A Fire in the Flesh (Flesh and Fire, #3)

I rocked against him, gasping at the fullness and the dual coils of pleasure spinning out. Within seconds, I was lost to the scandalous sensation. My hips grinding, my head thrashed. The eather at my breast pulsed, tugging at my nipples. I cried out, my body jerking.

Tension built quickly, stealing my breath and shocking me. Ash had marvelously talented…eather, but I’d never felt this kind of intensity before. Did I just feel things stronger because of the Ascension? Or was it him and these new experiences?

The wickedness of it all? I didn’t know, but I couldn’t even think clearly as his head lowered. Soft strands of hair grazed my stomach. His cool, slick tongue ran up the inside of my thigh.

The coil deep inside me tightened. My movements became almost frantic, the pleasure I felt bordering on painful. “I…I can’t,” I gasped. “It’s too much.”

“You can.” He licked again, catching the wetness there. “You will. Because no one is stronger than you.”

I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I kept thrusting, my movements becoming increasingly erratic.

Tension built quickly, stealing my breath and shocking me. I screamed as a release took me hard, whirling through me in pounding waves of pleasure. And Ash…

Gods, he was relentless.

His mouth moved over me as he licked and tasted, drawing out every quiver and gasp.

The tendrils eased from me, bringing forth a ragged gasp. His eyes pulsed with eather as he rose. Power crackled across his shadowstone-hued flesh as he crawled over me.

A sharp bolt of lust lanced me. I didn’t think it would be possible for me to feel anything like that after what we’d just done. Or what he had. What we’d both taken part in. Whatever.

Grasping my hip, he rolled me onto my belly. I started to push up out of reflex, but the cool press of his chest against my back only let me get so far.

One hand stayed on my hip, fingers pressing into the flesh. I trembled as his firm hold reached deep inside me, stroking that dark, wicked part of me alive once more.

Ash lifted me onto my widespread knees and then guided me so my back was almost straight. I felt him begin to press into…what had he said earlier? My pussy? I shuddered and clung to his arm.

He was…oh, gods, he was definitely bigger.

“I won’t ever get tired of this,” he whispered in my ear, dragging his free hand over my breast and then down my stomach to the junction of my thighs. “Especially this.”

My hips jerked, seeking his hand, but he caught me, pushing my rear against him.

“I will never take you for granted,” he promised, and my breath froze then redoubled as I felt him entering me, inch by delicious inch. “I will never dishonor you.”

A spasm ran up my leg as he stretched me. The coolness of his cock was such a shock.

“I will always stand at your side, your command my will.” He nipped my jaw as he went deeper. “I will never let harm come to you.”

I shook, unable to even cry out as he pushed into me, to the hilt. He groaned as I stared wide-eyed at the wall. The feel of him inside me now, his cock throbbing, was indescribable.

“And I will lay waste to Primals, gods, Kings, and men if they even try to hurt you, and I will feel no remorse for doing so.” His tongue soothed the skin he’d scraped. “I will give my life for yours.”

My chest rose sharply. I didn’t want to hear him say that. “Ash—”

His hips thrust into me, drawing out a ragged moan. He ground against me, hitting every sensitive, hidden part and then some. “And I will kill for you.”

Senses whirling, I was only vaguely aware of my knees lifting from the bed, of both of us rising into the air as his arm curled around my stomach to hold me in place. He moved, pulling back until just the tip of him pressed in, and then thrust forward again until there wasn’t an inch between us. My legs curled in the empty space with each hard plunge and fast retreat. I pressed the soles of my feet against his calves, trying to escape the intense sensation while at the same time trying to get more of it. The friction built a crazy storm of emotion that quickly turned into a swirling knot of deep tension that had me twisting and quivering against him and on his cock.

“You’re my everything,” he said, cheek pressed to mine as his hips pounded. “My world. My salvation. My redemption.”

Ash drove into me, over and over, stopping between thrusts to grind against me. Pleasure licked through me like sweet flames, igniting an inferno that was somehow as intense and shattering as the ones that came before it. My feet lost their purchase as I came, his name a hoarse shout.

Things were a bit of a blur after that, and I wasn’t even sure how we ended up as we were now—me on my back and Ash above me, his fingers running over my cheek and through my hair.

His eyes were full of brilliant pulses of eather. “Fates, Sera, I…” Ash’s chest rose sharply as he cupped my cheek. “I love you.”





CHAPTER

FORTY-FOUR





I love you.

I didn’t know how it was possible with his kardia gone, but in that moment, the how didn’t

matter. Because…

Ash had just said he loved me.

A rush of emotion hit me, stealing my breath. Those three

words were so simple—a combination of just eight letters—yet so powerful. I’d

never thought to hear them spoken by the one I loved.

“I don’t know exactly when I started to fall in love with

you,” he said, smoothing his thumb along my jaw. “Maybe it started the night in

the Garden District as we stood under the vines or when you plunged your dagger

into my chest.”

Trembling laughter escaped me. “I sincerely hope that wasn’t

when you started to fall in love with me.”

Eather swirled in his irises. “It quite possibly was.”

“If so, then that is quite demented in a…in an endearing

sort of way,” I told him, feeling the back of my throat and eyes starting to

sting. “By the way, the stabbing-you thing was an accident.”

“Sure.” He drew out the word. I moved to swat his arm, but

he caught my wrist. He lifted my hand—his skin warm—to his mouth, pressing a

kiss to the marriage imprint. His eyes lifted to meet mine. The tendrils of eather there were so incredibly bright. “I love you.”

A tremor started in my lower body, quickly racing up to my shoulders.

“I-I don’t know why I’m shaking.”

He made a gruff sound, dropping his forehead to mine. “Liessa…”

My heart was beating so fast. Why was I so shaken by his

declaration? I remembered what I’d heard him shout before I lost consciousness.

Part of me must have known from the moment I awakened and realized who I was

that Ash loved me. I wouldn’t be alive if he didn’t. But I had been too afraid

to allow myself to believe that his love saved me. That it wasn’t a desperate

deal made or the Arae intervening. I just never…

“I’d thought…” I whispered hoarsely, squeezing my eyes shut.

“I thought I would die without knowing what your love felt like.”

Ash went rigid against me. “I couldn’t allow that,” he

swore. “I will never allow that.”

My breath caught as I shuddered. His heated oath lingered in

the space between our mouths, I thought maybe I had always known he loved me,