“Oh, Gryphon. Yes, there. Right there.”
Electricity gathered in her pelvis, a firestorm of sensations about to explode. But just before the orgasm reached her, he pulled free, let go with his mouth.
She cried out in frustration, but he leaned over her again before she could ask why he’d stopped, captured the sound with his mouth. Then his tongue was stroking hers, his chest brushing her nipples, the tip of his cock sliding along her sex. So hot. So hard. So very close to where she needed him.
“I want to feel you come around me,” he said against her lips.
“Yes.” Yes.
She tasted desire and hunger, so much hunger it stole her breath. Wanted only to go on kissing him forever. But he pulled back from her mouth before she was anywhere near satisfied. He braced one hand on the table next to her. Used the other to grip his cock and slide it along her wetness.
A moan slipped from her lips as she looked up into lust-filled eyes fixated on only her, as she rocked against his touch. Water lapped against the hull, and in the silence between them, staring at each other as if they were the only two people in the world, that space around her heart filled even more.
“Gryphon…”
“Tell me, sotiria.” He looked down, watched as his erection slid along her wetness, circled her clit with the tip, dipped down to her opening.
Pleasure rushed through her core. She knew he was teasing her, wanting her even closer to the edge before he pressed inside. She lifted her hips, tried to show him what she wanted. When he didn’t take the cue, a groan echoed from her throat. “Gryphon, gods, I want you.”
His lips lowered to hers. His tongue slid inside her mouth just as he pushed into her body. She tightened around him, kissed him harder, and gripped his shoulders, pulling him deeper when he tried to ease away.
Not going anywhere. Not now.
She stroked her tongue against his. Lifted her hips. Moaned when his thickness pressed deeper inside.
Yes, yes, yes.
His mouth broke free of hers. “So tight,” he breathed against her cheek. “So hot and wet.” He drew back a fraction of an inch, pressed in again. “Don’t want to hurt you.”
“You can’t.” She dug her fingers into the firm skin of his shoulders, lifted again, wanting all of him. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop now.”
He kissed her once more, slid out and back in. Did it over and over, until long seconds later his hips were flush with hers and her sex contracted around his length, all the way inside her.
He dropped his head to her shoulder. His whole body trembled. While he breathed heavily against her neck as if trying to slow himself down, she closed her eyes and let her body adjust to his size. It had been so long, and he was big. But gods, he felt good. So very, very good.
But not good enough.
She lifted her hips, tried to get him to move. “Gryphon.” Kissing his ear, his jaw, anything she could reach, she hoped like hell he hadn’t just passed out. “More.”
“It’s gone,” he whispered against her neck. “I can’t even hear the buzz. Ah, gods, it’s been so long and now it’s finally gone. All because of you.”
He pushed up on his hand, and for the first time since she’d known him, his eyes were clear. Clear and beautiful and focused on her. Surprise flickered in those blue pools. Surprise, mixed with relief and need. So much need, it shot straight to her heart.
“Sotiria…”
His mouth closed over hers with such force, it drew a gasp from her lips. She lifted to meet him, wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he drove into her again and again, as his thrusts picked up speed. As her release barreled closer with every glide and pull and stroke and plunge.
She had no idea what he was talking about. Didn’t know what was gone or what buzz he could no longer hear. All she knew was that he needed her. That whatever had scared her in that statement before now rocketed through her chest and clamped onto her heart like a vise.
He dragged her up from the table so she was sitting on the edge. She wrapped her legs around his hips, took him deeper. He cradled the back of her head with one hand and slid his arm around her waist with the other as if trying to get even closer.
“Sotiria…” he mouthed against her lips.
She answered by kissing him with all she had in her, tightening every muscle. And when he groaned, when he grew impossibly hard, when she knew his release was consuming him, then she let go. Electricity raced down her spine, exploded in her pelvis, arced out to every nerve ending in her body, blurring her vision, stealing her breath, draining the strength from every single muscle.
Her body quaked against his as she held on, as she struggled to breathe through the aftershocks. Against her, he began to relax, but his heart still raced just as fast as hers. And she loved the strong, steady thump so close to her own.
It had never been like that for her. Never as good. Never as hot. Never as soul-shattering as this had just been. She closed her eyes and rested her head in the curve between his neck and shoulder, tried not to read too much into what that meant. Tried not to laugh at how quickly things had changed.
“I…” he managed in a raspy voice, his sweaty chest rising and falling with his fast breaths. “Gods, that was so much better than I imagined.”
A smile twined across her lips. Just the fact he’d imagined, that he thought of her…No one else ever did.
His legs buckled. He slipped from her grip. She tried to grab him but was too limp to stop him from going down. “Gryphon!”
“Mae—”
His arms tightened around her, but all that did was drag her down with him. She landed with a grunt against his chest. His head cracked the bench on the opposite side of the small space. Panic replaced pleasure as she quickly pushed up. “Gryphon?”
He blinked twice. A dazed look passed over his face. One that definitely wasn’t rooted in drugs. Or sexual gratification.
Oh shit. “Gryphon?”
His eyes rolled back in his head. His hands fell from her waist, landed against the floor of the boat with a thwack. Then his head lolled to the side and stilled.
And in the silence that remained, all she could think was Holy gods, I just killed him.
Chapter Fifteen
Titus crossed his arms over his chest and watched as Lena, one of Nick’s healers, flashed a light in the redhead’s eyes where she sat on the exam table.
“Do you have panic attacks often?” Lena asked, studying the female’s pupils, then feeling her throat.
“Sometimes,” Natasa answered, those green eyes of hers flicking in Titus’s direction, then quickly away. “I’m claustrophobic.”
A trickle of irritation rushed through Titus. It was more than claustrophobia that had sent her into a panic attack. But just what, he didn’t know. All he’d managed to get out of her on the way down to the colony’s clinic were more lies that she’d known Maelea before, from Seattle.
Who the hell was she? What did she want with Maelea? And why the hell couldn’t he read her?
“Well.” Lena dropped her hands, stepped back. “You look pretty good now. Heart rate’s normal, lungs sound okay. You have a slight temperature, but it’s not high enough to worry me. If I were you, I’d take it easy for the rest of the day and try to avoid confined spaces.”
A weak smile spread across Natasa’s face. Her lips were plump and pink, her teeth white and very straight. A blush ran up her cheeks, making that flame red hair of hers look even redder. “Okay.”