrong.

She wasn’t perfect for thefamily.She was perfect forme.

She filled the hollow in my chest where regret used to live. She stepped into the spaces I didn’t know needed filling and made themwhole.

I thought I had saved her.

But she had savedme.

"Run away with me," she said, voice steady, soft. "Fuck staying."

I laughed. It burst from my chest, bright and disbelieving, the only sound that could carry the storm of emotion she’d summoned with those four perfect words.

"We don’t have to stay away forever," she added, brushing a hand against my cheek. “Help me get back to my home. Get away from all of this, just for a little while. Make your choices based on whatyouwant, not just what they want. If you want to keep them as your family, you have to show them that you are willing to walk away from them and never look back.”

And there it was again, that gentle strength.

She wasn’t asking me to give everything up.

She was asking me to choose.

Her. Myself.Us.

She reached up with those soft hands and slid them down my chest, sending a shudder through me as she found the edge of my trousers. She slid them down, and I let out a gasp as she found me, stiff and erect, her touch igniting the fire from the coals that smoldered whenever I was in her presence. Then she was wiggling, sliding down the bed, and I satup on my knees. I couldn't move away; she had me tight in her grip.

"What are you-" my question ended in a gasp as she pulled me free from my trousers and dove towards me with her face like she was about to bite it off. She clamped her soft lips around the tip of me, and the noise that came out of me was guttural and unexpected as my abs clenched, my claws tearing at the air at the sudden shock of wet, warm, pleasure. She slid her mouth up and down my shaft and then sank her lips around my end again, sucking me in as I felt the head of me hit the back of her throat.

"Leija," I groaned.

She let out her own moan and slid her mouth down my length again.

I didn't want her mouth; I wanted all of her.

I grabbed her shoulders, pulling her off of me and pushing her back down on the bed. Her skirt fell in shimmering silver pools as I threw it up, diving underneath to find her slit between her legs, drenched and waiting for my tongue. I licked her, sinking my tongue into her as she let out a cry, her hips lifting to meet my mouth. I devoured her, her thighs quivering, the flavor of her filling my senses, and then I needed her, and she was grabbing my ears, pulling me up her body.