Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(91)

“We don’t have time,” she whispered. Her head fell back as she guided him to her slick entrance, and as he felt her soft moist cushion of flesh embrace the tip of his cock, he lost the last shred of control he had and came inside of her.

It was torturous, beyond pleasure. He felt huge and burning up, and she was such a tight, wet fit. Need drove him deeper into her. He shoved one arm underneath her waist to clench her lower body more closely to him. He cupped her head with his other hand while simultaneously bracing himself on the elbow, an instinctively protective position. He couldn’t get far enough, deep enough inside, and he pushed harder until he was slamming into her.

She raised her hips for every thrust, hands fisted in his hair, and he was so completely sure she was with him the entire way that when she made a miserable, shaking sound, very suspiciously like a whimper, icy shock ran over his skin.

He froze, his heart pounding, and searched her face. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Her face contorted with frustration. Her eyes watered. She looked like she was in actual pain. “I want to bite you. I need to bite, but my damn fangs won’t descend.”

The image of her sinking slender fangs into his neck as he took her ran through him like a live wire, and he almost came right then and there. He slipped his hand under her slim neck and lifted her head. He said huskily, “Bite me anyway.”

“I’ll bruise you with these dull teeth,” she whispered.

“Promise?” he growled. He was on fire everywhere. In his body. In his soul. He was blind with it.

She keened, lunged up and bit the strong cord in his neck that ran down into his shoulders. At the same time, she clamped down on his c**k with her inner muscles, and his climax exploded out of him with such force he groaned with it. He ground his pelvis into hers, spurting hard, and she made a muffled sound, her whole body shuddering as he sent her over the edge. He could feel the rhythmic pulsing in her body, and holy hell, it was more than he ever imagined it could be, but it wasn’t enough—it could never be enough—

He rocked with her and clenched her to him with everything he had, and when the pulsing of her body eased, he started to move again. She let go of his neck and fell back to look at him with eyes gone wide in surprise.

“Rune?”

He hissed, “Don’t stop.”

Then he was beyond seduction, beyond enticement, deep in that place where language had been new and strange, and his need ran like lava, pared down to its purest sense, a hot primal scream.

“You’re mine,” the gryphon snarled at the witch. He took her by the back of the neck and shook her to make the words go in. “You’re mine.”

Whatever she saw in him stripped her raw. She looked young again and transfixed with wonder. “Oh God. You’re so beautiful.”

The compulsion drove him into her. It was so exquisite he tore his claws into the bedspread. She held him tight, her knees high so that she cradled his whole body. She gripped his wide flexing shoulders as his hips moved and moved, and her garnet eyes were filled with some kind of epiphany. Her lips were moving as she made strange sounds. Much later Rune would recognize she had been swearing in ancient Egyptian, and the realization would make him laugh. But that was later when he had recovered the layers of civilization that were now stripped away.

Then she stretched underneath him, and reached above her head with both arms as she lifted up with her strong, graceful hips and legs and he felt it again, felt her inner muscles begin their gorgeous spasm. She climaxed with a shaking gasp, and he hurtled forward again, spilling into her.

And again. This time he flipped her onto her hands and knees. She was mewling into the bed and shoving her ass back to him as he took her from behind. He wrapped his arms around her, his wise and wicked woman, and slammed her into the headboard. She braced herself as best she could and reached up behind her head to clutch at him, and he wrapped an arm around her neck, and this time she was the one who groaned it through clenched teeth. “You’ve gone and done it now—you’re so mine, Rune Ainissesthai—Rune—Rune, oh God—”

Three times, the witching number.

“That spell’s already been cast,” he said into her hair. And he gave himself to her, spilling everything he had into his mate.

She could not let go of him. He propped himself against the headboard and pulled her into his arms, and she went willingly. She rested her head on his shoulder and only realized she was clenched on his arm when she caught sight of her hand out of the corner of her eye and saw that her knuckles were white. She forced her fingers to loosen and saw that she had left a red imprint on his tanned skin. If he had been one of the more fragile of the Elder Races, she might have broken his arm.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, stroking his bicep.

“Don’t ever be sorry,” he said. He kissed her forehead. “Bite me, mark me, claim me in any way you wish.”

That was when she realized he held her just as tightly too. He rested his face in her hair, and his chest rumbled. It had a low, deep, rough cadence that vibrated against her cheek. She ran her palm across the broad muscled expanse wonderingly. “Are you purring at me?”

“I might be,” Rune said. His deep voice was rougher, and lazy with intimacy. “Unless you’ve done something wrong. Then I’m growling at you again.”

She tightened her lips to try to keep the laughter in, but it spilled out anyway. “Just because I’m laughing doesn’t make it okay,” she warned.