Chapter 40
FORTY
THALRIC
In one fluid motion, she grasped the hem of her sundress, pulled it up and over her head, and let the fabric flutter to the sand.
Then she made quick work of her bra and panties.
The twin suns painted her naked form in gold, highlighting the powerful curve of her shoulders, the dip of her waist, and the athletic perfection of her long legs.
His wolf surged to the forefront with a possessive growl, but Navira was already in motion. She spun on her heel and sprinted toward the water, her laughter carried back to him on the salt-tinged breeze.
For a man who prided himself on control, Thalric’s response was utterly instinctual.
He didn’t think. He moved. His shorts, shirt, and boxers were a forgotten pile within seconds beside the picnic basket.
The Alpha of the Sea Wolf pack, the strategic diplomat, was gone, replaced by the primal male chasing his mate into their element.
He hit the water a heartbeat after she did, the warm pink surf parting around his powerful stride. She was a pale, sleek shape just ahead, diving beneath a small wave. His wolf growled with the need to be closer.
He caught her just past the breakers, his hands closing around her waist. He pulled her back against his chest, the slick heat of her skin meeting his. A low, possessive sound rumbled in his throat as he turned her in his arms.
“Running from your Alpha?” he murmured, his lips brushing her ear.
“Never running,” she gasped, tilting her head back to look at him. Her blue eyes were dark with desire. “Just leading you exactly where I want you.”
Her mouth found his again, and this kiss was pure heat.
It held none of the tender sweetness of their engagement kiss.
This was hunger, raw and demanding. Her hands were everywhere—tangling in his wet hair, scraping down the muscles of his back, mapping the terrain of his chest. When her fingers finally closed around his throbbing cock, a jagged breath tore from his lungs.
“Navira,” he warned against her lips.
She just kissed him harder, guiding him to her entrance. He’d never taken a woman in the ocean. It felt too primal, too exposed, too much like surrendering his polished control. But with Navira, it felt inevitable. The perfect, wild celebration.
He broke the kiss and entered her with a slow, deliberate push, his eyes locked on hers. The familiar, perfect sensation of her body welcoming his cock made his head spin. Inch by torturous inch, he filled her, savoring the tight, wet heat, and the way her breath hitched with each advance.
“You feel…” He lost the words, burying his face in the curve of her neck.
Her legs locked around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back, pulling him impossibly deeper, seating him fully within her.
“Don’t move yet,” she pleaded, but it was a command wrapped in velvet. “Just… let me feel you like this.”
He obeyed, holding himself perfectly still, trembling with the effort.
He could feel every flutter of her inner muscles around him, the frantic beat of her heart where his chest pressed to hers.
Through their bond, her pleasure was a rising tide, warm and effervescent, mingling with his own mounting pleasure.
It wasn’t enough. He needed leverage, needed to truly claim her. With his arms locked around her, he walked them backward until his feet found purchase on the sandy bottom in the shallows. The water lapped at their shoulders, a private, liquid world.
“Now,” she whispered, her lips tracing his jaw. “Now, Thalric.”
He began to move. Slow, deep rolls of his hips that made her eyes drift shut.
The water added a unique friction, a sensual resistance that made every thrust feel monumental.
He set a steady, maddening rhythm, the one he knew would unravel her completely.
He could feel the coil of her pleasure tightening through their bond, a mirrored sensation to the tension building at the base of his spine.
“You’re mine,” he grunted, the words ripped from some deep part of him that needed the verbal claim as much as the physical one. “My Luna. My future wife.”
“I’m yours,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the words as he thrust particularly deep.
Her nails bit into his shoulders, and her internal muscles began to clench rhythmically around him. The mate bond screamed with her impending climax.
“Faster. Harder. Don’t you dare hold back, Thalric.”
The permission shattered his last restraint.
His rhythm fractured into something primal and driving.
He hammered into her, the water churning around them, his powerful body leveraging against the sand to plunge deeper with every stroke.
The completed bond amplified everything—the slick clutch of her body, the salt on her skin, the electric pleasure arcing up his spine.
It was ten times more intense than anything he’d ever experienced, a feedback loop of sensation that belonged only to them.
He felt the exact moment she shattered. Her cry was swallowed by the ocean and his mouth as he captured her lips.
Her orgasm exploded outward through their bond, a supernova of sensation that blinded him.
Her inner walls convulsed around his cock in powerful, milking pulses, wringing a groan from his throat.
It tipped him over the edge.
His own release tore through him with the force of a riptide, violent and all-consuming. He held her locked to him as he spilled himself deep inside her, marking her in the most primal way his human form could.
The aftershocks left him weak-kneed, his breath coming in ragged gulps of air. He tightened his arms around her, holding her up as much as holding her close. Her own arms were a vise around his neck, her face buried against his pounding heart.
For long moments, there was only the sound of their breathing and the gentle wash of the pink tide around them. A slow, deep contentment settled in his bones, warmer than the Nova Auroran suns.
His Luna, his future wife, sated and secure in his arms. And the ocean that was their home and their haven finally at peace.