Demon Moon

nothing offensive about it, and very much about it he found appealing .
    Colin was all too familiar with stink, with burning, rotting odors, terrible… No.
    He held her gaze and didn’t attempt to hide the heat in his. “No, Savitri. I simply want you out of your clothes.”
    Her lips parted. “Oh, god, it’s too much,” she breathed, and rolled over into the water .
    Her shriek pierced the air .
    Colin fell to his knees as if he’d been struck from behind, fisting his hands against his eyes . “Freezing.” He heard Savitri’s laughing cry beneath the screams of the frozen faces and the howls of the ravenous wyrmwolves. He held on to the sound, forced himself to lower his palms from his face and see— not Chaos, but Caelum .
    Heaven. He looked up, at the spires and the impossibly sublime arrangement, and welcomed the awe and fear. Let it tear through him, leave him senseless .
    Until Savitri’s laugh surrounded him again. Colin crawled forward, gripped the fountain wall, and pulled himself up. He didn’t look down into the water, but across; Savitri had swum to the center and was examining the base of the obelisk .
    His fingers trembled. He concentrated on the beating of her heart, the pulse of her blood, and let hunger push the lingering weakness and terror away .
    If he had to lose himself, he preferred to do it within her .
    “It translates from the Latin: ‘Deeper than you think.’” She threw him an amused glance. Drops slid from her shining cap of hair, down her cheeks and brow, fell from her delicately pointed chin. “I can’t touch bottom, though I could have sworn it wasn’t deeper than three feet. Appearances are deceiving—and despite all appearances, Michael must have a sense of humor.”
    “Oh, I doubt that very much,” Colin murmured, unable to manage a stronger tone. Need rode hard on his tongue, swelled his shaft almost painfully erect .
    He had to taste her. Had to have her .
    “Come here, Savitri.”
    Her eyes darkened, and she pushed against the obelisk with her feet. She arrowed through the umbrella of falling water; it splashed against her cheeks and hair, her hips, but fell unbroken around her. Her movement created not the slightest wave in the pool, as if the water were thick, heavy .
    He stepped back as she came near the edge; he couldn’t look away from her, but it was better to remain at an angle that would not expose him, would not declare him absent .
    She gripped the low marble wall. For a moment, she seemed all coltish long legs and awkward elbows and knees. Then she braced her foot against the edge of the wall and rose in a flowing, elegant motion, a cascade of water slipping silently away .
    Oh, sweet heaven .
    His chest tightened. His breath stopped .
    She stood with her legs apart, and the sun outlined every curve, framing her exquisite composition with golden light. Water rendered the white linen transparent, hiding nothing from his hungry perusal—every color and shape, his to see. Her small breasts and taut nipples; the slender line of her waist; her slim hips and the shadow of her sex .
    She stared down at him, and the warmth and arousal and awe in her eyes left him aching with need that had nothing to do with blood or lust .
    How perfectly her expression reflected everything within him .
    Her throat worked, her lips parted, and the movement gave life to the scene, made it flawless .
    “We’re enthralled,” she whispered. “Like a Guardian going back to Earth for the first time. Only it’s the opposite for us. Completely overtaken by sight when other forms of sensory input are effectively absent.”
    “I know.” It didn’t matter .
    “And we aren’t thinking clearly. I’ve never been this…” She trailed off, her gaze falling to the front of his trousers as he pulled his belt from the loops. The tug of material stretched over his cock was like a brief, teasing caress. “I don’t know what to call it,” she finished hoarsely .
    “Overcome?” Astonished. Entranced. Lost .
    “It’s exponentially greater than that.” Her eyes closed as he stepped forward and gathered the hem of her skirt in his hands. The linen was wet; her skin was cold .
    She shivered as he ran his palms up the length of her legs, drawing the soaked cloth ever higher .
    Look at me.
    He wrapped his hands around her lower thighs, to support her, to keep her open for him. Leaning forward, he covered her sex with the heat of his mouth, pressed his tongue against linen and