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  Skimming his fingers up her sternum, he sat upright.

  A dark god. That’s what he looked like. Tan and muscled, sitting astride her with his thick cock straining against his belly. A wicked and utterly primal deity about to indulge with his latest conquest. “Can you take more?”

  She’d take anything he asked her to. As much as he wanted for however long it took so long as it ended with him inside her. Filling her and driving her to release as only he could. She dipped her chin, the knot of emotion in her throat too thick to speak.

  Iron in hand, the buzz kicked in once more.

  And so it went.

  More pain interwoven with a mounting pleasure that made no sense. Murmured words and a tingling throb that built along each line he drew. One hour after another, she soaked it all in.

  But this time she had the benefit of watching him. Of seeing his silver aura pulse as he worked and the stark concentration on his face. And through it all, the design he worked into her skin became a part of her. Thrummed like a living current.

  By the time the buzz stopped, nothing in the world existed but the two of them. He set the iron aside and gazed down at her. Fatigue and bare need etched every line on his face.

  He loves me.

  To the logical mind, it made no sense. Couldn’t be possible between two people who’d known each other little more than two weeks. But her heart said otherwise. Saw the devotion and care behind each action. The determination to see to her needs. For days, the tightness behind her sternum had swelled. Grown larger and thicker. As if her heart couldn’t stay contained within her chest much longer.

  But in that second, it unfurled, reaching for the heart of the man above her. Beneath her skin, her magic sung and her heartbeat echoed another.

  His heartbeat.

  “Kateri.” Her name on his lips was like a prayer. A man teetering with the loss of control and desperate for the abandon beyond the edge. Behind his gray gaze was a primal hunger barely leashed and every muscle was drawn tight.

  “The bond.” Even before her whispered words trailed off, she knew it was true. He’d felt it as strongly as she had. An invisible connection forged with impenetrable finality. The light dusting of hair along his muscled thighs tickled her palms as she stroked toward his hips, eager to urge him closer. “You felt it, too.”

  “I feel everything. Your pain. Your fear. Your need.” He manacled her wrists with his fingers and squeezed them tight. His chest rose and fell as though an escalating war raged inside him. For a moment, he seemed disoriented. Then his gaze landed on the unforgiving grip he held on her and he rolled from the bed. “I need to shift.”

  Shift? Now?

  She scrambled to her feet and clutched his arm.

  “Don’t.” He tried to pull away.

  But her magic was too strong, binding him to her and opening her eyes to unimaginable truths. She saw it all. Felt the raw emotion battering through him. The worry for his clan’s future. The gut-wrenching shame he’d carried for his failure. The darkness and how it dogged his every thought. The insatiable compulsion to take her without restraint.

  So much pain. Years of it.

  You’re good, Kateri. My light.

  “You don’t need to shift.” Pure instinct drove her closer, smoothing one hand up his chest as her power banded around them both. “You need to give in.”

  He fisted his hand in her hair and his cat’s deep growl rumbled up the back of his throat. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “No, I don’t. But my heart does.” Relying on her magic to keep him close, she loosened her grip on his forearm and slowly lowered to her knees. His cock strained tall and heavily veined before her, his earthy scent stirring the beast inside her. She understood it now. What he’d meant when he’d shared what tonight meant to him. Because now it was her turn to give. To expose and surrender herself completely.

  “Whatever you want, I want.” Meeting his gaze, she gripped his hips, leaned close enough her breath whispered against the base of his cock and gave him the same words. “Take what I offer. Accept my gift. All that I am.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Priest was trapped. Immobilized not by his mate’s magic, but by her warm breath and soft lips teasing the base of his shaft.

  Yes. Take her. She’s ours. Freely given.

  He should fight it. Should put Kateri first and keep her safe.

  She flicked her tongue against his flesh and traced one vein from base to tip, a soft moan laced with wonder and appreciation filling the tense silence. “I need you, too, Priest.” Leisurely licking along the ridge, she met his stare beneath weighted eyelids. “Trust me to know what I want. Trust what’s between us.”

  Yes, the darkness crooned. Trust us.

  His panther purred in agreement, and the next thing he knew his palm was at the back of her head, the thick silk of her hair wound between his fingers. “Kateri.” It was the only warning he could offer. The only word his lips could form.

  Lips wet and shiny from her ministrations, she guided his glans along her lower lip. “I’m not afraid. Not of you, or any part of you.” Her tongue swept across the pre-come at the tip and her words whispered against the slick wake she’d created. “Take your mate. Make us whole.”

  My mate.

  All mine.

  Strong enough. Ready for what you need.

  He growled and thrust his cockhead past her full lips. Claimed her eager mouth and the wet heat inside. “Take it.” He pumped deeper. “Show me you can handle what I give you.”

  She moaned and straightened taller on her knees, taking him nearly to the root. Her accelerated breaths huffed against his skin and her tongue swept a decadent cadence up and down the side of his shaft with each bob of her head.

  The potent scent of her arousal thickened, the rich musk that had teased him over the many hours he’d marked her now saturating the air around them. At his hip, her nails bit into his skin where she braced for balance, but the other cupped and fondled his tight, heavy sac with devoted urgency.

  She wasn’t afraid. Wanted him. Needed him. Exactly as he was.

  His cock swelled thicker and harder, the ache he’d fought for hours surging to a demanding beat. “Touch yourself.”

  Ignoring him, she tightened her hold on his nuts and sank deeper on his shaft. Around him, her powers thrummed with challenge. A dare spoken without a single word.

  His magic answered, surging up and around him and freeing him from the sensual bonds she’d caged him with. He molded it. Shaped it into a vibrating stream of plum and silver and encircled her wrists with it. “You have no idea what you’ve just bought yourself.”

  In one fluid motion, he pulled free of her delectable mouth and bound her hands behind her back with their combined magic. His cock jerked and his cat snarled at the loss of her hot mouth, but her startled gasp and parted lips, plump and glossy from her efforts, made the darkness in him purr.

  “Priest.” She wriggled against his bonds, the sudden movement making her breasts sway enticingly. Then she tried to stand and realized he’d weighted her in place as well. “Damn it!” She fought harder, the muscles in her shoulders and arms straining even as she tossed her head in frustration. “Let me go.”

  “Oh no, kitten. I gave you a chance. Told you to let me go and let me find my balance, but you pushed me.” He crouched beside her and used his magic to force her knees further apart.

  The scent of her arousal coiled around him. Licked along his skin and made his cock throb with an unrelenting pulse.

  He traced his fingers along the inside of one thigh. “You said you trusted me. You can tell me to stop, or you can take it. No in-between.” He shifted so his torso blanketed her back, cradled one breast in his palm and teased the tight curls at the top of her mound with the other. “Tell me to stop, mihara. Say it, and I’ll move awa
y.”

  “No.” Sharp. Not a beat of hesitation. If anything, it was a plea for more. She dropped her head against his shoulder and undulated her hips up toward his fingers. “Please, don’t stop.”

  The sliver of control he’d maintain fractured further and he slicked his fingers lower. Stirred the ready wetness waiting for him in slow, deliberate strokes. “Mmm. Already primed and ready.” He circled her swollen nub, stopping just shy of the firm pressure he’d learned she preferred. “I think you like being bound. Is that it? You wanted to poke and prod your mate until he lost control and fucked you like the animal he is?”

  “Oh, my God. Priest!” Her back bowed, chasing more of his wicked touch, but he pulled his fingers away and she whimpered. “Please.” She rolled her head enough to nuzzle his neck with her forehead. “Please, don’t stop.”

  “Admit it. This isn’t a sacrifice, is it? You want it. Want the beast.”

  “Nothing with you is a sacrifice.” Such sweet, desperate words whispered against his neck. “I want you. All of you.”

  Yes. Do it. Take her. Now.

  Impulsive thoughts mirrored by his cat. But he held back and gripped her hips.

  She groaned and wriggled against him.

  Fast, before she could gauge his intent, he smacked her pussy, the wetness coating her labia adding a decadent tenor to the sharp crack. “Still.”

  She settled instantly, but her gasp was the ultimate invitation. The luring sound of a woman reveling in a delicious surprise.

  “You liked that, didn’t you? The same way you liked the pain.”

  Her answer was a shaky whimper. A sound so needy he felt it like a fist around his dick.

  He smoothed his hands across her flesh to ease the sting and grazed his teeth along her neck. The need to bite burned through him. A fundamental urge older than time.

  But he couldn’t go there. Her flesh was too raw from his mark. Too vulnerable. The rest of her, though...the rest of her was his to claim. “Don’t worry. I’ll give you more.” He stroked one hand up along her spine. “Make your skin burn and your body come apart.” He gripped her by the back of the neck, guided her to her hands, then further so her cheek rested against the plush rug. Shifting his magic, he manacled her in place, her knees wide and hips lifted for his languid perusal.

  He felt more than heard her increased breathing, the ragged rhythm of it and the subtle tremor that moved through her fueling man, beast and darkness with primal pleasure. Coasting his hand along the back of one thigh, he used the callouses on his palm to tease her flesh. “You should see what I do. Your sweet pussy exposed for me. Pink and swollen. Wet and ready.”

  “Then take it.” A shout and a groan all rolled into one. Her hands fisted in the soft sheepskin and her hips lifted higher. “Please, Priest.”

  Nothing sounded better than the word please on her lips. Nothing save his name filling the room while she came around him. “I intend to.” He stood and circled her, letting the distance and the knowledge that he watched her drive her higher. “There won’t be anywhere you don’t feel me. Where you don’t crave my touch.”

  When he finished a full circuit and moved out of her sight, she wriggled her perfect ass, every bit the needy cat in heat.

  He gathered the oil he’d prepared for her off the nightstand and silently kneeled beside her.

  “Priest?”

  “Mmm?”

  “What are you doing?”

  Hands oiled and ready, he palmed either side of her sex and slicked his thumbs along her folds, opening her wider. “I’m going to lick my mate’s cunt and fuck her with my tongue.”

  Before his eyes, her muscles contracted, a visual demand for more even as a tiny sob slipped past her lips.

  It took everything he had to go slow. To trace every inch of her with purposeful intent rather than devour what was his. But he’d give her fast soon enough. Would take her completely. Claim and consume her the way she’d consumed him.

  At the taste of her, he moaned and flicked her clit with his tongue. “Ask me what I’m going to do next, mihara. Ask me what dark things I’ll do to you while you’re bound and helpless.”

  She bucked against his mouth and for a second he thought she was too far gone to have even registered his words. “Wh-what?”

  He speared his tongue inside her, fucked her the way he wanted to with his fingers. With his cock. Only when she fell into a rhythm with him did he guide one slick finger to her ass and circle her rim. “I’m going to take you here. Fill you and stretch you like you’ve never been filled before.”

  “Oh, my God.” She rolled her head, her forehead pressed square to the ground and her breath coming in sharp, frantic pants. “Priest, I haven’t...”

  “Tell me to stop. Tell me to stop, or take it.”

  Her hips lifted. Barely noticeable had his hand not been placed where it was or his mouth greedily feasting on her sex. “I’ll take it.”

  Slowly, he breached her, pressing one finger past the tight ring and easing inside bit by bit. “My gift. My sweet light who loves the darkness.” Desperate to feel the flutters teasing his tongue on his cock, he straightened, never breaking the building rhythm of his finger pumping in and out of her ass. He nudged her opening with his dick, notching just the head inside her, and hissed at the scalding heat. “So ready and eager to give me what I need.”

  He filled her. One merciless thrust that took him to the root and made his shaft jerk inside her, the release he’d craved from the moment she’d stretched out on the bed tightening his balls.

  “Yes!” Undulating her pelvis, she tried to spur him on. To gain the sweet friction she needed.

  The need to pound himself inside her ripped at every instinct and muscle, but he held himself motionless save the steady cadence of his finger in her ass. “Do you want more, kitten?”

  The muscles in her shoulders and back flexed as she tried to lever herself against him and her answer came twined with a snarl. “You know I do. Let me move.”

  He drizzled more oil along her crevice and added another finger.

  She shuddered and moaned, the sound so low and broken he’d have thought the pain was too intense had her sex not convulsed around his shaft.

  “You want to move?” He gripped her hip hard and let his magic fall away. “Then do it. Fuck yourself on my cock and fingers exactly how you want it. Show me your dark side.”

  No hesitation. The second his magic slipped free, she rocked against him. Tentative at first, then building. Long, powerful drives that left her cheeks slapping against his pelvis. With every beat he flexed into her, giving her the subtle slap of his sac against her clit.

  Releasing the viselike hold on her hip, he smoothed a barely there touch along her spine. “It’s not enough, is it?”

  “No!”

  He eased one more finger in her ass, priming her. Teasing her. “You want my cock here, don’t you? Stretching you the way I’m filling your cunt.”

  One hitch. One tiny hesitation before her head whipped back and her low confession filled the room. “Yes.”

  Her hair spilled around her shoulders, gold and shimmering in the candlelight. She arched her back and surrendered all she was in the most beautiful offering. Even knowing how tight and decadent the feel of her untried ass around him would be, pulling free of her hot sheath nearly killed him.

  Until she widened her stance further and peeked over one shoulder. Gone was the driven, yet lost soul he’d met weeks ago, replaced with pure temptress. A wanton goddess ready and willing to savor all life had to offer. Sweat dotted her brow and her eyelids hung heavy over her beautiful blue eyes, her gaze riveted to him fisting his cock as he coated it with oil. Not one ounce of fear marked her expression. Only lust and open curiosity.

  The last of his control wavered, pure instinct wiping everything aside save the need to cover and dominate. �
��Cheek to the rug.”

  She opened her mouth as if to argue.

  “Now.” His cat chased his command with a low and deadly sounding rumble and his magic bristled along his skin, a push from his beast for release.

  Holding his gaze, she closed her mouth and lowered her head.

  His cat purred and the darkness murmured its approval, but both were background noise against the sight of his shaft sliding along her crevice. Of feeling his skin slick across hers and how her rim flexed at the first nudge from his cock.

  Just a little more. A few precious minutes’ worth of self-control to acclimate her. To ease her dark descent. Then he could let go. For once, be who he was. “My naughty mate.” He inched forward and she whimpered, the tight ring he’d stretched and prepared quivering at his invasion. Holding her firm with one hand on her hip, he reached around and strummed her clit. “Surrender. Let me take you under.”

  Eyes locked with his, she let out a shaky breath and her muscles unfurled around him. Welcomed him.

  He sank deeper, gaining ground bit by bit with shallow, easy pumps that slowly frayed what was left of his control. By the time his hips pressed flush to her ass, his arms shook from his viselike grip on her hips and sweat misted his torso.

  “Kateri.” It was little more than a groaned whisper. One last attempt to let her pull away before the primal drive eating him alive took over.

  A growl was the last thing he’d expected. Her shimmering magic even less. But both billowed up as she levered herself up on her hands, her power lashing across his skin in the most erotic whip. “Now, Priest. Do what you promised and fuck me.”

  Mine.

  A roar filled the room. Hers, his or both, he wasn’t sure. Only knew that conscience, concerns and doubt no longer existed. Nothing mattered save the tight fist of her ass around his cock. The intoxicating scent of jasmine and sex. The slap of flesh against flesh and the oil’s wet sounds as he pumped inside her.

  Only when the tips of her fingers grazed his tight sac as he thrust forward did he lift from his rutting haze enough to realize she’d shifted and toyed with her clit. Fisting one hand in her hair, he yanked her upright and seized her fingers. “Oh, no you don’t. This pussy is mine.” Bypassing her clit, he drove two fingers inside her drenched sex, alternating each stab with his plundering shaft. “You take what I give you. Submit and come by my hand.”