He will not be the one to make this leap, I realize as I hold his stare. He has made all the rest. This one—this choice—will have to be mine. With that realization, I shift slightly forward and, as I do, I allow my maegic to shift as well.
My mind brushes his, a hopeful question; his brushes back, an irrefutable answer.
The one I want.
The one I need.
Yes.
I surge forward even as he pulls me in. Our mouths meet with shocking urgency. And, just like that, Soren is kissing me. A kiss I have no words for, a kiss that is the opposite of everything I thought I knew about passion. Not the violent combustion of pent-up need, not the unstoppable flare of lust, but something else. Something deeper. A kiss so deep, I could swim in it forever and still never reach the bottom.
Pretenses fall away as our maegics meld together. Water and wind, air and ocean. We sink into each other, a deliberate drowning. Fast as a riptide, I am lost. Lost in the sea of him, infinite and all-encompassing.
He is just as lost. I can feel his unfettered need for me, the unfathomable scope of it, as he hauls me flush against him. His fingers dig into my skin, gripping me tighter—one hand collaring my neck, the other anchored at the small of my back. My own hands shake with desire as they lift to his chest, sliding up the strong planes to cling to his shoulders.
I’m shocked by the desperation that swirls inside me, a wild tempest of longing finally unleashed; shocked by how much I want him now that I am at last able to own up to it.
Throughout my life, I had dreamed many times of a deep, dark sea. A dream I’d returned to again and again, for as long as I could remember. Sinking, sinking, sinking. Never quite knowing what I’d find at the bottom. I would wake gasping—tasting brine on my lips, feeling salt on my skin, curious how my mind conjured such a vivid dreamscape. Wondering why, of all mydreams, it was the one I most longed to return to whenever I closed my eyes.
And here it is again. Only this time, I am not asleep. This time, as I sink, I am wide awake. I slip deeper and deeper, losing a bit more of myself with each moment. I should be afraid to lose sight of the shores of logic and reason, should be terrified as reality ebbs out of my grip. But with each devouring stroke of his mouth, Soren breathes life into me. With each drugging touch, he guides me into an abyss from which there is no end.
I do not want an end.
The dams have broken wide, unleashing a flood that soon carries us away. We are both caught in the current, unable to stop as we finally allow ourselves to taste, to touch. Indulging in fantasies long forbidden from even entering my waking thoughts. I feel less in control of my body than I was the night he fought back the tsunami, when his power pulled me to him; less in command than I was in the leylines, when I felt the tug of something—someone—familiar amid the oblivion.
I do not recall moving, yet here I am on his lap, my arms wrapped tight around his shoulders, my knees straddling him. When I feel the rigid length of his desire pressed against the sensitive heart of mine, my hungry whimper breaks the kiss.
“Skies, skylark,” he rasps, mouth moving to my neck. His teeth scrape down the column of my throat. He nips sharply at my collarbone then kisses away the sting, sending a shiver through my bones. His lips curve in a smile when he feels it. As they skate lower, I arch against him, pressing as close as physically possible. In this moment, if I could climb inside him, I think I would do it.
I cannot prevent my hands from clinging to his nape as his mouth moves between my breasts, nor can I stop the shocked gasp that erupts from my throat as he begins to trace the spiralsof my Remnant mark with the tip of his tongue, a devilishly slow exploration that makes me feel like I might combust.
“Soren, that’s—” I moan. My airway is suddenly too tight to speak; I shift to mind-to-mind.“That’s sensitive.”
“Oh, I know.”
He moves with startling quickness, flipping me over onto my back. I blink up at the full moon for a second, my sluggish mind trying to orient itself. My hand flies out, reaching for him—hating the sudden loss of his mouth, his touch, his scent. His grin is a white flash in the dark as he takes in the sight of me sprawled across the steps of the sea organ. But the look on his face changes as his gaze lingers on my body. Growing predatory with intent, it pins me in place as effectively as a set of shackles the moment before he strikes.
The sodden hem of my gown drags through the swells of the incoming tide, the salt no doubt ruining the perfect silk, but I cannot bring myself to care as Soren’s hands bunch in the fabric, shoving it up over my parted knees. He kneels between them, hands skimming up the sensitive skin of my inner thighs, mouth trailing in their wake. He takes the thin material of my undergarments in his grip and, with one tug of his strong fingers, tears them clear off my body. Blindly, he tosses them into the waves.
“What are you—”
My mind fragments into pieces as he kisses me in a place I’ve never before been kissed, a place I did not even know onecouldbe kissed. The pleasure is blinding. A volt of pure lust arcs through me. I bow up off the steps, an involuntary squirm, but his hands lock onto my hips, holding me firmly in place as he begins to feast on me like a starving man.
Gods, I’m about to shatter and he’s only just begun.
My desire densifies the air around us, an electrical charge building in direct relation to the relentless pleasure he is inflicting,lash by lash, stroke by stroke, until I fear I will unleash a storm of electricity.
“Soren,”I cry.“Soren, I’m going to—”
“Let go, skylark.”His inner voice is raw with lust. His mouth never stops its delicious torture between my legs; if anything, it grows more ravenous.“Let go.”
His teeth clamp down, a sudden spike of sensation, and I explode into a violent release. The moment I do, bolts of lightning streak across the midnight sky overhead, a jagged display of power I do not even see, as my eyes are closed. His name sings down the bond again and again, harmonizing with the low song of the sea that vibrates from the pipes beneath us.
My blood continues to pound as the intensity of what has just occurred starts to wane, as the aftershocks of lust clear from my mind. Soren is still between my legs, pressing kisses to my inner thighs, when I manage to open my eyes to the moon.
“Did I tell you I like your dress?”
A startled laugh bursts from my lips. “No,” I whisper aloud. My voice sounds as staggered as I feel.