Page 45 of Ashborne Phoenix

Light and dark, sound and silence, desire and delight lassoed the pieces of me that had broken years ago, and something fused.

I roared for her as she came, her mouth open and panting, eyes wide and fixed—locked with mine. But I did not stop moving inside her. Could not.

And then, drawing out of her where she gripped me like a fist, I took her once more with such force, such desperation, I lifted her hips, and the world tilted.

I was thrown from a cliff, somersaulting in free fall, but still entwined with her. Her knee bent around me, her heel between my thighs, her breasts flattened against my chest, our bodies turning, rippling, bucking together. As one. Until we dropped back to earth.

Grace’s head, which had been craned back, slumped and she sucked in a shocked breath the same moment I dropped my chin to bury my face in her neck.

For a time I knew nothing except the saltiness of her throat, and the thunder of my own breathing before it slowed. Grace still held me to her so tightly, I would have had to break her grip.

We trembled together.

But slowly, slowly, we relaxed. And when Grace took a deep breath, I shifted my weight back to an elbow, to give her more room to breathe.

My hair must have tickled as it fluttered along her cheek, because she shivered as I kissed slowly along the line of her jaw and opened my mouth on her throat, then ducked her chin and gave a tiny laugh.

When I lifted my head to look at her, she was smiling. Her eyes danced.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispered, then finally drew her claws from my back and lifted that hand to comb it into my hair and push it back from my face. “And it seems you’ve missed me, as well.”

I almost snorted with the travesty of that understatement. “There will never be a moment I don’t desire you, Grace,” I said hoarsely.

Her smile broadened. “I’m glad we’re of one heart that way,” she whispered back. “I love you, Voski. So much.”

Her eyes shone and I feared her tears threatened. But as I searched for the right thing to say to comfort her, to reassure her that we would win this, she pulled herself up to open her mouth at my throat. Her tongue laved my Adam’s apple and I grunted, my slackening body suddenly tight again.

“Mine,” she whispered against the tensed cord of my neck. When I jerked, she tightened her arms and legs around me, holding me to her, as if afraid I would run.

But I’d never run from her again.

“Mine,” she rasped, and tightened on my sensitized but rapidly recovering flesh.

I groaned and arched my back, moving within her again, though slowly.

“Only mine,” she whispered, then nipped at my chin.

With a snarl, I lost myself in her again.

As the fire on the hearth died, our flames only rose higher.

As the air cooled, our ardor only blazed.

I was a compass, and she was north.

I was a supplicant, worshiping at her altar.

I was mate, submitted to her need.

And as my body sought her again, and again, I rasped her name, over and over.

As Grace cried out, urging me forward, no space existed between our skins. Or our souls.

The bond was a noose, taken gladly, welcomed, and set to strangle any part of my heart that didn’t beat for her.

But there was none.

And when, at some time in the early hours of the morning, I collapsed over her, shivering in the predawn chill, I smiled.