The steady rhythm turned sharper, more urgent, his hips driving forward with increasing intensity as though something inside him had finally broken free.
The blankets shifted beneath us, bunching up with the force of his movement, and I felt the tremor running through his body each time he buried himself deep inside me.
My senses blurred.
The cavern, the river, the cool air against my skin—everything faded until the only thing left was the overwhelming awareness of him.
Of the heat of his body.
Of the powerful rhythm pulling me further and further into the storm of sensation building inside me.
My hands slid into his hair, gripping the midnight strands as the rising tension inside me grew almost unbearable.
“Talon,” I breathed again.
He lifted his head.
His eyes were darker than I had ever seen them, the ice-blue depths burning with a raw intensity that made my stomach twist.
“I want to mark you,” he murmured hoarsely against my skin. “Leave no part of you untouched.”
My muscles tightened helplessly around him, the sudden wave of sensation stealing the breath from my lungs as the pressure that had been building inside me finally shattered.
My body convulsed beneath him, his continuous thrusts coaxing me through my climax.
His name tore from my throat as the pleasure crashed through me in blinding waves, my vision flooding with bursts of violet light that flickered behind my closed eyelids.
Talon answered with a rough growl.
His final movements lost the last of their restraint, his body tightening as he drove forward one last time before going still above me. The tension that had been coiled through him snapped, and I felt the shudder that rippled through his frame as he gave in to his own release.
I felt the hot flood of him spilling into me, claiming me from the inside out.
The bond between us pulsed softly, the echo of our shared climax humming through the space between our souls like the fading reverberation of a struck bell.
Then Talon’s weight settled more fully against me.
His chest rose and fell heavily as he lowered his head, his lips brushing the curve of my collarbone while his arm tightened around my waist, holding me close against him.
Even as his breathing slowly steadied, he remained buried deep within me, his hips shifting in a slow, absent roll that sent lingering ripples of warmth through my exhausted body.
“You will always feel it,” he whispered. “I am anchored inside you now.”
25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The water was cool against my skin, luminous and impossibly clear.
We stood waist-deep in the shallows, the current carrying tiny motes of light like fallen stars.
The waterfall roared somewhere behind us, filling the comfortable silence, its mist clinging faintly to the back of my neck.
Talon stood a few feet away, his broad shoulders cutting through the glowing surface. Water clung to the ink on his skin in rivulets before disappearing beneath the tide.
He did not look out of place here. He looked… inevitable.
I dipped my hand into the current and flung a splash at him. The droplets caught in the sharp planes of his collarbones before dissolving into light.