“Liessa,” he called in a low trill.

My gaze cut to his as I felt him sliding and seeking. I didn’t think my heart could beat any faster. I bit down on my lip again, either not drawing blood this time or unable to feel it as I tentatively pushed against the thrumming bolt of energy.

Eather skated across Ash’s skin as his wings spread out once more. “I want to hear you say it.”

His demand scorched every part of me. “Yes.”

He twisted his head again, his dark, hard chest rising with a deep breath. The bead at the tip of his cock was more noticeable now. “I want to hear you say exactly what you want from me, and I want you to say it with my name.”

I discovered right then that my temper hadn’t improved with my Ascension. My eyes narrowed. “And if I don’t?”

His snarl wasn’t one of anger but of sensual challenge. The teasing presence at my rear stilled, as did the tendril inside me. “Then I won’t fuck that pretty pussy and ass of yours.”

Good fucking gods…

I couldn’t move, think, or even breathe for a moment. He was so…shameless when in his Primal form.

And I couldn’t be more aroused by it because it was him.

“Please,” I whispered.

He cocked his head.

“Please fuck my pretty pussy and ass.” I paused. “Ash.”

The dark air between my thighs plunged forward as the sudden pressure eased into the entrance there, quickly becoming a burn—an icy, stinging burn.

Every muscle in my body locked as he held me, my lower body several inches off the bed. The pressure and fullness were…mind-blowing. I’d never felt anything like it. Wouldn’t have imagined it possible.

Ash chuckled darkly, grasping my hip with his hand as he carefully and gently lowered me back to the bed. It was as cold and hot as the churning tendrils still inside me. The thin one didn’t move, but the other…it thrust in and out as he watched himself take me that way, thin bursts of eather crackling across his skin like lightning.

“I want to see you come again,” he said, his voice a whisper of moonlight as his hand urged me to move, to take what I wanted. “I want to hear it. Taste and feel it. Drown in it.”

And so, I did.

I rocked against him, gasping at the fullness and the dual coils of pleasure spinning out. Within seconds, I was lost to the scandalous sensation. My hips grinding, my head thrashed. The eather at my breast pulsed, tugging at my nipples. I cried out, my body jerking.

Tension built quickly, stealing my breath and shocking me. Ash had marvelously talented…eather, but I’d never felt this kind of intensity before. Did I just feel things stronger because of the Ascension? Or was it him and these new experiences?

The wickedness of it all? I didn’t know, but I couldn’t even think clearly as his head lowered. Soft strands of hair grazed my stomach. His cool, slick tongue ran up the inside of my thigh.

The coil deep inside me tightened. My movements became almost frantic, the pleasure I felt bordering on painful. “I…I can’t,” I gasped. “It’s too much.”

“You can.” He licked again, catching the wetness there. “You will. Because no one is stronger than you.”

I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I kept thrusting, my movements becoming increasingly erratic.

Tension built quickly, stealing my breath and shocking me. I screamed as a release took me hard, whirling through me in pounding waves of pleasure. And Ash…

Gods, he was relentless.

His mouth moved over me as he licked and tasted, drawing out every quiver and gasp.

The tendrils eased from me, bringing forth a ragged gasp. His eyes pulsed with eather as he rose. Power crackled across his shadowstone-hued flesh as he crawled over me.

A sharp bolt of lust lanced me. I didn’t think it would be possible for me to feel anything like that after what we’d just done. Or what he had. What we’d both taken part in. Whatever.

Grasping my hip, he rolled me onto my belly. I started to push up out of reflex, but the cool press of his chest against my back only let me get so far.

One hand stayed on my hip, fingers pressing into the flesh. I trembled as his firm hold reached deep inside me, stroking that dark, wicked part of me alive once more.

Ash lifted me onto my widespread knees and then guided me so my back was almost straight. I felt him begin to press into…what had he said earlier? My pussy? I shuddered and clung to his arm.

He was…oh, gods, he was definitely bigger.

“I won’t ever get tired of this,” he whispered in my ear, dragging his free hand over my breast and then down my stomach to the junction of my thighs. “Especially this.”

My hips jerked, seeking his hand, but he caught me, pushing my rear against him.

“I will never take you for granted,” he promised, and my breath froze then redoubled as I felt him entering me, inch by delicious inch. “I will never dishonor you.”

 A spasm ran up my leg as he stretched me. The coolness of his cock was such a shock.

“I will always stand at your side, your command my will.” He nipped my jaw as he went deeper. “I will never let harm come to you.”

I shook, unable to even cry out as he pushed into me, to the hilt. He groaned as I stared wide-eyed at the wall. The feel of him inside me now, his cock throbbing, was indescribable.

“And I will lay waste to Primals, gods, Kings, and men if they even try to hurt you, and I will feel no remorse for doing so.” His tongue soothed the skin he’d scraped. “I will give my life for yours.”

My chest rose sharply. I didn’t want to hear him say that. “Ash—”

His hips thrust into me, drawing out a ragged moan. He ground against me, hitting every sensitive, hidden part and then some. “And I will kill for you.”

Senses whirling, I was only vaguely aware of my knees lifting from the bed, of both of us rising into the air as his arm curled around my stomach to hold me in place. He moved, pulling back until just the tip of him pressed in, and then thrust forward again until there wasn’t an inch between us. My legs curled in the empty space with each hard plunge and fast retreat. I pressed the soles of my feet against his calves, trying to escape the intense sensation while at the same time trying to get more of it. The friction built a crazy storm of emotion that quickly turned into a swirling knot of deep tension that had me twisting and quivering against him and on his cock.

“You’re my everything,” he said, cheek pressed to mine as his hips pounded. “My world. My salvation. My redemption.”

Ash drove into me, over and over, stopping between thrusts to grind against me. Pleasure licked through me like sweet flames, igniting an inferno that was somehow as intense and shattering as the ones that came before it. My feet lost their purchase as I came, his name a hoarse shout.

Things were a bit of a blur after that, and I wasn’t even sure how we ended up as we were now—me on my back and Ash above me, his fingers running over my cheek and through my hair.

His eyes were full of brilliant pulses of eather. “Fates, Sera, I…” Ash’s chest rose sharply as he cupped my cheek. “I love you.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

I love you.

I didn’t know how it was possible with his kardia gone, but in that moment, the how didn’t matter. Because…

Ash had just said he loved me.

A rush of emotion hit me, stealing my breath. Those three words were so simple—a combination of just eight letters—yet so powerful. I’d never thought to hear them spoken by the one I loved.

“I don’t know exactly when I started to fall in love with you,” he said, smoothing his thumb along my jaw. “Maybe it started the night in the Garden District as we stood under the vines or when you plunged your dagger into my chest.”