“I want to take you in the most bestial way you can imagine, and I don’t think I could suppress that kind of lust for long. Now that I know what I am, now that I realize what my body wants, I can’t hold it back much longer.” He opened his eyes. “Maya, I want to claim you with both my cocks at the same time, take your pussy with one and your—”  He broke off and looked away, not wanting to see the disgust that would soon flood her eyes. “And your ass with the other. Don’t you see? It’s depraved. I shouldn’t want something like that, but I do. If you bond with me, you won’t escape that, you’d have to endure it.”

His heart beat frantically in his chest. What if she walked away from him now?

“Endure?” With her hand to his chin, she forced him to look at her. “Gabriel, I want everything you have to offer. We’re both satyr. What makes you think that I don’t have the exact same wish? What makes you think that I don’t crave being taken like that?”

His eyes widened in surprise. “You want this?” He searched her eyes and couldn’t see anything that looked even remotely like disgust.

“Why else would a satyr have two cocks but to use them to satisfy his mate?”

First, she’d called him perfect, and now Maya offered to fulfill his darkest desire. In that moment, Gabriel knew providence, or something closely akin to it. She was the personification of everything he’d ever wished for: a home, a loving wife, a fulfilled sex life. And while life would be even more perfect if they could have children, it wasn’t important enough for him to give her up. His mind was made up—in fact it always had been.

“I pledge my heart and my life to you.” His voice almost cracked as he continued, “I want a blood-bond with you, but not here. I want you to have a memory you’ll always look back on as special.” He looked around the room to indicate that this wasn’t it. “When we bond, it will be in a room full of red candles. We’ll lie on crisp white sheets as we make love, and everything will be perfect. I promise you.”

She smiled at him. “Could it be that you’re a hopeless romantic?”

“Not hopeless—hopeful.” He brushed his lips to hers. “Just promise me you won’t tell anybody. Otherwise it might undermine my position.”

She rolled her eyes. “Men!” And then she laughed. The sound went right through him and warmed his heart. Maya looked happy, and he promised himself that he’d do everything in his power to make sure she was always this happy.

She seemed to realize that he was staring at her, and her laugh subsided. Her eyes locked with his, and he felt as if she looked into his soul. “I love you.”

He choked back the tears that threatened to unman him at her unexpected declaration. “My heart is yours.”

The kiss that followed turned from sweet and gentle to heated and demanding in the blink of an eye. He was still inside her and growing hard again, having remained semi-hard the entire time they had talked.

He eased himself out of her hot sheath and broke the kiss.

“Something wrong?” she asked, her voice soft, almost sleepy. He recognized it as that of a very satisfied woman. And it satisfied him to know that he’d been able to make her come.

“Nothing’s wrong, baby. I want to make love to you the satyr way, but I don’t want to hurt you.”

He lifted himself off the cot and marched to the supply cabinet. Earlier, he’d seen medical supplies in there, and if he wasn’t mistaken there was a jar of Vaseline among it. It would have to do. When he turned back to her, the lubricant in his hands, Maya had turned onto her stomach. Gabriel sucked in a breath. She would be his undoing, for how would he ever make it out of bed in the next few hundred years with her by his side as his mate?

He let his gaze travel over the curve of her back, then over the soft swells of her round ass, before he followed her shapely legs. She had parted them slightly, allowing him to see the dark curls at their apex, curls that glistened with moisture. Her pink nether lips oozed with the seed he’d planted in her, and he felt the urge to slide his cock back into her enticing channel so it would remain inside her. It was a silly thought because he knew his seed wouldn’t take hold in her. Even though—hadn’t the witch said something about Satyr females being fertile? But there had been so much to take in that he wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

Without haste, he approached the cot and sat down at its edge. He wasn’t done admiring her beauty and counting his blessings. He’d been graced with the most amazing gift of his life: a woman who wanted him despite everything, despite the scar on his face, despite his two cocks and the dark desires they represented.