Page 95 of Phoenix's Last Heist
“Nope,” Orion says, already stripping off his shirt. “Come on. I told you—you deserve a real bath.”
I grin, not bothering to hide the flicker of arousal his bare chest sends through me. I let him help me out of my clothes, our fingers brushing too long on purpose, until I’m bare before him and he’s fully naked, his mating nodes glowing faintly along his thick erection.
He guides me down into the hot water with infinite care, his hands gentle but sure. The second my skin slips beneath the surface, my whole body sighs.
“Oh stars, I might never get out.”
He settles behind me, strong thighs bracketing my hips, chest to my back. I relax against him, letting my head fall onto his shoulder.
For a while, we just sit. His fingers trace lazy patterns on my arms, down my stomach, across the curve of my hip. The waterglows and shimmers, catching his flickering synesfores pulse against my skin—faint green, purple, and white freckles like constellations.
“I never thought I’d be here,” I say quietly. “Alive. Let alone...this.”
“I always hoped you would be,” he replies, voice low. “But I never imagined I’d get to be the one beside you.”
My throat thickens. I turn in his arms, straddling him, and the water rocks gently around us. His eyes search mine, open and unguarded.
“I’ve never belonged anywhere,” I whisper. “Not really. But I think…maybe I do now.”
“You do,” he says, palms warm on my waist. “With me.”
When I kiss him, it’s soft and deep, heat simmering beneath every movement. The kiss turns slow and molten, his hands rising to cradle my face as I sink against him, skin to skin. I feel the heat of his mating nodes along his cock as I settle above him, his breath catching when I roll my hips just enough to press against him.
“Lyra,” he murmurs my name like a wish—a prayer. Like hope. “Are you sure?”
“More than sure,” I breathe. “I want to be yours.”
Something flickers in his expression—wonder, reverence, the tiniest edge of disbelief. Then he nods, cupping the back of my head and bringing our foreheads together.
“I fought it,” he says, voice low. “The mating instinct. I thought I was protecting myself—protecting you. I didn’t want to tie you to a life you hadn’t chosen.”
“And now?”
“Now…” He traces my lips with his fingers, leaving a trail of sweet-scented water in their wake. Our eyes meet—his shimmering with glowing green. “Now I see that you chose it anyway. Chose me.”
“I did.” I say, dropping kisses across the synesfores on his chest. “I do.”
His expression crumples a little—beautiful and raw, and I lean in to press my lips to his.
The kiss begins soft, hesitant—lips barely brushing. But when I exhale into it, when I open for him with a sound that’s all surrender, he deepens it with quiet desperation. Our mouths move together like we’re learning each other all over again—trading breaths, memories, promises.
His hands slide down my back, splayed wide, fingers tracing the notches of my spine, and I feel the sharp edge of his need tempered by control. Always control. Even now, he waits for me to lead.
So I do.
I shift in his lap, letting the heat between us grow. My body knows him already in fragments—the press of his chest, the tension in his thighs, the hard length of him that nudges between my legs under the water. But now I want all of him. Every inch. Every intention.
When I rock against him, he shudders.
He kisses me again—this time deeper, hungrier, his tongue sweeping into my mouth with a groan that curls straight through me.
I respond in kind, threading my fingers through his damp hair, pulling him closer until there’s no space between us. The friction builds slowly—slick skin on skin beneath the surface of the water, the pressure of his nodes pressing lightly against my overheated pussy, his lips now on my throat, my shoulder, the hollow just above my heart.
“I want to remember this,” I say, breathless. “The first time we do this—all of this—as yours. As mine.”
He nods against my skin, kissing the spot above my pulse. “I won’t ever forget.”
I feel the pulses of his mating nodes begin to sync with my own racing heartbeat, the bond stirring between us, waking up like a second awareness. A tether—histether. Not one that binds—but one that joins.
