Page 10 of Beast’s Temptation

"I want to make this good for you." His voice came out ragged. "I've thought about it constantly, planned what I would do, how I would touch you. But now that we're here, I'm afraid I'll be too fast, too clumsy, too⁠—"

"Sorek." She cradled his face in her hands, forcing him to meet her eyes. "Stop thinking. Stop planning. Just feel."

She kissed him, slow and deep, and he let himself sink into it. Let himself exist only in the press of her lips, the slide of her tongue, the way her body arched beneath him seeking friction. His hands moved without conscious direction, relearning the territory they'd mapped in the garden, finding the places that made her gasp and moan.

He kissed down her throat, her collarbone, the soft swell of her breasts. He took her nipple into his mouth and sucked, gratified when she grabbed his mane and held him there with a breathless "yes, like that." He moved to the other breast, lavishing it with the same attention, and her hips were rolling against him now, her wetness leaving slick trails against his thigh.

Lower. He needed to go lower. He needed to taste her again, needed to feel her come apart against his tongue before he buried himself inside her.

He kissed down her stomach, pausing to nuzzle the soft skin below her navel, and she spread her legs for him without being asked. The scent of her arousal was intoxicating, rain and musk and something entirely her own, and he pressed his mouth to her center with a moan he couldn't suppress.

He was better at this now. Not expert, but improved, remembering what she'd taught him in the garden. He found her most sensitive spot with his tongue and focused there, varying pressure and rhythm based on the sounds she made. Her thighs trembled against his shoulders. Her hands fisted in the bedding. Her breath came in sharp gasps that built toward the crescendo he remembered from before.

When she came, he drank her in, lapping at the evidence of her pleasure until she tugged at his hair and pulled him upward.

"Now," she gasped. "I need you inside me now."

He positioned himself at her entrance, the head of his cock nudging against slick heat, and paused. "Once we mate, it's forever. Khorani bonds are biological. You will feel me always, even across distance. Are you certain⁠—"

"I'm certain." She wrapped her legs around his waist, heels digging into his lower back. "I want everything. Give me everything."

He pushed forward.

The sound that tore from his throat was inhuman. A roar of pleasure and disbelief, of sensation so overwhelming it nearly whited out his vision. She was tight and hot and perfect, her body stretching to accommodate him, her walls gripping him like she never wanted to let go.

He held himself still, buried to the hilt, shaking with the effort of not moving. He was too close already. Every nerve screamed for release, for the completion his body had been denied for three decades. But he wanted this to last. He wanted to give her pleasure, not just take his own.

"Sorek." Her voice pulled him back from the edge. "Move. Please move."

He obeyed. Slow at first, shallow thrusts that let him catalog the sensation of sliding in and out of her. The ridges along his shaft were swelling, subtle textures that rubbed against her inner walls and made her cry out with each stroke. He watched her face like it held the meaning of existence, adjusting his angle until he found the spot that made her back arch off the pallet.

There. He focused there, hitting that spot with every thrust, building a rhythm that made the whole world narrow to the two of them. Her nails raked down his back. Her body clenched around him in fluttering waves. She was close, he could feel it, could feel the tension building in her like a storm about to break.

"Come for me," he growled against her throat. "Let me feel you."

She shattered. Her inner walls clamped down on him, rippling with her release, and the sensation triggered his own climax before he could even try to hold back. He came with a broken cry, spilling into her in hot pulses, his vision going white at the edges.

But it wasn't over. Even as the first wave crested, he felt something new building at the base of his cock. A swelling, a stretching, a pressure that he recognized from ancient texts but had never expected to experience.

His knot was forming.

"Tamsin." He forced the words out through gritted teeth. "Something is happening. My body is... there will be a swelling at the base. It will lock us together until it subsides. I can try to pull out before⁠—"

"Don't you dare." She tightened her legs around him, holding him in place. "I want it. I want all of you."

The knot expanded slowly, nothing like the aggressive swelling he'd read about in warrior mating accounts. His inexperienced body was adapting in real time, learning how to perform functions it had never been allowed to attempt. When it finally locked into place, stretching her entrance until they were sealed together, they both moaned at the intensity.

He was coming again. Or still. He couldn't tell anymore. Waves of pleasure crashed through him in an endless loop, and each pulse seemed to deposit more of his seed inside her. He was embarrassed by the volume of it, by his body's desperate response to finally being allowed release, but she held him close and whispered encouragements against his ear.

"That's it. Give me everything. I can feel you filling me up. It's incredible."

His markings were blazing, new patterns forming across his skin even as the old ones shifted. He could see them reflected in her eyes: her name in Khorani script, winding around his heart like a chain he never wanted to break.

And beneath the physical pleasure, something deeper was taking root. A bond. A connection. He could feel her now in ways that transcended touch. Her satisfaction humming beneath his skin. Her wonder at what they'd created between them. Her fear of what came next, tempered by a determination that matched his own.

"I feel you," she whispered, eyes wide with amazement. "It's like you're... it's like you're inside my chest."

"Because I am." He pressed his forehead to hers, overcome by emotion. "Because you're inside mine. This is the bond. This is what it means to be mated."