Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,49
could to hug him tight. “They could’ve killed you.”
“A dozen of them beat me down with the force of their sonics, and when I regained consciousness, I found they’d crushed the gland in my throat that makes the breath of rising desire. Now nothing comes from my mouth but bites and bubbles and these broken sounds.”
She’d read enough of Tritonan biology to understand that without the pheromone, he would not be considered worthy of luring a mate from the deep-sea trenches. After everything he’d done for his world—everything they’d designed him to do—he would never be welcomed in its future.
Hitching herself higher on his chest, she craned her neck to press a kiss to that clenched muscle in his jaw. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “They treated you so badly it’s criminal, even if they told themselves they were trying to save their world. If they can’t see that and make it right, they’ll never be able to convince the council rep that Tritona should be revived.”
He angled his head, exposing more of his neck to her. “They’ve wronged you as well. But if Tritona dies, then all the other deaths meant nothing.” His arms tightened around her. “I will not stop fighting. Whatever else is true, that is what I was made for.”
He twisted to put his lips under hers, capturing her kiss with the same irresistible power as he did everything else. She breathed out a sound that was more like a moan. The terrible wounds of Tritona’s past had damaged them both, leaving them unable to see a future on their worlds. But she wasn’t going to let that ruin this moment—this moment that was all they had.
And in the moment, the shimmering pearl of his eyes was worth more to her than some unknown, uncertain future.
“Fuck the future,” she growled. “If they don’t want us there… Well, the universe is a big fucking place.”
“There are many places for fucking,” he agreed solemnly, “but I think I am not yet done with this one.”
Her laugh turned into a squeak as he rolled her abruptly. She’d been right—the marble hearth was harder than Sting’s bulk, but he kept one hand cradling her ass, protecting her spine from the cold stone. His erection swelled, longer and thicker, pinning her under him.
Her eyes flared wide. “Oh, Sting!”
“I can give you neither spawn nor the rush of rising desire,” he told her. “But the vascular control I learned to maintain during the deepest dives for the longest time gives me the control to shunt blood where I need it for temperature regulation and pressure adjustment.” His flesh heated and thrummed like the best massaging showerhead ever.
Flinging her arms around his shoulders, she clung to him as he plunged into her, his one hand braced on the stones, his other holding her close. “Like this? Want this? Dream of this?” His growl reverberated, from his words, from his chest, echoing through her in a place that had been empty before now.
“Yes,” she sighed. “Give it all to me, now.”
“Only now? I can go all night,” he warned.
“It’s probably almost morning.”
“And I can go all day,” he continued as if she had not interrupted. “Time means nothing in the depths.”
How could it be the depths when she’d never been so high? She was a-light from the inside, and every nerve ending and pressure point sparkled like fireworks building to a grand finale. When each escalating explosion made her cry out in delight, he lit a new fuse, burning her down toward some impossible immolation. And yet when the last moment came, when she was thoroughly drenched from every orgasmic wave he’d broken upon her and there was no way she would burn again, the release that seized her was not fire or even a lightning storm but a volcanic eruption of such primeval magnitude that she might’ve sworn they had reversed time and made their way all the back to the origins of the universe.
It really was the biggest bang she’d ever had.
At her ragged scream of ecstasy, the flames in the fireplace reignited, streaming up in an incandescent tidal wave of fire. He slanted his mouth hard across hers, swallowing the sound and dragging one last shudder from her bones.
And though he’d bragged quite convincingly about his vigor, this time he too collapsed. Just as well she was already boneless or he might’ve crushed her. For a while, they just breathed in cadence. But each exhalation squished more air from her lungs. No