Page 159

Heart hammering, a thrill racing along her bones, Thea reached between them. Her fingers slid down her centre until she found her clit, circling the sensitive spot. She moaned at the contact, at the bolt of pleasure that shot through her.

‘Furies save me,’ Wilder muttered in a guttural voice, watching. ‘I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight.’

His words emboldened her and Thea allowed her head to tip back as she worked herself, her other hand sliding back up her body to squeeze her breast and roll her nipple between her fingers.

‘Fuck…’ Wilder’s hand left her hip and closed around her other breast, mirroring her actions. ‘I could come undone watching you.’

Pleasure and power entwined, and she could barely handle the pressure building within.

‘So come undone.’

‘Not without you,’ he groaned, replacing her fingers at her clit with his own, as though he couldn’t stand the thought of not touching her himself. ‘Never without you.’

At the first brush of his fingers against her centre, Thea’s vision went white.

And then there was only him, as she climbed that ladder of pleasure, higher and higher. Gods, she wasn’t sure she would survive this, survive him.

Her body begged for release, and her heart yearned to lose herself in him. She didn’t hold back, letting her cries of passion echo through the spring, letting the tears spill and track down her face.

Wilder paused inside her, his expression softening. ‘Are you —’

‘I’m alright,’ she murmured against his lips. ‘More than alright. It’s just…’ She struggled to find the words for the shift that had occurred deep in her chest, so she placed his hand there, so her heart beat beneath his touch.

He met her gaze with understanding. ‘I know.’

Thea gathered herself and kissed him. ‘Don’t stop.’

He claimed her mouth, kissing her back, the dark frenzy they had always shared taking hold once more.

Her Warsword radiated power and strength as he moved inside her, as he strummed her clit, coaxing endless spirals of desire into a shattering climax that had her clawing at him, marking him with her fingernails and crying out in a near-sob.

‘Wilder…’

‘Thea,’ he breathed. Then, he was coming too. He erupted inside her with a loud, carnal moan that sent another shiver of pleasure across her skin. The cadence of his strokes changed, becoming longer and more deliberate, as though he were trying to wring out every last ounce of their releases.

He panted against the crook of her neck, resting his brow there as they both tried to piece themselves back together.

‘I knew you’d be the end of me, Althea Zoltaire,’ he murmured.

‘If this is the end, is it so bad?’ she asked, bringing his mouth to hers in a tender, gentler kiss.

‘No.’ He smiled against her lips. ‘It’s not bad at all.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

WILDER

They wrung out their clothes as best they could and dressed quietly, stealing glances at one another as they did.

Wilder’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of Thea.

She was his.

And he was hers.

All the threads between them had been pulled taut, and there was no undoing what had been done, what had been said.

They had claimed one another.