He nudged between her thighs and she rose on tiptoe, angling her hips to receive him. Oh, baby. He almost lost his breath. His mind. She was already wet, ripe, ready.
Fisting his cock, he stroked her slowly up and down, working himself into her, just a little. Just enough.
Never enough.
“Is this what you want?”
She writhed and pushed back against him, tel ing him yes over and over, yes, in the arch of her back, yes, in her wet welcome, yes, in the tight, hot clasp of her body.
Yes, I want you.
Yes, I trust you.
Take me.
The world fel away. There was only this, only Iestyn, his hot, urgent voice in her ear, his hard, insistent body at her back, his knowing hands. He covered her, animal, intimate, and intent, fil ing her.
Stretching her.
Lara tightened in wicked anticipation, on edge with excitement. She had never felt like this before, never been like this, wanting, needy, naked, raw. His clever hands pressed with devastating accuracy right where she needed him most, and she made a choked sound in her throat and hitched against him, pushing back, the heat and the need coiling inside her.
Another stroke of his broad head against her sensitive flesh. “Is this what you want, Lara?”
Oh, God, she was melting, she was dying, she was burning up. She closed her eyes, unable to bear the sweet agony.
“You know it is.”
He made a low sound, approval or triumph. “Then take it,”
he said, and slammed his ful length into her.
Dark suns exploded behind her closed lids. She cried out, her hands curled, her body clenched in pleasure. He eased from her, a slow, wet caress, and drove in again, jolting her against the hood of the Jeep.
Blindly, she tried to reach back, to touch him. Her fingers curled into his flanks. Bent forward, she was powerless to hurry or control him. She could only accept him, al of him, as he surged into her, his breathing ragged, imprinting her with his scent, his body, making her feel him in every muscle and nerve.
She absorbed the heavy, driving thrusts, taking him again and again. She wanted, needed. Surely it was impossible to want this much and survive. Her back arched.
Her muscles constricted around him. His fingers bit into her as he plunged hard and deep, and she ground her teeth on his shirt and came and came, exploding under and around him, helpless to do anything but feel.
His hands clamped on her hips. She felt the deep, hard spasm of his body, the hot release of his breath against her nape as he shuddered and was stil.
Quiet, except for the rasp of his breathing, the thud of her heart.
Slowly, she became aware of smal, inconsequential things.
The rustle of leaves. A crick in her back. The wetness between her thighs.
She sighed and opened her eyes. Sunlight slanted through the trees, il uminating the floating motes above the forest floor. She’d just had car sex, she thought wonderingly.
Naked outdoor car sex with a selkie.
Bria would have been proud.
Iestyn withdrew from her body, the dragging friction setting off aftershocks in her sensitive flesh. She shivered.
He dragged her up, tucking her head under his jaw, cradling her against his body. His chest was warm and damp.
She turned her face into his neck and closed her eyes.
Should she say something? What could she say? Usual y she was better with words than with feelings, but his assault on her senses, her own carnal craving, had left her speechless, sore, and unsettled.
And oddly free of regrets.
Iestyn raised his head and framed her face with his hands.
“I was rough with you.”
Sudden moisture sprang to her eyes. She could handle rough. His tenderness threatened to destroy her. “Are you apologizing?”
He watched her careful y. “Do I need to?”
“No, I liked it. It was nice.” She winced at the woeful y inadequate word. “Different.”
The laughter sprang back into his eyes. “Different good or different bad?”
“Different for me,” she clarified. “I’m not usual y so. ”
Shameless? Fearless? “Physical.”
“Different for me, too.” He stroked her hair back from her face, tucking a strand behind her ear. His golden eyes were warm, searching. “You’re different.”
More than anything, she wanted to believe him. “I bet you say that to al the girls.”
“Only you. Two lost souls,” he murmured.
She swal owed the sudden lump in her throat. “We’re not lost. Maybe we don’t know exactly where we’re going, but we’re here now. Together. For the first time in my life, maybe that’s enough.”
Zayin’s vision fractured. Splintered. The world below him broke like a shattered kaleidoscope, escaping its ordered patterns, the mosaic of field and forest, rock and road, fragmenting. Fal ing apart, as his spirit was fal ing apart, bright, broken slivers of his soul. “Zayin.”
His heart pounded, a dozen hearts. His wings flailed, an explosion of wings. He— they—tumbled down, down, in a bright avalanche of shards, piercing, blinding.
“Jude.”
Pain burst in his skul, rocked his head, jerked him back into his heavy, human body. The ground spun and solidified under him.
He gasped, dragging air into his inefficient lungs, and felt the cold, hard floor beneath his shoulders, the weight of his bones. He opened his eyes.
Mews mistress Moon knelt over him, scowling, her long hippie hair hanging down around her face.
Jude blinked as shadow returned to his sight, obscuring his bright bird vision. “I lost them.”
“I thought I was going to lose you.” Moon rol ed to her feet and went to the sink of the smal keeper’s room, leaving him lying on the cold linoleum floor. “Next time you decide to have an out-of-body experience, do it with your lady doctor in attendance.”
He flexed his fingers, restoring flexibility to his hands and wrists. “You know I can’t.”
Miriam’s unquestioning loyalty to Simon made it impossible for him to trust her completely. He was rarely vulnerable, even in sex. But spirit casting left him open. Weakened.
“You’l end up in the infirmary anyway,” Moon said darkly.
“Twelve crows, was it, this time? The spirit isn’t meant to divide into that many pieces. You left me with hardly anything to cal you back.”
“You should be grateful for the excuse to hit me.” He rubbed his jaw where the imprint of her hand stil burned.
“Anyway, I had a wide area to cover.”
She turned, a glass of water in her hands. “Here.”
He raised one eyebrow. “No cookies and orange juice?”
“Fuck off.” But she supported him up with one arm behind his back, guiding the glass to his lips as he drank.
“What did you see?”
“Flyers.” He swal owed. “They thought I was spying on them.”
“There’s a shocker. What about our runaways?”
“Stil headed north.” He sifted through his scattered memories, picking through images and snatches of conversation from the parking lot, reconciling his human knowledge with the crows’ perceptions. Dizzied, he closed his eyes. “World’s End.”
“Where’s that?”
He opened his eyes. “Maine, I imagine.”
Cautiously, he sat up. His spine popped and stretched.
Birds’ vertebrae were fused for flight. The return to his human body left him feeling heavy and unsupported.