“On the bed,” he growled, pulling her off him and lifting her into his arms. He didn’t have time to walk with her there. Desire owned him now.
This female owned him, and there was a part of him that knew no other would satisfy him again.
He placed her on the mattress, then climbed on top of her, spreading her legs wide as he settled his big body between her thighs then drove in deep. She cried out with the first hard thrusts. Aric couldn’t stop, not when she was clutching at his shoulders, her legs wrapped around him, opening herself to him completely and encouraging him to push them both to the limits.
And so he did.
Claiming her mouth in a fierce kiss, he rocked into her without mercy, filling her tight sheath with every hard inch of his cock. Her soft gasps and pleasured cries spurred him on. His arousal was a possessive thing, hungered and wild.
Her delicate muscles gripped him as he bucked in an increasingly savage tempo. He felt the jolting ripples of her body against his shaft. Roared when he felt her go tense beneath him, her orgasm seizing her. He pumped harder, until her scream ripped loose and she shattered with the force of her release.
Aric wasn’t far behind her. He couldn’t slow the thundering onslaught of his climax. It exploded out of him, a knot of pure heat blazing a scalding path through every fiber of his being before erupting in a fevered stream inside the haven of Kaya’s body.
For several moments, he kept thrusting, convulsions racking him as the waves of pleasure and staggering release finally ebbed. But he was still hungry for her. Still in need of the woman who clung to him, her long legs still wrapped around him, holding him inside her.
“What have you done to me, Kaya?”
Braced on his elbows above her, Aric slowed his rhythm to let her catch her breath. Her heart was racing. He could feel the power of it vibrating against him, tempting the other hunger he refused to indulge.
Yet that didn’t keep his amber-soaked gaze from drifting to the pulse point that pounded just beneath his mouth. Her carotid hammered, a beat he heard in his ears and temples. One that echoed in the hard throb of his own veins.
He kissed her once more, lost to the feel of her all over again.
Had he really thought he could screw this woman out of his system? It would take a lifetime of trying, and even then he felt certain he was destined to fail. He still wanted her. He loved her.
Even if she had secrets. Even if there was a part of her he might never be able to reach.
His fangs filled his mouth, gums aching as the sharp points surged in anticipation of their own reward. In the back of his mind, a selfish part of him whispered that all it would take was one small sip of Kaya’s blood and he would know all of her.
The bond would connect him to her deepest emotions, including whatever it was that put those impenetrable shadows in her eyes.
One taste and he would feel her in his veins forever.
Hell, he was halfway there already, even without shackling her to him by blood.
Besides, how crazy would he have to be to activate an eternal link to her when he wasn’t even sure he trusted her?
The reminder chased through his conscience like a black wind. Aric swept it aside, pushing all thoughts of blood and betrayal from his mind in favor of the one thing they did have that he could trust. Pleasure.
On a low growl, he pulled out and flipped Kaya onto her stomach. Then he lifted her onto her knees and thrust back into her sweet, wet heat again.
CHAPTER 24
Kaya’s body felt the delicious reverberations of Aric’s lovemaking all through the solemn ritual the Order observed to celebrate the birth of Nikolai and Renata’s child the next morning.
She sat beside him in the command center’s small candlelit sanctuary, swamped with emotion as she watched the new parents present their son to the audience of their closest friends and comrades. Yet to call the Breed males and their mates anything other than family was to diminish what they all had become to one another over the years. The Order’s members were kin in ways Kaya had not fully appreciated until this moment.
Inside a circle of eight tall white candles at the front of the gathering, Nikolai and Renata stood with Rio and Dylan, all of them garbed in long white tunics. With Mira holding her tiny brother nearby, the two couples had woven eight strips of snowy white silk into a cradle they held suspended between them for the infant who would be cherished and protected by all four of them--parents and chosen godparents--for as long as any of them lived.
“Who brings this child before us today?” Lucan asked, officiating the ritual.
“We do,” Nikolai and Renata answered as one. “He is our son, Dmitri Jack.”
It was the first time the baby’s name had been announced. Kaya couldn’t help smiling at his middle name, no doubt given in tribute for the old man who’d been so kind to her when she needed shelter, but also, as Aric had informed her, kind to Renata and Niko years before her.
Lucan nodded to Mira and she brought the naked baby to Renata, transferring him carefully to his mother’s arms. Renata held Dmitri up for all gathered to see.
“This babe is ours,” she and Niko said, reciting words Mira had once described to Kaya. Hearing them spoken in this setting, in this moment, was more powerful than she could have imagined. “With our love we have brought him into this world. With our blood and lives we sustain him, and keep him safe from harm. He is our joy and our promise, the perfect expression of our eternal bond, and we are honored to present him
