“Never been woken with a kiss before.” His deep voice was gravelly, and gods, it was good to hear it again.
His silver eyes slowly opened and met hers.
“How are you feeling?” She stared deep into his eyes, seeking the answer there so he couldn’t pretend to be healed just to make her feel better.
“Good.” He proved it by stretching his left wing without flinching at all and not a trace of pain showed in his eyes. “All fixed. Amazing what some solid sleep can do.”
His smile was dazzling as he gazed up at her.
“You do make a good pillow.” His smile held as she rolled her eyes at him, grew a little wider when he added, “And an excellent nurse.”
She dropped her gaze to his shoulder and stroked the fresh scars there. “I wish I could have done more. My mother could have healed you.”
“No offence, but I prefer you as my nurse.”
“I thought about what you said… about my mother and the same connection I share to the earth.” She stroked her fingers through his hair and his smile turned lazy now, his eyes falling shut again. For all his gruffness and his desire to keep everyone at a distance, her god of death liked to be petted and fussed over. “Do you think that’s why they kept me in cages suspended from the ceiling of caverns?”
A crease formed between his black eyebrows. “I had not thought of it, but it does make sense. If you had been in contact with the ground, Persephone would have been able to sense you, even at this distance, if she had been looking for you.”
By his account, her family had thought her dead, her soul lost to them. She doubted her mother would have been looking for her then, but maybe the ones who had held her had kept her in a cage away from the ground just in case, because they feared her parents discovering she wasn’t dead.
Calindria stroked her fingers across Thanatos’s brow and then cradled his face in both her hands, leaned over him and brushed her lips across his. He craned his neck and she kissed him properly, their mouths fusing as he reached up and wrapped his arms around her head, keeping her mouth to his. He groaned and she smiled against his lips. She liked kissing him like this, unhurried and gentle. It stirred heat in her veins and calmed the darkness within her, made it go still and drift to the background.
Thanatos didn’t break the kiss as he sat up, twisting at the same time, his right wing brushing across her lap. He framed her face with his palms and kissed her deeper as they came face to face, as he moved towards her.
Making her lean back.
She surrendered to him, aware of where this would lead, wanting to be with him again, sure it would be better this time. Her eyes slipped shut as he broke away from her lips and kissed down her chest, as he sucked her breast through her top, and then drifted lower still. The heat the kiss had awakened in her grew into an inferno that burned up her blood as she raised her arms above her head, toying with the tips of her hair as he worked his way lower.
She bit back a moan as he circled her navel with his tongue. It spilled from her when his wings brushed her skin, sending a shiver racing through her, and he tackled the lacing on her shorts. Cool air kissed her as he removed them and she trembled as he brushed his fingers over her mound and feathered his lips downwards.
He paused and drew back.
Calindria looked at him and frowned as she found him staring at her hips. When he glanced at her and dropped his head again to sweep his lips over her right hip, she knew what he had been looking at.
Her favour mark.
Thanatos used his tongue to trace the circular knot formed of three strings, stealing her breath from her, making her ache to feel his wicked tongue elsewhere. Her eyes slipped shut as he teased it and her, building that fantasy in her mind.
When he broke contact with her, she opened her eyes, wanting to see what he was doing this time. He kneeled between her legs, his gaze downcast, fingers working to undo his leathers. She frowned as she noticed they were shaking, wanted to reach for him to offer comfort even when she wasn’t sure what was wrong. He drove the desire to ask him why he was trembling to the back of her mind as he peeled his black leathers open and freed himself.
Gods.
Just the sight of his rigid length had a pulse of desire shooting through her, had her wanting to rub her thighs together and moan. When he fisted it, stroking his hand down it hard, revealing the crown, she moaned.
His silver gaze flicked to her, darkened as he stared into her eyes, his hand still firmly grasping his shaft. He stroked it again, a look of agony rolling across his sculpted features, and then again.
She sat up and reached for it too, part of her wanting to stop him and the other wanting to know what it felt like. He tensed as she made contact with his hand first and then drifted her fingers across to his shaft. His eyes fell shut and he groaned, his hand stilling at the base of his cock.
Calindria gently explored it, feathering her fingers up to the dark tip where it was the smoothest, glistened with a drop of moisture. She rubbed her thumb over the drop, smearing it into his skin, earning another husky groan from him. She stared at it, aching to have it inside her again, filling her.
Her eyes leaped up to his.
He growled as they locked and she knew he had seen the need in her through them. He pulled her hand away from his length, slid one arm around her back and hauled her to him, claimed her lips in another possessive kiss as he moved over her, making her lay back again.
She moaned as his hips wedged between hers, pressing them further apart, and let them fall open. Another fierce wave of tingles swept through her as he lowered his hips and pressed his shaft against her, rubbed her with it in a maddening way. She lifted her hand, stroked it down his side, her knuckles brushing the downy feathers closest to his back. He moaned and shuddered, rocked harder as his kiss deepened.
Before she could reach his backside to cup it, he eased his hips back and grasped his length, pressed the head between her folds and nudged it downwards. She eagerly raised her hips to meet him, the ache intensifying as her eyes slipped shut. A groan spilled from her lips as he eased into her, joining them slowly this time. Gods, she hadn’t thought it could feel much better than it had the first time, but this was bliss, ambrosia for her soul.
If she could have this with him every day for the rest of her life, it still wouldn’t be enough.
He grunted and eased deeper as he covered her again, reclaiming her mouth as he curled one hand over her shoulder and gripped her hip with the other, raising it off the ground. Each plunge and withdraw was heavenly, every long stroke of his length unravelling her more and more. She clung to his shoulder with one hand and reached for his backside with the other, slipped her hand beneath his leathers and dug her fingers into his buttocks.
He growled and thrust harder, ripping a cry from her throat as his pelvis struck her sensitive flesh. She lost herself in kissing him as he moved inside her, as he drove her higher, as she stretched for release, desperate for it. When it crashed over her, stars winked across her closed eyes, her breath bursting from her on a cry he swallowed. He kissed her harder, thrust faster, each powerful one shaking her. Every plunge of his length into her was accompanied with a wicked sounding grunt, one that made him sound wild and untamed, thrilled her.
His grip on her tightened as he pushed her through the haze of her first release and towards another, and she clenched him as she reached for it too, cried again as it crashed over her.