but not closing his eyes.
“Look at me,” he said when she blinked slowly. “I need you to look at me.”
She did and bolts of heat traveled from the spot where his thumbs rubbed along her jawline, down her neck to her breasts.
“I don’t know why it was you. Or why I was the one who connected to Acacia in the jungle and needed that shaman’s cure. I can’t explain what being a Seer will mean to me, or to my future and I won’t promise you that I will not try to protect you with every breath in my body. I’m not an easy shifter to be with,” he said, snapping his lips shut tightly, his eyes blinking fiercely.
“But what I do know is that I cannot continue to do any of this…” He paused, took a deep breath, and let it out forcefully. “Without you.”
Her chest felt heavy, like a boulder had been settled there as she tried to inhale. When the effort seemed like too much work he kissed her. Soft and slow, his lips touched hers, tilted over them, and warmed every inch of her body. His tongue licked along the seam, coaxing her to open, to acquiesce and heaven help her, she did.
Together their tongues danced and dueled, dipped and dived in and out of each other’s mouth, along their lips, their chins, and necks. His hands moved down her arms to her torso, then down further to cup her ass tightly. Nivea wrapped her arms around his neck, her palms flattening on the back of his head. And she held on. For the next breath and the next, she simply held on.
Eli was fast and he was determined, his hard length pressing deep inside her the moment he’d lifted her thighs and pressed her back against the cool tiles. She locked her ankles behind his back and he pounded into her with such force, such emotion she could only open her mouth to scream, but no sound escaped. She shivered, her thighs shaking so vehemently she thought her legs would simply slip from his waist and when she was ready to hold onto the blissful release, Eli pulled out of her quickly. In seconds he was turning, lowering her to the floor of the shower, kicking the door open behind him so that her legs were half in and half out. He came down onto his knees, lifting her legs onto his shoulders and fastened his mouth on her clit, sucking until Nivea’s nails scraped along the shower floor. Water pelted down onto her body, stinging the turgid nipples of her breasts, running in sensual rivulets over her stomach, pattering over the back of Eli’s head as he continued to suck and lick her until her eyes closed, her body tremoring with the quick shock of release.
She was limp and believing with everything left in her that she would never move again—or at least, not in the near future. But she was wrong; Eli was on a mission. He lifted her from the floor of the shower, holding her wet and limp body tightly against his, kissing her ear and her neck as he moved them over to the sink.
He turned her to face the mirror, slapped her palms on the sides of the sink, and stared at her in the mirror.
“Not without you, Nivea,” he said, dipping his head to bite the edge of her left shoulder before looking up again. “Not ever again.”
She didn’t know what she was supposed to think or feel at this moment, or what, if anything, Eli expected her to say. All she knew for certain was that this feeling of pure pleasure coursing through her, coaxing the cat that lived within, enticing the female that ruled, was everything she’d ever hoped for. All the counseling, the persistent will to be normal, to put her past behind her, to be better than the people that had given her life, it all came down to this exact second. The moment Eli Preston stared at her with his intense green eyes and offered her everything she’d ever wanted, and more.
“Not again,” she whispered, licking her lips and straightening her shoulders. “Not ever again, Eli.”
His hand was between her legs then, the other one squeezing her breast. Two fingers dipped inside her, pressing deep,