“More.” I grabbed a fistful of hair, and he groaned.
“Faster?” he taunted against my lips.
“Yes.”
“Harder?”
I shook, lightning rushing through my veins. “Yes.”
Ash still held back, his swirling silver eyes locked on mine as his hips punched forward, hard and deep. And I took him. I brought both knees up, hooking my legs around his waist. For a moment, neither of us moved. Our bodies were flush, hip to hip, chest to chest.
Then he moved, just like I wanted, fast and hard. I couldn’t even keep up. All I could do was hold on as he took me.
“Fates, nothing feels like this,” he uttered against my mouth. “Nothing feels like you.”
I felt the same, but I couldn’t get the words out as pleasure started to build again as he drove me to the breaking point, over and over. His mouth found mine, and he worked an arm under me, tilting my hips up.
Then I lost all sense of time. It was just the sounds of our bodies coming together and the wind above, stirring the branches. I felt him swelling and tightening with each deep, pounding thrust. The tension returned, building deep inside me until every muscle in my body tensed.
There was no slow build, no coming to the edge and then pulling back. The coil spinning inside me unfurled at a shocking rate. Crying out his name, the most intense pleasure I’d ever felt rolled over me in tight, hot waves that stretched every nerve ending.
Mindlessly, I threw my head back, but Ash’s hand was there, preventing it from hitting the ground. He cradled the back of my head and ground his hips into mine, sending pulses of uncontrollable ecstasy through every nerve in my body.
“Liessa.” His voice was rough and low. He pressed into me, joining me in release with a hoarse shout. “Sera.”
I held on to him, even as the rest of my body went limp. I just held him to me as pleasure took him in the same endless way.
“I never wanted…” Ash whispered against my skin, even as I felt him still spasming inside me. He kissed my neck, then the corner of my lips. “I never wanted until you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Ash’s lips coasted over mine, and his words echoed in my mind.
I never wanted.
Looping my arms around his shoulders, I held him tightly. The kiss deepened until we were drowning in each other.
I never wanted until you.
His heart pounded against mine as our lips reluctantly parted. We were both breathless and yearning—
The Primal essence suddenly throbbed intensely throughout me, causing me to suck in a short breath. Ash’s head jerked up at that exact moment.
A low rumble of thunder traveled through the air, seeming to emanate from every direction, both above and below us. Tiny bumps of dread raced across my skin, and my eyes locked on his.
“Kolis,” snarled Ash, shadows rapidly appearing in his cheeks as his flesh thinned. “They’ve found him.”
“And he’s conscious,” I whispered.
Time…
We were out of time.
The rumble picked up, and the ground trembled, causing the trees to sway and sending several leaves falling.
I wasn’t ready.
But I had to be.
I had to face the end because this was it. This wasn’t a close call. There would be no tomorrows. No afters. This was it.
I stared into Ash’s whirling silver eyes as a hundred—no, a thousand—different things rose to the tip of my tongue. I still wanted to know and say so much. All of it would take a lifetime or more, but I had mere minutes. Not even hours now.
Minutes.
Panic sliced through my chest, sending adrenaline surging through my veins.
The tendrils of eather brightened in Ash’s gaze as he sucked in a sharp breath.
Oh, no. He was reading my emotions. I needed to get myself under control. I didn’t want him feeling my panic or distress. This would already be bad enough for him.
Breathe in. I reached up, sinking my hands into his hair. Hold. I let myself feel the texture slipping through my fingers for a heartbeat or two. Breathe out. I willed my racing heart to slow. “I always wanted before you.”
A tremor ran through Ash, and I knew it had nothing to do with the Primal rage building in Iliseeum and spreading into the mortal realm. “Liessa…”
“I wanted to be known,” I whispered, needing him to hear this. “I wanted to be accepted.”
Another shudder rocked Ash.
“I wanted to be included.” I slid my hands free of his hair, drawing them down the cool skin of his neck. “I wanted to be talked to and touched.”
“Sera,” he breathed.
The tips of my fingers grazed the hard line of his jaw. “Most of all, I wanted to be valued, to be needed and cherished and wanted for who I was and not who I was supposed to be or what I could do for someone. I wanted to be seen.” A surge of emotion clogged my throat as the ground trembled once more. “You gave me all of that, Ash. I’ve lived because of you.”
A sound came from deep within Ash as if it tore itself free from the depths of his soul. “I will give you so much more.”
Before I could process what he’d said, his mouth closed over mine. Rocking back, he rose fluidly. He cradled me to his chest, the kiss deepening, parting my lips. His tongue stroked mine, and when he kissed like this, it overwhelmed me—his scent, taste, and the cool wetness of his mouth. Our lips moved hungrily as I grasped the back of his head, soaking in all the sensations. I didn’t want to forget where I was going.
I wouldn’t.
Sharp wind stirred around us. The sudden shock of cold water rushing over my feet was a jolt to my senses. Ash had entered the lake, gracefully descending the earthen steps of shadowstone, the water rising and lapping over my legs and then my waist. He kept kissing me, his mouth urgent and demanding as if he sought to lose himself in it as badly as I wanted to.
His mouth only left mine when the water reached my lower back and occasionally rippled against my shoulders. “Sera,” he gasped.
Calmed as I always was by the lake, my heart rate slowed. I reached up, pressing my palm to his cheek. His eyes were full of whipping silver coils of eather. “I love you, Ash.”
His chest rose sharply, and each breath he took was fast and hard.
“It’s time,” I whispered.
The eather slowed in his eyes. His chest stopped its rapid movements. He didn’t move, not even as the tremor beneath us came once more.
I cupped his jaw. “Please.”
One side of his lips curled up, revealing one sharp point as he snarled, “No.”
Then he struck.
He was so fast I had no time to feel the unease that had threatened to take over earlier when I’d felt the scrape of his fang.
The one word he’d spoken got lost in my cry as his fangs pierced the skin of my throat. Sharp agony reverberated through my body, but the pain didn’t last. What chased the sting away wasn’t exactly pleasure, it just didn’t hurt as his mouth latched on to my throat or maybe…maybe I couldn’t feel the pleasure.
Because I knew he found none.
Ash was trembling, but he wouldn’t drag this out. He wouldn’t do that to me.
His fingers moved against my hip, now under the water, in slow, soothing swipes that were in tune with the deep, drugging pulls at my vein. He drank fast, taking my blood into him, and I knew this was likely killing a part of him—something that would take a long time to come back.