“Did you mean it? About being mine? Do you really, truly mean it?”
“I’ll never tell another lie to you again.” A palpable rush of excitement sent his heart into a racing rhythm. Hers. Neither Astrid or her mother had described in detail the strange ritual that bound dragons to their mates, but anticipation overwhelmed the minute apprehension urging him to flee.
Kissing her was a sweet drug, each taste of her lips as delicious as the last. He delighted in every second, tracing her mouth with a subtle probe before his playful dragoness sucked the tip of his tongue.
Her kiss deepened, aggressive and claiming in the end, the ferocity of her desire taking him by surprise. He raised the stakes and guided her fingers to the opening of his shorts. Then sweet relief came when slender fingers curled around his cock and coaxed it into the open air.
“Yours,” he repeated. “Every inch. You know what to do with it, don’t you, baby?”
A rumble echoed through her chest. She ripped their garments with the ease of tissue paper, and within seconds, they were skin against skin.
“Mine.”
“I need to teach you patience,” he murmured against her lips, unsurprised to lose his shorts. At the same time, he should have known better than to expect restraint from her.
It was part of why he loved her, part of why she had become irresistible.
“Screw patience.”
She took the lead, straddling his lap and guiding the head of his cock between her spread thighs. He found her wet and inviting, the heat beckoning him to plunge within. Before he could, Astrid thrust her hips forward, sheathing him in her body’s tight embrace.
“Mine,” she growled again. Her hips rolled, and he arched up beneath her, thrusting as the intensifying pleasure threatened to consume him. He groaned a pitiful sound, startled by her enraptured claim.
“I—fuck,” Nate hissed out between his teeth.
How was she so wet so soon? They’d made love countless times, but he’d never experienced such frenzy or loss of control from her.
“Don’t stop, baby,” he encouraged while resting both of his hands on her hips. He leaned back, entranced with the fluid movement connecting them anew after each sensual lift. Whether or not they were doing the right thing ceased to matter. He needed her in all ways, as addicted to his lover’s bestial side as her laughter and coy smiles.
Her head fell to his shoulder, face against his throat to deliver kisses and playful nibbles. She lingered over his pulse long enough to leave a pink mark, tasting its beat beneath her tongue. Then she moved across his shoulder.
“Mine,” she declared again. Pleasure and pain followed a sharp nip. “Tell me you’re mine again, Nate. Tell me you want me as much as I want you. Tell me that I’m yours.”
At some point in their relationship, his fear of her teeth had vanished. Instead, he relished the moment and tilted his head. His dick had never been so hard in all of his life, and a vague sense of awareness lurked at the edge of his mind that something magical was unfolding. Something otherworldly and unlike anything he’d ever experienced in all of his many lives. The hairs on his arms rose, and his skin tingled, hypersensitive to each graze from her small teeth.
One thrust of her hips remained between Nate’s hard cock and blowing his load, trapping him on the precipice of losing control. Part of him wanted to savor it, but the other half cried out to her for relief.
“Yours. All yours. I couldn’t give you up, Astrid.”
The bite seized him without warning. Hard teeth clamped down at the curve between his neck and shoulder, and she shuddered around him in the first throes of a powerful orgasm. His breath left him in a hiss. The crackling thrum of her claiming ripped through him, burning bright. Elation wrapped with burning desire flooded through every nerve ending.
Astrid’s teeth startled him more than they hurt, but the pulse of her climax drew his attention from the pain. Contrasting elements of pain and ecstasy became his only existence. She’d never felt so sweet around him, so enticing and undeniable.
Long after the final ripple from her body, he was still moving, hard as a pillar of polished stone.
“I need more,” Nate moaned. “What did you do to me?” The exposure of cool air against his shoulder burned as if he’d been scalded or out in the sun too long.
“I marked you. My soul and yours, one, forever bound together.” Her voice came out as delicate pants against his skin, kisses making their way up from her brand to his jaw. “I’ve claimed you. Now claim me, however you want. Make me yours.”
Shifting his weight to one side, he rolled to tuck Astrid beneath him and slid free. “However I want?”
“However you want. I want you to make me yours.”
She did belong to him, and he didn’t need more sex to prove it. Wanting it was another matter.
“God, I’m so hard,” he groaned, both impressed and distraught with his own virility.
Her hand roamed until she found his cock, and he made a strained, inhuman sound when she caressed the slick skin and fondled his balls. “Mm, yes you are.”
“Astrid, I’m not a shifter, I can’t mark you.”
“You can. I shared part of my soul with you, Nate. I don’t know how it works, but…”
“But what?”
“We should try,” she said shyly.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“Trust your instincts. Give in to them.”
Instincts, right. Because that told him what to do.
“Okay,” he agreed.
His instincts told him to kiss her, beginning with sweet lips and descending to an even more delectable body. His girl had breasts worthy of worship, so he sucked one tender peak into his mouth and lavished it with attention while his palm rasped over its twin. He prolonged her suffering and made her wait, even as the swollen ache throbbing from his groin urged him to guide it home inside her.
“Nate. I can’t wait. I need you inside me again.”
He didn’t answer, his mouth occupied with shifting to the other nipple, making her a hot, writhing mess on the disheveled sheets.
Craving more of her, he slipped lower between her parted thighs. With a pause to kiss the slick pearl at the center of her pleasure, he flicked it with the tip of his tongue and savored her flavor. He breathed her in and buried his face between her thighs, devouring her with the gusto of a starved man.
Astrid cried out and jerked her hips from the mattress when his lips sealed around her clit. He circled it with his tongue, driving her to grasp the sheets wildly.
The desire to join with Astrid became undeniable, the throb in his dick intensifying to a violent discomfort. Whatever she’d wanted to do to him with her claiming—it had worked, instilling mindless need for satisfaction. Her mouth fell open, and her head tilted back as he entered her with two fingers to test her wetness. Soaked. So slippery they passed in with ease.
His hips returned to her pelvis, and he gazed down at her with reverence. “I wanted you from the first time I saw you.”
He joined them again without rushing their reunion, despite the burning in his veins as if every nerve fiber had been lit aflame.
Control, he told himself, refusing to give in. He drew it out at his leisure, an inch-by-inch tease slowly stretching her to his girth, all the while worshipping her with his mouth, tracing the curve of her shoulders and the gentle slope of her breasts.
His dragon was perfect from head to toe. The realization came as a delight eagerly voiced for her.
“My dragon,” he breathed against her neck. “I don’t regret a thing, Astrid.” If he hadn’t taken the stupid mission, he’d have never met her, never fallen in love.
He couldn’t allow them to take her away. He felt changed in an indescribable way with a new sensation of strength flooding through him. He became insatiable for her, hungering for the next kiss, desperate for each subsequent thrust.
He’d broken every rule. Lied to his brothers. Betrayed them. Prot
ected her. And he’d do none of it differently with exception to telling her earlier how he felt.
***
“Yours, Nate. Forever, yours.”
The desperate lovemaking three mornings ago—when Nate claimed her beside the condo’s front door—came back to her in a rush of memory. She shivered. He’d been raw and primal, much like a shifter then, taking what he wanted from her, and giving everything in return.
This time, he was tender. Gentle. Thorough.
Astrid closed her eyes and writhed beneath him. The sheets scrunched up in her hands
Sweet ancestors, he had a demanding libido, her god of lust and debauchery. His fingers teased the tiny button his lips had kissed, coaxing her to orgasm before he even reached the pinnacle to join her.
The slick length of him slid free, and he withdrew to his knees between her thighs. Bewildered, Astrid flicked her eyes up to his face. Perspiration glistened on his broad shoulders and beaded on his temples. She watched his chest heave and the defined muscles of his torso flex as a trickle of sweat glided over his abs.
“Where are you going?” she cried out in protest.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he growled, wiping his brow with the back of a wrist. “And neither are you.”
Nate’s strong hands flipped her over. The sheets wrinkled beneath her knees as he drew her back by a strong grip on her hips. Before she had a chance to ask anything else, he reclaimed his rightful place, spearing her full depth.
Yes!
Urges older than time had incited a craving for the position since they met—to be dominated by the man she chose and willingly hand over control.
She clung to the headboard with one hand as he pounded her from behind, startled by the enthusiasm of his thrusts. And so wet.
“Yes!”
“Yes what?” he demanded against her ear.
“Fuck me,” she blurted out. Uttering the word was almost as satisfying as the deep, long stroke he gave in reward.
“You know how I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
Heat surged to her cheeks, but the request seemed inconsequential considering their current act.
“Deeper,” she commanded.
His next hard stroke brought stars to her eyes and made her toes curl up tight. The wood beneath her hands cracked and split, hardwood denting in her grip. Lights exploded in her vision, heat consumed her, and she lost herself completely to sensation. Nate didn’t stop, a relentless and insatiable beast.
When she came, she didn’t cry his name; she sobbed it in a shuddering breath. Her back arched and she pushed toward him with her hips, delighted by the blunt crown of his cock nestling against her sweet spot. Then his hand dropped between her thighs, and her world disintegrated into pleasure.
The experience transcended the physical aspects of sex and became more than their exchanged words of love. She felt him. His every emotion, his every guilt and passion, and his absolute adoration of who she was.
Any worry related to Nate’s ability to brand her proved unfounded. As they joined flush on the next stroke, he seized her by the shoulder. The bite didn’t hurt, but it seared her and left its impression on her soul. Her thighs trembled, and his arm around her middle became the only thing holding Astrid upright.
“Nate!”
Bliss. The only word to describe what she felt was bliss. Exquisite sensation ripped through her from head to toe, bringing a rush of euphoria beyond anything delivered during their previous couplings. Her legs trembled and shook as she was swept along for the ride.
One sharp tug on her hair drew her head back, the angle bordering on pain. Nate’s mouth crushed down over hers with bruising force. His release brought an additional edge to her ongoing orgasm, a pleasure so strong it threatened to drag her under. When Nate released her, she gasped for air, and as one, they sank against the bed, bodies sticky with sweat. He moaned and buried his face against her hair, his body first stiff and then shuddering as he came.
“I love you,” she whispered while they lay together in silence. “I love you so much, Nate, and I’ll treasure every moment we have over any jewel in my hoard.”
“And I love you.”
Somehow they both found the strength to reposition, moving only enough to twine in close, face to face. Nate enveloped her in his arms and held her close against his chest.
“Why do I want you again already?” he moaned against her hair. “Every time I think you can’t surprise me anymore, you prove me wrong, Astrid.”
“Mmmm. That’s either your desire… or mine. I’m not sure. But with the bond comes a sharing of self. I feel what you feel, and vice versa.” She managed enough energy to lift her head and nip his chin, then fell back again and closed her eyes. “I just want to curl up with you and fall asleep. Forget our worries and go away somewhere.”
“Being with you, Astrid, it’s…” He sighed. “Good isn’t an adequate word to describe how happy I am with you.”
“I kinda want a shower,” she muttered.
“Me too.”
“But I’m too tired to move.”
“I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”
Chapter 16
If the circumstances were normal, there wouldn’t be anything in the world capable of dragging Astrid out of bed. Nate had managed to draw the duvet over them before she crawled against his spine and snuggled her face against the back of his shoulder.
Initially, Nate had laughed at her unusual preference for being the “big spoon” when they slept. Then he’d adjusted and grown accustomed to her arms around him. Her mate was better than any teddy bear.
A few dappled beams of sunlight penetrated the guestroom, gleaming between slats in the blinds. After a groggy raise of her head, she noticed a peculiar buzzing, the strange static sensation crawling over her skin.
“Nate?”
He made an incoherent, bearlike noise.
Although she had no desire to crawl from beside her new mate, she recognized more urgent matters required their attention. There was something in the air, an electric sensation raising the hair on her arms and neck.
She shook his arm. “Nate, get up. I think Merlin’s leaving his sleep. Something changed.”
“But I’m tired,” he mumbled against her pillow. “So damn tired.”
Astrid couldn’t blame him. Shifting on the bed, she stretched her aching limbs and eased onto her back to stare at the ceiling. Everything hurt.
I hope Merlin doesn’t wake up to have a temper tantrum in our living room.
What the hell was she going to do if he did? Hobble away from his lightning bolts and fireballs? Maybe they wouldn’t hurt. She was part fire dragon after all.
For a moment longer, she relished her time in bed beside Nate with only a light duvet covering their bare skin. Then responsibility urged her to push onto an elbow and peer down at him. “Are you coming or not?”
“Did too much of that last night. That’s why I can’t move now.”
Her brows furrowed. “Smartass.”
“Part of my charm,” he muttered. “Go on without me. I’ll be there soon.”
“Your choice, but do you want your beloved sage to awaken alone in a room full of dragons?” Astrid tickled her fingers across his ribs.
His feeble swat didn’t remove her hand. “Someone else is welcome to receive a faceful of fireballs when he wakes up surrounded by the enemy. No thanks.” She persisted until he raised his head to drowsily focus on her face. “Can I at least get dressed or are you going to rush me down there with my dick out, too?”
She leaned down and peppered his face with kisses. “No, I am not. That’s for my eyes only, thank you very much.”
“I promise I’m getting up, but it’s going to take a second, and I wanna shower alone. I don’t trust you to keep your hands to yourself.”
Astrid sniffed in disdain. “I need to hop across the hall for my clothes so you are quite allowed to shower in peace.”
Despite his teasing and slothful
comments, Astrid sensed the truth beneath Nate’s behavior. Apprehension rolled through him, and via their link, it reached her too. He was afraid, and with good reason, wary of what they would encounter below.
After she showered away the smell of their sex and donned fresh clothing, she emerged from her room to find Nate pacing the hall. She’d taken longer than usual, first dragging a brush through her hair then suppressing the queasy feeling created from his worries.
He smiled when he saw her. “About time. Weren’t you the one rushing me?”
Astrid ran her fingers down the front of his shirt. “You misbuttoned.” She corrected it then raised to her toes and kissed him. “I love you. No matter what happens, we’ll get through this.”
“You’re right.”
But it didn’t make him any less nervous, and by proxy, it didn’t help Astrid either. “Come on. The wizard awaits.”
Their arrival couldn’t be at a more appropriate time. When Nate and Astrid stepped into the living room, it was to the sight of the old man stirring on the couch and a group of intrigued, eager dragons positioned at various points in the room for a tactical advantage. Loki, Ēostre, and Max—the most powerful of them—stood closest to the wizard. The distrustful Tlaloc and his wife near the door, while Chloe, Saul, and Teo lingered at the room’s edges. As a human, Chloe remained in Merlin’s direct line of sight. Maybe they thought her presence would help.
“What place is this? How did I arrive here?”
His voice, gruff from disuse, wheezed and preceded a cough. He rose unsteadily, revealing the frailty of his old body. Or maybe he required the support of his staff. Without the famed item, his back appeared hunched. His gaze darted around the room, going from face to face, and settled on Nate.
“Galahad?” His brows furrowed. “No, not yet, are you… I see him there, in your face, but not fully in your eyes.”
No magical explosions. No lances of electricity. Astrid took it as a good sign and stepped forward since Nate appeared to be in a state of stunned speechlessness.
“My name is Astrid Drakenstone. Nate,” she squeezed his hand, “and I rescued you from your resting place, where magic imprisoned you.”
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