by Ophelia Bell
He’d barely begun, yet already her arousal was thick in the air around them. As much as she’d protested the very idea of making love, she certainly seemed ready. Determined to take his time, Veryl moved an inch higher up her thigh, pushed her knees a little wider, and kissed her again, then repeated the motion on her other leg. With each move, he went a little higher, spread her legs a little wider, and kissed her inner thighs, gradually adding more tongue and letting his lips wander over her skin before pulling back and repeating the process once more.
Her breathing grew heavier, but he carefully avoided meeting her eyes again. This was about worshiping her body, showing her what it meant to be adored. That morning he’d channeled his teammates to try to satisfy her, but this time it was all him, no pretending to be someone he wasn’t.
When he pushed her knees wide enough to slip between them, she leaned back, propping herself on one hand. He cast a quick glance up to make sure she was good, and was met with a hungry look of anticipation mixed with apprehension.
“You know this won’t hurt, right?” he asked. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and let out a rueful laugh that confused him. Did she not believe him?
“Just … don’t stop, all right?”
Attempting to shake the worry, he bent once more and resumed his kisses. Her legs spread wider the higher he got, until he could hear her steady pants and see the rise and fall of her breasts in his periphery.
Her heady musk inundated his senses when he reached her core. Her luscious folds glistened with dewy moisture and he swallowed thickly, the need to taste her almost overwhelming. But he wasn’t ready for that just yet. Instead, he pressed one more kiss to the hollow of her groin, just beside her soft mound. Breathing deeply of her scent to tide him over, he brushed his lips over her hip and began to work his way higher again.
Simina let out a little moan of protest, but voiced no further objections when he slid a hand over her thigh, brushing his fingertips over the inside where her juices coated the velvet skin at the top. He rocked forward, capturing one of her hard, pink nipples in his mouth as he grazed his fingers over her folds in a feather-light touch that offered no more contact than a breath.
He laved his tongue over her nipple, reveling in the pebbled texture of it. She pushed her hips up into his touch, but he held back, merely teasing his fingertips up and down along the outside of her swollen labia.
When he switched to her other nipple, her hand went to his hair, fingers tangling and pulling, urging him down.
“Please. I need your mouth on me.”
“Not yet.” He shook his head, but adjusted his light caresses between her thighs, teasing closer to her opening and spreading her folds a little more to dip into her wet heat. She was soaked and getting ever wetter as he teased. If anything, she was more responsive now than she’d been that morning when she’d begged for rougher treatment. How could she not know she was designed to be made love to? By him.
Her fingers tightened in the hair at the base of his skull. Ignoring the hold she had on him and the stinging pull of her fingers in his hair, he rose up, brushing his mouth over her throat as he completed his journey to her mouth and then found her lips. She accepted his kiss like she’d been starved for it, and he rewarded her eager response by slipping one finger up the very center of her folds to rub at the underside of her clitoris.
The groan she emitted vibrated through their mouths, and he responded with a rumble of his own. He rubbed her a little harder until her head fell back with a gasp and she rocked her hips up into his touch. That was the signal he needed.
He ran his lips over her jaw, her neck, pressing languid, open-mouthed kisses down her body, teasing with his tongue as he descended once more, tasting inch after inch of her delicious skin. Her nipples gave him an excuse for a brief detour, and he tortured them for several moments with his lips, teeth, and tongue while still rubbing slow, light circles around the hard bud of her clit. The little bundle of flesh had swollen to the size of the first knuckle of his pinky, a fat, juicy morsel he couldn’t wait to suck. He gave each of her nipples another long suck for good measure before heading south again.
Veryl’s entire body buzzed with hunger for Simina and his cock ached, but he was too fixated on her to care yet what his body needed. He needed to taste her.
He reached her navel, his mouth wet with saliva, and trailed his tongue in a circle around it, then down the center of her lower belly until he reached the top of her bare cleft.
“Please,” she begged, her entire body shaking.
Veryl glanced up her torso to her flushed, anxious face. There was something more than raw sexual need in her eyes. Something that almost made his heart break to see.
I’m not him. I can never be him, and she’s afraid she’s betraying his memory.
The man she’d lost was someone Veryl had known. Someone he and his teammates had idolized for years. Veryl may never be worthy of replacing the Ebon Claw, but he could sure as fuck worship the beautiful woman who had been left behind when he’d died.
Someone should take responsibility for her happiness, not just to honor Talon Garrick’s memory, but because she deserved to be happy. He’d be damned if he let her walk away without at least trying.
An involuntary growl escaped him as his lips grazed the top of her mound. Slick juices coated her skin, wetting his mouth. Opening up, he slipped out his tongue and found the tangy heat at the very top of her clitoris. He closed his eyes, anticipating the feast of her pleasure he was about to enjoy. He settled closer, hooking his arms beneath her thighs and pushing them wide, his shoulders forcing her knees to splay as far as they could as he sank his tongue deep within the heaven of her sweet snatch.
She opened for him with a sigh, her body falling back onto the table and her hands grasping at the back of his head. Veryl’s senses soared, overloaded with her taste, her scent, the silken wetness of her flesh, and the harsh, panting moans she let out when he tongued her. He found the throbbing nub of her clit and teased his tongue around and around it, tracing the same circles he’d followed with his fingers, until her thighs twitched and she dug her fingernails harder into his scalp.
In this moment, she was his entire universe, and he put every ounce of his attention into pushing her pleasure higher. He gently pulled her clit between his lips and sucked, flicking it with his tongue. More of her delicious, hot juices flooded his mouth and chin and she bucked against him, muttering soft curses mixed with his name.
His name. The surge of primal fire that sound incited had his dragon roaring for more. He responded by sliding his hands beneath her ass and lifting her up so he could get at all of her.
“Yes, Veryl. Oh, yes! Please don’t stop!”
He tongued every inch of her slick, soaked pussy, delving lower to tease around her rear opening and reveling in the husky affirmations she gave him. Then he went back to her clit, intent on drawing at least one climax from her before he took things further.
Simina shook and whimpered at his renewed suckling of her swollen bud, and within seconds, her entire body shivered and the flesh beneath his mouth pulsed with her orgasm. She cried out, bucking up into his mouth once before grabbing onto his head and holding him tight to her core. He kept up the savage licking, refusing to relent as long as she held him there, and she held on through two, three, four more rippling climaxes, each one rising higher than the last, until finally she shifted her hands in his hair and pulled him off her.
She lay panting atop the table, her arms falling limp to her sides and her legs slipping down to hang off the edge. Despite the very vocal evidence of her enjoyment of what he’d done, she still looked haunted, and his heart hurt that he hadn’t been able to erase that loss for her. There was still time … He wasn’t close to finished yet.
Grabbing a napkin, he swiftly wiped her fluids from his face, then scooped her into his arms. She said nothing, simply wrapping her arms around his neck and leanin
g into him as he swiveled and moved the two steps to the bed. He climbed on, still cradling her close, and lay down. Her breath came in soft, quick pants against his chest—too quick now that she’d come down from her peak—and he tucked a finger beneath her chin to tilt her face up to his.
“What is it, starshine? I hope you know I’m not finished with you yet.”
Her eyes shone with emotion and she blinked, then nodded. “I—I know. I just didn’t expect it to be this painful.”
“Hmm … Let’s see if we can fix that. Does this feel better?” He grazed his palm against her cheek and down her shoulder, giving her upper arm a gentle rub before urging her onto her back. His dragon coiled restlessly inside him, agitated over her emotional state. It wanted to mark her, certain that would ease her distress, but Veryl wasn’t ready for that yet and knew she wasn’t, either.
“Kiss me,” she murmured, hooking her hands back around his head and pulling him down to meet her upturned mouth.
He accepted her desperate kiss, but refused to give into her hunger, slowing the movement of his lips instead and easing them both into languid licks and sucks of each other’s mouths. Simina sighed again, her fingers toying with his hair, and he glided his palm down over her breast, letting the ridges of his fingers bump over her nipple. She arched into his touch and he shifted to hover over her, keeping one hand on her breast while he nudged her legs apart and settled between her thighs.
Her wet heat grazed his cock and he pulled back from their kiss, pulse racing. Silver eyes stared up at him, anxious yet determined. He rested his elbows on either side of her, cupping her face in his hands.
“I would love you as much as you let me, Simina. I think we can meet halfway, if you’re willing.”
She bit her lip and nodded, lifting her legs and sliding her heels against the backs of his thighs as she wrapped herself around him. Her hips tilted up, her molten core grazing along his length. He shuddered from the pleasure and pulled his hips back until his tip was seated at her entrance.
Keeping his gaze fixed on hers, he pushed into her as slowly as he could stand. Her mouth opened in a soft moan and her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t look away. Veryl’s dragon was enraptured, and he sensed that hers might be somewhere deep within that silver gaze, looking into him and taking stock of what he offered.
Would it be enough? He didn’t know, but he did know making love to her was the sweetest thing he could ever imagine.
12
Dez sat with elbows propped on his knees, holding his head and willing away the intense throbbing in his temples. The night before was a blur, but as his head cleared, one undeniable thought kept replaying over and over: They were about to lose their partner.
He checked the clock on the bedside table. Almost noon. Veryl was probably with her now. Had they gone all the way? Marked each other? For some reason, he always thought he’d know if that happened. If his best friends found the loves of their lives, he believed he’d feel it.
All he felt right now was nauseous, and for a moment, he thought the entire planet had tilted and whatever remnants of what he’d drank the night before were about to come up. It took him a second of clenching his eyes shut and tightening his grip on his head before he realized it was just the bed behind him moving under the weight of the other person in it.
A harsh groan pierced Dez’s tender skull, followed by a string of curses from behind him. “I can’t believe how badly I fucked up,” Cato said. “I was so sure … so fucking sure. Fuck me.”
Dez chuckled. That phrase was a pale echo of the one his friend had uttered the night before. Fuck me, Dez. Fuck me so I can feel something besides my heart breaking. Cato always got maudlin when he drank, but last night was a first. Dez had almost said no. Hell, he probably should have said no, but he’d needed it just as badly. His heart was breaking too.
“I don’t know, man. But we can’t let him find out about this.” He glanced over his shoulder at Cato. The other man lay on his side, completely naked and uncovered, his bronze skin gleaming in the midday light streaming through the windows. The bastard was oblivious to the effect he had on everyone who met him. With his wavy, shoulder-length hair like spun gold and eyes the color of sapphires, he was the most striking of the three of them.
Dez’s gaze wandered down Cato’s body and his heart skipped a beat. Despite the mutual anguish that had driven the pair into bed together, he had to admit the sex had been damn good.
Was it because they were both hurting, though, or was there something else?
“If he winds up with a mate, we need to keep looking,” Cato said. “I’ll call Wilder later, tell her we want to try again.” He rolled over, turning his back to Dez and moving to get out of bed.
Heat blasted up Dez’s spine, anger at his friend’s dismissal making his vision go red for a second. He shot a hand out and grabbed Cato by the arm. “Not a fucking chance. Not until we talk about what happened last night.”
Cato snorted. “You just said we should hide it. What more is there to talk about? We needed a distraction.”
Dez stood and stomped around the bed to face Cato. His headache only made the rage burn brighter. “He was right, and you know it. We should’ve tried with each other. Last night wasn’t just a fucking one-off. Think about what it could’ve been if he had been here.”
“Not what we want,” Cato said, glaring at him. “Last night didn’t fucking happen.” He stood up and pushed past Dez to get to the bathroom.
Dez glared after him, grinding his teeth. Didn’t fucking happen? Sure, he didn’t want Veryl to know about it, but that didn’t mean the two of them should pretend there wasn’t something deeper at work.
The sound of the shower coming to life spurred him into action. He stalked into the steam-filled bathroom and yanked open the shower door.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Cato said, swiping water off his face and blinking at Dez through wet lashes.
“Proving a goddamn point.” He stepped into the spacious stall and grabbed Cato by the back of the neck, kissing him hard before the infuriating man could protest. Cato grunted and went rigid, trying to pull away, but Dez refused to let him go. Cato’s mouth remained unresponsive for a second before he let out a low, desperate groan, clutching at Dez’s skull and driving his tongue deep into Dez’s mouth.
Fire shot down Dez’s spine as their tongues tangled, his cock springing to life despite the dull throb of a headache that still lingered.
True to form, Cato took command, owning the kiss like it had been his idea all along. He raked his fingers down Dez’s sides, gripping his hips, and Dez found himself spun beneath the scalding water, his face forced against cold tiles with a hot, hard shaft pressed into his ass from behind.
“My turn,” Cato growled into his ear, clutching the back of Dez’s head and pushing him into the shower wall hard enough he could feel the line of grout between the tiles. He was going to wind up with a mark if Cato held him much longer.
Maybe a mark was what he was after, but despite the intensity of this little confrontation, there was still something missing to spur his dragon into wanting to trade permanent mementos of their hookup.
Still, this felt right, and it felt good. So fucking good when Cato ground his hips into Dez’s ass, forcing his long, thick cock between his cheeks so that it rubbed at his sensitive opening. Dez gasped, reaching back to grab at Cato’s hips.
“Hands off,” Cato said, releasing his head and grabbing both Dez’s hands, smacking them flat to the tile.
“You’re the boss,” Dez said, his chuckle dying in his throat when Cato found the bath oil and drizzled the cool liquid into the top of his ass cleft. He let out a coughing curse at the sudden invasion of slick fingers sliding between his cheeks.
“You got that fucking right. I call the shots because I know how to fucking win.” Cato gripped one ass cheek to spread him open, then pushed two fingers roughly into him, driving deep enough that his knuckles spread Dez wider.
He heard a screeching noise like nails on a chalkboard, and realized through a haze of pleasure that his dragon had manifested its talons and had dug them into the hard, glazed shower tiles. Fuck, he’d always known Cato had a dominant streak, but had no idea how sadistic the bastard could be. This was a far cry from the sentimental drunk he’d nailed the night before out of shared desperation.
He kind of loved this Cato, maybe more than he should.
His cock kicked against his stomach when Cato twisted his fingers and nudged at the knot of raw pleasure inside him. A second later the fingers were gone, and something far bigger and more intrusive took their place. Cato’s cockhead was huge and blunt, but Dez wanted it to hurt. He pushed back into Cato’s cock, and a harsh breath escaped his throat when the head breached his opening, stretching him wide as Cato thrust deep.
“You want it bad, don’t you?” Cato murmured, his lips grazing Dez’s ear. “How did I never know you liked having your ass filled with cock?”
Dez grunted through gritted teeth, struggling to maintain his sanity as his best friend slid out and shoved back into him so hard he saw stars. “Never knew it myself until now.”
“I don’t believe you. Your ass was made for this.”
“Believe it, brother. And maybe believe yours was too. For me. For us. Last night … oh, fuck …” He scrambled to hold onto his train of thought as Cato sped up, harsh breaths gusting against Dez’s ear.
“Last night was nothing compared to now,” Cato said. He gripped Dez’s shoulder with one hand, pulling him back. Dez leaned over, widened his stance, and held on for dear life as Cato speared him from behind. Every long stroke was excruciatingly perfect, filling him so completely he wondered how he couldn’t have already known how fucking amazing it would feel. He’d never been one to shy away from trying new things. He craved the adrenaline rush, and always believed nothing good ever came from playing it safe.