Page 9 of The Last Aether

My heart squeezed. Of course, he would ask. My lips curved as I grabbed onto the hem. “No. But I can.”

6

Atlas’s eyes flared as I tugged his tee up and then over his head. He had to bend so I could get it entirely off. Then my hands were on the button of his jeans. Getting them off was another challenge altogether.

The denim clung to Atlas’s thick thighs, and he grunted with the struggle of freeing himself. “Hell,” he muttered. He made a swirling with his hand and the jeans unraveled in a split second.

I gaped at him. “How in the world—?”

The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Made from cotton. Comes from the earth.”

I shook my head, grinning at him. “Those tricks come in handy.” I stretched up on my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his neck and reaching for his lips.

Atlas gazed down at me, so many emotions passing over those hazel eyes. “Aura…you’ve been through a lot—”

I cut him off with a kiss. “I need you. I need to remember all the good there is to fight for.”

He lifted me, my legs circling him on instinct. His length pressed against my core and everything in me tightened. Atlas was a large man and that size carried to every part of him.

He took my mouth like I was water, and he was a man who’d been lost in the desert for a month. He stroked and plundered until I was awash in sensation. That tether between us lit and I couldn’t help but gasp.

Atlas pulled back, his eyes widening. “I feel it.”

He stared from my chest to his and that was when I saw it, his own little sliver of silver. A lightning bolt of metallic color over his heart. I traced it with my finger and a shudder ran through Atlas as he let out a groan.

My gaze jumped to his. “Feel good?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He lowered us to the bench and then his finger found one of my cracks of silver. He skimmed along the path it made, and sensation rocked through me.

I didn’t have the words to describe the feeling. It was as if waves of sparks swept across my skin and embedded themselves in muscle and sinew, lighting every nerve ending on fire. “Atlas,” I breathed.

“More?”

“More.” I didn’t care that my voice was breathy, almost pleading.

Atlas’s thumbs circled my nipples and then one moved to a trail of silver that tracked over my breast. Light danced across my vision as my core tightened in a rapid rhythm.

My mouth fell open as I struggled for breath and sound. Wetness gathered between my thighs as Atlas continued his exploration.

“Think I could make you come with this alone?”

His voice skated over my skin, adding another instrument to the symphony he was playing with my body. I knew he could make me come with this alone, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I needed to know what it was to have Atlas inside me, stretching, thrusting.

“Please.” It was the only word I managed to get out.

“Tell me what you need, Aura.”

“You. All of you.”

A second later, Atlas’s hands were on my hips. He lifted me so that I was hovering just above his cock. Everything in me was crying out for him. To know what it would be like to have nothing between us.

His eyes locked with mine. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

Atlas was already lowering me onto him. My eyes watered with the delicious stretch, one just shy of pain. I felt him everywhere, as if he’d invaded every cell.

My head tipped to his shoulder as I engulfed his length. I had to bite down to keep from crying out.