Last Guard (Psy-Changeling Trinity #5) by Nalini Singh

Canto made a note in his Manual of Loving Payal: Throat extremely sensitive.

Her breasts were even more so and he couldn’t resist adoring them, his own body held in a fierce kind of check that might’ve been impossible had he not spent so many years learning to contain his anger and frustration and pain as he lay at the mercy of physicians.

He put that willpower to use today to pleasure his 3K. The musk of her was thick in the air by the time he reached the dip of her waist and pressed a kiss there.

She pulled at his shoulders. “Canto.” It was a plea.

His back perspiration-damp, Canto made his way up her body. Bracing himself with one arm beside her head, he ran his free hand down to the juncture between her thighs. No cotton hindered his touch. Payal had teleported off her panties.

“Payal.” He held on to his fractured willpower with gritted teeth.

A single touch and she jerked so hard she almost bucked him off. Their bed banged onto the floor with enough force to jar his teeth, then rose up again while other loose items in the room began flying around them in a silent tornado.

Her surrender made his brain haze so badly he thought he felt the earth shake.

He stroked deeper, found her silken and wet and tight.

Sweat beaded on his temples. His hand trembled.

And Payal spread her thighs before gripping his erection to pull him to her. He saw stars. Flipping off her, he brought himself to a seated position against the solid support of the headboard. Payal moved with him, straddled him, her expression dazed.

“This way,” he said, his voice harsh with need. “So I can see your face.”

She touched her fingers to his lips, then looked down between them and positioned herself just right. The first touch of her scalding heat on his cock snapped his spine rigid and made his hands clench on her. He fought to loosen his hold, but Payal murmured that it was okay.

Then his telekinetic lover, movement her gift, undulated her hips as she sank onto him. Canto felt her pleasure in his mind, felt her break even as he broke. They rocked together hard and fast and probably without rhythm.

But it didn’t matter.

What mattered was her desperate kiss. What mattered were his arms wrapped around her. What mattered was the pleasure he felt shake her body before the same wild pleasure erupted in him, shattering him to pieces.

PAYAL lay cradled in Canto’s arms, her inner shields in shards at her feet, and the screaming madness in her oddly quiescent. As if it, too, had been drugged by the pleasure that had turned her body boneless.

She thought about moving, did nothing about it. She just kept her head against Canto’s shoulder, one hand on his chest, the scent of salt and sweat and Canto in her every breath, and wallowed in this moment.

Stirring, he brushed a kiss over her shoulder.

Payal snuggled into him even more. The way he’d touched her … the way he held her … She’d never be the same. If he ever decided against her, it would break a fundamental part of her.

Unable to stop, she reached out to touch their bond.

It was still there, deep in the Substrate, a gossamer thread as strong as steel. It made her happy to touch it, to know that she wasn’t alone as she’d been for so long. It felt even better with Canto wrapped around her.

He nuzzled at her hair, strands of it catching on his stubble. “That’s nice,” he murmured, his voice a lazy lion’s. “Like you’re stroking me.”

Shy, startled, she pulled back her psychic hand … but then because he’d sounded like it was a good thing, she touched the bond again. He made a rumbling sound of contentment in his chest before saying, “I’m sweaty as hell.”

Payal could feel the stickiness between them, the stickiness between her thighs, but she didn’t care. “I don’t want to move.” It’d probably get uncomfortable in a while, but not yet. She wanted to wrap this moment around herself until nothing could take it away, wanted to hoard it deep inside her mind, a secret treasure.

“Me, either.” He yawned. “God, I feel like I could sleep and sleep. As if you’ve wrung a lifetime of tension out of me.”

Her own eyes were heavy. “Hmm.”

She didn’t know which one of them fell asleep first, but when she woke, Canto was flat on his back and she was on top of him. He stirred with her, and when his lashes lifted, she saw galaxies. “I love your eyes,” she whispered. “You carry the universe in them.”

“They’re weird eyes,” he said with a laugh that made lines fan out from the corners of his eyes, then kissed her with an ease and an affection that made her want more and more. “But they meant you knew me when we met again, so they’re my lucky charm.” Another kiss.

Smiling wasn’t an act Payal had ever tried, but she didn’t fight it when the warmth within her wanted to reach her face. “Do you have a bath? I’ve never had a bath.” Showers were far more efficient.

“No,” Canto said. “But let me send you an image.”

A clear pond surrounded by lush green forest shimmered into her mind. “It looks cold.” She shivered.

“Dare you.”

She teleported them both into the water. A shriek was torn out of her at the cold, while Canto said, “Fuck!” Then he dived underneath. When he came back up, he was a sleek seal of a man. Even though he could only use his upper body for floating, he had no trouble, having clearly spent a lot of time in water.