Page 19

ARIA

I t surprised me how quickly Malik’s sorrowful demeanor shifted as soon as the request slipped from my lips.

His pupil dilated, his unscarred eye turning more black than gray as he held my gaze. He went still beneath me, heart thundering like it might burst through his chest, and I felt him harden against my seam—a hot, steel-like rod that grew larger and larger with every passing second.

Still, he didn’t move. He seemed to search for something, and, though he couldn’t speak the words aloud, somehow I knew exactly what he needed. Confirmation.

I gave it to him with the soft stroke of my fingertips against his cheek. With my breath that fanned against his neck, just beneath his ruined jugular, as I drew the tip of my nose to the base of his throat.

His chest heaved with every inhalation, and his hands clamped down on my hips with enough force to bruise. He didn’t draw me closer or drag me against his erection. Instead, he merely held me in place, as if reassuring himself that I wouldn’t hurt him.

My nose stopped where his scent, masculine and musky and familiar, became the most potent. There, I pressed an indulgent kiss to his flesh, savoring the vibrant pulse beneath my lips.

Malik shuddered, and instinct told me that this was the spot.

A barely-there ache formed in my gums as my canine teeth expanded, my body knowing what to do in spite of my inexperience. My tongue darted out to taste his salty skin, preparing the skin to take my bite.

I’d mark him first— claim him as my own—then, Goddess willing, he would do the same for me. But that meant nothing if we didn’t complete the other part of the mating ritual.

My attention fell to the warmth dripping between my legs. It should have concerned me how quickly my body reacted to him. How it immediately forgot the heartache and pain that consumed it mere minutes ago, favoring lust and hunger instead.

The scene in front of the pack house was a mere blip in my memory, now. It didn’t matter. Not anymore. Not with this magnificent male beneath me, trembling as I pressed another kiss to the sensitive flesh at the base of his throat, pulling the skin into my mouth, teasing.

Reason slipped away as heat pulsed through my blood. I felt feverish. Dizzy. Bursting with need to be filled, consumed, broken, healed?—

My canines descended into his neck, puncturing the thin veil of skin. Malik’s blood seeped from the wound, and the coppery tang filled my mouth as I dug deeper.

A low raspy breath vibrated from his chest, his version of a groan, and it emboldened me. One of my hands hiked up to his shoulder, while the other tangled in his hair. I moaned into his neck, biting harder out of sheer desperation to claim this male as mine.

My mate. My fated partner. Mine.

His hands found my backside, digging into the fleshy muscle and lifting me higher, granting me better access to his neck.

“ Malik, ” I gasped against his skin, my canines retreating from the neat holes they dug. Rivulets of blood dripped from the wound, and I couldn’t fight the primitive urge to lap up the precious liquid, soothing the red skin with my tongue and lips.

No longer able to control himself, his hips bucked once beneath me. I hovered just out of reach. The mark and its effects would only become permanent if we consummated our union— quickly.

Something wet and urgent burst through my core, and I pulled my mouth away from his neck, lips stained by blood, and kissed him. He took me into his mouth in an instant, all hesitation forgotten.

Our tongues tangled, teeth clashing as I clung to him like I’d die if we separated. We’d never kissed like this before, and it felt good. So impossibly, beautifully good. So mind-numbingly perfect that I found myself lowering onto his hips again in search of relief.

I didn’t make it far. “ Oh. ”

As soon as I pressed down, my sex brushed against Malik’s engorged head. The bulbous tip slid between my folds until it notched directly beneath my opening. Only then did I truly realize the extent of my arousal.

I lowered an inch, and he easily breached my center. The slick wet welcomed him in, daring to suck him deeper. I paused, my thighs straining to hold myself up while every fiber in my body screamed at me to sink onto him.

We were both panting when I withdrew from the kiss .

Malik’s eyes flared wild, his jaw clamped like it took every ounce of strength to control himself. We held each other’s gazes for one long moment, exchanging the same breath. The dark hair spanning his chest tickled my breasts with each ragged exhale.

His grip on my hips tightened, and I knew for a fact that there’d be handprints decorating my flesh in the morning. Without looking away from me, he guided my hips downward, and I took another half-inch.

I felt the first hint of a stretch. Not painful. Not even uncomfortable. But stretched.

Malik stiffened. He trembled beneath me, but he didn’t push me further onto his erection. Instead, he waited, a silent question in his eyes.

I nodded in response, a ravenous, uninhibited confirmation. “ Yes. Do it. Please. I need?—”

Words failed me as, without preamble, Malik brought me down on him.

I cried out, an initial burning sensation shooting through me at the abrupt intrusion. My opening complained the most, like it took the brunt of accommodating my mate’s sheer size and girth, but, as seconds passed, the pain dissipated.

A strained, choked sound ripped from Malik’s chest as he bottomed out inside of me, and my eyes fluttered open to find him staring at the spot where our bodies joined, enraptured.

I followed his gaze, peering between our bodies. My blonde curls pressed tight against the dark hair at his base, obscuring the view of his cock buried deep. I could vaguely see where my lips spread and my clitoris rubbed against his pubic bone, but not an inch separated us. Not anymore.

I expected more pain. I expected tears to be springing from the corners of my eyes, my virgin sex screaming for reprieve. But any pain had already faded into the smallest twinge of discomfort, leaving a heady sense of fullness in its wake.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. We were made for one another, after all. That meant biologically as well. We fit.

My body accepted him like it welcomed back a long lost part of itself. Where I was wet and pliant, Malik was hard and unyielding. I molded around him, our bodies becoming one.

His breaths came shallow, his thighs twitching beneath me as if fighting against the urge to ratchet into me from below. I wanted him to. Though, when I looked up to his face, his eyes were closed, collecting himself.

Desperate for a bit of friction, I rotated my hips, grinding against his hard pubic bone. Little sparks of pleasure erupted at my clit, only to come to an abrupt halt when his hands landed on my waist, halting my movements.

“ Please, ” I pleaded. A desperate whimper bubbled from my chest when I tried moving again, but he held firm in his resistance.

Malik answered me by peppering gentle, doting kisses to my mouth and jawline, nibbling at my earlobe before descending down my neck. Utterly consumed by the feeling of him inside of me, I didn’t understand the reason for his resistance until he sucked on the hollow of my neck.

He wanted to mark me.

Blood flooded my engorged clitoris as his teeth dragged over the sensitive flesh between my collarbone and ear. My head fell to the side, offering him unimpeded access. Yes, yes, yes, yes ? —

His sharp canines pierced through my skin’s barrier.

They were long, descending deep into my bloodstream until hot blood poured from the wound, falling in rivers down my breasts and abdomen.

But, just as when he’d first pushed inside my sex, the immediate shot of pain faded away into nothingness as his canines found purchase .

Pleasure—pure, unadulterated pleasure—churned throughout my body, leaving no corner untouched. It was everything I’d ever imagined, yet completely unfathomable in the same breath.

With his canines marking my neck and his cock buried to the hilt, the first twitches of an orgasm began to build at the base of my spine, hard and sudden. “I’m going to— Goddess! ”

My back arched as my core began to spasm, and I writhed against his cock as my orgasm unleashed inside of me. I forgot how to breathe—how to think— as my entire body swelled and burst, then swelled again. I came undone. And undone. And undone.

Somewhere in the midst of my ecstasy, Malik released his claiming hold on my neck and adjusted our bodies’ positions until my back pressed into the cold ground.

He laid on top of me, my thighs parting to accommodate his hips as his weight pressed into me.

Then, as the aftershocks pulsed through my body and skittered down my spine, I heard it.

I heard him.

Deep and rumbling and unmistakably him.

That’s it, little dove. Fuck, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Perfect. I’m going to come if you keep clenching ? —

My eyes snapped open. I stared up at him, and his train of thought stopped. His lips parted as the reality of what just happened seeped over him.

We’d mated and marked one another, transforming into one flesh beneath the Moon Goddess. At long, long last, we could speak.

Can you hear me, Aria? He murmured in my head, his perfect voice like honey-dipped velvet. The white of his eye expanded. Truly?

I nodded, a bubble of laughter spilling from my mouth. Following the newfound, invisible cord that bound our souls together, I pushed my own voice through to his mind and responded, never breaking my smile. Yes, I can hear you, Malik. My Malik.

His mouth landed on mine. Hungry. Consuming. Happy.

Then, he began moving. His hips pushed me further into the dirt and grass with experimental, shallow thrusts that somehow seemed to hit new spots deep in my center. My walls fluttered around him, more aftershocks of my climax, and I cried out at the electrifying pulses they elicited.