by Mima
He sighed, his bulky shoulders easing. He climbed across her thighs, kneeling there, and began to study her. His gaze dropped, as a male’s will, to her chest, and then to her lifted and spread core. She rocked her pelvis up toward him, her now empty hand going back to cupping and squeezing her breast. He had such a thick shape that his belly was actually wider than his chest, although not from fat. He was dense, hairy where he wasn’t scarred, and so much larger than she.
“I’m not going to be a good lover. I’ll fuck you with all of me, but I can’t even remember what pretty sex is like.”
“Just fuck me, Donte. I am already so proud to be your woman.”
He breathed in hard and deep. One of his fingers reached out and dabbed in her creamy folds. She cried out, the sting of his touch like lightning. He lifted it to his mouth and sucked on it. Watching him suck his own finger set fires in her nipples, and then a crackling bonfire spun to life in her clit, leaping across her hips and down to her ass.
His lashes, so cute, lifted. She saw Bear look at her and then Donte was back. She clawed at her breast, pumping her fingers into the flesh of it, showing him how hard she wanted his use. Sex words crowded her mind, but she was beyond such finesse to entice him. Her throat rasped, eyes snapping at him.
“In. Me. Now.”
One of his huge hands palmed her tailbone and the other bent his erection down until it fit beneath her hood. He was hot but the metal nubs felt hotter, hard pressure points that had her hissing as they brushed over her clit. He grunted, shoving his tip into her channel, then pressed her hips down to the bed by simply lying down.
She went wild under his weight, struggling to stroke, to grind, ribs creaking, breath thin. Her legs scrambled but couldn’t lift around his thighs. His hands found each of hers and drew them up to his shoulders, which sat above her head so it was like being tied, stretched, only his skin was everywhere. Her mouth strained to stroke over the wall of his chest above her, kissing, licking, begging. But he just stayed still, barely in her, the opening of her channel burning.
“I never dreamed of this. I never hoped. It’s too much.” His words were so low, gravel in her belly.
His trauma was a cloak around them, suffocating, stinking of the horrible things he’d seen and suffered. And done. He didn’t want it. Never sought it. But he faced it, and he’d twisted the very elements to match his iron purpose.
Fingers biting into his shoulders, she slowed the licks across his pecs, mouthed the place his tiny dark nipple should be, and kissed up the line of his breastbone. As gentle as her lips became, her fingers gripped harder, sank deeper. Words of love and thanks wanted to burst from her depths, but she only sobbed out her passionate breaths against his skin. Patience was not her best skill and the call of joining with this man now, after all their tempestuous dream meetings, was like a drug. For him, she waited, as best as she was able, nails rasping across the muscles rising to his neck.
His voice rumbled into her again. “This is crazy. I shouldn’t be here. It’s all waiting, just—”
Her fingers had made it to their farthest reach, the fine hairs at the base of his neck. Noting how his words cut off, she swirled through them, stirring the soft strands. He shuddered.
Is that nice, Bear? Smiling, she drove her fingers up along the base of his big thick skull. He shuddered again and then his hips flexed.
The pressure of him inside her was so satisfying, she melted. Her hands fell to the bed above her head, arms too weak to hold them to his throat. Her legs loosened, splaying even wider. He grunted. Stroking out with a jerk, he paused, slammed in at slightly the wrong angle, adjusted his hips, and then pushed in deeply. The press of him inside was beautiful, as deep as she’d ever needed, and she clenched her muscles, trying to hold him.
Again an awkward jiggle, a jump. He pulled too far back and his head slipped from her grasp. He butted his erection against her, but it took a few prods until he found his way. While everything about his touch excited her, she became very sure he was deeply shaken, nearly lost to his own body, unsure of how to move on her.
Dredging up her own focus, she managed to form a sentence. “You were so sexy when you stormed my beach. When I woke to you fucking me on the sand, it was pure fantasy, so perfectly naughty I doubted you were real when I was awake.”
“Real.” He gave a shallow stroke, shifting his torso in a way that set her smashed breasts alive.
“I knew soon enough. You have to promise to wake me up like that soon. I want to be pulled out of sleep to find you stuffed inside me, stroking me for your own needs.”
He grunted and swung his hips, changing the tissue he pressed against. Her clit was now firmly held between them.
Her breath caught. “And as soon as I’m even half–awake, I want you to pull out and use that giant mouth to eat at my women’s folds.” Her voice came fainter. It was so hard to breathe between his weight and the pleasure. Her channel sizzled, packed and stretched by his girth. “You’ll suck my clit until I come, and then you’ll suck my channel, and then you’ll suck my tiny little secret hole.”
He growled, his hips moving faster. The metal beads left stunning trails of light inside her, but she didn’t want to mention them, to remind him.
“You’ll stuff that tongue in there, no matter how it pinches. You’ll lick me and finger me until I come again, and then you can finish just the way you need. Any way you need me. I’ll give you anything. Any dark need, any hard pleasure, I’ll share it.”
She’d lost the grip on her thoughts. He was grinding his hips against hers, jabbing his cock so deep inside her, crushing her clit. Still there was no rhythm, but the world spun closer. “Yes, Donte. Yes.” She nipped at his chest, dragging her open mouth back and forth, kissing him hard, sucking him. “Don’t stop. I’m here. I’m yours. Take me.”
He was strong, and just like before, he used it more than any other man ever had. His body tense, his hips pummeling, his legs pushing hers wide, he thrust in a staccato, furious pace that sent her over the edge. She spun into the clouds, so grateful.
Gasping through the light, soft again, she quickly cried out to see he maintained the same pace, same pressure. It was incredibly strong on the heels of her first, but he gave no way for her to adjust. In moments, she was tight, back into the panting race to glow.
“Fuck. Moriko. Fuck. Too good. Sweet. Delicious.” His growls were only barely recognizable as words, but she really didn’t care.
At her name she went again, bursting wide, riding a long crest, wobbling down to reality to find herself unable to breathe at all, dripping with heat. Before she even had the thought to be afraid of suffocating, he’d risen up on his arms, a push-up of plain strength. The breeze slithered over her mashed body, and still his hips pumped against hers in a fast, hammering pattern.
Arching her neck to look up at him, she saw his dear, fearsome face locked in agony. His eyes slitted, barely open, but his gaze still found hers. It drifted down to her lips, her chest, her belly, and lower. Craning her neck up, she stared down past her rocking breasts to where they were joined. Lifting her hips so she could take him at a deeper angle, she watched his root rise and fall between her neatly trimmed dark hairs. Dropping her heavy head back down, all she could do was put her hands up, laying them on his ribs, holding him with her poor, sapped strength.
“I’m yours. Yours.”
He pulled out of her, snarling, and gushed cream all over her belly. Holding himself up with one hand, he grabbed his erection and spewed again up over her breasts. He knelt and then with less force draped lines across her thighs. Sitting back on his heels, breathing hard, he held himself and stared at her. She kept herself open, slack with pleasure, letting him look.
He looked for a long time. She looked back, cataloging his muscles, understanding what made some of his scars, but not others. Admiring him. Eventually he stood and got a shirt from the floor. He wiped her down, then knelt beside the bed, one arm resting on the edge.
&nbs
p; Turning on her side she scooched back. “Come lie with me.”
“I need to go scout the hall where the Queen will present me tonight. You should come with me.”
Sighing, sad, she nodded and sat up.
“Moriko…”
It was strange to be above him, looking down. She heard the same uncertainty in his voice she’d felt in his body. “I’m well, Donte.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know how to touch you.”
Smiling, she leaned forward and cupped his chin in her palm. She bent until his broken nose almost touched her big blade. “Touch me however the fuck you want. Do what feels good to you. I like it that way, and I’ll insist on liking it my way, too.” She nuzzled him and backed away. Tracing his ear, she did some admitting of her own. “You know that about me, don’t you?”
“That you’re creative in bed? That you like it wild? That you use sex to center yourself and you need it often and everywhere?”
She stared at him, astonished. “How did—”
“I’ve been inside you. I’ve roamed your magescape and your spirit air. I’ve tasted you more deeply than you know.” He stood in a blink, captured her nipple and gave it a quick, hard pull with his lips. “And you’re sweet as candy. Sugarcake. No, not that light. Cinnamon buns.”
She burst out laughing. “I am a bit sticky right now.”
“Tart. Puff. Cookie.” With every word, he fought his way through her batting hands to lick at her breasts.
She struggled across the slick fabric of her bed, laughing so hard she could barely move, still loose-jointed from their sex.
He nipped at her ass, licking that, to her squeals of delight. “Biscuit. Parfait. Pudding.”
She made it off the bed, but he just scooped one arm around her ribs, another under her ass and then she was in his arms, her flailing limbs like matchsticks against his strength.
He smiled down at her, lips relaxed, eyes dancing. “Jelly roll.”
She screeched in mock outrage, overjoyed by his teasing. She’d seen none of this in his angry, passionate encounters. Her hands went around his neck, her chest shaking with fading chuckles.
Then he kissed her. His lips brushed over hers with a flower’s touch. Sweeping across her mouth they breathed, touching so lightly. A tear sprang from her eye and dribbled down her cheek. He froze.
She would never be able to show much empathy for his pain. He’d take it as pity and that would disgust him. “I’m so happy.” The words were true, although not related to the tear.
He kissed her again, a moment held in tenderness from a man who’d known none. “I’m so sorry.”
That was like a knife to her belly. Anger burst in her. She grabbed his face and kissed him, hard, demanding, using her own strong jaw to win into his mouth and tangle with his tongue. Bay. Herbs, slightly charred. He kissed her back with teeth and a strength that didn’t mind giving way to hers. At the breath they finally had to take, he nuzzled her cheek.
When he set her feet down and took her arms from his neck, she felt a bit astonished. It was always she who ended the trysts. It was a pinch to her pride when he knelt and began pawing through the clothes, holding them up to drop them one by one.
“You’re such a dominant man, I was surprised by how you obeyed the Queen today.”
He shrugged. Standing, he pulled on a pair of black leather pants.
Surprising that they fit really well, but for being a few inches short. “Those look amazing on you. There’s underwear here.”
“Don’t need it.” He reached into the waist and adjusted himself, then laced it up at the hip.
She put on her clothes again, watching him. He bent to look through the shirts and she almost swallowed her tongue. For such a big guy, his ass was tight and hard. His thighs rippled with strips of muscle. The leather smoothed over all his scars. Anyone who didn’t know him would consider him, fully dressed, to be almost handsome, from a distance. He took a pair of leather short boots over to the footstool, a big dark blue velvet seat in front of her desk.
“These will do.” He stood.
“Do you like blue?”
He shrugged. “It’s okay.”
Gesturing around the room, she offered, “We can change this room to suit you more. I’ll probably put a wardrobe for you over there. A trunk—”
“Moriko.” He barked her name at her and she jumped. “Don’t make plans.”
Putting her hands on her hips, she barked back. “Donte. Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”
He glowered for a moment, then nodded. “I want to see all entrances to this place, and the rooms beyond each entrance.”
“And when we’re done, I’ll show you the bathing chambers.” The thought of Donte bathing among her relatives brought a grin to her face. “I’ll try to get one of the small private ones.”
“You’re beautiful.”
She stared at him, melting at how sweet he was. “Thank you.” She curtsied. “You’re—”
“Don’t say it. Don’t even try. I’m grateful you find me fascinating and tolerable, but I’m an ugly slob by any standard. I’ll keep you fulfilled and that’s all that matters.”
Working her jaw around her irritation, she glared at him. “You happen to be—”
“But you are very pretty. And when you smile, truly beautiful. I’ve never seen a rarer beauty than your soul looking up at me through those golden brown eyes while I fucked you into the bed.”
Now her jaw hung open. She was aware of it, but couldn’t manage to close it for several heartbeats. By the time she got a hold of herself, he’d opened the door and checked the hall. “Two people at the far end. They don’t smell like guards.”
“These are our apartments. The Guild workers rarely come here. Even the cleaning is done by our more distant relatives.” She walked up beside him and stood while he worked a complicated spell over the closed frame of her door. “That was very lovely. What you said to me.”
He grunted and strode forward. “They’re having sex.”
She frowned. “I will not scurry behind you like a maid. Slow down.”
He did. “How should I walk here?”
She took the question as the manners issue he’d meant it to be. “By my side, like you’re in control and slightly bored. After we’re married you can hold my hand or touch my back if you like, but don’t sling your arm around my waist or my shoulders.” She stepped up beside him and he paced along with smaller steps.
He raised one brow. “I can’t hold your hand yet you have sex all about the castle?”
“I don’t have it in public, usually.”
“Usually.” His voice was very bland.
Now she could hear the sex sounds coming from the corner. “Well, sometimes our private parties can get a little uninhibited. Especially on the beach.”
He grunted.
She turned the corner only mildly curious as to who was being so forward. Their family was large, with so many branches that sex between distant relations was fairly common. She expected it to be cousin Nama, perhaps, or—
Keeping her face completely bland, she watched her nude sister pin Wu to the wall, kissing wildly as she gave him an active hand job. Wu was—had been—happily married. “Hello, Akisa. Wu, lovely.” She walked past, Donte at her side.
Her sister’s molten gold eyes followed her, smiling as she lapped at Wu’s pulse.
By the time they came to the end of the Royal apartments, she’d catalogued the list of messages Avis had passed on. She closed the heavy doors with verve, nodded to the guards standing there, and continued.
“Who was that? You’re upset.”
She looked up at him, surprised. “You don’t know?”
He shrugged.
“You know so much about me, it seems odd. I’ll introduce my parents tonight. That was my sister, and if I can get away with it, I will never introduce you. You don’t need to deal with her.”
“She hates you.”
“It’s mutual.”
“But is she dangerous to you?”
Moriko shrugged. Without Akisa and Jiselle’s organized attack, perhaps she could have lasted longer in this position. But Akisa was a highly placed enemy as one of the Queen’s Heiresses, and Moriko’s already shaken allies had melted away. “She has shortened my tenure, which was always her goal.” She’d failed for years to bring Moriko down. It had taken Moriko’s own failed judgment to do the real damage. “She has no reason to attack me. I’m nothing to her.” Certainly not anymore. “This staircase goes to the balcony overlooking the main hall. It’s the only upper story entrance.”
She showed him the balcony. It was six bodylengths long and two deep, meant for a full complement of musicians. Yet Donte leaning against the railing seemed to take up all the space.
“Six entrances below. Name them for me.”
She pointed to each in turn. “The kitchen, the bailey, the side entrance that leads to the promenade, the back entrance that connects to the hallway we just left, the hall to the bathrooms, and the pantry.”
“The Queen?”
“Will be there.” She gestured to the stage. “Full court, this room is standing room only. The trestle tables won’t even have benches put out, except for that table closest to the kitchens, for the elderly.”
Donte stood staring down at the largest space in the Royal compound. “There’s a drain in the floor.”
“Yes. No one can access it though.”
“Of course. It’s too small even for a child.”
“So why bother to note it?”
He shrugged. “It will make mopping up the blood easier.”
Chapter Sixteen
Bear didn’t like Moriko being so far away. He snarled and mourned and generally made a nuisance of himself. Donte stood next to the Queen in excellent leather boots, decent leather pants, and a leather vest they’d modified by cutting it up the sides and adding lacing. The Queen had wanted to show off his scars.
She was explaining that he was a darkhunter, a rare survivor able to track the darkmages’ craft. Her words were spun with a classy poise and iron confidence. She was an excellent leader, her weakness being that she herself could not fight. All leaders should be able to fight. He’d guess from the amount of water scenes on the walls, she was a watermage, but maybe it was just part of his torture at being surrounded—still—with the fucking ocean. The elements liked to mess him up and they did an excellent job at it.