by Ophelia Bell
“Well, there you have me at a disadvantage, because I know better than to let you get close to me right now, yet here you are. It’s fortunate there are bars between us.” His throat worked as he swallowed and she watched the muscles ripple in his neck, her eyes drawn down the length until she couldn’t resist letting her gaze continue a slow trek down his strong chest, tight stomach, and the loose band of the drawstring that kept his pants just barely secured to his hips.
They weren’t enough to conceal the huge erection that pressed against the fabric, the outline of his cock clear through the thin weave. Her entire body tingled and a low moan escaped her throat.
“Why are you here, Assana?” Gavra said, the words a rough, grinding sound as though he had to force them out.
Why was she here? She tilted her head, the reason escaping her for a second. She reached for it, a part of her mind finally clearing enough to grasp and hold on. She jerked back, her eyes widening.
“Gavra …” she breathed. “Oh, Gaia. My mind isn’t where it needs to be. I came to tell you something that couldn’t wait.”
“Then tell me and get back to Silas. I can see your control slipping.”
She took a step backward and nodded, then drew a deep breath, struggling against the steady, throbbing need in her belly to do just the opposite and move even closer.
“Mother is insisting he and I complete a third melding. Today. Understandably, she doesn’t trust him after what happened with Nicholas.”
She studied him as her words sank in. First he frowned and winced, but covered up the hurt expression quickly. Finally, he nodded.
“That … that’s good,” he said, dropping his hands to his sides and turning away from her. “Better, in fact, than waiting for me. I believe I know how to get through to your mother. It will be easier if you’re safely mated to him before I try.”
His tense posture and avoidance of meeting her gaze made her skin chill.
“Try what?”
“Seducing her.”
“No … You said it wouldn’t work.”
“I said my powers wouldn’t work. That doesn’t mean I can’t do it the old fashioned way. Talk my way into her bed. You didn’t think us Reds always had to use our powers to get laid, did you?”
The bitterness in his voice sliced into her like a blade. In a sudden rush, that hot need she’d barely managed to tamp down blazed forth again.
“No!” she yelled. “You wouldn’t.”
He faced her again, his face grim. “Do you think I want to? Your father was my friend. But even if he wasn’t, it’s you I want. If magic won’t work on your mother, I have to try another way. I think she’ll be … receptive … if I’m careful.”
The need to be closer to him now gripped her. Without thinking, she drifted, targeting the inside of his cage as her destination. Gavra’s head whipped around when she appeared behind him with a sudden pop of disrupted atmosphere.
She couldn’t let him go through with this plan of his. Not without leaving her mark on him first.
“You’re mine,” she said. “Not hers.”
“Assana, what are you doing? Sweet Mother …” He backed away from her, shaking his head, but he was hers, and there was no where he could hide. Her craving clawed at her, the primal power of it ripping her self-control to shreds. She wanted nothing more than the solid, strong body that faced her to be locked between her thighs, his virile immortal power flooding through her while they fucked.
“She can’t have you,” she growled.
“Baby, if you come any closer, you’re going to regret it.”
She advanced, the draw to him too strong to deny. “I need …” Her entire mind was filled with that one, crystalline detail. Her body thrummed with that craving, pushing aside everything else. She shed her human shape, shaking off the confining illusion and breathing deeply. Without the restrictive form to hold her back, she sighed and closed her eyes, settling into her true shape and relishing the primal power it gave her … the power to be and to take … to take what was hers.
“Oh, fuck,” Gavra said.
“Are you scared of me?” she purred, slipping close enough to breathe the words into his ear.
He chuckled. “Never, baby. You just surprised me. You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to have you come to me like this, but you’re playing with fire.”
He rested his hands on her hips and squeezed, pulling her close enough to emphasize how hard he was. She gasped at the pressure of his rigid shaft against her belly, and her core pulsed and heated with the need to be filled by him.
“I can handle the heat.”
“Baby, it isn’t just heat you’re going to get. I’m going to walk away in a second. You’d best pop back out of here if you intend to stay a virgin long enough to let Silas mate you. If you stay, you’re mine.”
The deep timbre of his voice when he said, “You’re mine” sent a shiver of longing through her entire body. True to his word, he took a deliberate step to the side, then walked in several quick strides to the opposite side of his cage, near the large bed. He stopped and leaned back against the latticed wall and crossed his arms, leveling an intent gaze at her.
She took the challenge, her instincts driving her toward him again, any other sense long gone, her inhibitions shed with the human shape she usually kept herself locked in. Nothing else mattered but having him.
His gaze grew more heated, his red eyes flashing with inner light as she approached, though he didn’t move a muscle.
“Then make me yours, dragon,” she said, slipping close and resting her hands on his crossed forearms. She slid her hands up along the tensed muscles, reveling in the tight, hard bulges that betrayed his strength. She grazed her nails over his biceps, up his bare shoulders to his neck, where she dug her fingertips in like claws, seeking to pull him close.
Her breasts grazed his forearms, her nipples hardening through the sheer fabric of her gown. Her entire body flooded with heat.
Gavra’s body only grew more rigid, his jaw clenching so hard she could hear his teeth grinding. He closed his eyes and licked his lips.
“Assana, this is your last warning,” he rasped.
His tight restraint only made her want to push him harder. Now that her restrictive control over her desires was gone, she felt free for the first time to give in to her need and not even Gavra’s clear hesitance would stop her.
“You want me as much as I want you. Ever since we met, I could see it in your eyes. Look at me.” She slid her hands up his neck to his jaw and brushed her thumbs along the soft skin of his cheeks beneath his eyes.
Gavra cracked his lids, the red of his irises flashing with brilliant warm light. His pulse pounded in his temples, the vein visibly throbbing beneath his skin.
“I wanted to rip that infernal dress off you and mount you in the middle of the room that day,” he said. “You’re fucking right I wanted you then, and you weren’t even … this.” His gaze rose and he uncrossed his arms, lifting a hand to graze fingertips over the curved branch of her antlers.
“You wanted me wild, my love,” she said. “Be wild for me too.” Taking advantage of his open posture, she slid a hand down the center of his chest, into the front of his pants, and wrapped her fingers around his stiff length. His hard, pounding pulse met her touch in his shaft and she gave him a squeeze.
He didn’t even give her a chance to stroke before he was on her. He crowded her back against the bed, hooked a foot behind her ankle, and toppled her backward. His huge hands tore the bodice of her dress, fingers digging into the fabric like it was made of smoke.
Assana let out a laugh and pulled him to her, sliding her feet up the outside of his hips and hooking his drawstring pants with her toes to push them down.
Hot skin slid between her thighs as he lowered himself, bracing on both arms to hover above her. He resisted for o
nly a second, even as she crossed her ankles behind his hips to urge him closer. The thick head of his bare cock brushed along her inner thigh, but he kept himself just out of reach of her.
“I need …” she growled, her weeping pussy aching for what he could give her if only he’d finally shed that tight hold he had on his own desire.
“This is only going to make it worse, Assana.”
He started to pull away and she let out an incoherent yell of protest. Her desire surged and she gripped his waist with her legs, holding on and refusing to let him go. With a tight hold on his shoulders, she pushed him over and straddled him, shoving his shoulders back against the side of his prison. Angry at his continued resistance, she reached a hand out to the tree-root bars of his living cage. The tree itself instantly responded and a long, green tendril snaked down across the pillows, twisted around Gavra’s wrist and tightened.
Another vine took his other wrist and pulled, and yet another wrapped around his neck, holding his head immobile against his pillow.
“What the fuck?” Gavra stared in shock as the vines bound him to his own prison, yanking his arms above his head and holding them there.
Now that he couldn’t resist her, she shifted back on his thighs and gazed down at his bound body. She shook with hunger for what he had to offer, every inch of his huge, muscled body taut beneath her, straining against the unbreakable hold the vines had on him.
He was all hers, hard and ready, and despite his cursing protests and his repeated insistence that she would regret this, she cared only for the way the massive, rigid shaft between his thighs would feel when it filled her for the first time.
She gripped him with both hands and stroked, the contact finally enough to shut him up.
Gavra arched his back, jacking his hips up into her hands, and groaned.
“Your protests sound empty, love,” she said. “You keep saying no, but I don’t believe you. Tell me the truth. Do you really wish for me to leave?”
He stared back at her and chuckled, finally relaxing and giving up his struggle against his bindings.
“My true desires haven’t got a damn thing to do with it, and you know it. If all that mattered was mating you, I’d have fucked you weeks ago. But I can see I’m at a loss. I can’t stop you, Assana. Would you please stop torturing me and fuck me?”
She slid her hand down to cup his balls while she stroked him with her other fist. His cock was so thick she could barely wrap her hand around his girth. Her pussy tightened with the renewed ache to feel that thickness stretching her, filling her, shooting his seed deep into her.
She shifted her hips closer, spreading her thighs across his and holding his cock so he pressed tight to her slick heat. Her clit throbbed in time with his pulse and she moved her hips with the same rhythm, sliding up along his length while she held him between her legs. Her folds parted and her wetness coated his shaft as she rubbed herself against him with abandon.
“Oh, fuck, I wish I could touch you,” he growled. His hands flexed, opening and closing into tight fists. “Rub that pussy on me, baby. I want to see you come on my cock, I don’t even care if you fuck me.”
She stared down at him, enthralled by the hungry look in his eyes. She could have his tongue too, but not yet. First she needed his cock inside her. She moved higher up his torso and leaned over, letting her breasts brush over his chest while she captured his mouth with hers. He kissed her hungrily while she held his cock between her thighs, brushing the throbbing tip in slick little strokes up and down her soaked channel. While they kissed, she positioned him at her opening.
Assana held him there, pulling back to stare into his red eyes. Her dragon … her mate … or he would be soon enough. All hers.
She pressed down with her hips, her opening easily parting to take his massive girth. The ridged head pushed inside, his hips lifting up off the bed to meet her downward push.
Her entire body heated, pleasure rushing through her as she sank down onto him. She groaned and took his mouth again, biting down on his lip. Raw need gripped her, feeding her primal hunger as she slowly pumped her hips up and down, reveling in the tight friction.
She braced her hands on his chest and stared down at his enraptured face as she moved, speeding up her pace to increase that growing pleasure that slowly built in her core.
How could she have waited so long for this? Gaia, a man’s cock was wonderful to have inside her, and she idly wondered how different Silas would feel were she to do the same thing to him. She sighed and smiled, remembering she would have to do the same to him very soon.
Gavra surged into her, his hips grinding and circling in a way that made her gasp. She dug her fingers into his chest and grazed her mouth over his jaw, groaning against his cheek at the pleasure just that simple movement gave her.
“I could give you so much more if you released me, Assana. Let me use my hands.”
“Feels too good like this …” she moaned and stretched up to grip the criss-crossed bars of his cage just behind his pillows. The shift in position gave her more stability to pump her hips on his cock. Gavra let out a low growl of approval as her breasts brushed his cheeks and he opened his mouth to latch onto one nipple. He sucked her in, toying with the hard bud and grazing his teeth over the sensitive flesh.
Assana whimpered, lost to the myriad sensations that flooded her body. It was like being filled with all the power of the River at once and having it press against the dam of her resistance over and over.
She rode him harder, frantic to find that release and knowing it would be beyond her imagining once she got there. Her need consumed her, her body moving on instinct, her hips pumping madly while Gavra groaned, meeting her with wild thrusts of his own that pounded up into her with bruising force.
The loud smack of flesh on flesh filled the cage, echoing through the small, secluded grotto. The scents of their merged essences overwhelmed her senses, obliterating the familiar wet, lush aromas of the Haven. She wanted to taste him, meld him, and she would soon. She was close, so close now, her core throbbing and heavy with the swell of power that had built up with every one of Gavra’s deep thrusts into her.
She reared back, seeking more friction, deeper penetration. The change drove his cock into a different spot that made her antlers tingle all the way to their tips. She tilted back farther, leaning backward on her hands while her hips continued undulating with his cock deep into her.
“You need to come, baby. If I could touch you, I would. Touch yourself now. Come for me, Assana.”
Grateful for his commanding tone, she did what he asked, pressing her palm to the top of her mound and gripping his cock where it sank into her over and over. The swift, slick stroking sensation against her fingertips was yet another tactile wonder and she stared down, marveling at how he stretched her, how his thick shaft disappeared deep into her with each of his glorious thrusts.
Her clit protruded from her folds, hard and swollen with need. She grazed her fingertip over it once and a hot zing of pleasure shot through her, making her gasp. She touched it again, pressing down on the top of it enough for the underside to come into contact with Gavra’s pistoning shaft. The sliding friction went straight to her head and she cried out.
“Oh, Gaia, yes! Fuck me!”
“Assana, fuck …” Gavra groaned and pounded into her, each stroke rubbing perfectly against her clit as she pressed it against him. She had no coordination left to do more than writhe and twist her hips, the pleasure too great.
“Give it to me, baby. Give it all to me.”
Sudden, unexpected heat filled her, her core bursting with acute pleasure. At the same time, Gavra roared and bucked under her, his cock exploding in a rush of heat. Her own climax rushed from her just as wetly, a flood of her juices coating his cock in a slick, slippery flood.
Assana threw her head back, screaming in ecstasy. It faded swiftly, thoug
h. Too swiftly. She needed more, needed his essence deeper than her womb, needed it in her soul.
The need to meld him overtook her then, but she needed his essence on her tongue. His cock was only half-hard in her pussy now, his chest heaving and his eyelids sagging shut.
“I need to taste you,” she said. “Meld with you. I need to make you come again.”
Gavra’s eyes opened and he regarded her lazily. “For that to happen, I need to taste you too. Give me that sweet snatch of yours, baby. You’re full of me right now. I can make you come again with my tongue and you can take us both from my mouth when I’m finished.”
She was loath to leave his cock, but she’d experienced the thick forked length of his tongue on her nipples and had been curious what he could do with it. Reluctantly, she slipped him out of her and moved up his torso, spread her thighs over his face, and hovered there, staring down at him.
“You want to watch me eat your sweet pussy?” he asked, and his tongue shot out, trailed up between her folds, and coiled back into his mouth again. He closed his eyes and moaned, smiling and licking his lips. “Delicious,” he said, his red gaze shining up at her. “Now fuck my tongue, baby. Let me taste all of you.”
He lifted his head, clamped his lips onto her pussy, and sucked, then turned his head and swirled his tongue around and around her clit until her pleasure surged fresh and hot again.
Assana let out a surprised gasp and grabbed at his head, tangling her fingers in his silken hair. She ground her pussy hard against his mouth and pulled him tight against her. Gavra’s deep chuckle vibrated against her folds and his tongue snaked through her channel, seeking entry. When he found her opening and pushed into her, she threw her head back and moaned, writhing her hips in time with the slow thrusts of his tongue.
It only took him a moment before he had her at his mercy, her hips bucking and her fingernails digging into his scalp in an effort to keep him locked to her core with that talented mouth pressed to her. She came in another rush, this time a more copious flood of liquid gushing from her in a splash. Gavra let out a hungry, elated moan as he swallowed what she gave him and slowly licked her pussy clean.