One word, softly spoken but with a wealth of promise behind it, makes my whole body clench with need. His mouth nearly touching mine, Griffin holds himself above me, not moving. I wait, tension building inside me until I crave his touch, his kiss, or any contact at all, like an insane thirst. I start to throb with impatience. My pulse turns into a liquid beat where I want him most.
Charged air vibrates between us. His body is so tempting and close.
“Come to me.” I move, trying to bring the apex of my thighs into contact with his thick, hard leg. His eyes narrow to shimmering gray slits, and then he rears up and flips me over in a tumbling rush.
I gasp in surprise. I can’t wait to see what he’ll do next.
He gathers up my dress and then flips it up my back. Cool air rushes over me, but all I feel is heat. Grinning like an idiot, I squirm and try to push up on my hands and knees.
“Don’t move.” Griffin’s command is a warm, husky caress.
I wiggle anyway, flashing certain parts of my anatomy, and he lets out a hoarse groan. His hands land on my bare hips with enough force to sting. I almost wish he’d do it again, but then he hauls me to my knees, so I’m sitting upright. With rough tugs, he pulls my dress up and over my head and then throws it to the floor.
Griffin’s arms come around me from behind. He palms my breasts, squeezing, and then drops his mouth to the curve of my neck. I tilt my head, and his shadow-rough jaw drags across my shoulder, sending a wash of goose bumps down my spine. His kisses are hot and openmouthed, sometimes scraping. He rubs his thumbs over my nipples, teasing. My stomach tightens, and my breathing turns ragged and loud.
“These are changing,” he rasps, cupping both breasts and lifting. A sound of masculine approval hums in his throat. “They’re rounder. Fuller. Heavier than before.”
And even more sensitive. He rolls my nipples, tugging lightly, and my head falls back against his chest. Desire burns through me. The need sparking in my veins grows into towering flames. “Griffin…”
“Agapi mou?”
“I’m ready,” I moan.
He chuckles, the sound like mulled wine swirling through my body. He makes my head spin.
“You’re impatient,” he says. “I like it.”
“I want you.” Desperately. Greedily. Forever.
He pinches my nipples hard, and I groan as the pleasure-pain sensation streaks straight to my throbbing sex.
“Touch me,” I beg. “Touch me where I ache the most.”
Griffin slides one hand down my abdomen. He stops just short of my curls, leaving me quivering with need. Anticipation sends lightning arcing through my body and then exploding across my skin. The room brightens, then dims.
Griffin pulls me more firmly against him, a deep rumble resonating in his chest when our bodies press together. But he’s still dressed, and I want him naked. Now.
“Too many clothes.” He feels amazing, but skin-on-skin would be so much better.
He nips my neck just beneath my thundering pulse. “I’m in charge here.”
I press backward into his erection, and he draws in a sharp breath. I think I’m a little bit in charge here, too.
Moving his lower body out of my reach, he licks my nape. I shiver. Heat pools in my belly, and everything down low starts to pulse, desperate for the same sort of kiss. One of Griffin’s hands still toys with my breast. The other lifts from my lower abdomen, and I instantly miss his searing touch.
Without warning, his hand comes down on my mound with a quick, hard slap. My hips jerk. My mouth opens on a loud gasp, and a rush of heat floods my core.
“Good?” His gravelly question whispers across my cheek.
I nod, his stubble lightly chafing the shell of my ear. Nerves throb under his hand. Reaching back, I grip his thighs with both hands and hold on.
He grinds his wide palm over me in a slow circle. Then he slaps again, swift and sudden and almost as unexpected as before. Pleasure flares between my legs, so powerful I jolt. Griffin curves his hand around me, holding me steady. I shudder with need, feeling his heart thud like a battering ram against my back.
“You’re flooding my fingers.” He presses on the sensitive nub of nerves, maintaining steady but motionless pressure. “So hot and wet.”
“Claim me.” I move my hips, rubbing mindlessly against his hand. “Claim me all over again.”
Griffin slides a finger inside me and pumps it in a frustratingly slow rhythm. I’m so slick, he adds another. Blindly, I start dragging at his pants, pulling them down. With a low curse, he shifts back, lifting his hands from me just long enough to undress. Then he grips me under my arms and moves me farther up the bed.
The look I throw him over my shoulder says I’m ready for anything.
The look he throws back says he knows.
Getting behind me again, he lifts my arms so I’m leaning forward and gripping the headboard. Then he’s inside me, and I’m desperate for every inch of him. My back bows, and I moan, my pulse pounding in quick, eager beats. Griffin wraps his arms around me and slowly thrusts deep.
I’m so ready for him that he pumps his hips more roughly, setting an electrifying pace from the start. I hold on to the headboard so hard my knuckles turn white, gasping each breath, alive with sensation, drowning in emotion. Griffin grips me to him, each hammering thrust sending stronger and stronger tremors through me until I know I’m about to burst. My core muscles tighten around him. I throw back my head, a shout rising in my throat.
“Not yet,” Griffin growls. He stops moving. I pant, my whole body in a state of sweetly agonizing suspension. He leans over my back, his hot skin on mine. In my ear, he rasps, “I claim you, Catalia Eileithyia Thalyria.”
I take a shallow breath. Not Fisa. Not Sinta. Not Tarva. Thalyria.
“I claim you for my very own. With my blood. With my bone. With my heart. With my soul. You are mine. Forever. In this world, and in the next.”
I shake from the force of his vow. It winds around me, spins through me, sinks into the woven threads of my life just like Griffin sinks into me—once, again, harder—sealing his promise with his own pulsing seed and pushing me straight over the edge along with him. The tight ball of tension deep inside me abruptly shatters, and I go reeling toward release.
Boneless, my hands aching from gripping the headboard, I drag in a shuddering breath. The crisp night air is sharp on my tongue. Sliding out of me, Griffin gently pulls me back and against his chest. Flexing my fingers, I settle limply against his body, my legs curled beneath me. He presses a kiss to my temple, his warm exhale feathering across my forehead. Emotion swells inside me, and hot pressure crawls up my throat.
Doing my best not to cry, I turn, curl my fingers into Griffin’s hair, and then pull his head down to mine. Our mouths meet in an undemanding way, but when I touch my tongue to the seam of his lips, he parts them, offering a deeper kiss. The embrace quickly heats up, and soon our bodies are as tangled as our tongues. I straddle him, desire coiling through me again.