The Darkest Surrender (Lords of the Underworld #8)(74)
Author: Gena Showalter

“Kaia, please—you have to…I need…” His voice was strained, his features so taut he reminded her of a rubber band, ready to snap at any second. And his eyes…his eyes glowed with a mix of blue and red, Strider and his demon vying for dominance.

“I surrender,” she whispered, arching against him, sliding those fingers deep. “I’m yours and we’ll do this your way. However you want.”

“No, I want…need…”

“I know, darling, I know, but keep touching me like this, okay? Touch me like this until I say stop. Then, you’re going to bury this beautiful c**k so deep inside me…I’ll never…be the…same.” The last emerged on another moan. The pressure…building again…taking over…

“Yes,” he growled.

“Oh, yes.” She moved his thumb to her clit and pressed. A fourth orgasm shot through her quickly, causing her to tense and spasm. She rode the waves of it, not allowing his fingers to slow their ruthless, relentless friction. Her blood, boiling before, became an inferno. Steam actually seeped from her pores, creating a mist around them. She didn’t understand, knew it was weird, wrong, but wasn’t going to worry about it now. This was too important.

“Kaia…hurry…” Sweat beaded his brow, dripped from his temples. Breath rasped in and out of his nose. “I can’t hold out much longer. Dying…”

Her undulations never ceased and the pressure built once again, coiling through her. “Just a little more…” Her ni**les scraped again his chest, creating more of that decadent friction. “Please, just a little more.”

“I’m going to come the moment I’m inside you.”

“Want you to.”

“Gods, Kaia. I’ve never been this ready.”

Good, that was good. As much as he needed to be her best, she wanted to be his best. To drive away thoughts of all his others. To be his one and only. Forever.

“You’re mine,” she said.

“Yours. Never should have resisted you.” Predatory growls sprang from low in his throat. His free hand slammed into the wall behind him, right beside his thigh, cracking the crystal. He hit again. Split. Again. Shatter.

All that intensity…all for her… The steam thickened around them and she found herself climbing him as if he were another mountain, hiking her legs around his waist. He shoved his fingers deep, so deep, and finally, blessedly, she shot off. A scream ripped from her, so intense she saw silver stars winking behind her eyelids.

In the next instant, she was flying backward. She hit the floor with a thwack and lost her breath. There was no time to recover. Her clothing was ripped away. Her eyelids popped open just in time to see Strider, his expression frenzied, his control gone, looming over her. He’d just removed the last of his own clothing. He spread her legs as far as they would go and thrust deep inside her, all the way.

He roared. But he didn’t come, not yet, and she cried out as she arched up to meet him. Those predatory growls of his become savage as he pumped, stretching her. He wasn’t human or immortal, she mused. He was animal and she loved it. And really, she should have been past the point of responding. Should have simply become a receptacle for his pleasure. But as he drilled into her, consuming her, she, too, became lost to sensation, an animal herself.

Then he stopped. Stopped. He stared down at her, beads of his sweat dripping onto her. “Baby doll?” he gritted, voice rough and gravelly.

“Yes, I am. Now move!”

“No. Get you…pregnant?”

“No. I’m not fertile right now.”

He was moving an instant later and she was lost again. This was her consort, her man, and they were joined. One. The knowledge was sultry, intoxicating to her. Her claws sliced at his back, flaying his flesh. Her fangs bit at his lips, tasting his blood, and then he was kissing her, too, his tongue thrusting like his cock, branding his taste inside the hollow of her mouth. This was everything she’d ever secretly wanted and she gave herself up to Strider’s possession.

Yes, possession, she realized. His demon was a part of him, but Strider was a part of her, essential to her survival.

“Strider,” she gasped. “My Strider.”

Perhaps his name on her kiss-swollen lips pushed him over the edge, because he released another roar, the crazed sound echoing off the walls. His entire body tensed over hers. Absolute pleasure consumed his face and he pumped inside her a final time, coming…coming…shooting her straight into another climax.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

SHE’D BURNED HIM. LITERALLY burned him. Strider had blisters all over his body. Or at least, he’d had them. The moment he’d climaxed, jetting inside her, his demon had climaxed, as well. Kaia, a strong, capable Harpy, had surrendered to them, utterly and completely, giving them every thing, all that she was, and the unending pleasure that knowledge had wrought in him had given way to shocking strength. The blisters had begun healing mere seconds after forming.

He’d never experienced anything like it. And now he felt…invincible. Yeah, that was the word. He could do anything. Could topple an army, find Pandora’s box, whatever. His demon felt the same, was even then moaning with abandon, still lost to the sensations.

Somewhere during the time Strider had spent on his knees, feasting between Kaia’s legs, and the time she’d spent on her knees, feasting between his legs, being her best had ceased to matter. He’d wanted only to be with her. Her, Kaia. No one else.

She’d become his sickness and his cure, shooting him to heights he hadn’t known existed.

Now he rolled to his side, keeping her tucked against him. He didn’t want to let her go. Not now, not ever.

She buried her head in the hollow of his neck, her silky hair tickling his skin. They were both sweat-soaked, and her body temperature had cooled only slightly. His favorite, though: she glowed. Damn, did she glow, all the colors of the rainbow shining from her skin. She made his mouth water for another taste, when arousal should have been impossible. For a year, at least.

Her fingers traced along the edges of his azure butterfly tattoo, the ink seeming to rise up to meet her, as if craving more of that heat. A deeper burn. He’d never before allowed a female to fondle the mark. That’s where Defeat had entered his body, a constant reminder of Strider’s stupidity. Sometimes he looked at the jagged ink and felt ashamed. Just then, he liked that it was there. He liked Kaia’s attention to the details.