He reared back, breaking her leglock. “Bond? No.” Red eyes glowed in the darkness. She thought she saw a flicker of gold break through, but then it was gone, and his guttural rasp drifted down to her. “Fuck? Yes.”
Shit. He’d warned her that if they waited too long it would be too late. Desperation clawed at her as the reality set in. She couldn’t lose him now. Remembering what she’d read about his breed and their mating rituals, she tore off her shirt, fumbled with the fasteners on her ankle holster, and withdrew her stang. Before he could blink, she sliced through the front of her bra and drew the blade across the top of one breast. Pain surged through her, followed by a double burn of lust and love.
“Taste me.”
His chest heaved as he lowered his gaze to her breasts. Reaching up, she threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him toward her, but just as the heady sensation of his hot breath fanning her skin hit her, he jerked away, eyes wild. He palmed the cut, and the familiar vibration shot through her as it sealed up. Every one of her injuries knitted together before she could pull away.
“Please, Eidolon,” she whispered. “This is what you’ve wanted your entire life. You want a mate. Children. You want to be a doctor. Take me. Claim me.”
He groaned, and this time, when he looked at her, his eyes were gold, molten brilliance. “Be . . . sure,” he panted. “Can’t hold on . . . much longer . . .”
“I’m sure.” She toed off her sneakers and pulled him tight between her thighs again. “Hurry.”
Instead, he kissed her. Gently, leisurely, as if they had all the time in the world. Then, as though to make up for time wasted, he hauled her off the desk and yanked down her pants. As she stepped out of them, he settled on the desk and lay back. One hand gripped the edge with white-knuckled force, and the other released his arousal from his jeans.
“Climb up.” His voice was a tense rumble, spoken through clenched teeth, and she knew they had not a second to spare. “This has to be voluntary. You must initiate it and offer it, the way I did with you in my room.”
Anticipation made her sex clench and weep as she straddled him, knees braced on the desk, hovering over his rigid shaft. His hands opened and closed at his sides as though he wanted to grab her. In one quick motion, she sat on him, burying him deep. He shouted and bucked, and the expression on his face could have been ecstasy or misery.
He bit his lip so hard he drew blood as he strained to remain still.
“Hurry, lirsha, hurry,” he rasped. “Your wrist. Feed me.”
She’d dropped her stang on the floor along with all her other weapons when she’d undressed. Shit. Thing was, she knew better than to not have a weapon within reach. That was what he did to her, made her so crazy with lust and love that all her training, all her hatred, disappeared.
She looked down at him, at the way he was watching her with a laser focus. Little flecks of red broke through and she knew they’d reached critical mass. She tore his caduceus pendant from his neck and stabbed the tiny dagger into her right wrist. It hurt; the blade was dull, but it did the job. Quickly, she forced the cut against his mouth. His right hand, the tattooed one, closed on her left. He threaded their fingers together so that from shoulder to shoulder, they were one long, sinuous piece of artwork. The connection, wrist-to-mouth, hand-to-hand, pelvis-to-pelvis, created a circuit, an electric path that made her scream with the intensity.
She rocked on top of him, writhing with no sense of rhythm or regularity. Her body did what it wanted. Every nerve ending tingled. Her head spun. Eidolon surged against her as she churned above him. The loss of control barely registered in her mind, should have been frightening, but nothing had ever been so intense, so good. She was falling, and Eidolon would be there to catch her.
Sensations popped all over, on her skin, in her veins, and when he pulled deeply on her wrist, it felt as though an erotic string connected her wrist to her sex. She whimpered her approval as he sucked harder and her sex clenched with each draw from her vein.
“I feel you inside, Tayla . . . Gods, I love you.” The fingers on her hip tightened. “Oh . . . damn!” He threw back his head and shouted, slamming his hips upward with such force that she came off the desk. Their tattoos glowed red fire and then she came, a full-body orgasm that went on and on.
Heat flowed through her body, her lungs burned, and the blood in her veins sizzled as she collapsed on top of him, panting, dizzy.
“Hold still,” he said hoarsely, and a mild buzz vibrated her wrist. He was healing her cut.
“Is it over?” she asked.
“Yes. Can you feel it?”
“Everywhere.”
On her skin, in her body, in her soul. She could sense him, could almost touch his thoughts, and she knew exactly what he was feeling.
Peace.