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I felt it when he started to come undone. The low groan he made. The way his hips arched. His desperate hand clenching in my hair. He came with a hoarse cry, body shuddering, hips jerking. I swallowed every drop, drinking him in like he drank my blood, like a starving woman.

When he finally opened his eye and looked down at me, the expression on his face made my breath catch. Pure. Reverent. I stopped myself before I could think too much about what that expression meant. Instead, I wiped the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand and rose to my feet slowly. Blake caught my wrist and pulled me into his lap in one swift motion, strong arms wrapping around me, holding me tight. It felt … good. It felt … right.

I leaned against him. He pressed his forehead against mine, still breathing hard. “Fuck, Pendragon. That was …”

I smiled, brushing his damp silver hair from his forehead. “Good,” I murmured.

“Good doesn’t begin to describe what that was.” Blake had me by the waist and flipped me back onto the bed before I could even try to stop him—not that I would have. He reared back for a moment, looking down at me, his very gaze a flame. “Do you even know how perfect you are?” he said, his voice low, worshipful.

I squirmed at the compliment, reaching up for him. “Get back here, Black Prince,” I whispered.

He laughed, then his face sobered. “I mean it, Pendragon. There is nothing about you that is not perfect to me. Inside and out. Nothing you do could ever make me run, make me look away.”

I thought of the way he’d seen me pummeling the shit out of Larissa and winced.

He touched my cheek. “No,” he whispered, as if he were reading my thoughts. “Not even that. Let me see all of you, even your darkness. Let me be the one who will never, ever look away. I treasure you, all of you. The darkness and the light.” He chuckled. “Maybe the darkness a little more.”

But below the veil of laughter, his voice was sad in a way I disliked.

“Blake.”

He’d already begun to move again. His mouth found mine, his hands roaming everywhere—over my breasts, down my sides, across the curves of my hips. His cock pressed against my thigh, hot, heavy, hard again. I moaned as he caught my wrists, pinning them over my head with one large hand, as his other traveled down my body. When his fingers brushed the slick heat between my legs, he grinned. “So wet for me,” he murmured against my throat. “Something you’ve been dying to ask me for?”

I should have resisted. Should have snarled something mouthy back, but I couldn’t. I only arched into his touch, aching for more.

“Say it,” he demanded, voice low and edged. “Tell me what you want. Tell me who you belong to.”

“I want you to fuck me,” I gasped.“Please, Blake.” I hesitated, gritting my teeth.Why was it so difficult to speak the truth? Maybe because I’d been running from it as hard as I could for so long. “I’m yours.”

He made a sound, half snarl, half groan, and shifted, guiding himself against my entrance. I tensed, afraid and eager and desperate all at once. He leaned down, forehead pressed to mine, his hand still pinning my wrists, his other guiding himself inside. I gasped. Stretched.The feeling brutal but delicious. He didn’t move right away, he let me adjust, let the connection and the sudden overwhelming intimacy of him inside me settle between us.Then, slowly, he pulled back and thrust forward. I screamed aloud. Blake swallowed the sound with his mouth, kissing me hard, suffocating the scream. His hips slammed into mine, punishing, possessive. I writhed beneath him, panting and gasping his name like an unholy prayer.

All the while, he was murmuring against my skin, “Mine. You’re mine, little dragon. All mine.” He freed my wrists suddenly. His hands slid down to grip my hips, hauling me up to meet every one of his thrusts. He was being rougher than he’d ever been. Reckless.

It was perfect.

I clung to him, nails digging into the black ink covering his shoulders as the heat built, pleasure coiling ever tighter in my core. “Blake,” I gasped. “Please. Now.”

His hand slipped between us, flingers finding my clit, stroking, pressing, demanding. “That’s it, little dragon,” he whispered. “Come for me. Let me completely possess you.”

It took only a few more thrusts, a few more strokes, and I shattered. Pleasure ripped through me, wild and consuming, stronger than it had ever felt before. I cried out, clawing him, clinging to him, my body tightening and pulsing around him. Blake snarled, the sound fierce and bestial, then thrust twice more, burying himself deep and coming with a shuddering, heaving gasp.

He wrapped his arms around me slowly, careful not to crush me, as his body trembled with the aftershocks. Carefully, we lay down on our sides, legs still tangled together, bodies slick with sweat. My heart was still pounding. Blake buried his face in my neck, a gesture so achingly sweet it stunned me.

Then, in the quiet, he lifted his head and looked at me. “I’m yours, Pendragon,” he said, his voice rough but strong. “You never even have to ask.”

I stared back at him, chest aching. Not because I didn’t believe him but because of how much I wanted to keep him, to believe that this was real. “Do you think Viktor had a fucking clue what he was really doing when he put the two of us together?”

Blake’s face split into a grin. “Not a clue.” He lay back, tossing an arm behind his head to prop himself up. “Oh, he knew he’d be pissing me off, sure. But this?” He shook his head. “No. He thought he knew me too well for …well, to ever think that …” He trailed off again.

I cocked an eyebrow. “What?”

Blake closed his eye. “I’m tired.”

“You’re not tired, you big liar,” I said, laughing. I swatted him on the chest, watching admiringly as his muscles rippled as he flexed his arms over his head and faked a yawn. “Tell me what you were going to say.”

He popped his eye open and studied the room around us. “It must be strange, being in here, without her.” He didn’t need to say the name.

I nodded, letting him change the subject. “It is. I miss her.”