Sun Catch Her (Book 1: Three Rivers Deep series) COMPLETE

Chapter Forty-Eight

The earth was soft against my back, the stream's current swift between my toes. Somehow we had ended up on the bank, rolling over and over, upper bodies cushioned by tall grass, legs entangling in the water.

For the moment my dragon took the lead, his weight on top of me. I let out a loud gasp when he threw his head back, our lips disengaging. Our deep kissing mixed his saliva with the tang from mine, clouding his mind with an unbridled passion. Needs had been triggered—desperate ones. Needs we both knew were there, but we'd never expected such an explosive reaction to something that was supposed to be a simple kiss.

His touch against me was liquid cool, like the insistent pelting of a waterfall secreted deep in the belly of a forest never touched by the sun. I shivered from the thrill of it, his exultation, pouring over my shoulders, sloping with my arms, outlining my breasts.

With a soft growl, I grabbed his belt loops and rolled him over so I was upright, straddling him. His wet hair tumbled back from his ornate temples. My right hand found Alex's chest, and he leaned upward, pressing the flesh which encased his power core firmly to my palm in anticipation, almost as if he knew what was to come. But he didn't know.

The channels in my arm opened and connected and, inhaling sharply, the wave of pleasure that always accompanied the power play rose up over us like a swelling in the stream, water building to rapids, rushing toward a drop off. He turned us back over without breaking the connection to gaze down at me, and I tugged on the power I grasped hold of in his core. We cried out when what he had stored in himself cascaded into me.

His elemental will became a pool in my once empty core, building until it almost bubbled over as ripples of fulfillment deep in my groin. Panting because of the new, feral sensation behind it, I broke the connection and pushed him off me, but our momentum kept us moving. We rolled over and over, until at last my water dragon straddled my tingling body.

"Amazing. What you did just now...I don't even know what that was—" His lips touched mine again, kissing, murmuring what he could, the taste of those words becoming metallic, desperate. "Damn me out of existence. You're in heat."

"It-it doesn't affect Micah like this." My words were light, wispy. We kissed again, tongues thrusting, exchanging more tangy, pheromone-laced saliva.

"My system is over-saturated with Bettihemae's constant need to breed," he said, lips over mine. "I am thus easily triggered. Now that I've finally gotten a taste of the one I truly long for and she's also ripe for procreation—the gods help me..." He left my lips, his mouth flowing downward, working the tender skin of my throat.

My head fell back, and my body arched under him when gentle teeth replaced his lips.

"Rose petals," he rumbled against my throat. "You taste sweet, like dew-spotted rose petals. Early in the morning, you sprawl out on the wet grass, taunting me with damp skin bright in the sun. I drown in your cornflower gaze even though I should never drown. You are warm—intoxicating—"

His tongue found my collarbone, the area once torn through with umbra fangs, and I let out a moan as his mouth claimed what he had healed, my senses overwhelmed. There was so much going on— flavors, textures, emotions—were any of them peach? I swallowed down another moan. There was just way too much to sort through.

"—sultry—filling," he finished his list. "Damn me, damn me, damn me!" he growled. "I need to be the one to slow this down."

"I will never damn you," I said from above him when, with a thrust of my elbow into the earth, he was below me again, pinned between my knees.

"I can't let this happen," he rasped, his voice thick. "I'll never win your Beta over if I take you now like this. It's basically declaring war between us."

"I don't want that!" My hair shrouded him from the storm-thick night like black curtains as I leaned to kiss him again, hands curling into fists against his chest, but I couldn't push away. We needed to harness our instincts gone awry. "We need to stop."

"Okay then," he finally said between kisses. "So we stop."

"Yes," I echoed, but we didn't. The effort required to rein in the pheromones pumping hotly through our systems seemed a million miles away.

As he turned us over to straddle me once more, caressing me again and again, his pulsing touch went on like it would never cease. The need driving our actions welcomed the autopilot we were set to, while the part that knew we couldn't do this began to grow so tense I thought I might burst.

Alex gave out a throaty sound when my hands found his pants buttons. Tugging, clumsy fingers exploring, outlining, grasping the bulge that stretched the fabric tight below his navel. His palm brushed my inner thigh, awakening an instinct to spread my legs wide, readying to fully accept what neither of us wanted.

"I have to leave." His voice was shaking. "It'll only stop if I leave."

"S-so leave."

"I am not abandoning you."

"No, you are leaving to save us both." I wasn't being a very good home to Micah if I let somebody else in the house first. Tangy saliva be damned! The feel of ripping fabric jolted through my fingers. The buttons had been stubborn, and now they were at the bottom of the creek. "You leave with no regrets."

"Okay, none," he agreed. He leaned over me like he was going to kiss me—and his weight suddenly vanished.

"Alex?" Sitting up, I called out for him as though I was surprised he had really left.

The slip was hiked up above my waist from all the rolling, soft blue underwear exposed but in its proper place. "Alex!" I called again.

I clamped my hand over my mouth when a strange sounding chirp followed it. He had really done it. He'd gotten away. I stared at my surroundings—looming smokestacks, land paved over with concrete, miles upon miles of twisting pipes. Great, now what? I was wet and dirty, stranded in the middle of a factory on the wrong side of the fence. I had a core full of Alex's power, and he was gone.

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