Page 184 of Monsters in Love: Lost in the Underworld

“Yes,” I whisper, boneless still from the mind-shattering orgasm he pulled from my body. “Claim me.”

“A true claiming would require a bondage bite. It goes beyond the mating bond which is more than I’ve ever hoped for.”

“A bite?”

“It would mean everything in my world.”

“The reaper world?”

“No, the Shadow Realm. Shadow beings aren’t all reapers, and reapers aren’t all shadow beings. But a bite mark? A claiming? It would show the world we’re bound for life.”

A visible symbol for everyone to see. Like a wedding ring. “Do I get to bite you?”

His gaze goes wild, hungry. “Anywhere you wish, anytime you wish.”

“All right, then. I expect a claiming,” I tell him. “No more holding back.”

He trails shadows along my jaw while undressing me as though I’m a present he has waited ten long years to unwrap. “What would you like, my beauty? We’ve tried it all in fantasies—knotting, double dicks, tentacles. What does my mate want for a first time in this form? Our first time of forever?”

“You.” I reach for him, the light of his magic glinting off the bracelet he gave me. “I want you.”

With a dark growl, he catches my wrists, stretching my arms above my head. He binds my ankles so my legs are spread wide for him.

A delicious shiver ripples over me when I try to close my thighs but can’t. I’m at his mercy.

He uses his shadows to explore me like he’s memorizing my body. He rubs me from my breasts down over my belly, then between my thighs until I’m squirming to rub against him, to get pressure where I need it for another release.

He leaves me for a moment, moving his head as if admiring his handiwork—his shadows pinning me in place for him.

“You have never been more beautiful,” he murmurs.

A whimper leaves me when he drags his erection along my inner thigh. I strain to meet him, but I can’t get free. He holds me spread and open for him, pinned and captive. He makes a sound of appreciation when I struggle against him. I can’t do anything more than writhe, and he likes that.

With my arms stretched above me and my back arching to rub against him, his shadows spread over me like a second skin. “I have waited a decade for this.” He presses the tip of his cock to my entrance and holds there. “You. Are. Mine.”

He shoves inside me with one thrust—stretching me, filling me, making my body give to the point of pain. Only he twists, his shadows finding the most sensitive parts of me, sending pleasure shooting through me.

I cry out, my inner walls rippling around his length like he belongs here. Like I’ve waited ten long years for this. Like I’ll crave it the rest of my life and never get enough.

“Forever, Wren,” I whisper.

His magic flickers in his eyes and across his body, a shimmer of lightning and darkness all at once. “Forever,” he echoes with a thrust.

His shadows pulse, teasing my body as he pumps into me with the strength of a supernatural being. When he rolls my clit between two shadows, I shatter around him, my body going taut and tight, and still he takes me in slow, sure thrusts. He strokes deep into me, dragging against the places I need his touch most and drawing waves of ecstasy into one never-ending surge that has my core rippling with spasms that seem unending.

His shadows tighten on me, binding us together even as his slow circles on my clit threaten to trigger yet another orgasm. To the point I almost beg him for mercy.

Except he hesitates.

“I love you.” He says the words like a confession.

My heart flutters. There’s a vulnerability in this version of my reaper.

“Say it back,” he commands.

“I love you. I have for years. You are the best of my fantasies, come to life.”

The magic in his eyes sparks and flickers with violet lightning, the darkness in his shadows becoming a mist like smoke as he pulls a scream from my lips, as he spills himself inside me with his own release, as he sinks his fangs into the curve where my shoulder meets my collarbone.

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