Page 9 of Shifters Reckoning

She trembled beneath me. “I could live here forever.”

“Mmm,” I agreed. “You’re the only way I’ve been able to hang on to any part of reality. You make a good anchor, Emma Carter.”

Delicately, Emma began kissing every inch of skin across my chest, lingering on the new skin. Desire seeped through my flesh and into my soul. My body responded instantly, hard and eager. I thrust my hips against her. Nuzzling her face into my neck, she pushed her hips up against me.

“Emma,” I warned. “It’s been too long to tease me and expect me to last.”

She laughed, throwing her head back against the pillow and exposing the arch of her gorgeous neck. Shit fire. She was everything I didn’t know I needed, everything I craved.

“Then we’ll try, try again until we get it right,” she said.

Laughter welled up in my chest, and I crushed her close, pleased we had no clothes between us. Kissing her cheek led me to caress her neck down to her breasts. Carefully, I took her nipple between my thumb and forefinger, and her breath caught. Each freckle, birthmark, and scar received renewed attention.

Never once did I view any part of Emma’s body as mundane, but in this moment, I realized how much I had taken for granted. How, if the worst had happened, perhaps I’d have forgotten the rainbow tattoo on her hip, the one that glowed whenever she summoned shifter magic, or the trail of freckles down her back that resembled a map of constellations. The tattoo had only tingled when we’d first met. The stronger her magic had grown, the more the tattoo had gone from tingling to glowing. Etching every part of her body into my brain consumed me until I could re-create it flawlessly in my mind, in my dreams.

By the end, I wanted to drown in her eyes. Fearless. “Emma.”

Her fingers grazed my side, along my ribs, her touch light as air.

I caught her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. “Are you cold?” I whispered softly. “You’re trembling.”

“So are you,” she replied, smiling softly. “I think it’s the downside of adrenaline.”

“Oh, I think my body is trembling for an entirely different reason.” I winked.

“That too,” she murmured. “Maybe it’s all that.” Her eyes slid closed.

My lips grazed her tattoo, and I drew my tongue over the colors.

A soft melodic note, something between a sob, a laugh, and a moan, escaped her as she pushed her hip into my lips. A whimper followed.

Pleeease… echoed in my head, and I understood what she wanted.

I chuckled, reveling in the depth of her lust for my tongue.

Slowly, I pushed Emma backward until she gently lay flat on the bed beneath me. I moved down her body, and she sighed with disappointment when I began by kissing her ankles, as far away from her center as I could be. Soon, my tongue reached her knee before I glanced up at her to catch her watching me through tear-soaked eyes.

“What’s wrong?” It hurt me to see her cry. What the hell had happened while I’d been away? Had what I had done with her power somehow broken her heart?

“They’re happy tears, Logan. I’m grateful.”

I am, too. Grateful I hadn’t broken her, her heart, or earned her rejection by twisting those shadowed souls into weapons. I love you. I pushed the thought through our bond, and I professed my forever love before gently situating her heels over my shoulders and taking her into my mouth.

Emma’s pleasure-filled moan drew my own body tight with desire, her hips arching toward my face. Her taste, her scent… Everything about her was perfect. Always. My tongue drew slow, tentative circles around her clit, eliciting trembling legs and soft moans.

“God, Logan, fucking missed you…”

My name on her lips felt like… not worship, something more profound, more primal. With one hand reaching up to cup her breast, I slid my fingers into her.

Fuck. I wanted to be inside her, and each cry of my name made me harder and threatened to push me over the edge. Physically, my cock throbbed against the bed, aching for her. All the love I felt for this woman flooded me.

I must have slowed my lapping in my attempt to slow my own climax because Emma whispered, “Don’t stop, Logan.”

I smiled into her heat and laughed.

She giggled too before gripping a fistful of my hair as I continued to tease her. Her hips rocked against my tongue and fingers, and I picked up my speed.

“Never leave me,” Emma gasped between moans.