Page 70 of A Reckless Indulgence

Her head tilts. “Why?”

She’s taunting him. Gods, he wants to wear her stripes tomorrow. Wants her embedded in his skin. Wants a permanent reminder of how close they are.

His voice strains through his teeth. “Because I’m fucking begging you.”

TWENTY-NINE

Lyx

If Cav wants a mark, she’ll give him one.

Lyx’s tentacles wrap around his wounded shoulder, clinging to his sides and the crevices between his scales. It’s like she’s a vine scaling a stone wall, finding the cracks inside of Cav where she can burrow in deep.

He pants beneath her, but she makes him wait. His eyes are glassy, a whine building in his throat while he bucks. It’s too good to stop him. She wonders if he would look like this if she dug her teeth in, if she peeled back his scales and licked at his blood, but that’s too much. She’s shown him enough for one day, and his words have stirred a new hunger in her.

She wants to mark him.

A sting is not enough to satisfy her, but it’s close. It’s almost perfection when Cav spasms at the pain, head tipping back, throat exposed, breasts arching into the air. He clenches his teeth, but it doesn’t stop the moan that escapes.

She stings him again. He makes a needy sound she’s never heard, and through the dome of her tail, she can see lava pushing up through the cracks of his vent. It clings to both of them, a sticky mess as hot as her arousal.

She stirs her hips. “What does that mean?”

A blissful smile seeps across his face. “Means you’re fucking perfect.”

She wants to kiss the words right out of his mouth, to swallow them down so they can never be heard by anyone else. When she withdraws her tendrils, they drag between his scales, and he groans and shudders. Already, she can see welts forming on his body. They’re not as deep as her scars, but they’re the same shape, lightning bolts across one of his shoulders. Each mark is indented with details, the beads and ruffles of her tentacles embedded in him.

Like he’s hers.

Heat sizzles beneath her. When she grinds against him, water splashes onto the lava between his legs, cooling and hardening it to the same color of his scales. The dome nudges inside her, pressing deeper until she gasps.

“It keeps growing like that,” he murmurs. “As much as you want. The more you work me up, the more it builds.”

He lays on the sloping rock, wet hair tousled and slipping out around his crooked smile. Lyx’s stomach clenches. No one has ever looked at her like this. Not really. Not after she dropped her facade. Not without her song. She has manufactured this look a hundred times, convinced dozens of pirates to adore her, but she used nothing on Cav.

Her pulse trips. She closes her hands around his throat just for something to hold onto, teeth scraping her lip when she moves against him. “So if I keep doing this, you’ll keep spilling.”

Cav follows the pace she sets. More lava leaks out of him, firming up beneath her, molding to the tender flesh of her cunt. She tries not to shudder, but the sight of Cav coils and strikes her. He’s losing himself to lust, rolling up into her and watching where they meet.

“Is it more sensitive like this?” There’s a cruel lilt in her voice, heightened when she drags against him.

Cav whimpers and writhes, and that’s all the answer Lyx needs. Every motion draws them together, her cunt suctioned to his like it can’t get enough. When Lyx shifts, their bodies fight to stay together, the delicious friction pulling them right back into place.

No one has dared to brave what lies beneath her tail — except for Cav. It’s like their bodies were made for this, molding together until she swears she can feel him against every inch of her.

He claws at her hips, his eyes rolling back. “You’re fucking gripping —”

It’s addictive seeing him like this, all minced thoughts and breathless words, so good she can almost taste it. “What if I don’t stop? If I keep riding until you’re a pitiful, writhing wreck? Would it keep growing?”

Cav’s curses when their foreheads brush. Neither of them can look away from where they meet, watching the ridges of his hardened shaft drag between her tentacles. It’s a mess, her slickness and his heat binding them closer together.

Her skin sparkles brilliantly. It doesn’t make sense. Gorging herself on chaos is the only way she knows, but Cav has never given her that. With him, it’s like he’s feeding morsels from his hand, placing them into her mouth so gently that she hadn’t realized she was eating.

And still, she’s hungrier than ever. All her instincts scream to destroy Cav, to tear him apart, but something isn’t right. Her heart thuds behind her eyes. For so long, she has craved his destruction. She has dreamt of prying him apart and scraping the marrow from his bones. She has imagined fucking the soul out of his body so she could swallow it down.

All she knows is ruination, but what if something’s buried beneath it? What if her need to devour all the pieces of Cav is something more? What if she’s longing for the whole of him?

Her world tilts on its axis. The thought is so impossible and foreign that she can’t grasp it. Her arms wobble, tugging her back into her body and reminding her where she is. Cav looks up at her, but Lyx can’t face him. She can’t face any of it. With renewed vengeance, she bares her teeth and tightens the circles of her hips.