in no rush to show her what he could truly do to her. She would beg him for more and weep for mercy when all was said and done, and only then would he let their lives end.
With each thump of her heart, he pressed himself deep into her, filling her to her limits and maybe a bit beyond. The ache did not seem to bother her. It seemed to do anything but. How she arched when he let his weight settle against her. The gasping cries that left her lips were a symphony.
When her empathic gift washed over them, he welcomed it with open arms. He invited her to twist with his own mind, to tangle together in all ways. He sensed her love for him, and he answered it proudly with his own.
And now, even their souls were one.
He did not think she had lied to him, but to feel her love now, burning away beside his own dark flame, he rejoiced. He would have wept in joy if he were not already quite occupied. He drank slowly from her, feeling her lifeblood seep into him, chasing away the cold.
You are mine, Maxine Parker. You are mine…and I am yours.
When she peaked again around him and beneath him, crying out and grasping him like a raft in the tumbling sea, he nearly joined her. Their ecstasy was echoing back and forth between them like the fire of a lighthouse prism. It took all his restraint to keep himself under control. She challenged him in ways he could not have ever predicted.
And he adored every second of it.
And seconds was all they had left, after all.
He might as well make them count.
Oh, how Maxine’s body sang for him. Every nerve on fire, it was like bliss. Her mind was already tangled with his, their emotions blurring into one, their pleasure shared between them, echoing and reflecting, indistinguishable. Never once had she believed anything could feel like this.
She should have been in agony with how he was loving her like the inhuman creature that he was. Perhaps she should have been a weeping thing, begging for mercy as he unleashed himself on her. It might have been his pleasure, his ecstasy, that drove such things out of her mind. Or perhaps it was her own bliss that was the source of her enjoyment.
It didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered anymore. Not her turmoil. Not his cruelty. It was them. Together. The dark threads of his mind wove through hers, like wings spreading wide in the open night sky. He was inside her in a far more profound way than she could have ever imagined.
Maxine could barely grasp what was happening. All she knew was him, and pleasure, and him, and bliss. He had released her throat, but the throbbing ecstasy of it had not abated. It was as though it was merely a snowball sent rolling downhill now that it had been started. And his deep, forceful, powerful strokes inside her body were all the momentum it needed to keep going.
She heard his thoughts inside her, echoing about. You are mine, Maxine Parker. You are mine…and I am yours.
She was above him now, rocking her body in a slow tempo. How long they had gone on, Maxine could not say. She was too bound up in him to have any sense of time. It did not matter. Nothing mattered.
Just her. Just him. Just them.
She pressed her palm against her abdomen, hard enough that she could feel him sliding inside her. She wanted to commit that memory to her soul. She wanted him never to leave her.
But her decision was made.
The city lay in ruin. Thousands of lives were dead by violence.
The image of Alfonzo’s tortured body lying in a puddle of his own blood and ruin flashed through her mind. But it was not only that image she saw. It was those of all the souls in their cells that cried out to her. In that moment she had seen it all. All the death…all the pain…all the misery.
It had to end.
He had to end.
Crimson eyes met hers, lidded and dark with passion. But she saw in him what she had come to accept. A gentle touch stilled her movements, and he pulled her down to him. He kissed her, slow and gentle, filled with all the love in his heart that he had for her.
When she broke away, he smiled faintly and whispered, “It is time.”
She nodded, tears forming in her eyes