by Ruby Dixon
Does he mean my normal scent? I haven’t been a walking puddle of arousal for weeks. “My scent?”
“All of it,” he murmurs, and then his mouth is on my skin, nipping gently at my jaw and moving to my ear. Delicious shockwaves ripple through my body and I bite back another moan. “When you wake up and touch yourself. When you sweat. When you walk past me—I love all of it, Andrea. And it makes me hungry for more.”
He even likes it when I sweat? I open my mouth to protest, because that’s not a human thing to say, but then his mouth is on mine and he’s giving me a hungry kiss full of need and I’m utterly lost. Our tongues tangle and I lose myself in his touch. There’s nothing outside of his mouth, his lips, his tongue, his heat. We kiss for so long that I lose track of the world around me. I only know that my hand is clutching at the front of his shirt, his is on the small of my back, and our mouths are locked in an endless, delicious kiss, and it’s still somehow not enough. I need more of him. I want his hands everywhere, and I want to put my hands all over him. I want to drag my nails across his skin and feel him shudder. I want to bite him. I want him to throw me down and fuck the daylights out of me.
I want all kinds of crazy things, and they all revolve around him.
Liam breaks the kiss, panting, and his hands are in my hair, dragging it free of my braid. “You smell incredible, Andrea. I want more.”
“I want more, too,” I tell him, panting.
“Let me taste you.” His eyes are vivid with need. “Let me put my mouth on your cunt and taste that sweetness.”
I cling to him, his words making me dizzy. My mind fills with images of Liam and his mouth on my pussy, Liam with his tongue delving between my folds, Liam with his hands on my naked thighs as he buries his face…and then I remember the filthy, filthy floor and where we’re at. I shudder. “Much as I want that, I’m not lying down on this floor, Liam.”
His tongue flicks at my lip, and I feel the rough texture of it against my skin. Odd how I don’t notice that when we’re kissing. It makes me shiver to feel it, as if he’s teasing me with how it’ll be against other parts of my body. “If you won’t lie on the floor, then stand up.”
I suck in a breath. Should I? Is this a bad idea? It’s clear Liam wants me—has wanted me for weeks. I want him, too, and now that we’re safely away from the fort, does it matter if we indulge ourselves? No one’s around to see, and I’m not a virgin. “Stand…up?”
He nods, his eyes utterly hungry.
No one’s ever looked at me like that—like he’ll die if he doesn’t get to touch me. I can’t resist. I detangle myself from his grip and get to my feet, my legs trembling with the anticipation of his touch.
Liam’s big hands immediately go to my waist, and he undoes the button and zipper on my jeans. I’m grateful that he’s careful with them—they’re old and worn, but I don’t have many pairs. When they’re loose around my waist, he eases them down over my hips and I squirm just a little, because the panties I have on aren’t cute and flirty. They’re faded cotton, bleached white from a million washings, just like my bra. But he groans at the sight and shakes his head slightly. “You humans and your layers of clothing.”
“It’s for hygiene,” I tell him defensively, feeling awkward, especially when I have to put a hand on his shoulder to steady myself as he eases the jeans all the way down my legs and I lift each foot so we can take them off.
“It’s because your people are obsessed with how displeased they are with their bodies,” he murmurs, tossing my jeans onto one corner of the black trash bag tarp I’ve made. “They don’t appreciate how they smell, how they look…or how they taste.” He gestures at the discarded lube containers nearby, his hand a dismissive flick. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?”
“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me,” I say nervously.
“I see Andrea,” he murmurs, gazing at my panties intently. One big hand caresses my hip, and he watches me with a fervent gaze. “I see a strong female who is loyal to those she loves and wants to do her best by her people. I see someone who is brave but still manages to be playful. And I see beauty. It is in your long legs and your pretty breasts and your gorgeous, gorgeous scent. It’s in your smile when you look at me.” He leans forward and buries his face against my navel, groaning. “And you make me want things.”
I shiver, reaching down to lightly touch his hair. It’s the first time I’ve ever touched it, and the feel of it is…different. It’s not soft like I imagined. It’s sleek, but the hairs are thick and almost wiry, as if they’re made of copper strands that have been hammered into shape. They spike up all over his head, and I run my fingers through his hair and then lightly caress one of his horns. “What kinds of things?” I ask, my voice a mere whisper.
But he shakes his head and doesn’t answer. He presses his mouth against the material of my T-shirt and then reaches under it, grabbing the waist of my panties and jerking them down. Oh. I’m startled by that sudden motion, and my hands go back to his shoulders as I steady myself.
He groans again, the sound full of hungry need, and then presses a kiss to my lower belly, just above the curls of my pubic mound. “No wonder you smell so gorgeous,” he murmurs. “Look at all this beauty.”
I hold my breath, waiting to see what he’s going to do. It’s been a long time since I’ve had fun, playful sex, and I feel completely out of my league at the moment. Heck, I almost do feel like a virgin.
“Your scent.” He groans again, his hand stealing up to twist my shirt and hold it up, revealing my waist and everything below it to his gaze. “I don’t know which is better—the sight of you like this or the scent of you.” Before I can make some nervous crack, he looks up at me, his eyes liquid with heat. “I bet it’s the taste.”
With that, he leans in and presses his mouth to my pussy.
I jerk in surprise, clinging to him as he drags his tongue over my slit. His tongue is slightly textured, like a cat’s, and it’s the most startling thing I’ve ever felt. A cry dies in my throat, but he only murmurs something under his breath and then gently eases my thighs further apart with a nudge of his hands. I do it, spreading without thinking. He locks an arm around my upper thigh, anchoring himself, and then nuzzles deeper, burying his mouth in the folds of my pussy.
It’s absolutely obscene…and so damn good. I cry out, hands clenching, as he gives me an aggressive, deep lick that brushes over my clit.
“Oh no,” I moan, even as I hold him closer.
“Tell me to stop, then,” he murmurs, rubbing his mouth back and forth before he drags his tongue over me again. “Tell me you don’t like me tasting your cunt. Tell me you don’t like me hungry for you and I’ll stop.”
“Don’t you dare fucking stop.” I put a hand atop his head, on that wild hair, and grab a fistful when he chuckles.
“I love the taste of this cunt,” he murmurs, and one hand slides up to drag a blunted finger through my folds. “Look at how fucking wet you are, Andrea. It’s like you know this is mine. You’re mine.” He looks up at me, and his eyes are swirling both dark and gold. “Mine.”
He says it so strongly it makes me wet all over again. New slickness coats my folds and I shudder against him. “Is that what I am? Yours?”
“You shouldn’t be.” Liam’s voice is a low, angry growl. “But I can’t help myself. This taste…I’m going to need this every day now. Now that I know how sweet you are? How wet? Every day, Andrea. In my bed, your thighs over my shoulders, me licking every drop of sweetness from your cunt until you’re screaming for me.”
Oh god. He’s going to make come just from the filthy things he’s saying. I’m panting, clinging to his hair—and the horns that are in just the right spot to grasp onto. He pushes backward, and then my upper back’s against the wall. He pulls my hips forward just slightly, and it’s like I’m practically thrusting up against his mouth as he tongues over my folds. Dirty-talking Liam has vanished, and now he’s just utterly ravenous, his mouth moving over me
with such hungry intensity that it doesn’t matter that he’s not hitting my clit. He’s devouring me with every hungry stroke of his tongue, seeking out any hint of wetness and claiming it for himself.
And god, it’s sexy.
His furious tongue strikes across my clit, and my entire body jerks in response. “Oh!”
Liam pauses, looking up at me. It steals my breath away, looking down at his flushed, deep-gold mouth as his tongue flicks over his lips, tasting me. “Too sensitive?”
“No,” I breathe, pressing a hand to my forehead because I feel like I’m about to come apart. “Good. Too good.”
“No such thing,” he murmurs, and swipes his tongue over my clit again.
I cry out, arching up against that damned textured tongue, and then when he does it again, I follow. He licks and sucks at my clit, and I shamelessly grind against his face, all the while panting his name. He works his tongue over me, and when I think I can’t take any more, he pushes a finger deep inside me and then I come, release exploding through me. Another gush of fluid soaks my pussy and he laps it up, even as I rock my hips against his face.
I let out a little mew of protest when he releases me, sliding bonelessly down the wall to collapse in his arms.
“Andrea,” he murmurs. “My Andrea.” He lightly kisses my face a dozen times, and I taste myself on his lips.
“Oh,” I breathe, and when he drags me into his lap and strokes my hair, I curl up against him. “Just…give me a minute to catch my breath.”
He chuckles. “Take all the time you need, my sweet human.”
“Then it’s your turn,” I tell him, stroking my hand down the front of his shirt. It has big, stretched-out handfuls where I got a little too enthusiastic with my gripping. Whoops. I’m so distracted by the fact that I’ve practically ruined his shirt that I almost miss his response.
“No,” he says quietly.
It takes a moment to register, and then I look up at him. “No?” I’m so dazed that the word doesn’t quite sink in. “Why not?”
He presses a kiss to my brow, ever tender. “Let me just enjoy you for now.”
I bite back my frown, since he’s still kissing and petting me. Doesn’t he want me to touch him? But he’s not acting like there’s a problem, so I settle in against him and try not to let his refusal bother me.
10
LIAM
There is no pain quite like the unfulfilled mating heat in my groin.
Andrea curls up against me, her intoxicating scent filling the air around us. I understand why Rast is so protective of Amy, his human mate. I understand Vaan’s utter focus on Gwen. I get it, now. As Andrea shudders in my arms, her breathing heavy, I rub her back. Just moments ago, she came so very sweetly against my mouth that it nearly stole the control from my body. She’s so fragile yet spirited. I could crush her with my grip, but she trusts me implicitly. I love that I could pleasure her, but with the aching strain of my cock in my confining, irritating human clothes, it reminds me that I cannot do more.
I cannot rip off my pants and bury my cock between her thighs.
I cannot claim her pretty throat with my bite or give her the mating mark. I cannot give her my fires.
If I do, I’ll lose my sanity. I’ll become another ravening beast in the skies…unless she’s my mate.
But to make her my mate, I’d have to access the parts of my mind that I’ve walled off. And there’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to give her my fires in time before I lose control of my sanity.
It’s a risk.
For seven long years, I’ve lived in the shadows of human settlements, trying to blend in to survive, in the hopes of one day returning to my land and my people. That if I can survive long enough, I can figure out how to get home. That this blankness in my mind, this loss of communication with any drakoni is nothing but temporary.
As I hold Andrea, I realize that the life I’ve been living is a cruel joke. I’m not drakoni, nor am I human. I’m an outcast in both worlds, and after seven long years of hiding, I’m coming to the realization that we might never get home.
I might never be able to communicate with my people ever again. I might never feel the warm comfort of another’s thoughts touching mine. Might never feel the simple pleasure of just knowing there are others nearby of my kind, having the constant sense of “belonging” that our joined connections brought.
I will never have a mate, either.
This thing between myself and Andrea…it cannot be. I can’t claim her. I can’t be human enough to be her male, and I am far too drakoni to make this work. If she touches me, I fear I’ll lose control. That all the careful mental shields I’ve put up will crumble, and I’ll attack her with the need to claim her.
Worse, that I’ll forget myself and spend my seed inside her and hurt her. My body temperature is much higher than hers, and her skin feels cool against mine. I know my seed would boil inside her and burn her from within.
“Liam,” she breathes, and I want to tell her that that’s not my real name. That I am Atalim, a drakoni warrior. I am not Liam, who pretends to be human and cannot be whole.
But…that’s who I am now. So I say nothing.
If I could choose, though…if I could claim a female as my mate and not lose my sanity?
Andrea would be mine.
Sleep eludes me that night. I need less sleep than most humans do, anyhow, but even when I lie down on the strange plastic sleeping space and pull her smaller form against me, I cannot relax. My drakoni senses are slowly flaring to life, and that worries me. I know the feelings swamping my mind are those of a drakoni male with a potential mate, because the urge to protect Andrea as she sleeps is overwhelming.
It would be so easy to give in. To turn her over and claim her pretty, pale neck. To sink my fangs in, open my mind, and give her my fires…and hope I do not tear her throat out. I don’t know if how I feel for Andrea—possessive, protective, obsessed—is because she truly is my mate, or if these are just human reactions because I grow increasingly distant from my drakoni half by the day.
That worries me and it only adds to the reasons why I cannot sleep.
Morning comes soon enough, and I leave Andrea’s side for a time, because I know she likes privacy to relieve herself and wash. Her cheeks are bright red with embarrassment when she looks at me, but she smiles and it makes my spirit sing just to look at her. In seven long years, I have never felt such joy. Perhaps even longer.
I hate that this thing between us cannot be more than this, though. Perhaps it will be enough for her if I mate her cunt with my tongue instead of my cock, and if I give her pleasure. If she is content with that, then I will be, too, I decide.
As Andrea does her morning rituals, I go outside and prowl around the building, taking in scents. Benny’s is still on the ground, but it grows fainter with every day that passes, and that worries me. I promised Andrea I would bring her brother back to her, but if we lose his trail, it might be an empty promise.
I cannot fail her. I must remember our purpose, so I’m not distracted when she’s at my side, her cunt smelling of her need and her eyes shining up at me.
Just thinking of it makes my cock ache, and I crouch low, closing my eyes and focusing on the mental strengths that have kept my mind locked for so many years.
Every drakoni is born with a mental link to his people. It is how we communicate with parents, how we acknowledge others in our territory, and how we speak. We do not use mouths and babble like the humans do. We let our spirits touch and open our minds on a different level.
It was when I was captured by the Salorians that I learned a different way. Because I was one of the strongest of my people and one of the largest in battle form, they wanted me to break and to recruit me into one of their armies. When I was captured, though, I wasn’t in battle form, and out of stubbornness, I refused to shift. Several torture sessions later and with the loss of many claws, I was tossed into the dungeons below the Salorian stronghold. There, I met an
old drakoni male who’d been in the dungeons for many, many seasons. He was completely unbroken and ignored by his captors. Fascinated, I wanted to learn his secrets. To prevent the Salorians from taking over your mind, he told me, you have to close it off entirely. A bridge that is destroyed cannot be used against you. Old Jannis taught me how to visualize the walls to place in my mind, to detach from that part of myself that wanted to share my spirit connection. Putting up these walls meant cutting myself off from much of who I was. I could not switch to battle form, because in that primal form, my mind would be open like an outstretched palm. Like a muscle weak from disuse, I learned how to become better at such things—to the consternation of my Salorian captors. They tried to break my body, to force me to switch to battle form, but I resisted. When they could not make me bend, they tied me up and were to send me off to the deep mines, where I would be dumped with the other useless slaves, those too weak to fly and who served no purpose to the Salorian empire.
But even as the prisoners were transported behind the line of battle warriors, the skies opened up and tore the world apart…and when I awoke, I found myself here. Other drakoni sailed through the sky, screaming out their madness, and the females were all flushed with mating heat. I watched as they destroyed the world around me and knew they’d gone insane…
And because I could do nothing to help, I found shelter and hid away, their oppressive thoughts so wild and heavy that I could practically feel them in the air around us.
I shake my head to clear the memories. Those were dark days, and I do not care to relive them. My mind is stronger now, even if I feel isolated. I have had years to build my walls, and if it means I am alone, then I must be alone.
So be it.
A fat chicken waddles past, then perches atop a nearby rusted car hulk. I eye it. I could catch it and eat it raw, but it is not a human thing to do, and I’m not sure what Andrea will think. I could roast it…but I cannot use my fire. I clench my hands, hating how helpless I am like this. It has not bothered me this much in seven years. Why is it making me antsy now?