Page 28 of Beneath the Desert Bloom (Of Beasts and Bloom #1)

THE HOLLOW WAS quiet, like the land was catching its breath.

Ash drifted sideways in slow spirals, settling across the ground in a fine, silver veil.

The vines had retreated. The wind had gone soft.

Petals of white, crimson, and violet had begun to fall, one by one, from nowhere, from everywhere, carried on a current of air too gentle to explain.

The cracked earth still smoked in places, seams of faint light glowing beneath the stone like old coals not quite ready to cool.

Nora knelt in the center of it all.

Her skin was streaked with dirt, blood, golden sap. Her thighs were raw where the vines had lashed her. Her arms trembled. But her eyes were clear. Wide open. The glow at her throat pulsed in time with her breath.

Asher was beside her, crouched low and still, his massive form bowed under exhaustion and reverence alike.

Steam rose faintly from the wounds across his bark-split chest and shoulders.

Golden blood shimmered along his ribs, trailing down into the hollows of his hips.

His breathing was deep, his gaze fixed on her like she might vanish if he looked away.

His cock was hard.

Resting thick against the curve of his thigh, flushed and ridged and twitching with each pulse of his breath.

It was nearly too much, too big, too impossible, and somehow, it made perfect sense.

Like the land had built it for her. Like everything about him had been waiting for this moment, this silence, this still-unfinished vow.

The land had stopped testing them. But it hadn’t turned away.

It was watching.

Nora moved slowly, the motion of someone bone-tired but clear-minded. Her thighs ached. Her skin buzzed. Her cunt throbbed, low and hot and steady, as if the desert itself had rewired her from the inside out. She was wet with need, glowing around the edges, and no longer interested in restraint.

She reached out, fingertips brushing Asher’s jaw.

His head dipped into the touch. Eyes half-closed. A low sound rumbled in his throat, not a growl, not a purr. Something else. Something sacred. A sound that belonged to no language.

She moved to her knees and straddled his thighs.

Not rushing. Not teasing. Just… claiming the space.

Her body slotted into his like it remembered him. Like the time apart had only carved a space deeper.

Their faces were inches apart. He was trembling now, just slightly, just beneath the surface. A creature built to restrain himself, and almost out of time.

She cupped the side of his neck.

“I know what this is now,” she whispered.

He didn’t speak. Just looked at her. Waiting.

“It’s not sex,” she said. “It’s not a ritual. It’s not even love.”

His breath hitched.

“It’s surrender,” she finished.

And then she kissed him.

It wasn’t a soft kiss. It wasn’t slow or exploratory.

It was hungry.

She bit his lip, gently, then harder. He opened for her, mouth hot and wet and so much larger than hers. His tongue met hers, textured and inhuman, and she groaned, hips rocking forward as the length of him pressed hard against her.

He growled, finally, deep and possessive, hands gripping her waist. Not pulling—just holding. Like he didn’t trust himself to move yet.

Her fingers threaded into his hair and tugged just enough to make him feel it.

She pulled back.

He was panting.

So was she.

Her chest was damp with sweat, her breasts heaving as her glow flared at the collarbones.

Asher groaned.

He looked up at her bare breasts like he’d been starving for the sight. His hands twitched where they held her. But he didn’t move. He let her lead.

She reached for his wrap, torn already from battle, and pulled the last of it away. His cock sprang free, dark-veined and glistening at the tip, huge and heavy between them.

Nora let out a breath.

She leaned down and kissed the hollow of his throat.

Then his chest.

Then lower.

He lay back into the dirt as she moved downward, trailing her tongue across his sternum, over the glowing marks that threaded his ribs, down to his belly.

He tasted like sage and ash and desert sunlight.

When she reached the base of his cock, she paused.

His breath caught.

“I want to taste you,” she whispered.

And she did.

She opened her mouth and licked up the underside of him, slow, reverent, letting the ridges of his shaft drag across her tongue.

His body shuddered. One of his hands gripped the earth.

The other fisted in her hair. She took him deeper, lips stretching, tongue swirling, and when he groaned—deep, helpless, near-wild—the wind stirred again.

The petals fell faster.

The desert watched.

And it wanted.

He was already groaning when she pulled off him, her mouth slick with his taste, her chest heaving.

His cock gleamed in the dying light, saliva catching in the ridges along the underside.

He looked ruined already. His thighs were trembling.

His hand was still fisted in her hair like he couldn’t let go or he’d fall apart.

“Please,” he rasped, voice broken open, deep and desperate. “Please, Nora…”

She moved like she’d been built for this.

Like the land had reshaped her for it.

She rose, slowly crawling back over his massive frame. Her thighs bracketed his hips, slick and sticky. She sat over his cock, the heat of it pressed against her slit, her breath spilling across him.

He stared up at her like a man at prayer.

“Touch me,” she whispered. “Everywhere.”

Tentatively, his massive hands rose and settled on her hips. His palms were hot. His grip trembled. He dragged them up, over her waist, ribs, until his thumbs brushed the undersides of her breasts.

She arched into it.

A little noise broke from her throat.

He cupped her fully, rough fingers curling around her curves, thumbs circling her nipples until they peaked, her whole body bowing like he’d pulled the string too tight.

“You glow,” he murmured.

“You do too,” she whispered back.

He leaned forward and kissed one nipple, slow and deliberate, and when his rough tongue flicked against it, her hips jolted forward.

She ground against his cock, the friction obscene, soaked, perfect.

“I need—” she started.

“I know.”

He sat up with her still in his lap, hands gripping her thighs now, spreading her wider.

He leaned down and bit her mark gently, just enough to make her gasp.

His mouth traced the line from neck to clavicle.

His cock pulsed beneath her, twitching upward, rubbing against the place where she needed him most.

She was soaked, dripping onto him, her inner thighs shining.

Asher stared at her cunt like it was the altar of a forgotten god.

“I’ve never seen anything so…”

He didn’t finish. He just reached down and spread her open with both thumbs, watching the way she pulsed, wet and glowing. His fingers trembled.

Nora grabbed his cock and lined it up—thick, hot, veined and ridged, nearly too big—and pressed the head to her entrance.

She didn’t hesitate.

She took him.

The stretch was brutal.

Slow.

Holy.

Her body opened in inches. She gasped as he entered her—one inch, two, three, the ridges dragging against her walls in a way that made her vision stutter.

“Oh fuck—”

Asher’s hands gripped her hips so hard they’d bruise.

“You feel—too much—too perfect—”

She dropped further, crying out now, thighs shaking. Her cunt clenched around him like it didn’t want to let him go. She was so full she could barely breathe.

When she bottomed out, fully seated, every inch of him inside her, they both froze.

She was glowing now. Belly to breasts, throat to thighs. Her mark pulsed like a second heart. His cock twitched inside her, ridged and too big and perfect.

“You feel—” he groaned. “Nora, you feel like home.”

She moved.

A slow rock of her hips, back and forward, and the friction made them both curse. The ridges along his shaft dragged against her inner walls. She ground her clit against the base of him. Her eyes fluttered closed.

He thrust up once—hard.

She shouted.

“Do that again,” she gasped.

He did.

She rocked her hips once more, the length of him buried impossibly deep inside her, and felt the whole world stutter.

Her cunt clenched reflexively, and Asher’s grip on her hips tightened, his huge, shaking hands pressing into the meat of her thighs like he didn’t trust himself not to break her. His back arched, jaw clenched so hard his teeth bared. His whole body was trembling with restraint.

And it wasn’t enough anymore.

Nora rolled her hips again, slower this time, letting the ridges along the underside of his cock drag against every swollen, aching nerve inside her.

The pressure was unbearable in the best way, her body full, stretched to its limits, pulsing with need.

Each movement sent a fresh rush of wetness drip down between them, coating his shaft, her thighs, the earth.

She planted her hands against his chest, one flat palm over the space where his heart pulsed slow and seismic beneath bark and bone, and rode him.

Not a bounce. A grind.

A long, filthy, perfect grind that made both of them groan.

“Fuck—” she gasped, head falling forward.

“You—” Asher choked. “You weren’t—You shouldn’t be able to—”

“I can,” she panted. “I want to. Don’t hold back.”

He stared up at her like he was looking at something divine. His lips parted. His glow flared low behind his eyes. His hands slid up her waist to cup her breasts, his thumbs brushing over her nipples in slow circles that made her cry out, hips stuttering against him.

“You’ve changed,” he whispered, wonder in his voice. “You’re ready for all of me.”

She moved faster.

The sound was obscene—wet, thick, slap and suck and breath. Her thighs ached. Her cunt was stretched wide and pulsing, taking all of him now, greedier by the second. The ridges of his cock rubbed against her walls in a rhythm that built pressure between her hips like a rising storm.

“Please—” he gasped, voice ragged. “Let me—Nora, let me—”