Gabriel couldn’t stop kissing Clara.

He couldn’t stop stroking her.

He couldn’t stop indulging in the sensations rippling across his torso.

Fuck.

He’d never experienced anything like this. His body was strung so tight he felt like he might explode without even being inside her. It made no sense, and yet, for the first time in his existence, he chose not to look for the practical recourse.

Instead, he allowed himself to feel.

Hot.

So. Fucking. Hot.

He ripped the towel from Clara’s body and swallowed her yelp of surprise. His fingers remained locked in her hair, holding her to him as he devoured her with his mouth.

Sex had never held any value to him.

Yet he would die if he ended this now.

All his principles and past learnings flooded his mind, trying to yank him back to some semblance of sanity, but all he could see was Clara. Her naked breasts pushed up against him. The slender column of her throat, oozing blood from the wound he’d created. Her rapid breaths and plump lips.

He kissed her again, harder this time, dominating her with his tongue and groaning at the delicious sounds she made in response.

All his decades of living paled in comparison to this passion. This sensation. This violent need to fuck.

This was what he’d been missing during each previous encounter—this yearning that plummeted him to a new reality of being.

There was no logic here.

No reasoning.

No edicts.

Just lust.

It spiraled all around him, consuming his every thought and action. His dick pulsed for it. His balls begged for it. His stomach clenched with it.

“Clara.” Her name came out on a growl, his hand on her hip bruising as he tried to pull her closer. Only, she was already pressed up against him, her nails digging into his shirt as if to hold him there forever.

Part of him considered misting to another room or location, to escape this madness. But a more powerful part of him cried out in protest, telling him he wouldn’t survive without this.

His mind spun, trying to sort fiction from truths, only to be distracted by Clara’s mouth once more.

He’d stopped kissing her when he voiced her name.

Unacceptable.

His lips captured hers, vowing to never leave again.

He released her hair to ensnare both of her hips and lifted her up against him. Her athletic legs circled his waist, her hands sliding up to grip his shoulders.

It wasn’t enough.

He needed them both naked. To be inside her. To fuck her.

His groin tightened with the prospect, his shaft impossibly hard. He’d always had to order his body to react. But not with Clara. For the first time in his life, his body commanded him.

He walked them into his bedroom, not bothering with the lights or to close the shades on the windows. The entire world could see this if they desired—a thought that intrigued him.

Would they envy him?

Desire the female wrapped around him like he was her sole reason for existing?

Mmm, an intriguing idea. He’d have to investigate that later, after he took off the edge a little. If that was even possible.

He laid her on his bed, his plush comforter framing the naked vixen in a sea of black. She gazed up at him with desire glistening in her blue eyes, her swollen lips engraved by the evidence of their kiss.

It was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. Even more stunning than all the colors of the council.

Clara didn’t need wings to perfect her form. She was gorgeous without the feathers. He wanted to worship her with his tongue, to nibble every inch of her creamy skin. But his focus went to her breasts, to the rosy tips standing at attention and begging him for a kiss.

His blood heated with the thought, a foreign ache in his groin telling him to start there.

He pulled his shirt over his head and unbuttoned his pants to provide his throbbing arousal a little breathing room. Then he kicked off his shoes and crawled over her, his mouth skimming her supple flesh before settling over her erect nipple.

Clara sighed in response, her slender fingers weaving through his hair to hold him against her. He took that as a sign of approval and laved the tip to his heart’s content before sinking his teeth into the curve of her breast.

She screamed in response, the sound one of rapture mingled with pain, and her body trembled violently below him.

An orgasm, he realized, his body tense with the thought.

He’d never seen a woman come undone like this.

Sure, his previous encounters had experienced pleasure. But Clara resembled a goddess in the throes of passion, her expression glazed with the need for more.

He felt her dampening his pants, her splayed thighs cradling his hips.

What does she taste like? he wondered, the scent of her arousal sweet in the air. There was only one way to find out.

He kissed the bite mark on her breast and ventured downward, licking and nibbling along the way. Her grip tightened in his hair, her body bowing off the bed as he settled between her thighs.

“You smell edible,” he whispered against her slick flesh, his mouth salivating for her. “I may never stop, Clara.”

She vibrated in response, a cry parting her pretty lips as he slid his tongue along her delicate folds. Fuck. She tasted better than he imagined. With her blood still warm on his tongue, he indulged in the mix of flavors.

Sweet.

Tangy.

Addictive.

“Gabriel.” The purr underlining his name caused him to stiffen even more in his jeans. He’d never realized how tight these pants were until now, the zipper pressing against him painfully. But he endured it for another long lick of her flesh.

So. Damn. Good.

She shuddered, her legs clamping down around him, encouraging him to continue. He found her clit and sucked it into his mouth, his gaze on her face, observing her reactions.

When he applied more pressure, her skin reddened with excitement, and her desire warmed the air. If he eased his suction, she shivered, causing a hint of torment to ripple through his borrowed empathetic ability.

Fascinating.

With each action, he elicited a new reaction. One he read with ease because of her essence mingling with his.

It was so much better than the colors and vividness of the Seraphim world.

Because he enjoyed doing this to her. Her pleasure increased his own, intensifying the moment and taking him to heights he’d never expected to experience.

Why had he avoided this all his life?

Why would Seraphim choose not to experience such a phenomenon?

He marveled at the complexity of it all, the mingling of electricity thriving through his bloodstream and the maelstrom curling inside his lower abdomen. His groin ached with the need for freedom, the pants cutting into him uncomfortably and forcing him to kick off his jeans.

His boxers remained, the cotton providing enough give for him to continue indulging in the taste of Clara. She squirmed beneath his mouth, her body strung tight as she skirted the edge of another climax.

He took her swollen bud between his teeth and forced her to fall again, her scream a siren’s song to his ears.

Little witch, he thought, captivated by the sight unfolding before him.

She writhed, her orgasm a masterful wave that threatened to take him under with her despite his cock being nowhere near her sweet warmth. He groaned, his craving for her mounting to a precipice that forced him to remove his boxers and palm his aching shaft.

He felt violent.

Crazed.

Furious at his loss of control.

And utterly lost to the demands of his body.

He needed a release. To come. To feel the slick sheath of her wetness coating his skin.

“Clara.” He uttered her name like a plea, his gravelly tone one he’d never heard before. He didn’t know how to move, how to breathe, how to do a damn thing other than stroke himself with harsh, fast movements.

Her hand touched his, her soft tones a hypnotic caress that calmed him. “I want you inside me, Gabriel.”

Fuck, he wanted that, too. More than he wanted anything else in his life.

All his responsibilities and vows fled his mind, replaced solely by the purpose of taking this female. He was consumed by it. Stolen. Destroyed. And reborn as a new man. One who thrived on passion and sex.

He couldn’t remember why or how they’d gotten to this point, nor did he care to evaluate. All he desired was her. This. Fulfillment.

She spread her legs wider, her wet center an invitation he couldn’t deny. He stroked himself once more, with her hand still on his, then knelt over her to position himself between her thighs.

Heaven kissed the throbbing head of his cock, the slippery opening a welcoming embrace that accepted him in a single thrust. A strangled sound escaped his throat, the gratification of sliding inside her robbing him of his ability to process.

He merely existed.

A being of lust.

Driven by immoral cravings and depraved desires.

A million ideas slammed through him all at once, each one dirtier than the last. He wanted to dominate this female. Fill her with his essence. Make her drink from him. Mark her very soul. And do it all again, over and over, until they were mindless creatures who were so full of sensation that they couldn’t move.

He pumped into her, eliciting a sharp gasp from her mouth.

More.

He pushed harder, and she responded by raking her nails down his arms.

Yes.

He palmed her cheek and kissed her while his opposite hand went to her hip to guide their movements. She slid her tongue into his mouth, taunting him into an intimate dance that he eagerly returned.

She moaned.

He groaned.

She cried out.

He growled.

It was a mixture of animalistic sounds that drove him onward, forcing his pace to speed up to a near-brutal one that she accepted without reserve.

Sweat slicked their skin, adding to the savagery of their coupling. They were entirely lost to each other and the empathy lingering between them. Gabriel reveled in it, allowed himself to feel every inch of his throbbing shaft as he pummeled her below.

His veins thrummed with vitality, causing him to shake in the impending oblivion. He wanted to feel it. Needed to experience the climax that awaited him. Longed to finally understand what he’d been missing all his life.

He felt it building, his lower abdomen igniting with a flame that singed his insides.

“Fuck,” he breathed, his mouth against hers, their pants mingling as one.

Her lips skimmed his cheek to his ear. “Faster,” she demanded.

The word stoked the fire within him, forcing him into action as her teeth grazed his neck. She sucked the skin there, drawing a groan from his throat. He wanted more of that, particularly around his cock.

No, he wanted to feel her lips everywhere. To watch her tongue lick a path along the edges of his abdomen all the way down to his groin. Then she would wrap her lips around him and suck him to completion, swallowing every drop.

The thought alone almost made him come. But some part of him wanted her to join him, to share in the oblivion of their fucking.

He slid his hand between them, his thumb finding her clit and applying the same sort of pressure that he had with his tongue before. She shook beneath him, her exhale hot against his throat.

He kissed her neck in kind, then licked the blood that remained against her skin. “Gabriel,” she whispered. “I… I need…”

“Whatever you want, I’ll give you,” he promised, picking up his pace and reading her response through his new sense of empathy.

She was warmth personified, her aura a blanket of heat that kissed his skin and caused his muscles to flex to near pain. Fuck, he needed to explode, and soon. It was too much for him to hold in, the torrent of sensation whirling inside him and seeking release.

Her incisors pierced his skin, sending him over the cliff of oblivion with no hope of return. He’d never been bitten before. There was a reason for that, one he couldn’t identify beneath the flood of sensation drowning him in an ocean of rapture.

Only, he was swimming alone, and that wasn’t acceptable. He refused to suffocate on the sensations without her.

He returned her bite, forcing her to join him in the delirium, and a strange sort of connection snapped into place, shooting them both into the deep end beneath the euphoric surge of pleasurable insanity.

His essence emptied inside her as she squeezed him with her slick walls, draining him of his life and purpose and joining his spirit to hers.

He’d never felt so close to another person.

So… bonded.

His eyes flew open, his mouth releasing her neck. “Fuck!” He tried to release her, to pull himself out of her body, but the damage was already done, as evidenced by the blood on her mouth.

His sudden jolt away from her had caused her teeth to rip across his skin, but he couldn’t feel the pain of her dislodged bite above the reality of what they’d just done.

A blood bond.