What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(96)

That stunning face spread into a grin. “I’ve created a monster.”

He plunged his mouth down onto mine, his lips so firm against my own that I groaned into him. He devoured it, swallowing the sound with a growl of his own as his hands fisted my nightgown—shoving it farther up my thighs and lifting me from the bed just enough to reveal the bare curve of my ass against his sheets.

“I’m your monster,” I said as he pulled back, the words quietly torn from the depths of me and an echo of what he’d once said to me. It felt like an admission—like telling him my deepest secret of the creature who lingered there. I’d tried not to look too closely at her, at the mix of scales and darkness and flesh that comprised her very being. She wasn’t human, but she wasn’t an animal either.

And though her eyes were larger and gleamed with golden light…

Her face was mine.

My mate’s expression softened, and he leaned forward to touch a far more gentle kiss to my mouth. It was the kind of kiss that nearly broke me—that spoke to the shattered pieces he saw that no one else could find.

“I have lived for centuries, my star. Centuries. And you are the furthest thing from a monster I have ever met.”

I sighed, even as the creature within me settled into the warmth of his words. “You don’t see what’s inside me.” I was tempted to look away, to hide the shame of the parts he hadn’t seen—the parts that terrified me.

But I forced myself to meet his gaze as he leaned forward, touching his forehead to mine as his faint breath washed over me and surrounded me in the scent of snow and wintergreen. “I see all of you, Estrella. There is nothing left that you can hide from me, and there is no corner of you I do not love with every thread of my being,” he murmured, his eyes so intent on mine that I forgot how to breathe.

I swallowed, letting his love wash away the shadows that threatened to consume me. “Is it always like this?” I asked, my voice the faintest murmur.

It seemed impossible to imagine that anyone could love someone as fully as he loved me, that other people existed out there—still kept from the completion that came with knowing their mate.

“I don’t think so,” he said, immediately understanding what I meant. He knew that I couldn’t get enough of his hands on me, of his eyes on mine, and his feelings surging through the thread that tethered us. “But not all males worship their females. Some only expect it from them.”

As if to prove his point, he leaned forward to touch his mouth to my jaw. He trailed those sinful lips over my skin, curving them around to the side of my neck as I arched for him. Brushing the straps of my nightgown down over the curve of my shoulders, he allowed the silk to drop to my waist so that my breasts were revealed to the chilled air.

The fire burned higher in the hearth as he sent a soft winter breeze to it, stoking the flames. It reached my skin in perfect time as he trailed that mouth over my breast, slowly easing himself to his knees. He wrapped his mouth around my nipple, biting it sharply before he continued down.

Skimming over the fabric of my nightgown, he placed his hands beneath my ass and pulled so that I tumbled back to the bed. Tugging me down to the edge, he spread my thighs around his head, draping my legs over his shoulders as he touched his mouth to me.

I pushed up onto my hands, staring down at him where he dragged his tongue through me. The sight of that beautiful, wicked face between my legs drew a moan from me. Caldris chuckled into my flesh, the rumble of it sending vibrations shooting through me as I grasped him by the hair.

I’d never get used to having a God on his knees for me.

His ashen silver strands glided through my fingers as I gripped, shoving him closer and demanding more. He obliged, using tongue and teeth to bring pleasure to every part of me as I whimpered.

Remembering what he’d said about what it was to fuck a God, I held him there even when he tried to pull away. When he tried to leave me at the edge of ecstasy, always preferring when I found my climax with him inside me.

I held him tight, reveling in the way he smiled into my pussy.

“Tonight, I want to be your God,” I said, my voice breaking off into a breathless chuckle.

He slid his fingers inside me in answer, his growl of approval surging through me as he wrapped his mouth around that sensitive part and worshiped it with his tongue.

I shattered, pressing my arm into my mouth to stifle my cry. The God of the Dead licked me through it, his touches feather-light against my too sensitive skin as my breathing calmed.

He rose over me, shifting me higher on the bed so that he could settle his hips between my thighs. His face was a breath from mine, his eyes pinning me still as he slowly slid inside me.

“You are always my Goddess, min asteren. I worship at your altar with every breath—every moment of my existence,” he said, blue eyes blazing with intent. “Not only because you are my mate and the Fates determined we were made for one another, but because I love you. The person you have become is a sight to behold, and I am privileged to stand at your side as you embark on your journey.”

I surged up, capturing his mouth with mine. The words were too much—striking that sensitive, vulnerable part of me that wondered. Wondered if I was worth it—if I could ever live up to the vision he had of me and my potential.

He allowed me to silence him with my mouth, to crash my lips against his so harshly that it was a collision of tongue and lips and teeth. My lip bled beneath him as he pressed me back down, pinning me with his hands at my hips and sliding himself through the tender, swollen tissue of my pussy.