His palm cradled the back of her head, and in his mind he built the need, thought it, became need, until he was the only thing she could think of. Jaxon had to quench that terrible urgency that was in the red haze of his mind. He held her head close to the heavy muscles of his chest, and immediately a small wound appeared there. Lucian pressed her mouth to him, his mind controlling hers, needing her to drink deeply from the dark well. The feel of her mouth feeding on him was like nothing he had ever experienced. Her body, hot and tight, was velvet surrounding his, a fiery sheath that tested the limits of his control.
While she drank, Lucian very softly recited the ritual words once more. He wanted this, the rightness of it, the completeness. This was his true lifemate for all eternity, and he wanted the ceremony to be exact, so that there was no chance she would escape him. No chance that harm could come to her. “I claim you as my lifemate. I belong to you. I offer my life for you. I give to you my protection, my allegiance, my heart, my soul, and my body. I take into my keeping the same that is yours. Your life, happiness, and welfare will be cherished and placed above my own for all time. You are my lifemate, bound to me for all eternity and always in my care.”
He would reside in her for all time, would know immediately should danger threaten her. And she would reside in him, anchoring him so that the beast within had no chance to be unleashed on the world.
His body was going up in flames. He could feel himself fast losing his control. At once he removed the compulsion for her to feed, certain he had given her enough blood for a true exchange. With the ritual complete—their third blood exchange and their mating—he allowed himself the indulgence of losing himself in her body. He buried himself in her, over and over, feeling her heat, her fire, taking him in, cleansing the darkness from his soul. All those empty centuries, all the dark deeds, necessary though they might be, all the missing pieces—she was somehow putting him back together again. The ecstasy of her body was almost more than he could stand. He felt her muscles clenching around him, tighter and tighter, spiraling him ever more deeply into that fiery vortex, milking him so that he was exploding, shattering, taking her with him into the unknown.
Jaxon clutched at Lucian for security, for a safe haven in a storm of such sensation she was shocked by it. She had no idea she could feel this way, no idea her body was capable of such things. Lucian was lying above her, careful to keep his weight from crushing her, his body still locked firmly within hers. It was sexy, erotic, and terribly intimate. She savored the taste of him in her mouth, a slightly coppery flavor, masculine and addicting. She lay beneath him, staring up at him in wonder.
There was a memory in her mind, of her mouth moving over his chest. Even as she tried to catch it, the fleeting thought brought her to instant awareness of the hard thickness of him buried deep within her body. He was moving gently, almost as if he had to move, as if the feel of her surrounding him was more than he could bear passively. His hands framed her face. “You are so beautiful, Jaxon, so truly beautiful.”
She moved against him, her body as hot and restless as his, as in need as his. The carpet beneath her skin brushed at her like fingers. His mouth was moving over her body again, his tongue swirling over her breasts, his masculine being reveling in his ability to take her over and over, to indulge himself.
She was heat, silk, everything he could ever want. And she wanted him with the same urgent need he had for her. He watched the firelight play over her body, caressing the shadows and lingering on the creamy lines of her small frame. He watched his body moving in and out of her, the erotic sight heightening his pleasure even more. He bent his head to the tip of her breast because he could, his hands stroking her small waist and flat stomach. All the time his hips moved slowly, leisurely, building the heat between them until they could both once more go up in flames. He wanted it this way, slow and long and easy enough to last for all time. He wanted to live there in the safe haven of her body, where miracles really did happen.