Page 83 of Fallen Court

We’d been naked for far too long for that to be true. Crawling forward, I straddled his lap, accidentally dragging my seam down his hardening cock in one long, far-from-subtle stroke.

“But don’t let me stop you from your seduction attempts,” he grunted, his eyes hooding as I did it again.

I rocked against him, biting my lip as the crown of his erection nudged against me. I wriggled, trying to sink over him in the slippery water, but Lach’s fingers kneaded my hips, sliding his cock up and down until my clit throbbed. His patience was maddening. The friction built until I found myself gasping. I fisted a hand in his ink-black hair, drawing his mouth a breath from my own.

“Tell me what you need, princess.” The command whispered over my lips, hoarse and demanding.

“You.” I moved to kiss him, but Lach craned his neck, shifting out of reach.

“Be. More. Specific.”

“Do you need a diagram?” I snapped. His answering laugh made me whimper.

“I love when you’re a needy little brat,” he murmured, urging my hips rougher. Faster. Until I was close to spilling over the edge like the bathwater. “Now be a good girl and tell me what you need.”

“Your cock.” I flushed, but his eyes held mine, refusing to let go. A silent order staring back at me that I found I couldn’t question. “I need your cock.”

He slid a hand under my ass, rising from the water so swiftly that I shrieked. My arms hooked around his neck to steady my spinning head. “What—”

“We aren’t fucking in a bathtub.” He kissed me as he stepped smoothly onto the tile floor. “It’s the fucking worst.”

But I needed him now. “The bed’s too far.”

I kissed along his jaw, desperate for his taste in my mouth.

“Not a problem.” Hunger coarsened every word. My legs coiled around his waist as he spun me. Glass shattered at our feet. I drew back at the sound, but he muttered, “Don’t worry about it.”

Good enough for me.

Lach pinned me against the wall, gaze trained on me as he spit into his palm, then reached between us and slicked my core. I moaned, unable to look away from his eyes as he pushed a finger inside me and began to pump, teasing out my arousal until I was trembling, until my entire world centered on that singular touch.

“Please,” I begged. He leaned forward, swallowing my pleading with a kiss like he needed that as much as I needed his touch.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I needed him inside me. My hips ground against him, urging him deeper, but it wasn’t enough. Another desperate plea fell from my mouth.

A laugh rumbled in his chest as I squirmed.

“Not yet.” His teeth nipped my lower lip just hard enough to make it sting before he pulled back, dark agony clouding his eyes. “I need to make sure you’re ready before I fuck you, because I’m not sure I can be gentle.”

That explained the shadows haunting him. He was still afraid he would break me, even when I practically begged him to. “I don’t want you to be gentle. I want you—all of you.”

“Cate.” Warning laced his voice.

His concern would be endearing if he wasn’t holding me on a cliff’s edge. I gripped the sides of his face and glared at him. “Nothing can break me. Not even you, Gage.”

The shadows fled his eyes, a smirk lifting his lips. “That’s my girl.”

“Prove. It.” A challenge he wouldn’t be able to resist. Not with that bond stretched taut between us.

He ran his tongue over his lower lip, studying my face with an awe that bordered on reverence. “You’re in control,” he reminded me, grunting as he hoisted my body higher against the wall to position himself, “but I suggest you hold on.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck, and his mouth crashed into mine. Lach slid in a single inch, and the mating bond roared in my veins, crying out for more. A growl tore from his throat like he felt it, too, and he slammed inside me, driving deeper with each thrust. I clawed at his back, tearing at his skin as that shared magic stripped us into something baser, something animalistic and primal, something ancient.

There was no question of accepting or rejecting what we were. He was burned in my blood, scorched into my fucking soul. Our lives were no longer linked by a bargain or a bond. They were forged into one. There was no part of me that didn’t include him.

Lach reared back, eyes wild and searching as pleasure tightened my limbs. “You’re mine, princess.”

And nothing and no one would ever come between us again. That knowledge undid me as much as his words. I went over the edge, unspooling as he released inside me, again and again until I collapsed against him, panting and trembling.