Page 106 of Unlocked Dive

A string of praise and curses spills from his lips, and I am so gloriouslyused,it becomes worship.

He releases me with all the drugged reluctance of a junkie relinquishing their favorite fix and slumps back against the headboard. I turn my face into his hip as he brushes his thumb along the tear tracks leaking from the corner of my eye.

The move is so unspeakably tender after the spectacular ferocity of the throat-fucking I just received that I lift my head, searching his face for signs of remorse.

“No apologies.” He smiles, reading my worry. He nods at the bed frame. “You can let go now.”

Peeling my cramped fingers free, I give him a relieved grin. “Can I take my pants off, too?”

His eyes dance over the erection trapped behind my waistband, and his lips twitch.

“Go ahead.”

“Thank god.” I shimmy out of my shorts and climb up to straddle his waist. Cupping my face in his hands, he brings me in for the kind of kiss that curls my toes and has me moaning into his mouth—all slow, sultry exploration, like he’s capturing the imprint of my soul with his thorough tongue.

“I missed this mouth,” he murmurs when we finally come up for air.

“Even when it’s being too smart for its own good?”

“Even then.” He drops his head against the wall and trails his fingers down my neck. “Every shape and sound.”

“Is this a dream?” I whisper.

“No, baby. I’m right here.”

“Me too.”

But itfeelslike a dream—too full of Byrd and wonder and bright with sticky sunlight to be real. And Byrd himself—all his cautious, careful edges, forever fragile beneath the burden of my need. Are they really now strong enough to bear my weight?

“Tell me about the tattoo,” I say, tracing the raven’s watercolor tail feathers. “Is this us?”

“The seraph and the bird,” he confirms.

“Are we falling?” The forms are entwined, a carousel of limbs and claws and wings of muted black and brilliant blue.

“We’re diving.”

Diving is different from falling.Diving is on purpose.

I lean in to press a kiss to the raven’s head upon his heart, then peek at him through my lashes. “Do you want to see mine?”

“Do I?” He rolls his eyes. “Audrey told me that was real.”

Pausing in the act of twisting to show him my new, very sexy ink, I raise an eyebrow. “You saw Audrey?”

“She did mine.”

He drove all the way to LA to have his body marked by the same woman who covered my scars and scribed my story across my skin. It’s—staggering. And poignant. And it makes me instantly, irrationally,incrediblyhorny.

“I need you to fuck me now,” I inform him. “You can check out my tattoo while you’re riding my ass.”

42

Echo

His pupils blow like an eclipse, black swallowing the summer gold, and he throws me back onto the bed between his thighs.

“I seem to remember promising Thor a turn first,” he says in that growly voice that I fucking love. My hole clenches with giddy anticipation, and I hurry to retrieve the silent, discarded toy from the sheets. When I hold it out to him, however, he shakes his head.