Mists of Velvet

was tugging at her nipple.
    She moaned, the sound erotic in the silvery light. Rhys responded by freeing her breast and claiming the other one. This time he bit down gently on the nipple. Her hand flew to her belly, her body tightening. His palm followed hers, down below her rib cage, to the crescent moon that had been placed on her mons.
    “I want to give you my baby,” he whispered. “I want to feel this skin stretched with life.”
    “Yes,” she moaned. She wanted that. The instinctive need to conceive welled up inside her, and she knew that this night, she would take Rhys’ seed inside her and create their child.
    She gasped as he nuzzled his mouth against her nipple, making it harder and making it strain against his lips before he kissed his way from her breast to the soft, scented valley between, only to capture her other waiting nipple between his lips.
    On a hiss she arched into his mouth, and he covered her hand more forcefully. She imagined him taking her when she was full and heavy with their child. She knew he shared her thought when his movements became more intense, more aggressive, and possessive.
    Rhys slid down her length, his tongue burning a path down her midriff to her belly, and she rubbed her thighs together, feeling the slickness pooling between them.
    His beautiful hand gripped her bottom; then he lowered his mouth and lapped at her. The way his tongue slowly slid up the length of her made her ache to hold him there.
    But soon she was restless. He was going too slow, and she was rubbing against him, struggling to find the right rhythm, the right pressure that would make her shatter.
    And then, just when he moved his tongue against the spot that ached, she moaned and felt two of his fingers sink deep inside her, drawing out her arousal and then sinking inside again. She groaned, emitting a deep sound of need and release; then he set his tongue to her clitoris and pressed against it, feeling it throb. She needed to touch him, to feel her hand stroking up and down the long, thick length. As she grasped his cock, he moved his tongue in a furiously fast rhythm that had her nearly convulsing and crying out his name.

    “Faster,” he moaned.
    Rhys could barely breathe as he watched her work his cock with her hand. A drop of pearl-colored fluid leaked out the slit of his sex and onto her fingertip.
    He knew he wouldn’t last. He knew he’d ruin this ritual if he came in her palm.
    Slowing things down, he moved to the side. Their hands were still bound, but he still had one free hand to play with her. But she was intent on something else—the athame that lay at her side.
    Picking it up, she gave it to him. “I am to shed blood for you tonight.”
    “What?”
    She smiled and kissed away his frown. “Normally, it is my virgin’s blood, but you have already claimed that.”
    “Yes, I did,” he said with a possessive growl.
    “But our blood must mix tonight.”
    Taking the athame, she poked the tip into her thumb, drawing out a drop of blood. Then she poked his finger, allowing his blood to drop onto the blade and mix with hers.
    “Hold the handle with me.”
    Wrapping his free hand around hers, as well as the hilt of the athame, he watched their blood mix and run together down the blade.
    “Now we must plunge the blade into the earth, consecrating our union.”
    Together, they leaned a bit to the left. The bed was not high off the ground, and the tip of the blade easily pierced the earth. Bronwnn’s fingers clutched his, both on the athame and beneath the white binding that clasped their hands together. He could feel her pulse, a steady thump against his wrist. Above them, the shroud glimmered more brightly, casting little shadows on her body that reminded Rhys of starlight.
    Bronwnn’s eyes lit with wonder as she looked up at the veil that draped over them. “Our union has been accepted.”
    “I love you,” he blurted out. It wasn’t very mystical, or original, but it was all he could say.
    “My mate,” she whispered as she wrapped her thighs around his hips, guiding his cock into her slick, hot core. “My mortal. Come. Claim your goddess.”
    Never allowing their gazes to break, Rhys lowered himself on top of her so that her breasts scraped his chest and their eyes were locked together; then he sank himself deeply inside her, reverently, slowly.
    “Take me. All of me.”
    He knew she could. He was so deep inside her, he felt her pulsating around him. And when he began to