Page 22 of Bonded By Stone & Blood

"I've been watching you murder half a mountainside," she says. "I think I can manage your shoulders."

I turn to face her and the words I meant to say dissolve. She is pale and furious and alive, and the silver markings at her collarbone have gone faintly luminous in the firelight. I can see her pulse in her throat. I want to put my mouth there.

"You stepped in front of him," I say.

"You were going to get your head taken off."

"Sabine." I hold her gaze and I don’t let myself look away, because she deserves to see exactly what she has done to me. "I have not slept since you fell into my mountain. I can’t think without your voice in it. I can’t breathe without your scent on every surface of every room." My thumb moves across her wrist, slow and deliberate.

"You have been haunting me since the first moment and I am—" The word scrapes out of me. "—done pretending otherwise."

Then she moves forward and closes the remaining distance herself.

"Sabine."

Her name is a warning. She ignores it and steps closer.

I stand from the stone bench and immediately regret it. The firelight catches the pale column of her throat, the silver markings at her collarbone, the fullness of her mouth, andevery careful wall I have constructed against her dissolves at the foundation. I try to turn my body away. I can’t. My feet won't carry me from her.

She tilts her face up to mine. Dangerously close. Her eyes hold mine without flinching and she wets her lips slowly and breathes my name like it belongs in her mouth.

The last thread snaps.

My hand wraps around her throat. Claws fully retracted, palm pressed firm against her pulse. I breathe heavily against her face, tasting the air between us, and then my mouth finds hers and I stop pretending I am anything but what I am.

She moans and presses herself flush against my chest. The full, warm weight of her breasts hits me like a blow. Every nerve ending I have redirects to where her body meets mine, and my cock responds with blunt, immediate honesty, swelling hard and straining between us until it grazes her belly through the thin fabric separating us.

She breaks the kiss to look down.

The heat that climbs her face is almost funny.

She used her hand to cup my girth and the sound she makes — sharp, breathless, half a laugh — does nothing to help my situation.

"I can't even—" She tries to close her fingers around my girth.

"Take it out. Use both hands," I tell her, voice a ruin.

She does, taking my bottoms down to the floor.

The groan that leaves me is involuntary and deep. My wings spread reflexively behind me, curling outward at the tips, and her hands move — slow, exploring strokes from root to crown — and I feel the throb of my own pulse in every inch she touches. Thick beads of pre-cum gather at the head and she uses her thumb to work them in slow circles, looking up at me the entire time like she is memorizing my undoing.

"I want you," I say, the words completely wrecked. "All of you."

She releases me, steps back, and holds my gaze as she undresses. I close the distance before the last garment hits the stone floor.

My hands find her hips and I lift her and set her down on the bedding in one motion, coming down over her entirely, my wings half-spread behind me, my cock hard and heavy against her soft belly. She is flushed from her chest to her throat, her nipples peaked tight, her thighs already pressing against my hips.

"Be gentle," she says.

"I'll try."

She reaches between us without hesitation, wraps both hands around my cock, and begins working the slick head through her folds, coating me in her warmth, massaging the length slowly, spreading the wet heat of her until I am trembling with the effort of holding still. She guides the tip to her entrance and pauses.

I watch her face as I push forward.

Her lips part. Her breath goes shallow. She keeps her eyes locked on mine as I ease the first thick inches inside her. Her body resists, flutteringly tight, and I go still until I feel her adjust.

"More," she manages.