He probably should’ve waited, should’ve been kinder, should’ve played her with his hands and mouth, but as it was, it was all he could do to hoarsely ask her, “Yes?” and hear her pant it back at him.
“Yes,” she said, her voice just as rough as his.
Her permission turned him into a creature of pure lust and need. He notched himself below her, her willing caramel all around him as he thrust sharply up, shoving the head of his cock inside. She made a wild sound, thrashing, and she was so tight. He didn’t know if it was because she wasn’t ready or because she was scared, but it felt so fucking good. He grunted and pushed himself in farther, feeling the cotton of her underwear scrape against his shaft until he reached down and easily tore them off.
And then he looked at the scrap of fabric he held in his hands and at the moaning writhing girl below him and froze. Everything he’d been trying not to be, everything he’d been hiding from her—from himself—and here he still was, a monster, after all.
With me or not, you will always be a dragon, his own beast murmured from inside him.
Andi stilled below him, the sounds she’d been making quieting into heavy breathing. “Damian?” she spoke his name like he might not hear it.
“Princess,” he whispered hoarsely, focusing on her again. Her pupils were wide, and her pulse hammered at her throat, but somehow, she looked pleased.
Andi reached up with careful hands, clawing her fingertips against his scalp before clenching them in his hair, bringing his forehead down to meet her own, so he had no choice but to see his reflection in her eyes. “I don’t care if it hurts, Damian. I just need to know you want me.”
He made an anguished sound, lowered his head against her neck, and thrust in.
* * *
Andi cried out. There was no point in being brave around him; he hadn’t asked for it, and he’d seen all of her messy earlier besides. All the parts of her life that she couldn’t hide, how easy it was for other people to leave her, how recently she’d been hurt again—and how much she wanted this, needed it, to truly believe him. That he wouldn’t go. That he wanted to stay. That he needed her so badly, he forgot himself. She didn’t want to be wanted like a porcelain object, trapped in one frozen pose forever. She wanted to be wanted like hard drugs or hard liquor—an ephemeral experience—to be chased after until he had to breathe her in, inject her, drink her, to ravish her until she became part of him, intoxicated by her, unable to want anything else.
He was inside her now, as deep as he could be, and panting at her neck. Her hands stroked down his muscular back, forgiving him his rough handling even as she urged him for more. She felt pressed by him in every way, and she didn’t need his majestic wings to feel covered when they lay like this, body to body, heart to heart.
“My princess,” he whispered, kissing her neck where it met her shoulder, nuzzling her with his nose and the prickles of his beard. “My princess, strong and brave,” he murmured, and then he thrust again, only the smallest amount, rocking her more than anything. One of her hands pushed into his hair again, as he began licking and biting at the side of her neck, making her squeal and flutter in turns, while her other hand chased down his side to encourage him. She brought her feet up to find a slight purchase against her bed and began moving her hips in time with his own.
He purred at that, his chest rumbling against hers, and the floodgates between her legs finally opened, slicking the space between them so he could take longer and longer strokes. She moaned, and he grabbed her hips to pull them tighter to him, demanding more of her with his teeth still at her throat, and then he pulled his head up to stare down at her with his golden eyes.
“I do want you, princess.”
When he said it like that—in that voice that was dark and full of promises, as he was in her and over her—it was her turn to feel it in her bloodstream, and she shivered beneath him.
“And I want all of you,” he said, pushing himself in with another solid thrust. He brushed her hair away with one hand and then curled his hand into it, making her look at him. “I want…my fierce Andi,” he said, pulling his cock out before shoving back inside. “My angry Andi,” he said, punctuating his next rough thrust with a grunt. “My good Andi…my bad Andi…my Andi whole…and broken.” He continued talking as he kept thudding into her, landing deep with his thick cock, rubbing her inside and out as his thumb reached between them, and she felt herself start to swell with emotion and desire. Feelings that had been dormant inside her for months—maybe lifetimes—resurfaced like buoys for her to cling to as he fucked her relentlessly, whispering all the ways he wanted her, all the versions of her that she’d ever had.
A slow wave hit her, like a rolling dune out in the ocean, teasing the ferocity of the waves to come. She whined, riding it, riding him. He growled in appreciation, rocking her through it, bringing his mouth down to kiss her below her ear again, spearing her deep inside, his thumb rubbing her clit beneath its hood. Her hips rose for more of him, and her hand caught his wrist to keep it there, to keep his thumb thrumming against her. “And the last thing I want, Andi,” he said in her ear, emphasizing both the want and her name, one his and one hers, a matched set, “is for you to come.”
“I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to,” she promised him breathlessly, as the waves got higher and faster and hit harder, and it was like she wasn’t even in control of her body anymore. “Oh, God…oh…God…Damian!” She roiled below him, abandoning herself to the water, chanting his name as she let each wave pulse through her, rising and subsiding, only to rise again.
“Oh, my princess, my princess,” he murmured, still pushing in, his thumb still on her clit but softer now, stroking her less as a command and more a memory.
Her thighs tensed and her hips shook and her stomach curled as another wave hit, and he thrust deep in time with it so that she was squirming on his cock, feeling her body clench it, trying to draw more of him inside. And then the impossibly small, still undrowned part of her saw him holding himself over her, holding back.
She rose up onto her elbows beneath him, drunk on endorphins and indignant. “Damian,” she said, shaking her head to clear it, and everything stopped. He rocked back, breathing roughly, licking his lips as though he wished to lick hers. “Damian, come with me.” His eyes narrowed, watching her as if unsure, and she reached up to touch his cheekbone, the same as she’d once touched his dragon’s.
He closed his eyes and leaned into her hand as if remembering, and then when he opened them again, he pulled her hips to himself, hard.
* * *
Damian knew he wouldn’t need long to finish himself inside her. Right now, she was so fucking…fucking…everything. Everything he’d ever hoped for, everything he’d ever dreamed. Her hair was tangled and wild, and her body sheened with sweat the same as his, and he’d already made her whine with need and cry out in pleasure. His marks roamed up and down her neck and breasts, and her pussy rubbed around him as she writhed, slick and swollen from her orgasms—and soon it would be dripping with his cum. When she looked up at him half-lidded and demanded his load from him like it was hers—because it was, and she fucking knew it—it made him so hard he could barely breathe.
And what was more, he was alone. Inside himself. He didn’t want to think on it too hard, lest he attract its attention, but his dragon—who had spent the past week and a half torturing him, wracking him with unimaginably strong desires, to fly here, fuck Andi, and kill anyone who stood in their way—was now strangely absent.
He looked at Andi and saw her dreamily sex-glazed eyes watching him, took in the breathless mess he’d made of her, and knew what he was going to give her shortly.
This was all him.
She was all his.
His hands knotted in the sheets beside her, afraid of the marks he’d leave if he grabbed at her instead, but his hips plowed forward and ground against hers and her breath caught inside her throat as she rose on her toes, ass trembling, body tense and be
gging for release until he took another stroke, plunging his cock in deep and rolling his hips over hers and once again, she screamed and squeezed. His balls pulled high, and he felt himself pulse, letting her pull him, letting her drain him, shooting himself in her hard and deep until all of him was lost in her again.
“Andi…my princess…my Andi,” he said, crooning her name into her neck as he spasmed until he was spent.
And when he was finished, he had a moment still hovering over her to think—how could she make him feel like this?—before collapsing gently to her side, groaning as he slid out.
She lay to his right, breathing just as hard as he was, and he reached out for her, pulling her roughly to his side, burying his face in her hair again, inhaling her, before pushing himself up on one arm to look down. “Andi,” he said, his voice low.
“Damian,” she replied, in the exact same tone, her full lips pulling into a satisfied smirk. He chuckled and caught her chin with one hand, leaning down to kiss the quirked corners of her lips, teasing his tongue against their pressed seam without pushing in. Then he let go of her chin, and his free hand roamed, stroking over her, giving her all of the gentleness he couldn’t have earlier in the night. She was tender and red, and there were small nipped spots of purple in the half-light, a map of all the ways and places he had claimed her, and he remembered himself earlier when he’d been mad with lust, rutting in.
His hand stilled on her breast as he turned his attention inside. I thought you said I wouldn’t hurt my mate, he accused his dragon.
His dragon slithered inside of him, as if from a great distance, every bit as languorous as Andi was now, before asking him, Did you?
He paused. The truth was, he didn’t know. There were things they needed to talk about, heavy and open conversations to have. Damian pushed himself up higher, ready to start them now or to at least tell her that he knew they needed to have them later when he saw it right below his hand.
It doesn’t matter, he told his dragon angrily. Because you’re a liar.
How so? The beast roused further, sounding peeved.
Because of that. He traced the burn the Unearthly blood had left upon her last weekend with a heavy finger. He hadn’t been fast enough getting her to his pool to wash it off after all. Despite all of his good intentions, his princess already wore a visible reminder of his failure on her flesh.
Damian looked to her and found her watching him.
“What?” she asked softly, rolling up her head to see.
He pulled his hand back to himself so that no part of him imposed on her. “The blood. It burned you.”
She let her head fall back, nodding. “I know.”
He waited, expecting her to say something—anything. To curse him, like he wanted to curse himself. He felt her tense beside him before she spoke next, and he readied himself for the blow.
“You said you wanted broken me,” she said softly. “Does a small scar change that?”
“No,” he said, pulling himself over her, trying to quiet any of her fears with the presence of his body. “Absolutely not.” He lowered his head to kiss her worried brow. “It’s not that in the least, Andi. It’s just what…it represents.”
Her hand found his and laced their fingers together. “And what’s that?”
Damian looked down at her. She was so small, so tiny, but he felt even smaller in comparison to the task at hand. “My inability to keep you safe.” He closed his eyes and sank his head against hers, pressing on the spot that he’d just kissed. “Not even from myself.”
She ran her free hand’s fingers through his hair again, trapping him there. “You don’t want a safe woman, Damian. And I don’t want a safe man.”
He pulled back so that he could see her eyes. Were they bright and fierce, or were they half-lidded with exhaustion and the deep sleep that comes after release? Was she just saying things because they felt right, or did she mean them? Because how could she really know what she was offering? He wasn’t safe. Hadn’t he already proven that to her? With the scar she’d acquired while in his employ, with the rough way he’d taken her—and when he thought back about everything she’d already been through tonight, having had the world she’s known ripped in two—it didn’t matter how evenly and earnestly her gaze met his, how much his body longed to be with her, how much his stability depended on being by her side.
“Andi…I don’t want you to cling to me because you feel that you have nothing left.”
She froze for a moment, then laughed—full and throaty. He felt her body ripple beneath his because of it, and he longed to pin her down. But as her laughter faded into chuckling, he controlled himself and pulled back as she pushed up to give her room, letting her sit up. She tucked her legs beneath her so that she was kneeling on her heels, not that far apart from him. He still had his unbuckled jeans on, but she was completely naked, and no parts of their bodies were currently touching—a fact he realized with concern. “Damian,” she began, sounding imminently amused, “have you ever known me to do anything I don’t want to?” Her night dark hair spilled around her shoulders, and the belly of her breast now hid her scar from him.
He considered this. “You are oftentimes a brat,” he conceded, as she grinned. “But…I’ve only known you nine days.”
She blinked in surprise. “It feels like longer.”
Because we’re mates, he longed to tell her but settled for saying, “It does,” instead.
“In any case, though, Damian,” she went on, “you just have to trust me. I know who I am, what I can take, and what I want.” She put her hand out and pressed it on top of his atop the sheets. As she bit her lips, he could tell that she was trying not to smile. “And right now, what I want is for you to take those jeans off because it is so fucking unfair that I’m the only naked person here.”
“No air of mystery?” he teased, catching her hand in his for a moment before standing up to honor her request.
She smiled at him and any remaining part of him that was dark or fearful unfurled. “I don’t want mysteries. I just want you.”
How could she always say the right thing at the right time? He kicked his jeans off and presented himself to her. He was hard again—how could he not be?—and he was hers. Not just his throbbing cock, but the meat of him, down to his bones, the essence of his soul. Just as she was his. Every part of her. Each of her curves, any place that she could hold him—her pussy, her mouth, her heart—every memory she cherished and all the things she wanted to forget.
His.
All of it.
Chapter 21
Damian made an acquiescing rumble as he kicked his jeans off and stood in front of her a few steps from her bed, and Andi let her gaze roam all over him in a way she hadn’t felt free to do when they were in the pool last weekend.
He was so beautiful it almost hurt her to look at him. His arms were as well-defined as she remembered, tapering to strong hands and fingers that always seemed to know just what she needed, touching her with just the right amount of tension. His feet and legs were statuesque, lightly dusted with the black hair that swept up his thighs and down his stomach in an accommodating line. The wide V of his shoulders narrowed muscularly down to his waist and hips and there, oh, there, was the cock that’d just been so thick and full inside her, and here it was again already, curved against his stomach, eagerly straining up.
And then he started looking at her like that. Like she could see the animal inside of him, and it scared her just as much as it turned her on, and she didn’t know what to do.
Run?
Away from him…or to his side?
“What’re you thinking, princess?” he asked her as if he’d read her mind.
Hearing him speak words grounded her again, and she nervously flushed. “I think you fucked the power to think right out of me a while ago.”
His lips pursed, and an eyebrow rose. “Then, I can offer to do the thinking for you?”
She nodded.
Damian seemed
to consider her solemnly now, and some of the beast in him subsided as he swallowed before speaking next. “There was a time when I would’ve pressed my advantage on you—more so than I already have,” he said with a thoughtful sigh. “I would’ve made you get off that bed and onto the ground and crawl to me, so I could put my hands in your hair and make you taste us both on my cock.” His words made little parts of her shudder and hope as he went on. “But enough people have been cruel to my princess tonight, including myself. So, lie down on the bed, Andi, and open your legs up.”
He hardly gave her time to obey before he started advancing. She scooted hastily backward, her heart crawling into her throat, as he reached the bedside and stared down.
“Open,” he reminded her, and she did as she was told, as he lay down on the bed beside her, and the first thing he did was lean over to kiss the small scar beneath her breast.
And then he went on to kiss the rest of her.
Not the usual places—her nipples, mouth, or pussy—but all the in-between ones. He planted kisses in the palm of her hand, caressed his lips up the back of them, licked along the veins and tendons that shadowed her wrist. Before, he’d needed to taste all of her in a fury, like she was a dying man’s last meal. But now, Damian was some kind of gourmand, and she was the meal of the century. His mouth ran inside her arm up into the hollows of her armpits, and she laughed because it tickled and she could see the flicker of a grin at the corners of his mouth in between his kisses, but the only thing he said as he continued was, “Open,” if she pulled her knees together when she squirmed.
He was relentless anew, only this time in a soft, accommodating way, and while she took pleasure in it rather like a purring cat, it wasn’t long before she wanted more, until all of his attention started feeling slightly torturous. But any time she reached for his body, he moved, or used one of his strong arms to hold her still until she gave up and he returned to his current mysterious plan. Her hands reached for his head to shift his path, from the plane of her stomach up, or better yet down, and while he rumbled an amused sound at her, she couldn’t move him.
Dragon Destined: Billionaire Dragon Shifter Romance (Prince of the Other Worlds) Page 23