But he couldn’t lie to himself by pretending the need to claim her in that irrevocable, eternal way—to bind her to him by blood—wasn’t pounding in his veins like a war drum.
No.
He pushed the temptation away with a snarl as he rose over her and drank in the sight of her beauty. His hands actually trembled as he skated his fingers along her cheeks, across the plump softness of her lower lip.
The pulse points in her neck throbbed as he followed the delicate lines of her veins. That hard pound beneath his fingertips was torment, almost more than he could resist. His own heartbeat jackhammered in his temples. In his chest. In his painfully erect cock.
His transformed eyes felt like fiery coals in his skull, his thinned pupils fixated on the delectable prize that lay spread out before him, his for the taking.
He crushed her mouth to his in a fevered kiss, thrusting his tongue past her parted lips that still tasted of him. He wanted to devour her, starting with that wicked mouth that had given him no quarter. Caging her head between his bent forearms, he delved deeper with his tongue, thrust harder, with a greed for her he could barely contain.
She was gasping as he drew away from her, fangs bared and gleaming behind the swollen cushion of her lips. He licked the sharp points, groaning at the erotic graze of their tips against his tongue.
“You’re amazing,” he uttered thickly, his voice taking on the otherworldly timbre that was pure Breed. “I can never get enough of you.”
He palmed the rounded swell of her breasts, a low, possessive rumble building in his chest as she arched into his touch, writhing and moaning in eager response. He bent his head and took her nipple between his lips, sucking it hard, tweaking it with a sharp nip of his teeth.
He released the tight bud with a kiss, then lifted his hungered gaze up to hers. “You’re mine, Carys.”
“Yes.” She reached to caress his face, breath racing out of her in shallow pants. “Only yours.”
The same words she’d wrung from him in pleasure a few moments ago. He wanted to hear her scream those words before he was finished with her now.
He shifted his position and cupped the warm mound of her sex. Silky wetness met his fingertips on contact, and he slid inside her folds on a ragged breath. He stroked her cleft, reveling in the impossible slickness, the beckoning heat.
The walls of her sheath seared the two fingers he pushed into her. Tiny muscles rippled under his shallow thrusts, making his cock jerk in envy. He penetrated deeper, feeling her plush walls grasp for him with each slide of his fingers.
Her clit was a hard pearl that quivered as he ran the pad of his thumb over it, coating it with her juices. He flicked and teased and massaged it while his fingers continued to slide in and out of her.
He glanced up to find her watching him. Her amber eyes were scorching, so hot and wild with need. Her dermaglyphs danced with rich colors across her breasts and the slender planes of her abdomen. Passion swamped her face.
“Harder,” she rasped, demand in her husky voice. “Go deeper.”
He chuckled low under his breath. “Oh, not so fast, love. We’re only getting started.”
Her head dropped back on a thready groan, stretching that pretty column of porcelain skin and the delicate blue veins that beat frantically beneath its surface. Rune had to look away and he did so on a vicious curse.
Pumping his fingers into her, coaxing the bundle of nerves into an even tighter knot of pleasure for her, he bent his head to kiss and suckle her breasts. He was ravenous for her, but he wanted her mindless with need before he gave in to his own cravings.
Some primal, selfish part of him wanted to know that he was branded on her senses, stamped deep in her marrow. That she could never belong to another.
He drifted down the length of her body, kissing and nipping, tonguing every taut curve and valley. He shifted so that his face loomed over her sex, which glistened under his gaze, flushed dark pink and ripe for the eating. The sweet, musky scent of her was a drug to his sanity, but he was already addicted to this woman.
His woman.
“Show me,” he growled, sounding more savage than man. His fangs ached as painfully as his cock, twin hungers that demanded to be sated. “Let me hear you, baby.”
She answered with a throaty moan that nearly undid him on the spot. Her creamy juices drenched his fingers, making slick, wet sounds as he picked up his tempo. Her clit felt like a hot pebble as he rolled and stroked it with his thumb. She bucked under his touch now, her legs falling wide apart, moving restlessly as he commanded the last shreds of her control.
A cry built in the back of her throat, raw and untamed. It drove him on, turned him savage with the need to feel her shatter. She moaned his name, a shudder traveling the lithe arc of her body.
“Oh, God. It’s too good.” Arms flung up over her head on the mattress, her fingers twisted in the coverlet as she writhed and quivered under the relentless rhythm of his hand. “Rune, I’m going to come. Please . . . let me come now.”
He growled his approval and took his thumb from her clit only long enough to cover her with his open mouth. He took the bud deep, his tongue doing the work now, his lips buried in her sweet nectar, his fingers fucking her fast and deep. He stroked and sucked and savored, holding her against his face as her orgasm built to a frenzy. She came on a roar that nearly undid him. Vibrations wracked her strong, lean body, one after another.
He needed to taste more of her. He wanted to feast on her. Cleaving his tongue through the plush folds of her sex, he speared deep into the molten honey of her core. He lapped her up, just as she had done to him, greedy for every creamy, sweet drop.