Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“Demanding.” A kiss that tasted of her, and the unexpected intimacy of it added another layer of sensation to this interlude where Eleri was determined to drown in the tactile, in emotion…but mostly in Adam.
Cold rushed in where Adam had been the instant he left her, and the numbness, it began to eat away at the depth of sensation she’d hoarded…but Adam hadn’t been lying about changeling speed. He was on her again almost before she’d processed that he was gone, and this time, he was naked.
The hairs on his thighs rubbed against hers, his chest crushing her breasts as he fisted a hand in hair she hadn’t even realized he’d undone, and he dropped his head to kiss her with a deep, wet intensity. She surrendered, opened herself, gave him all of what she had left, and he gathered up the dregs and somehow saw beauty.
“You’re driving me crazy,” he said as he moved his hand to between them, his thumb pressing down on a body part she knew was called the clitoris but whose purpose she hadn’t ever understood. At the same time, he speared his fingers through her labia to touch the highly sensitive entrance to her vagina…and Eleri got it.
She’d been taught the body parts in biology class but was never told that those parts weren’t only about function. The clitoris’s whole purpose, it appeared, was pleasure. Her body was designed for pleasure.
Her breath caught, her torso twisting as she reclaimed her right to feel. “More, Adam,” she gasped, able to sense the looming wall of nothingness waiting to crash over her.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” His chest heaved, his hair falling around his face as he looked down at her.
She looked up at him and wanted him beyond bearing. “You could never hurt me.”
His face twisted, a raw anguish in it. “Never.” A rough promise. “On the honor of my clan, mate of mine.”
Her eyes burned, and in that moment, she knew she could cry. She drew Adam down to her. “All of it, Adam. Please.”
A shuddering breath before he kissed her even as he resettled his body so that the blunt hardness of his erection pushed against her. It should’ve felt like a violation, that penetration to a body that had never felt its like…but it felt the opposite. An embrace.
Adam inside her, around her, the smell of him, the weight of him, the wild honor of him.
For a pulse in time, she did drown, her body rippling in a faded echo of pleasure—but it was pleasure true and real—and her tears were of a woman who felt.
• • •
Later, Adam held Eleri against him, spooning her too-slender body with his own as his falcon spread its wings over her spirit. “You cold?”
A shake of her head. “You burn like a fire.” Cool words, but he’d tasted her tears at the end, felt her body shiver around his. He’d have thought he’d done it wrong, not given his mate what she needed, except that she’d kissed him in the aftermath and said, “I felt, Adam. All through me,” as tears yet streamed down her face. “I felt.”
He snuggled her closer, distraught in ways he fought to hide. Because he knew from her physical responses that she’d caught only the merest edge of sensation, the barest whisper of what could be between mates. Those fuckers had hurt her so much, her mind and spirit grievously wounded.
“This is just the start,” he murmured, kissing her ear because it was close and he just wanted to adore her. “We’re going to get stronger with every day that passes.”
Eleri’s body went motionless before she turned in his arms and shifted so they lay face-to-face, her head on his arm and her hair trailing over her body in smooth, dark strands as she pressed a hand to his heart. “I feel your frustration now at being unable to reach me. I don’t want to feel it—or for you to feel it—for however long I make it before Exposure.”
“I’ll handle it,” Adam said, aggravated with himself for allowing her to see it.
But she shook her head, her eyes lost in the mists inside her. “I would rather carry this one perfect day forever, than have you watch me degrade, watch me become less and less until I lose all of myself.”
“You don’t get to make that decision unilaterally.” He leaned in until their breaths mingled, his hand over the side of her head, her hair so soft under his palm. “Not when this is about the two of us.”
“Adam.” His name said in a way that was…just her. Only her. “Attempt the mating bond.”
Shocked, he said, “If you think I won’t, Eleri, you’re very wrong, so you’d better be ready.”
“I am.” Her fingers curled into his skin.
His falcon more than ready, Adam let go of the knot of energy he’d kept contained inside for ten long years, and it arrowed toward her. He waited for it to crash, bind, and return to him twofold. He waited to see her as she would see him.