Page 42 of Shadowkissed

LIORA

His arms cage me against the steel-framed glass, moonlight turning his wolf-gold eyes liquid. Dante’s voice rasps against my jaw, leaving scorch marks I’ll wear tomorrow. "Promise me."

I arch into the heat of his palms sliding under my shirt. "You’ll need stronger magic than kisses for that." My laugh breaks as teeth graze my collarbone.

"Trust me to chase you, then." He lifts me like I’m weightless, fingers digging into my thighs as I lock my legs around his hips. Our mouths crash again, all desperation and the static charge of his shifting magic. It crackles against my tongue when I bite his lip. His growl vibrates through my ribs.

The mattress hits my back suddenly. Moonlight paints stripes across his shoulders as he peels my shirt over my head, calluses dragging fire down my sides. "Always in layers," he murmurs against my sternum, tracing the lace edge of my bra with his tongue. The delicate fabric rasps against my skin as he teases the swell of my breast, teeth catching the strap. "Like I’m unwrapping a goddamn relic."

"Too fragile for you?" My voice hitches when his mouth closes over the peak through damp lace, heat blooming beneath the barrier.

"Toomine." His hand splays across my stomach like a claim, riding the hem of my jeans as his kisses blaze lower. I gasp at the scrape of stubble beneath my navel, back bowing when he tongues the hollow there. His fingers work the button open with predatory patience, but I fist my hands in his hair before he can descend further.

"Dante—"

He laughs darkly against my hipbone, the vibration seeping into marrow. For three heartbeats he resists, muscles coiled like a wolf ready to spring. Then he’s surging upward, crushing my mouth beneath his, all teeth and shared breath and the copper tang of my own desire. His palm slides rough and possessive up my ribs as I bite his lower lip, claiming the growl that follows.

I yank his hair, pulling him up to my mouth. "Prove I'm yours."

His chuckle dies choking-deep when my fingers breach his waistband. I wrap my fist around the scorching length of him, thumb skating over the pulse thrumming beneath silken skin. Dante’s entire body seizes—a bowstring pulled past breaking. A shattered noise claws from his throat, the kind of sound that starts avalanches, skinning rooftops from houses.

I roll my wrist slowly, merciless, as he tears at his shirt. Cotton splits beneath clawed fingers, buttons cracking like gunshots against the walls. Moonlight carves the new landscape of him—the crosshatch scars over ribs, the feral jut of collarbones.

His boots hit the floorboards hard enough to splinter wood when he kicks free of his jeans. I arch into the hot press of his bare hips, never releasing him, never blinking. "See?" I rasp against his snarling mouth as his hands vise my thighs. My nails dig crescent promises into his shoulder. "This is how youruinme."

"This isn’t a promise," I breathe.

His thumb brushes my lower lip. "It’s a start."

The first thrust steals my gasp. My nails carve half-moons into his shoulders as he pins my wrists above my head. His pulse races against my throat, feral and furious andalive. The moonlight fractures. The world narrows to sweat-slick skin and the primal rhythm of a wolf claiming what haunts him.

His hips roll into mine with a predator’s calculus—slow, deliberate, each drag against my inner walls sparking lightning where our bodies fuse. “You taste like old magic,” he grits out, fingers knotting in the sheets beside my head. My calves lock tighter around his waist, pulling him deeper. His groan crests into a snarl, blunt human teeth sharpening against my shoulder.

Silver threads of my power ribbon through the air, coiling around his biceps as he braces above me. I bite my tongue to cage the storm building in my ribs, but my magic licks hungrily at the edges of his aura. His breath hitches. “Let it out.”

"You'd combust."

My mocking threat shatters against the next brutal snap of his hips - a mockingbird's broken song drowned by this primordial rhythm. The stone beneath us drinks the sweat from my shoulder blades as his cock brands me with forgotten alphabets, every pulsing vein etching declarations older than his mortal façade. I taste copper where our teeth clash, his growl reverberating through the ruins beneath our sanctuary.

'Try me,' he snarls against my split lip, calloused palm crushing my thigh wider. His thumb moves with the precision of a siege engine circling my clit, each revolution timed to thrusts that drive splinters through my vision. My answering scream cracks the obsidian bedposts as magic detonates between us - jade wildfire meeting iron resolve. Through raining plaster and arched flesh, his mouth finds my nipples. 'There's the tempest,' he pants against salt-damp skin, hips stuttering as my claws draw first blood. 'Now drown us both.'"

Release splits me. His thrusts turn jagged, that relentless rhythm stoking the inferno between my hips until my nails crack against his ironbound shoulder blades. I feel every ridge of him - the possessive curl of his fingers bruising my ass, the way his cock swells hotter as my walls ripple around him. His growl vibrates through my pelvis when I clench, a dark chord plucked from whatever primal god forged warriors and earthquakes.

He takes my third climax with teeth at my throat, sheathing himself so completely I taste copper gallbladder-deep. Magic floods my veins like molten silver, illuminating the web of scars across his heaving chest as his claws finally rip from the headboard. When his release comes, it's a landslide - seismic pulsations that strip me raw, ichor-hot and thicker than mortal blood. I arch into the bite of his talons shredding goose feather mattress, our frantic breaths tangling with the scent of shattered amber wine and smoldering silk. His forehead presses against my sternum as he empties himself, warrior's discipline crumbling into something that sounds like my name. The aftershocks taste of shattered siege-fire smoke.

The silence after is a living thing. My fingertips trace the scars marring his back. “How did you know?” The question escapes like smoke.

He turns his face into my neck, breath warm. “Know what?”

“That this is what you want. Me.”

His laugh is a tired rumble. “When your stupid heroics stopped making me furious and just… terrified.” He nips my jaw. "That the thought of you running shattered me more than anything else ever has."

I press my smile into his pulse point. “That's not want. That’s madness.”

“Same fucking thing.” His hand slides up my thigh, grip tightening.

The kiss starts soft. Breaths later, he’s inside me again.

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