My hand doesn’t relent as I pinch and play with her nub, and I feel her wetness coating me. I drive my cock into her faster and harder, my circling strokes on her clit an unrelenting demand to see her fall apart.
I feel her pussy tighten, feel her whole damn body go tense, and I know she’s right there. I use my other hand to tip her hips up even more, earning a mewl. “That’s right, baby. Come for me. I want you to finally unravel.”
She curses, eyes clamped shut, breasts bouncing, looking beautifully wanton, and then her aura surges with light. That’s all the warning I get before she screams out my name, pussy squeezing me as tight as a vise. “Slade!”
My name on her lips in the throes of her orgasm is enough to tip me right over the edge with her. My cock pulses, and then I’m exploding inside of her. I come so hard I damn well almost black out. “Fuck.”
The collision of our shared pleasure encompasses all the pent-up attraction, all the push and pull we’ve had since we met. She is so damn perfect that even while I’m buried inside of her, I still want more. I want everything, just like I told her.
The pleasure stretches on, my thrusts gone ragged, each drag slower than the last, because I don’t want this to end. I want her right here against me, want to feel her perfect pussy clamp on my cock as she wraps her arms around my neck.
Her body shudders, lips letting out a small, blissful noise, and my chest goes tight. For a second, we just look at each other, breaths panting, skin slick.
A grip of brooding disquiet seeps in as I think about how we almost missed this. If she’d run away, or if I’d left early like I planned, I would’ve missed her giving herself to me—and not just her body, but her.
I know how difficult it was for her to place her emotions at my feet, especially considering how many people have trampled and manipulated them in the past. I know what it took for her to trust me, and I also know that I’ll destroy myself before I ever let her down.
Auren blinks at me with kiss-puffed lips. There’s a sated, beautiful look on her flushed face, and she looks so damn sexy I already want her again. She settles my magic, calms my anger, calls to my fae nature. She’s a burst of light in my dark, erupting life in the rotting depths of my soul.
She is everything I don’t deserve.
But I’m going to keep her anyway.
Gripping her close, I turn us so that I can fall on my back and have Auren draped over me, her body fitting perfectly against me. We pant together as we come down from our high, our hearts slamming in tandem as we catch our breaths. She molds to my body, jellied and satiated, her ribbons lying limp on the bed like they’re just as pleased as she is.
I press a kiss against her head, my arm coming around to hold her in place against me. After a moment, she looks up, her chin resting on my chest, fingers drawing over the lines that stretch up and curve toward my neck. Her touch is familiar. Intimate. And it makes me pleased as hell.
When I stroke a finger down her cheek, her head leans into my touch ever so slightly. I’m not sure if she even realizes she does it, but even that is gratifying. I want her every reaction to sway toward me like branches in the wind, caught up by the force of our synchronicity.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks, her voice still rasping.
I smooth my hand down her spine, loving the way she shivers when my fingers caress over the base of where her ribbons grow from her back. “You,” I say simply, gaze roving over her like I want to drink her in. Her gleaming eyes, her pillowy mouth, and the arch of her brows—every feature is perfect because it’s her.
She shows me her gorgeous smile, and the shy charm in her eyes makes me want to kiss her all over again so I can taste her happy.
When she tries to shift away from me, I hold her in place, and amusement flashes in her face. “Are you going to let me up?”
“Not likely.”
She laughs. “You’re still inside of me.”
“Yep.”
Her smile turns impish, and I know I’m going to have my hands full when my temptress says, “Well, if you’re going to stay there, then can we do that again?”
I grip her chin, male satisfaction bleeding through my expression as I look at her, my cock already hardening again. “Oh Goldfinch, we’re just getting started.”
Chapter 32
AUREN
My ear is pressed against Slade’s chest as I look out at the glass doors of the balcony. The dying night is the stroke of an artist painting over the sky, lessening the black into shades of muted gray.
Beneath me, Slade sleeps, the tempo of his even breaths like the pull of a breeze. Yet I haven’t slept, not for a single minute.
I’ve soaked up every moment, relished in each touch, reveled in all of him. Right now, in the quiet of a coming dawn, my spirit is content in a way I’ve never experienced before.
It reminds me of the feeling I used to get when I read those beautiful books of poetry back in Highbell. That sense like I’m suddenly hearing life as a song, an entity with more depth than I could ever possibly fathom. Everything I’ve experienced or thought suddenly joins, makes sense, has bigger meaning.