“Very good,” I praise.
She smirks in satisfaction, trailing a hand down my neck, streaks of gold smearing against me wherever she touches—like she’s marking me, which my fae nature really fucking likes.
After she trails along the stubbed spikes above my eyebrows, she leans in and skims her mouth against my neck. I have to bite back a groan.
“Come out, Goldfinch.”
A delicate, warm hand comes up to my cheek, and she turns my head to look at her.
“Come back, baby,” I say softly before I reach out and cup her jaw, letting my thumb drag across her cheek. “Come back to me.”
Something flickers in her eyes. Like flecks of shimmering light. Then, she blinks, and her expression suddenly morphs.
Sheer and complete relief pummels into me like a fist to my chest. “There you are.”
Her breath catches. Her lips part, and I watch her eyes focus on me before she whispers, “Slade.”
“I’m here. You’re here.”
She gives herself time for one breath, and then she fuses her mouth against mine. Her hold on the magic seems to disintegrate in a blink, and it goes splashing to the ground, splattering us both.
But she doesn’t even seem aware of it. She’s too busy trying to climb up my body, like she can’t bear to have any distance between us. I let the spikes on my arms sink beneath my skin, but everything else in me comes flaring up. All the worry and dread is shed into the pooling gold at our feet as carnal heat takes their place.
Because she’s awake. She’s alive. She’s warm and writhing and pressed against me.
Thank fuck.
Her lips yank away, just long enough for her to gulp in a breath. “I need...”
“What do you need, Auren?” I ask, letting my fang scratch against the pulse of her throat. Her hands cling to my neck, legs wrapped around me while I hold her ass, hands splayed and squeezing.
“You, please. I need it. I need it now.”
Her hands drop to the strings of my pants, already loosening the ties. So different from our first time together when she was shy and unsure. But all thought leaves my head when her hand darts inside and she grips my length.
“Fuck.”
She strokes me up and down, frantic and fast, like she’s desperate for me, desperate for escape. “I need you to make me feel.”
Her touch makes my balls tighten, and all I can think of is sinking into her and giving her exactly what she needs.
I put her down on her feet, making gold splash up around us.
“What are you doing?” she growls out in protest.
I grip her jaw, tilting her head up to look at me. Without saying a word of warning, I reach with my other hand and shove her leggings past her feet, her borrowed shirt barely covering her from my gaze.
She gasps, but when I cup her pussy, the sound turns into a moan. “Please...”
“You’re begging, baby.”
“I know!” she shouts out, head lolling back when I swipe my thumb over her clit.
I lean forward and lick a line up the curve of her neck, making her shudder. “I like it.”
Hands at her ass, I pull her up again, and the feel of her bare heat against my length makes me grit my teeth in pleasure.
“Rub yourself over me,” I command. “Get that slick pussy all over my cock.”
Wetness drips from her as she does exactly as I say, her hips rocking over me and coating me in her juices. “That’s it,” I purr. “Just like that...”
“Slade...”
The pitch of her voice seems to shoot directly to my cock, and I can’t wait a second more to sink into her waiting heat. I shift my hips and she reaches down between us, lining me up with her entrance.
I hold still, staring into her eyes while she trembles over me.
“Hurry,” she pleads.
I punch my hips forward and thrust into her, sinking all the way to the hilt.
Auren’s body latches onto me inside and out, hands digging into my neck, her inner walls clamped down tight.
Squeezing her ass, I lift her up and then bring her back down with a forceful grind, tearing a cry of bliss from her throat.
“Is this what you needed, Auren?” I say as I lift her before bringing her back down once again. My arms flex with every move, my spikes wanting to punch right back through my skin.
“Harder.”
Her breathless appeal tips over my restraint, and there’s nothing I want more than to oblige. I start slamming her down onto my cock so hard that her entire body tightens up, letting me have her completely at my mercy.
“Harder,” she cries, just as her head falls to my shoulder. Her blunt teeth bite into my skin and make my cock swell impossibly larger.
I go harder, faster, driving into her with carnal fervency.
“Harder,” she says again. And again. And again.
And again.
I jerk my head back, seeing sweat slick her face, her lips parted in quickened pants.
But I also see an edge of something else in the depths of her wild eyes. Something that makes me pause.
“No! Keep going,” she says, fingernails clawing at my neck and yanking my hair. “Go harder. So hard it hurts. I need to hurt.”
My hips stop punching up, my hands pausing on their lift. I raise a hand and fist her hair, tugging her face to the side. She hisses out a breath that turns into a groan.
“You need this?” I say, pinning my hips against hers, keeping my fingers threaded through her hair so she will look me in the eye. “Need to be punished?”
Her throat bobs, and I see a flicker of something in her gilded depths. “Yes...”
I thrust into her in a slow drag that makes her eyes roll back.
“Well, guess what?” I say, bringing her lips close enough to mine that I can sip in her exhales. “You don’t deserve punishment, Auren.”
She goes stiff in my arms, eyes widening.
“I see you.” I start fucking into her slow and steady, just as I slowly release her hair and instead bring my hand between us to stroke her clit. “You need an escape? You need me to make you feel good? I can fucking do that.”
I punctuate my words with my fingers rubbing against her, making her shake, her teeth biting down on her glistening lip.
“Listen to me,” I command, making her watery eyes latch onto mine. “You don’t deserve punishment for anything. You deserve reward.” A sob churns out of her, and I don’t need her to say a thing, because I see it all there in her eyes. “I will drive myself so far into you all you’ll feel is pleasure for how fucking glorious you are as you burn for me. But there will be no punishment.”
A golden tear drops from her lid and falls on my chest, soaking into the fabric of my shirt.
Before she can let out a protest, I sit us down on the ground. I lie beneath her, my cock notched so deep inside her that she lets out a whimper. But from this angle, she can be in charge. “I’m going to thumb your clit and make you scream, proving to you that you’re a goddess who takes her pleasure because that is what you deserve,” I growl out. “Now ride me.”
Her palms press against my chest, and with an angry glare, she starts lifting her body and then slamming back down on me hard and fast, her pace relentless, her expression determined. But all the while, I just stroke her clit with slow, smooth movements, circling her nerves and waiting.
Waiting.
Another frustrated tear slips down her cheek, and she looks down at me with anger burnishing her cheeks. “Fuck me,” she says.
“I will,” I tell her. “As soon as it’s about your pleasure and not your punishment.”
She slaps her hands down on my chest hard. “I need to be punished!” she snarls, chest heaving, aura flaring.
“Why.”
It’s not a question, it’s a demand.
Her expression falters. “Because I...I...”
I sit up fast enough that she sucks in a shocked breath, my cock angling deep. “I’ll tell you what you did. You finally broke free and you conquered.”
She stares at me like I’m her lifeline. Like I’m her only hope of not being torn to shreds. But I will always ground her. I will always remind her of who she is.