He pulled back from devouring her and conjured away his clothes—they were magic constructions, easily dealt with, but hers were physical items. He dragged his hand from her breast and shifted a single talon. He renewed his grip on her hair, holding her still, lest she move and he nicked even a bit of that delicious skin.
“I want you,” he breathed into her ear as he sliced her t-shirt from neck to sleeve. The fabric was shorn easily with the sharpness of his blade. She gasped, but he couldn’t tell if it was the words or the shirt falling loose. Her bra strap went next, exposing her breast as it fell. He shifted his hand back to human so he could grasp hold of that bare sweetness. “I’ll take you right here. Against the wall. Keep your hands where they are.” His words were ragged, but as he slipped his hand into the front of her pants, his fingertips finding the slickness of her sex, her breath became even more labored than his.
But through the heaviness of her breath, she hummed her assent, a kind of aching, pitched sound that sung to him—she needed this. He could taste it, feel it urging him on. It was clouded by his own need—it had been so long for him, impossibly long—but her desire sang through the haze, justifying this, validating all of it. The lies, the ruse, the secrets. At least he would give her this, a slaking of something long-needed and buried.
The roughness of her pants rubbed against the nakedness of his body. He pulled his hand free of her sex, ignoring her protest as he shifted a talon and hooked it at the waist of her tailored slacks.
“Hold still,” he commanded. Then he carefully sliced his way down, kneeling as he went, the fabric giving way like silk before a steel blade. His other hand pressed flat to her back, trailing down, then skimming the curve of her bared bottom. Her clothes fell away, revealing the smattering of freckles that patterned every inch of her. So beautiful. She stayed rigid, hands planted against the wall, shuddering deliciously as he traced his way back up with his lips.
When he stood behind her again, he wrapped himself around her, his cock slipping between her legs, but not yet inside, one hand on her breast, the other diving back into her wetness. His face buried in her hair, and he moved against her, skin on skin, that silent erotic dance that bewitched him before.
She muttered soft curses as he worked her sex, and he was tempted to make her come before taking her, but he wasn’t sure he could last. The pressure was building already, and he hadn’t even entered her. Instead, he stepped back and grabbed her hip with one hand, pulling it away from the wall. His other hand fisted in her hair and pressed her forward just enough until her entrance beckoned. With a roar that stayed contained inside him, he plunged his cock deep inside her.
Merciful magic, she was tight. His roar rushed to the surface, arriving a split second after her shriek of pleasure. He held still for a moment, mind blotted by the intense pleasure of being buried to the hilt in the hotness of her body. She was gasping and cursing again, balling one fist against the wall and pushing back against him with her bottom. He understood what she wanted, and his urge to move was overwhelming as well. He gripped her hip tight, pulled back and slammed into her again, the pleasure whiting out his mind. Again and again, each stroke some kind of mind-altering drug that took him higher.
He was taken with lust, driven as he was driving into her. Her pleas for more and faster were fuel poured on his fire, and the hot wet smacking of their bodies would surely burn them both out. His own climax was rocketing toward him like an inferno.
“Come for me,” he panted, working his hand forward to find her nub and speed her release. “My treasure, please,” he pleaded.
She groaned, but in frustration.
He stroked her harder, both with his cock and his hand. She bucked against him, wild in it, but still no crying out, no quivering of feminine flesh finding the peak.
“Arabella.” He couldn’t last much longer. It took everything to hold out.
She pounded the wall with her fist, crying out, but not in a good way—this was the sound of anger, not pleasure.
“I can’t.” The words were a whisper, and he almost didn’t hear them over the ragged breaths and breathy groans.
He sunk deep inside her and held still. “You can’t… what?”
“I can’t… I just don’t…” She was pulling away from him.
Every instinct in him ran cold. He pulled his cock from her body so he could turn her around. Her face was streaked with tears. “Arabella.” What had he done?
She was wiping at her face, looking everywhere but him, ignoring his attempts to bring her into his arms. “It’s okay. It’s fine. I’m sorry… I just can’t…”