Page 88 of Third

That last threshold was not about modesty. It was about surrender.

“Anya.” His voice was rough silk. “Do you want this?”

She reached up, took his face between her hands, and kissed him like it was the only thing that could save her. “Yes.”

He swept away her underpants.

Her body was lush and golden in the soft glow of the chamber. The hunger that rose in him was primal—but she was not prey. She was his. The one thing he had never meant to choose and could never survive without.

She stepped back, drawing him with her to the bed. The sheets were smooth, the room warm, the air thick with everything unspoken. Tor’Vek settled her down and followed, bracing above her, one hand sliding from her throat to her hip. Her legs opened for him without aword.

He kissed her slowly. Thoroughly. His mouth found her breasts, his tongue circling each peak until she trembled beneath him. Her thighs squeezed around his hips as she arched, breath catching on every pass of his fingers down her ribs, over her stomach, lower.

He found her center slick and ready, and when he touched her—really touched her—she moaned into his mouth and whispered hisname.

“Tor’Vek.”

Her voice wreckedhim.

He dipped his head, kissed her navel, then lower, until she gasped and twisted her hands into the sheets. He learned her with lips and tongue and worship, and when her thighs shook around his head, he didn’t stop—he slowed. Let her fall in pieces. Then soothed her through the shuddering aftermath.

When he moved up her body, her arms locked around him. “Now,” she breathed.

He slid inside her in one long, deep thrust.

They both broke.

The bond lit up in his mind, wrapping around every nerve, every instinct. Her body gripped his, her breath caught against his throat. Their rhythm was unsteady at first, frantic. But it deepened. Stabilized. Matched. He buried his face in her neck as her hands clutched his back, her nails dragging lines into hisskin.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He froze, then lifted his head. Looked down ather.

“I love you,” she said again.

He kissed her lips. Her cheek. Her temple. “And I love you. Ihave loved you from the moment I chose you.”

The tension snapped, but not like a break—more like a release, an exhale through every muscle, every nerve. Tor’Vek’s hips surged forward, sinking into her again with a groan pulled straight from his core. Their bodies collided with a force that had nothing to do with aggression and everything to do with need—hot, full-bodied, soul-deepneed.

Anya met him with equal fervor, her legs locking around his waist, her fingers sinking into his shoulders. There was no space left between them. Only heat. Motion. Sound.

He moved within her slowly at first, savoring the drag, the friction of his mounds against her inner core, the way her breath caught each time he bottomed out and his knot teased at her opening. She arched and rolled her hips in response, and that was all the invitation he needed to lose the last of his restraint.

They moved in a rhythm older than logic, older than war. Skin against skin. Mouths parting only to gasp for breath. Her voice—his name—rose again and again, breaking over the sound of his body driving into hers, deep and relentless.

And still it was not enough.

He wanted to feel her fall apart. Wanted to memorize every twitch of her thighs, every ripple of pleasure through her abdomen, every desperate cry as she shattered beneathhim.

And she did. Again. And again.

When her third climax hit, she clung to him like she could fuse their bodies together. And he let go, hips driving deep, burying himself one last time as his own climax surged, crashing through him in waves.

They collapsed into each other, limbs tangled, hearts pounding in tandem.

The bond pulsed like a second heartbeat.

Not breaking.

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