by Ophelia Bell
“Unless you’re planning to make him a condiment casserole, this is not exactly dragon food.”
I scowled at him, ready to tell him off when my gaze dropped to his bare chest and the tattoo on his left pec. It was a mirror to the one on Rohan’s chest and the design on the shirt I wore. The stark reminder that the pair of them likely had a relationship took the wind from my sails.
“I don’t know how to cook,” I confessed
“Not at all surprising, princess,” Keagan said with a smirk. “You have the look of someone who’s been sheltered your whole life.”
That stung, because it was true. I didn’t want to share that the biggest reason I’d been so sheltered was because my parents worried that some cells might remain of our dead enemy’s organization, and they might still attempt to follow their leader’s orders, posthumously. The ritual and the message I’d delivered on the Equinox would have subverted their orders, so I was safe now.
That didn’t exactly help my current predicament. Or the fact that I didn’t know what the hell a condiment was. I’d been so focused on trying to understand the hounds the past three weeks that I’d only done the bare minimum to integrate with the human world. And with a well of power flush from the Source itself, I hadn’t needed to eat more often than a few times a week and had made do with whatever pre-made food was on offer in the hospital cafeteria. Though perhaps my aversion to eating more often was exactly because of what was on offer there. It tasted like cardboard compared to the sumptuous meals I’d been served in the higher realms, all of which had been prepared for me by master chefs who served my parents and the rest of the Quorum of our races’ leaders.
Keagan’s hands fell to his sides and his brows shot up. “You’re serious aren’t you? You don’t know how to make a sandwich?”
My mood brightened. I could do that, at least in theory. I darted a look around the kitchen and found the bread, then after rifling through drawers I retrieved a knife and cutting board. Hyperaware of Keagan’s watchful gaze, I managed to cut two uneven slices from the loaf of bread, then looked uncertainly at the collection of items I’d taken from the fridge.
“You want mayo first. And mustard,” Keagan offered, as he moved to lean against the counter at my side.
I found the items he’d mentioned, opening the lid of each and sniffing cautiously. They smelled savory and delicious and I tipped the bottles over and squeezed generous amounts onto the bread.
“Whoa, don’t overdo it. Just enough to cover each slice.” He reached out and halted my overzealous application of the mayo with a hand over mine. My breath caught at the heat of his palm against my skin and I pulled my hand away. My body flushed at the sudden awareness of his proximity and the memory of the orgasm I’d had earlier while he was inside me.
I cleared my throat. “What next?”
He wandered back to the fridge and opened it. “Catch,” he said, pulling out a drawer and grabbing a handful of items. He tossed each to me—a paper-wrapped parcel that smelled like meat, followed by a green, leafy bundle, two large tomatoes, then a big pale yellow block of cheese. I caught each item and turned back around, finally catching on as I remembered some of the hospital food that had vaguely resembled what I imagined Keagan wanted me to make. This would no doubt turn out better than the tuna salad sandwich I’d had the night before, even if it was my first try.
He returned and leaned one hand against the counter, close enough for me to feel his heat and be inundated with the salty scent of his sweat mixed with the cut wood smell that clung to him.
“Are you going to supervise every step now? I think I’ve got this,” I said, darting a sideways look at him. The scruff on his chin was visible from this close. He didn’t wear a beard like most male ursa, but hadn’t shaved recently, though his dark, perfectly trimmed sideburns appeared as though he at least groomed regularly. I rubbed the back of my shoulder absently where his chin had rasped against my skin earlier that day.
“I don’t want Ro to go hungry,” he said in a low voice. “Though I think he might argue that he could live on your snatch if you offered it.”
My body flooded with heat at that statement and it was all I could do to focus on slicing the tomatoes and laying an even layer on top of the meat and cheese I’d stacked on the first slice of bread.
“I . . . ah . . . already did that. I guess he needs some variety.”
Keagan stilled and I caught him licking his lips out of the corner of my eye. I stacked lettuce on top of the tomatoes and set the second slice of bread on top of that, then pressed down. My triumphant smile faded at the smoldering look in Keagan’s eyes.
As closed off as he’d been moments ago, this shift in mood made me dizzy. He leaned in close enough to brush his nose along my jaw and inhaled. My spine went rigid at the sensation, as my core flooded with heat. He didn’t even like me. Why the hell was he acting like I was his supper?
“Fuck, you smell like him. Did you have a taste of him while he was gorging himself on you?”
His breathing was ragged, gusting hotly against my cheek as I warred internally, the need to reassert my boundaries in conflict with my ache for contact.
“I returned the favor,” I whispered, and my eyes fluttered closed when his lips grazed my jaw and he groaned, still dragging in long gulps of air.
“Did you like how he tasted?” he asked. He moved in a slow arc, his big body looming behind me as he caged me in with his arms. He nosed my hair aside, grazing his lips along my shoulder at the edge of the opening of Rohan’s shirt. The sensation sent a tingle of pleasure through my body and I involuntarily pushed my hips back into him.
“Yes. I think he liked how you tasted on me too.”
He expelled a harsh breath as though I’d just punched him and one of his big hands grabbed my hip, yanking me back. Rough denim scratched at my ass through the thin fabric of the shirt, but his arousal beneath was unmistakable. The awareness of his hard length inside his jeans destroyed my ability to breathe, to think. My core clenched painfully with a fresh desire to feel him inside me.
“I wish you weren’t wearing his favorite goddamn shirt or I’d rip it off you,” he growled. His other hand came up and he gripped my breast through the fabric, hefting my flesh in his palm and flicking his thumb back and forth across my stiff, sensitive nipple. I gasped and pushed back against him again.
“Aren’t you supposed to be a little more deferential, Keagan Sundance?” I shot, struggling for something to level this sudden imbalance of power that seemed to have cropped up between us. He was a male ursa, and male ursa always asked before they touched.
His hot mouth lifted from my jaw and his lips grazed my ear. “You guessed my clan . . . you are perceptive, princess, I will give you that, but you should know that us Sundance men have a reputation for breaking rules. I’m not in the mood to ask right now.”
The rumbled words confused me, but there was no mistaking the message when he slipped the hand that held my hip backward, hooking it beneath the hem of the shirt. His fingers delved between my cheeks, sliding forward through my soaked folds and sending a shock of pleasure straight up my spine.
My response burst from me on a sudden exhalation. “Why not?”
“Because you’re going to beg me for it.”
12
Keagan
My head nearly exploded when I slipped my fingers between her legs and they sank into slick, fragrant heat. She pushed back against me with a moan that made my blood run molten and my need to hear her beg to be fucked even more insistent. She’d been right, I should be more deferential to her, particularly given her status as the daughter of one of the ursa clan leaders, but having felt her tight pussy around my cock once destroyed all sense of propriety. I wouldn’t do it without her asking first, but I’d do everything in my power to make her as desperate for it as an ursa female in estrous.
But she wasn’t just an ursa, which was painfully apparent by her more fragile frame and pronounced curves. She looked
human, had the eyes of a dragon, the voice of a turul, and the sex drive of a nymph. So far the only ursa feature had been this pussy that had so easily accepted my cock earlier and that I had no doubt really could have taken Rohan at full size, despite her insistence that she’d been a virgin less than a month ago.
Not that I’d ever experienced shoving my cock into an ursa female’s pussy before, but they were known to be more than accommodating to the point that bachelor pairs who serviced them routinely had to use their fists to sate their fertile cravings when they were in full estrous. Our cocks were reserved for servicing our mates alone, so we had to bide our time and use other methods to satisfy the females who hadn’t chosen us as mates, but who still needed our skills as lovers and our ability to channel their excess fertile magic back to Gaia.
I’d done my duty before my pilgrimage, partnered with an old childhood friend. But my experience with females before today was limited to only a handful of assignations in the Sanctuary—just enough to understand how to draw an orgasm from a female with my fingers and tongue. In the five years since I’d left, I’d restricted my encounters to other males, my instinct to seek out a male partner stronger than the need to fuck a female. After I hooked up with Rohan, it’d just been us.
Gaia’s tears, did I need to fuck Deva now though. My cock ached within the confines of my jeans. Deva’s pussy had already soaked my fingers and she quivered under my touch, but her jaw clenched stubbornly.
“Rohan’s hungry. You wouldn’t want to make him wait, would you?”
I closed my eyes, inhaling another deep breath of my friend’s scent that still clung to her. Rohan’s appetite was no mystery to me, and I had a feeling he wouldn’t begrudge me this, particularly when he’d reap the benefits later. She had said he enjoyed tasting me on her.
“Princess, he will thank me for this, I promise.” I teased my fingers forward and groaned when I found the swollen bud of her clit. I stroked her in a tight circle, enjoying the way her head dropped and her nails dug into the wooden chopping block countertop leaving half-moon grooves.
This goddamn shirt was in my way, but I knew how much Rohan treasured it. It was an original Fate’s Fools band t-shirt that commemorated the show we’d met at. Rather than rip it open to get at her I dropped my other hand beneath the hem and slid up her stomach to cup her bare breast. She felt like heaven in my hands, the warm, heavy globe of her breast spilling over one palm while the slick, swollen folds of her pussy coated the other in her arousal. And she wasn’t running away. On the contrary, she whimpered a nearly incoherent plea before biting her lip to suppress it.
“What was that? I didn’t quite hear you,” I murmured in her ear, tweaking her nipple and shifting my fingers back between her thighs again to plunge two digits into the tight sheath of her snatch.
Deva let out a sweet cry of pleasure and pushed back against my hand. Her muscles clamped around my fingers and I came a hair’s breadth from begging her to let me in.
“Nothing,” she breathed.
“Do you want me to stop?” I asked, adding a third finger and picking up the tempo of my thrusts. Her pussy accommodated the added invasion easily, yet somehow managed to feel just as tight. My dick screamed for relief but until I heard her say it, I wasn’t so much as unzipping.
“N-no,” she said.
“Do you want me to fuck you?”
She let out a frustrated groan. “No!”
I laughed. “I don’t need to be a turul to know you’re lying, but all right. Maybe you need more.”
I dropped my hand from her breast and slid it between her thighs, finding that sweet hard bud again and rubbing. At the same time I plunged my pinky finger in alongside my other three fingers and pushed deeper. Her pussy clamped tight around my hand and she shuddered, her body heating enough to make me sweat. A warm wave of Rohan’s scent wafted off her and I bit back another urge to beg her for access. Their combined scents were driving me mad.
Needing a distraction, I removed my fingers from inside her, then dropped to my knees and pushed one of her thighs up. Her glistening folds spread before my eyes, pink and wet and completely bare. Clamping my hand on her knee and holding it aloft against the edge of the counter, I buried my face against her delicious wetness. Her arousal was sweet and tangy, her flesh a velvety wonderland beneath my tongue and her harsh cry music to my ears. Tilting my head to the side, I angled my tongue to reach her clit, toying with it until her thighs began to quiver. I paused and swiped my tongue back through her channel to the tight ring of her ass. I teased the puckered opening with the tip of my tongue, a little surprised at the way she flinched at first before relaxing and emitting a faint sigh.
With my tongue still lightly caressing her rear opening, I pushed my fingers back into her pussy, marveling at how greedily she took all four.
She whimpered again, her need starkly apparent by the way her muscles milked my fingers.
“Princess, you’ve got two choices if you want more. My fist or my dick. I’m happy to give you either one.” It was only a partial lie. As much as I ached to slam my cock into her again, proving that she could take my entire hand would have satisfied some other demented need of mine.
I twisted my fingers inside her, amused by her uncertainty, like she might actually choose a fisting over a fuck. Then I heard a whisper that was barely more than a breath and my pulse picked up speed.
“Say again?” I asked.
“Please fuck me, Keagan.”
I was on my feet in an instant, unfastening my jeans with one hand as I spun her around with the other. I had her ass hoisted to the countertop and the shirt pushed up over her breasts just in time to slam my dick home. Her head flew back with a cry and her legs wrapped around my hips, pulling me into her as desperately as I gripped her hips and forced her onto my cock. She fell back onto her hands, her chest arched up and I took the invitation, grabbing one delicious, dark nipple between my lips and sucking.
Fuck if this didn’t feel better than the first time, even without Rohan’s big dragon tongue toying with my balls while I fucked her. Had I missed out by avoiding sex with women all this time, or was it just this woman whose body, whose scent, whose luscious pussy was driving me crazy with the need to have her?
She let out a needy moan and slipped one hand between her thighs. My balls tightened at the sight of her fingertips stroking her clit in swift strokes.
“Let me,” I growled, pushing her hand aside and pressing my thumb to her clit. I pumped harder into her while I stroked her and she lifted her hand to the back of my neck, using me for leverage on one side, and the counter beneath her hand on the other as she pivoted her hips and pumped my cock. Her pussy clamped tight around me just as sweetly as I remembered, the hot friction pushing me closer and closer to the edge. I’d already lasted longer than the first time . . . I’d blown my wad almost instantly when I’d first slipped inside her earlier today but made up for it by coming two more times in succession.
This time I wanted to hear her fall apart around my cock before I let go even once. I needed to prove that she didn’t have that much sway over me.
Our eyes locked, hers a strange, fevered variegation of colors filled with some unspoken craving that I sensed went far deeper than her need for release. A melodic humming sound started in her throat that tugged at my heart for the briefest second before her eyes widened and the sound abruptly stopped.
I was losing her. No fucking way was that going to happen. I wrapped my arms around her and spun us both, slamming her against the cold steel of the fridge and pumping up into her. She let out a cry of surprise that faded to a moan of renewed ecstasy as her legs tightened around my waist and her hands clutched at my shoulders.
“Keagan!” My name faded into a keening cry as her entire body tensed in my arms and her core spasmed around my cock. I pulled back enough to look into her eyes again and was gratified to see the uncertainty had fled, replaced by nothing but pure, raw pleasure.
My balls ti
ghtened, the blast of need coursing through me as my climax took over. Our eyes remained locked, her dark lashes fluttering and her full lips parted as she succumbed. She clutched at my neck, her head tilting toward me, her lips brushing against mine. I turned my head sharply, unwilling to give in that deeply, to have that intimate a connection. This was already way too much.
When her body relaxed in my arms and my cock ceased its spasms, I pulled back slowly, letting her slide out of my arms and back to the floor. Without looking at her, I fastened my jeans and turned back toward the workshop.
“Keagan?”
Her hesitant question was followed by a light touch on my back. I don’t know what the fuck more she wanted from me, but I’d given all I had to give her.
“That should be enough power to get him through the night I think. Come find me if you need more.”
13
Deva
Keagan’s abrupt departure left me stunned, too dazed by the intense orgasm I’d just had to process the strange behavior. Finally, it clicked into place, leaving me cold. It’d been all about feeding enough energy to me to help his friend. That’s it. But as much as I appreciated that sentiment, it still stung to have him push me away like there hadn’t been any more to our encounter. There had been so much more. It had been apparent in the flood of his arousal and the flare of his aura. The affection in his eyes had only flashed for a moment but it’d been enough to trigger a need for me to sing to him before I caught myself.
Singing the kind of song that had swelled against my throat was pointless. I needed to save all that energy for keeping Rohan’s aura fortified and keeping his soul from bleeding out until we could find out how to heal him fully.
The moment I stepped back into Rohan’s bedroom, my mood lifted. Despite the exhaustion apparent in Rohan’s rumpled face, he smiled at me. His smile faltered when I set the plate with the sandwich down on his bedside table, avoiding his gaze.