CHAPTER 35

SLADE

With my hands covering her ass, I stand and step us out of the boat. This entrance is nothing but a narrow stop in the canals. Just enough space for the belly of this building to open up within this underground tunnel.

Auren groans against my ear as I move, jostling my still-hard cock within her sheath, and I grit my teeth, stopping myself from thrusting into her.

Focus. I have to fucking focus .

I get us to the door in front of the building and reach for the handle. I tug on it, but it doesn't budge. "There's—"

She starts rocking on me again, using her wrapped legs to fuck herself over me, her moans delirious and heady. " Yes …"

My vision starts to blacken, like my body is deciding to sacrifice my sight for my cock. I don't blame it one bit. There's not enough rushing blood to go around.

With desperation, I try the handle again, but can't get it to turn. So I lift my foot and kick in the door. Auren doesn't even seem to notice.

I need a soft surface to lay her down so I can fuck her hard. For hours. Days. For-ever.

My balls are so tight, so full, and my head is throbbing with the need to explode inside of her. I'm barely holding on. Only able to do so because my need to take care of her outweighs my need to keep fucking her.

"Hurry," she says as I step past the door and into the building. I reach back to shove the door shut. "Gold," I grit out.

She doesn't need me to explain. Her hand lifts, and gold splatters against the wood, sealing the broken door in place.

I climb up the staircase in front of us, taking the steps three at a time. Auren's moans deepen as my movements make my dick shift inside of her, but when I feel her pussy squeeze over me, I stumble against the wall.

Lust takes over. My hips punch forward as I start to piston into her, making her squeal and writhe before I remember myself.

" Shit… " I curse before forcing myself to move, to keep going. I pull her away from the wall, finding that we're in a narrow corridor. I latch my focus onto the open door and the bed I can see just past it.

I'm there within five steps, kicking the bedroom door shut behind me. It slams so hard that the wooden rafters along the ceiling creak. With a quick glance around, I make sure that the room is safe. Window is boarded. Bedding is clean. There are no other doors in here and definitely no people—luckily for them.

I set Auren on the bed gently, but as soon as I do, she starts tearing at my clothes. "Off," she demands. "I want everything off."

My mouth hitches up at the corner. "Demanding thing, aren't you?" I kick off my boots and let my trousers drop. Auren reaches up and rips my shirt right down the middle, shocking us both.

"Hmm," I say, glancing down. " Very demanding."

She looks at me with defiance. "I'm not sorry."

I chuckle before dragging my cock out of her. She whines. "I wouldn't want you to be," I say, and then I shove back in hard, pinning her in place as I roll my hips and grind in deep. She flings back on the bed, her moan drowning out the sound of the headboard smacking into the plaster.

Leaning down, I smooth my hand over the golden chest plate that's still melded to her torso. "Drop your gold. I want to see all of you."

She blinks open her eyes, glancing down like she forgot it was even there. Then, the armor starts to ripple, the metal melting down, and she bares herself to me. My eyes devour her. My heart feasts.

I trace the curve of her waist, the underside of her breast, and over the line of her collarbone before smoothing up her lips. "You are the most Divine being to have ever walked the earth," I whisper.

A pretty blush darkens her cheeks. Her ribbons curl toward me, stroking against my chest, dipping to my groin, and then sliding even further down …

I smirk. "Little flirts."

Auren's breath hitches. Her ribbons come up to wrap around my back, slipping between the spikes on my arms and the ones that have punched down my spine. I don't even know when they came out. Don't remember it happening. But it's no wonder she's making me lose control. Not with her scent so heady. Not with this hunger throbbing between us.

"Now. Right now, Slade."

She's demanding, desperate. Divine. So perfectly fucking divine.

I pull out. Push in. Out. In.

Dragging my cock through her slick heat is complete bliss. Her ribbons pull against my spikes to tug me down, pressing us together so we're chest to chest.

Heart to heart.

I brace a knee against the bed and pick up her hips to tilt her body like I'm serving myself a gilded platter of perfection. Then I start fucking her in earnest. My thrusts hit her deep, making noise rip from her throat. I lean down, tongue lapping over her breasts, flicking over her nipples. Sucking, tasting, nibbling the skin. Canines aching.

The bond demanding.

I reach between us and stroke her needy clit. The bundle of nerves is engorged and throbbing. The second I start to move my fingers over it, Auren shakes and moans.

"Come for me, baby. I need to feel you."

She does.

Body undulating, she lets out her release with an arc of her spine and a clamour from her throat, and I groan.

"Your pussy is squeezing me so…fucking…tightly…"

My fingers don't relent. My cock doesn't either. I keep fucking her. Fucking into her. Wanting to bury myself so deeply there's no separation possible.

"Keep going," I command. "Keep coming. Keep squeezing my cock. You're not done yet."

I thrust harder and faster, not letting up, and she gives everything to me. Her body ripples around my length, demanding my own release as her pussy clamps down, soaking me, milking me.

I explode.

Cum pumps into her like scalding lava as my entire body ignites with pleasure. A pleasure that isn't even of this world. Pleasure that surpasses just the physical.

The p?yur power fuels the fire, and I'm still fucking her, still rock hard, even as I finish coming in her.

"More," I growl, but it doesn't even sound like me. It sounds like a fae beast in a rut.

Auren writhes on my cock. "More," she agrees as desperate tears slide down her face. "More more more more—I need more. Don't leave me."

"Never," I snarl, the bond pulsing through every inch of me. It isn't fulfilled yet. If anything, it's more intense than ever. More demanding than before.

I flip her over with a growl. Words becoming difficult to say. I feel like a fucking animal. I think it might be the same for her, because she turns around and claws at me when my dick slides out of her for a second.

My hand lands against her ass, making the flesh quiver. Her knees slide beneath her, back arching, hands braced, and she looks at me over her shoulder, wordlessly asking.

But I pause, noticing something at the back of her neck. I push aside her hair, and my breath sucks in at the small golden scale that gleams right there upon her skin.

A scale from me . From our bond. The same color as my own that sits over my heart.

Satisfaction imbeds into me, leaving behind every impression of her. Making my desire flare at the sight of her body showing its bond with mine.

"You. Are. Perfect."

Lining up, I grip her hips and then slam my own forward, entering her with a powerful punch. Her fingers grip the blankets and she holds on as I start fucking her from behind with a ruthlessness that cracks the wall and shakes the rafters. All while Auren moans for more, her pussy soaking me, slick running down her glistening thighs.

I spank her other ass cheek, eyes flaring as I watch the skin ripple with the sting, relishing in the way it makes her cunt clamp around me.

I shove my arm spikes down beneath my skin and then wind my hands beneath her arms, yanking her up until her back is against my chest. I cup her breasts in my hands, rolling her nipples, squeezing both handfuls.

Gorgeous. So fucking gorgeous.

One hand goes to her clit, pressing, stroking with demand. " Come ." My order is guttural—it's all I can manage to say. I'm being taken over more and more. Driven by pure lust.

Her pussy squeezes me, her ribbons flailing. A cry of pleasure splits the air. She makes my body come with her, again , gushing even more of my seed into her body.

By the time I'm done with her, she's going to be so full of my cum, she'll be soaked for days.

The thought makes my balls fill right back up.

Auren flips over and this time, I growl when my cock leaves the confines of her perfect pussy. I reach for her, but with a lightning-fast deftness, she leaps away, landing on her feet next to the bed. When I move to stalk toward her, she bares her teeth at me with a snarl, halting me in place.

I stop and tilt my head.

She starts to look around with jerky movements, while making sure she keeps me in her sights. Our shared moisture drips down her thighs, and the sight makes my cock jump. Unbidden, I start to move toward her, mouth watering, wanting to lick her pretty dripping pussy. But she stops me again with another growl.

I halt, muscles tense, my fae nature wanting to bend her over and mount her, to make her scream with more pleasure.

"What's wrong, baby?" I manage to scrape out.

"Not…right." Her words are clumpy and breathless, like her tongue is too laden with lust to even speak.

I look at her with question, not understanding.

"Not right!" she repeats, more agitated this time. "Scents…not yours. Not mine."

Blinking, I tip my chin and breathe in, picking up what I'd ignored before—all the scents of other fae who have been in this room. Her sense of smell must be more attuned, more sensitive at the moment.

But now that she's pointed it out, I can't get it out of my nose, and it starts aggravating me too. I don't want our space to have any other scents besides hers and mine.

Auren looks around the bedroom with narrowed eyes, and then her gold starts to gather at her palms. I watch as she walks around, gilding everything in sight. Covering the stone floor. Letting gold soak up the walls. Reaching to the rafters and covering the shutters. Every thread on the bed and blankets and pillows, it all saturates through with gleaming gold.

Her movements are fast with an edge of franticness. But even still, her precision is astounding as she goes methodically through the room, leaving no item or inch untouched.

Only once the entire room is gilded does she let out a relieved breath. The tension in her body relaxes somewhat. Because now, the room smells like her. Like me. Like her molten magic.

I look around the space in appreciation. The sight of her gold and the thin veins of my rot marbled through it makes satisfaction purr through me. I like seeing the proof of how intertwined we are. And with the way she keeps glancing down at the gold scale upon my chest makes me wonder if she thinks the same.

"All of this for us," I say with appreciation, my voice gravelly. "Finished?"

I step forward, testing her reaction. This time, she doesn't growl or bare her teeth. She just waits.

I take that as a good sign.

When I come forward another step, the corner of her mouth twitches with mirth. Yet when I nearly reach her, she leaps on top of the bed away from me at the last second.

I turn to face her. "Naughty thing," I grind out with a tsk.

Her nipples pebble with an excited shudder.

"There's no escape," I promise her, my heated gaze dragging down her glistening body. "I'm going to do filthy things to you."

A whine crawls up her throat. "Tell me."

Her urging me on only drives me fucking wild. It plays with the fire of our lusts, driving up our burning need. I move closer to the bed, barely keeping myself from pouncing.

"Going to fuck your pussy so many times you'll be aching and wet with unending slick. Going to lick you. Mount you. Take you against a wall. Make you sit on my face until you see stars. I'll take you from behind. In my arms. Bent over, arced back. Screaming. Soundless. I'm going to take you so many times that you'll fall asleep, but I'll still be buried inside of you."

Auren is the one to pounce. Ribbons lashing out, they grip my arms, and I find myself suddenly yanked forward and flipped onto the bed. The spikes on my back punch through the feather mattress, but I barely notice because she's sitting on my face. Her delicious pussy given right to me like an offering, her sexy ass right there for me to bite.

And I do. Can't fucking help it.

My hands grip her luscious cheeks, and then I drag her the rest of the way to my waiting tongue. I gorge myself on her pussy. Flat tongue dragging up her dripping slit, delving in, tasting the sweetest fucking nectar. Tasting her and me combined.

She cries out, body shaking, and when I latch onto her clit, she collapses forward. At first I think she's fallen, but—

Fuck.

Her tongue comes down over my cock with the same ferocity as my own as I eat her pussy. My eyes nearly cross, it feels so fucking good. She laps at me, saliva coating me with every lick. Then her mouth opens wide and she sinks that hot, wet mouth over me, and I nearly come up off the bed. She swallows me, hands massaging my swollen balls.

Reaching down, I take her by the throat. Wanting—needing—to feel the way it contracts as she swallows me down. With my hold on her, I thrust up, fucking her mouth, and she gags and moans, spittle dribbling.

So fucking filthy.

She holds on, nails digging into my thighs as I attack her clit with my mouth. Sucking her down like she's sucking me. There is nothing else but this. Nothing else but pleasure and us, together.

Paired.

Auren's mouth bobs frantically, and when she swallows me again, I burst.

Jets of cum spew from my dick. Like it's pulling all the way up from my guts. So much of it that it starts to spill out of her mouth.

" Swallow ."

The feral part of me wants all of it inside of her. Every drop.

With my fingers still around her throat, she complies greedily, happily, humming even as she gags and chokes. "Fucking perfect, so fucking perfect."

Unable to wait, needing her own cum to flood my mouth, I let go of her throat to start devouring her anew. Tongue stabbing into her cunt, fingers playing her clit like a damned instrument, hitting every note, listening to every moan like music to my ears.

Her juices flood me just as her voice floods the room in a beautiful cry of release.

I keep sucking her, keep licking, mouth going from sheath to clit, drawing out every last wave of her pleasure as she cries out my name.

Part of me thinks she'll be spent, expecting her to collapse against me, but no. She's not done. Not even close.

Her ribbons loop around the backs of her thighs, and then the ends reach upward and wrap around the upper panel of the four poster bed. The golden lengths lift her up completely, like silken strips of a swing, and her nude, sweat-slicked body is on display.

And at the perfect height for me to fuck her as I stand.

I jerk up from the bed, feathers flying as my spikes tear free from the mattress. Chest heaving, I stand in front of her, cock pulsing, throbbing, already dripping more precum. My body is on fire, driven by pure lust, bond not yet sated.

Auren sits upon her silken strips, swaying gently, a smile on her stunning face. The ribbons slowly widen her thighs, opening herself to me like a sinful gift.

"All mine," I growl out.

She nods, eyes flashing with hunger. "Yours."

The sight of her like this, her giving herself to me, it brings me to my knees. Literally.

Kneeling upon the floor, I grip her calves, pressing a kiss there. My hands come up to dig into the delicate arches of her foot, making her let out a surprised groan as I work the bend. I move onto the next with meticulous care, all while she stares down at me in awe.

Then my touch moves up to her calves. Her thighs. Massaging every muscle. Feeling every inch of her soft skin. I press my mouth to her pussy. Kiss. Suck her swollen bud. Lave at her with adoration and make noises squeeze from her throat.

Straightening back up to my full height, I rub her hips, squeeze her ass. Knead her back and work the knots at her shoulders. Her eyes have fallen closed, her breath slowing, taking off the edge of her frantic demand. Now relaxed, her muscles are no longer tense, her body loose and pliant.

When I reach her neck, I pull her forward, her beautiful gaze fluttering open. "My gorgeous Goldfinch," I murmur. "Now, I'm going to make love to you."

She trembles.

I kiss her with a slow decadence that tells her all the things I cannot yet say.

That I raged.

That I grieved.

That I lost myself without her.

Through this kiss, I tell her every heartbreaking second that we lived apart was a moment I didn't truly exist. That the depth of my love for her stretches further than this mortal body could ever contain.

A tear falls from the corner of her eye, but I kiss it away. Then I slowly, lovingly grip her waist and feed my cock into her waiting body. She accepts me like a bloom waiting for the bee. Opening, accepting, surrounding me with her sweetness.

She is ambrosia. And for a male who was never anything but rot and hate, Auren has become my salvation. My purpose.

My other half.

I move inside her, and her ribbons help rock her even deeper onto my shaft. Our tongues taste, lapping at one another as if we both wish we could drink each other down.

Swallow whole.

"Never again," I swear fiercely against her lips. "Never ever will we be separated again."

Her head shakes, hand gripping my neck and squeezing tight. "Never."

The vow soaks into our bond and makes her aura flare. We rock together, the ribbons both letting her body swing with me and keeping her in place enough for my thrusts to bury deep. They stretch and lift, lower and twist. Pivoting her in the perfect angle that makes her start to lose control.

When she tears her mouth away so she can pant out quickening breaths, I take advantage by licking down her pulse. My fangs fucking ache with mouthwatering need that I can't contain anymore.

My canines sink down, plunging into the curve of her neck so I can lap at the small beads of gold.

She comes instantly.

Crying out, I feel her pussy clamp and ripple as I suck down her blood. The metallic warmth drips down my throat and fills me with gratification. Her head lifts as my hips keep snapping in, and she opens her mouth and latches onto the crook of my shoulder.

"Take it, baby. Take what you need."

Take everything.

Even though her teeth are blunt, Auren bites down. Pricks of a sharp, fleeting pain burst from the spot, but then she starts licking, tasting, drinking in my blood to finish fulfilling our bond, and pleasure rips through me.

I fuck her harder with each swallow, with each drag of her darting tongue.

When her lips pull away, her hands come up to clamp around my face, holding me between her palms. "You're mine now."

My heart squeezes at the fierceness in her words. "I was always yours, Goldfinch."

Even when she didn't know it.

We come with a kiss. With blood still swirling between our tongues. Seated deep inside of her, my cock bursts within her heated depths, while her own release coats me.

Her aura pulses, and her throat drags out a guttural groan of my name. I whisper hers right back. Again and again. Filling the room with the sound of her.

As soon as her body lets out the last ripple of her pleasure, her ribbons unwrap, letting her drop into my waiting arms. I hold her, clutching her to me, laying the both of us down as our breaths try to slow. Our heartbeats still pounding in rhythm.

I make sure my spikes are all tucked beneath my skin so I don't hurt her, and then situate her until her body lies on top of mine. With her leg hitched up around my waist, foot stroking my calves, arm draped over my middle, and head resting right over my heart.

Perfect.

"Is the pair bond magic always this…intense?" she asks, her fingers coming down to stroke around my still-hard dick.

Her wicked touch makes me bite my lip as I try real fucking hard not to jerk up into her palm. "I don't know, but I have a feeling we won't be leaving this room for a while."

I feel her cheeks pulling up into a smile. "Good."

Chuckling, I stroke her golden hair, then my touch grazes down her back, over every single ribbon. Goose bumps spread across her skin as I stroke through them, letting my fingers tangle with their lengths. Some of them come up to twist around my cheeks like a loving caress.

"I love you, Slade," Auren whispers as tears fill her eyes.

My heart swells, and I hold her jaw as I kiss away her tears. Then I tilt her face so I can look into the eyes of perfection.

"Oh, Goldfinch. My love for you consumes every part of my soul. It's in every word, every movement. With each morning that dawns and every night that falls. You are completely mine, and I am yours, and that is all I ever need in this life and all the others." I kiss her forehead, tears burning in my eyes. "I love you, Auren."

She falls asleep with a smile on her face and her ribbons curled around my body. I hold her, letting her rest, until she awakens with more ravaging need, and the bond pushes us again.

And again.

And again.