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It blooms and then hums, a warmth that threads through bone and memory.
The steam rises around us, heavy with salt and heat, curling like a veil.
Still, all I can see is her—Phoebe, my Telya, my tide, my undoing—standing in the glow of candles and whirlpool light.
Her lips part. For a heartbeat, I think she’ll run, that she’ll pull from me and break the fragile tether between us—but then she steps into my embrace.
And the whole world tilts.
My control, my centuries of careful discipline, unravel in a single syllable.
I call the magic to me, and with one sweep of my hand fragrant mists fill the air, warming her bare skin as I do with my body.
She gasps, hands instinctively clutching at me, and I catch her lips gently, holding her to me as I steal a kiss.
“You’re so beautiful, Phoebe. So fragile it breaks my heart,” I confess, the words spilling from my lips without approval or permission.
Her blush is fire and moonlight all at once.
I draw her into the bath, into the water that stirs eagerly around us, as though it knows her now as surely as I do.
She clings to my shoulders, her skin slick and warm against mine.
Every point of contact sears me—her thighs bracketing my hips, her breath trembling against my mouth, the soft surrender when I claim her lips.
She tastes like oranges, salt, and promises, like everything I thought was lost to me.
Her fingers curl in my hair, pulling me closer, as if she, too, can’t stop herself.
And when she runs her fingers over my horns, whispering my name—Kael—I swear I feel both,her touch, her voice,brand themselves into my chest.
The whirlpool bucks beneath us, waves rising like a tide eager to swallow us whole. Tiny bioluminescent flecks glow in the depths, mimicking the light from the runes on my body.
My runes blaze with light, answering her, binding me tighter to this human woman who feels nothing like mortal weakness and everything like salvation.
I lower my head to her throat, breathing her in, and she arches for me.
“Mine,” I whisper against her skin, reverent, wrecked, undone.
My tail coils around her waist, binding her to me, reminding us both there’s no escape from what burns between us.
Her body is soft and sumptuous beneath my palms, all curves and heat, and I am drowning in her.
“Fuck, Telya,” I groan, lips grazing the delicate shell of her ear. “You’re so goddamn perfect. I need to be inside you.”
Her answering moan shreds the last of my restraint.
I lift her into the deep pool, water lapping at our shoulders, carrying her down with me as if I can draw her into my very bones.
When I sink into her, the world ceases to exist—there is only water and heat, her voice calling my name, and the unbearable sweetness of her surrender.
She clutches me, tight velvet walls stretching to take me, wet and molten around my cock.
The sensation tears through me, pure ecstasy, pure rightness.
I bite back a roar, reveling in the slickness coating my length, in the way she welcomes my possession.
My hands mold to the ripe plumpness of her ass, pulling her down harder.
