He had to touch her. The lion inside him needed to spread its mark across her entire body. The fine hairs along his body tingled, the mating hormone that infused his kiss beginning to seep along those hairs. He wanted to stroke against her. Fill her pores with his scent, and his scent alone.
Never would another Breed, male or female, attempt to encroach upon what belonged solely to him.
"You'll destroy me," she sobbed.
That sound, the sight of her tears and the smell of her pain were destroying him. He stared down at her, seeing the conflict in her gaze, the emotions that had torn her apart, that still tore at her, and he wanted nothing more than to ease her. Everything inside him demanded he ease her, and he knew of only one way.
The only way. He would draw the animal inside Ria free, if it killed them both. It was the only way.
"You are my mate." He touched her face, leaned forward and kissed her gently. To apologize now for what he knew her anger would be later.
Mercury rubbed his lips against hers, heard the catch of her breath from the hunger filling her, and the rumble of pleasure in him was like a deep-throated, growling purr.
Then he speared his tongue inside her mouth again, forced her to take more of the heat, even as a part of him ached. His proud mate. So proud, so frightened of the emotions clawing between them.
"Mercury." Her broken sigh had him pulling back, his hands gripping the material of her dress before he ripped it.
He wanted that ugly f**king dress off her body. No later than next evening her closets would be filled with clothes that suited his Ria. That suited the feminine animal he knew paced and prowled within her.
She wasn't Breed, yet. But the animal in him recognized the primal core of her. And he would bring it out. He was created with the strength, the arrogance, to ensure it.
"What are you doing?" Her cry was one of shock, but not one of fear.
He tore the shreds from her, ripped the delicate material until there was no way it would ever cover her body again, and then he stilled.
Crouched over her, he could see what she wore beneath it now. The sexy, lacy, black garter and stockings. French-cut silk-and-lace matching panties. And a bra that was only barely there, pushing her br**sts high, revealing her stiffened ni**les. Rose-colored peaks surrounded by dusky temptation.
The sight of them made him hunger, make him growl. It made his erection throb in painful hunger and had him licking his lips at the thought of tasting them.
Once his lips covered those hard peaks, the hormone in his mouth would sink inside them, burn them, fill her with the need to have him suckle from her until they both expired with the ecstasy of it.
Then his lips would move lower. He let his eyes lower to her panties. He didn't want to remove them. They were sexy as hell, drove him insane with hunger at the sight of them.
He pushed her legs apart with his own, inhaling, smelling her arousal and the heat beginning to infuse it.
Her back arched off the bed. His head lowered, his lips covering a nipple and drawing it into his mouth as she whimpered in pleasure.
For a moment, there was enough sanity left inside him to wonder how it felt for her.
Ria was sinking in a whirlpool of sensation. Mercury had always pleasured her. She had never known anything but pleasure from his touch. But this she arched her back, ground her head against the pillows and fought to make sense of what she was feeling now.
Her mouth was filled with the taste of dark, primitive lust. Primal lust. There was no other description for it. A deep flavor of male pleasure, like a mountain storm. Crisp. Clean. Yet tinged with fire. And it enflamed her.
She could feel it pulsing through her veins as the taste of his kiss fueled a hunger she couldn't have imagined feeling.
She couldn't fight him. She wanted to claw and scratch and demand he take her now, but the pleasure, oh God, the pleasure held her bound, watching as he lifted his head and pushed himself between her thighs. A second later her panties were torn from her body.
And it was erotic. It was so sexual that she wasn't prepared for what he did next.
Her back arched and a whimper tore from her as she felt his finger plunge inside her. It wasn't a slow, easy thrust. It was a penetration. An impalement, as his head lowered and his lips covered the too-sensitive, distended peak of one nipple.
What was he doing to her? His tongue rasped over the hard tip, and it flamed. It tingled and burned, and as he drew on it, lashing it with his tongue, she began to writhe beneath him.
It was too much. His finger pumping into the tight, slick confines of her sex, his tongue destroying her with the pleasure that filled her nipple. The sensations tore through the tip, raced along nerve endings and sliced into her womb with the power to steal her breath with the ecstasy of it.
"Mercury." She gasped his name, barely realizing her nails were piercing the tough skin of his shoulders rather than the blankets they had been latched onto. "What are you doing to me?"
Her head tossed. Fear and pleasure, agony and terror were streaking through her. She didn't know if she should pray for release or beg for death it was so intense.